The Road to SAP BW/4HANA – Part 1

One of the most frequently asked questions is how you can get from your current data warehouse landscape to SAP BW/4HANA. At SAP, we realize each of our customers are starting their journey to a modern data warehouse from different places. That’s why we have created distinct paths, complete with distinct services and tools, to help you achieve your goals in the most direct fashion, with the least disruption.

One heads up: We are working on a “Conversion Guide” which will document all options and required steps in detail.

First, let’s look at the different implementation paths. In part two of this blog, we will take your starting point into consideration and show which is the recommended path or a possible alternative. For now, keep in mind that all three paths are applicable for mostly any existing landscape.

Path 1 – New Installation

Also referred to as “greenfield approach”, this path start by installing a brand new SAP BW/4HANA system. Get the SAP BW/4HANA master guide and follow the steps to check prerequisites, plan and prepare your landscape and installation. Then start the installation using the SAP Software Provisioning Manager. There is a new automated task list available to simplify the basic system setup tasks, like creating and configuring the SAP BW/4HANA background user, setting the SAP BW/4HANA client and installing the essential technical content.

Now there are two basic options for configuring your new SAP BW/4HANA system. Either you begin from scratch, connect any data sources – that could be a legacy data warehouse or any other data source available in your enterprise – and start modeling you data warehouse. We highly recommend following our layer scalable architecture framework (LSA++). Within minutes you can create your first queries and show data in a dashboard. Yes, it’s that simple now thanks to so called “HANA source systems”, field-based modeling, and a modern user experience for designers in Eclipse.

If you run already a SAP Business Warehouse (BW) system today and want a fresh start, you can get a head start by transporting certain configuration and data models from your existing landscape to SAP BW/4HANA. Please note that this is only supported for the initial system setup, not for continuously updating the new landscape. And, of course, it’s only supported for objects that are fully compatible with SAP BW/4HANA. If you are, for example, running already SAP BW powered by SAP HANA 7.4 and have used Advanced DataStore Objects and CompositeProviders, you could transport these to your new SAP BW/4HANA system.

Path 2 – System Conversion

Before we get ahead of ourselves, the option to convert an existing SAP BW system to SAP BW/4HANA isn’t available yet. Stay tuned… this isn’t the end of the world since there are some prerequisites that you can work on in the meantime. Following very much the strategy for data warehousing and recommendations we laid out for SAP BW customers in the past years, your intermediate target is to get to SAP BW powered by SAP HANA and transition to data models that are fully optimized for SAP HANA. That means, for example, no more InfoCubes and MultiProviders but using Advanced DataStore Objects for persistency and CompositeProviders for modeling joins and unions of your persisted or maybe even remote data.

Side note: The time of logical data warehousing is here and thanks for SAP HANA smart data integration it’s easier than ever to integrate many data sources without having the load the data. This approach can get you started quickly but does not overcome limitations in terms of performance of the source system or network capacity or latency connecting to the source. If your source is however on SAP HANA and in the same data center (or maybe just in another tenant in the same SAP HANA database that SAP BW/4HANA is running on), then please give it a go. Create an Open ODS View on top of the source data and use it in your data warehouse models. For maximum performance, you can always generate a Data Flow and Advanced DataStore Object to persistent the data in SAP BW/4HANA. Piece of cake!

As stated at the beginning, we want to make the transition as seamless as possible. For that reason, we developed a so called “Transfer Tool”. The tool is currently available as part of the SAP BW, edition for SAP HANA add-on (which installs in on your SAP BW 7.5 powered by SAP HANA system). This transfer tool allows you to create SAP HANA-optimized objects for all your standard SAP BW data models. Pick a data target, like a MultiProvider and the tool will determine all dependent object like InfoCubes, classic DataStore Objects, transformations, and DTPs and allow you to quickly create equivalent CompositeProviders and Advanced DataStore Objects including matching transformations and DTPs. We are working hard to make this tool work on a system-wide level to make the transition as seamless as possible.

The result is that you are running your SAP BW system as SAP BW, edition for SAP HANA which will take you directly to SAP BW/4HANA using a System Conversion process.

If you paid close attention, there are two main prerequisites here: First, you have to run SAP BW on the SAP HANA database and secondly, your system must be on the current SAP BW 7.5 release. If your system isn’t quite there yet, then as part of the project you will do a database migration and release upgraded. These can be combined – as we have done for several years now – using the Database Migration Option (DMO) for the Software Update Manager.

Path 3 – Landscape Transformation

The third and final option is to optimize more complex data warehousing landscapes resulting in a single, global SAP BW/4HANA system. One reason could be that you are running multiple legacy or SAP BW systems which you want to consolidate on the mighty SAP HANA platform. Another could be to carve out selected data models or flows into an existing SAP BW/4HANA system. In any case, the Data Management & Landscape Transformation team at SAP can help with a customer-specific migration project built around well-defined methodology and re-using standard tools.

One of the innovative tools is the “System Comparison Workbench” which can show you, for example, differences between several regional SAP BW systems and help define a strategy to integrating these into a global data model.

For a presentation style version of this blog (“The Road to SAP BW/4HANA”) and many more details on SAP BW/4HANA, 

please visit the SAP Community Network.

Share the Knowledge - Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 2

Share the Knowledge - Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 2 Via Content in SCN Hi Everyone, This is the second part of the blog Share the Knowledge - Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 1 Best Practice # 7: Avoid Issues During Migration by  Using Automated Task Lists We were told about optimizing System Migration 1.) Use the Checklist tool:It is recommended to run it before, during, and after migration for optimal insights 2.) Setup Task lists: use task lists for system preparation and system copy 3.) Run Post Migration Program Go to Migration tab After that a little bit intro about DMO was given DMO(Data Migration Option) is an option of SUM (Software Update Manager) for a combined update and migration: update an existing SAP system to a higher Software Release and migrate to SAP HANA database. To learn more about DMO check the below documents: Migration to HANA made easy with DMO SAP First Guidance - Using the DMO Option to Migrate BW on HANA Automated Processes for BW on HANA Migration | SAP HANA Also check SAP Note 1799545 - Using DMO of SUM for SAP BW systems Best Practice # 8: Validate SAP HANA Configuration,  Check Table Consistency and  Monitor Delta Merge Use the Checking Tab of BW Migration Cockpit: Rerun the checklist tool Run Table Consistency check Run Delta Merge Check To learn more about Delta Merge process, check the below document: How To - Delta Merge for SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA Also check SAP Note 1663501 - Log for BW merge trigger Check if Secondary indexes are required to be created Also check SAP Note 1740373 - DSO: Maintenance of database indexes in SAP HANA Best Practice # 9: Improve Performance and  Simplify Administration and Infrastructure by  Converting Data Flows and InfoProviders Go to Conversion tab Optimize Data Flows: Convert 3.x Data Flows to 7.x Data Flows For migration, also check the below link: Migrating a Data Flow - Modeling - SAP Library Optimize InfoProviders: Conver Infocubes to HANA Optimized Infocubes Learn more about InfoProviders in BW on HANA: InfoProviders in SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA - Webinar Presentation DataStore Objects in SAP NetWeaver BW on SAP HANA Aspects of the HANA-optimized InfoCube | SAP HANA Also check SAP Note 1849497 - SAP HANA: Optimizing standard DataStore objects Optimize Data Layers: To learn more about LSA++, check the below documents: LSA++ for SAP NetWeaver BW on SAP HANA SAP HANA as Driver of EDW Evolution: LSA++ (Layered Scalable Architecture) for BW on SAP HANA – Webinar Presentation Use BW Transform Finder to quickly find transformations in SAP NetWeaver BW systems - for example to identify InfoProviders that can potentially be retired when using SAP HANA. Check SAP Note 1908367 - SAP NetWeaver BW Transformation Finder Best Practice # 10: Tune Custom Code According to  Best Practices for ABAP on SAP HANA Go to Optimization tab Use ABAP Routine Analyzer that automates the check of best practice guidelines for ABAP routines in SAP NetWeaver BW systems focused on statements that can potentially be optimized for SAP HANA To learn more about ABAP Code optimizzation for SAP HANA, check the below documents: Performance Guidelines for ABAP Development on the SAP HANA Database ABAP ON SAP HANA – Optimization of Custom ABAP Codes for SAP HANA- Presentation How to Evaluate ABAP Coding for Optimization On SAP Suite on HANA ABAP for SAP HANA - Webinar Replay ABAP and developing on BW on HANA | SAP HANA The tools mentioned above do most of the tasks but still there can be few activities that we might have to perform manually. For knowing more about BW on HANA migration and steps involved in it, we should also check SAP BW on HANA Cookbook Additionally, we can learn more about BW on HANA from the below documents: General Information for BW on HANA | SAP HANA DBA aspects | SAP HANA BW 7.4 on HANA Overview and Roadmap

Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 1

Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 1 Via Content in SCN Hi Everyone, During the TechEd I attended lecture RDP303 - "Master Class for Optimizing SAP Netweaver Business Warehouse on SAP HANA" It was only a 1 hour session but there were many things to learn. The session was aimed at Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA and best practices to be followed I would like to share learning from the session. Also check Part 2: Share the Knowledge - Optimizing SAP BW on SAP HANA Part 2 Best Practice #1: Master The Basics and Understand the Path to BW on HANA The session started with migration options for implementing BW on HANA There are three options available for implementing BW on SAP HANA and they have their own advantages and disadvantages as shown below: To learn more about migration, check the below document: SAP NetWeaver BW on SAP HANA Project Approaches - Webinar Presentation Upgrade and Migration - BW on HANA | SAP HANA Upgrade / Migration - General | SAP HANA Best Practice #2: Know the Tools That Do the Work For You After that we were told about BW Migration Cockpit for SAP HANA tool that can  be used for migration and a demo was shown for it Check SAP Note 1909597 - SAP NetWeaver BW Migration Cockpit for SAP HANA for this and install attached ABAP program - "ZBW_HANA_MIGRATION_COCKPIT" Once you have installed the program and you execute it, you get the below screen Best Practice # 3: Ch eck Your BW System : Before and After Migrating to SAP HANA The first tab is checking It has three main tools "Checklist Tool", "Consistency Checks" and "Planning Function Check" Checklist Tool automates the check of best practice guidelines for operations and pre-requisites for migration of an existing SAP NetWeaver BW deployment to the SAP HANA platform. Once you click on checklist tool, the below screen appears and you can select which all checks you want to perfo rm Once the checklist is completed you get the below screen: To learn more about the checklist tool, check th e SAP Note 1729988 - SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA - Checklist Tool Planning Function Check tool determines whether planning functions are executed in ABAP or in SAP HANA It uses program RSPLS_PLANNING_ON_HDB_ANALYSIS and it should be installed in your system otherwise you will see the below screen stating "Program RSPLS_PLANNING_ON_HDB_ANALYSIS does not exist" Check the below blog to learn more about it: How to Check whether a Planning Function or a Disaggregation in PAK is executed in Memory Best Practice # 4: Size Your BW System  Using a Fully Automated Sizing Tool Go to Sizing tab In this tab, we can determine memory requirements for SAP HANA using the Sizing tool, can configure NLS, set up Data Archive Process and execute Data Archiving process To learn more about sizing, check SAP Note 1736976 - Sizing Report for BW on HANA Also check the below blog on Sizing BW on HANA: How NOT to size a SAP NetWeaver BW system for SAP HANA How To Size SAP BW on HANA | SAP HANA Sizing | SAP HANA Best Practice # 5: Lower TCO by Leveraging  Non-active Data Concept and Off-loading Data to  Near-line Storage (or Archive) As we all know that non-active data concept was introduced for BW on HANA last year http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/300347b5-9bcf-2d10-efa9-8cc8d89ee72c?overridelayout=t… Non active tables are loaded into RAM only when they are accessed and are displaced from the RAM with highest priority in case of RAM shortage In BW on HANA, PSA tables and Write Optimized DSO tables are automatically marked as "Non-Active" To learn more, check the SAP Note 1767880 - Non-active data concept for BW on SAP HANA DB After that we were told a bit about Near Line Storage with Sybase IQ To learn more about it, check the below documents Data Management with SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA in the SAP Real-Time Data Platform  - Webinar Presentation SAP BW Near-Line Storage (NLS) Implementation f... | SCN SAP First Guidance - SAP-NLS Solution with Syba... | SCN Also check SAP Note 1796393 - SAP BW near-line solution with Sybase IQ Best Practice # 6: Keep Your System Lean and Fast by Performing Housekeeping Task Regularly Go to Housekeeping tab As we all know Housekeeping activities are an integral part of BW as they ensure optimum utilization of system resources and increase system performance Some of t he most common activities are: To learn more about Housekeeping activities, check the below document: House Keeping / Performance Tuning Activities in SAP BW Systems -- P ART 1 We can set automated Housekeeping using Task Manager and use "Housekeeping Tasks" Check SAP Note 1829728 - BW Housekeeping Task List to generate a a task list with several common tasks associated with housekeeping/upkeeping an BW system We can also extend this task list Check the below document on how to install Housekeeping task list: Create #SAP #BW Housekeeping task list Also check the below document: Important Housekeeping Principles for keeping your SAP NetWeaver BW in good shape – Webinar Presentation For Task Manager Configuration, check SAP Note 1589145 - Task Manager for Technical Configuration We can also perform few housekeeping tasks manually present in the cockpit as shown above, such as IDoc Archiving OLAP Statistic Deletion For cleaning Large tables, check SAP Note 706478 - Preventing Basis tables from in creasing considerably

How to optimize Reporting Performance in SAP BI

How to optimize Reporting Performance

Via Content in SCN

Introduction

We face many challenges in our BI projects in terms of Reporting Performance. Users always expect outstanding performance of our BI reports. No matter what ever we do in the backend (Modeling and Query Designer). I am going to share very important tips & techniques which I have learned through out my experience which consists of some standard thumb rules too.

It is recommended to use Inclusions Instead of Exclusions wherever possible as Exclusions cant access DB indices and will impact performance. Because, when huge no. of RKFs & CKFs are Included in a Query, Restricting, Conditioning and Computations are done for each of them during query execution. This is very time consuming and a high number of RKFs & CKFs can seriously hurt Query Performance that means, please open your query definition and pick up the fields which are used in the query while defining Aggregates. Delete the unused Aggregates 

If the aggregates are too Large, those not only degrades the Query performance but also loading performance by longer times to roll up and Attribute Change runs also takes longer times. 

Make sure you get good valuation indicators for your Aggregates, but not like below 

It is recommended to to Suppress Result rows Wherever possible. 

It is recommended to use SAP Exits whe re ever possible and bring down the Customer Exits

SAP Suggests free characteristics in reports should be limited to 8-10. 

In RSRV checks, free characteristics usage is marked in red which has very high impact on reports

It is recommended to reduce RKFs & CKFs in the Query to as few as possible.

It is recommended to redefine your Aggregates in an optimized way by taking Statistics(BI Admin Cockpit should be in place) & Query definitions into Consideration.



Archiving (NLS) is recommended to archive unused data.

a. Reduction of online disk storage

b. Improvement in BW query performance

c. Increased data availability as rollup, change runs and backup times will be shorter

d. Reduced hardware consumption during loading and querying

Reports should be designed on Multiproviders wherever possible.

Logical and physical partitioning is recommended for bet ter performance.

Extensive use of Filters at Query level is recommended.

Select appropriate Read mode settings for Multiproviders with "H" and Infosets with "X" in RSDIPROP t-code

Reporting on Infosets should be considered below tips :

a. Do not select all the fields which are part of Infoset definition like below. You can select the fields which we want to use in query only.



b. You should select "Use Selection of Structure Elements" in RSRT-->Properties



c. Do not make too many joins as it cause high runtimes to fetch data after the joins

Statistical Reports performance can be improved by broadcasting query result to cache and prefilling cache.

Deletion of unused Queries is recommended

Delete temporary Query Views is recommended.

It is recommended to be careful while creating Cell Structures as they require high query run times and will lead to performance degradation.

Program RSR_CACHE_RSRV_CHECK_ENTRIES can be scheduled to run on regular basis to remove the unused Cache entries .< /p>

Make proper Query read mode and Cache mode settings in RSRT-->Properties. The recommended Cache mode could be 1 or 5.

Conclusion :
It is always better to keep an eye on above points while developing our Business models and Queries. This blog will help us to satisfy our users with good reporting performance.

SAP Hana Series - 5

HANA Overview - 5

How is HANA licensed?

SAP tried to keep licensing simple with HANA.

HANA is available in the Cloud as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS) and as an application platform (AaaS), and it is possible to buy all those options now, on a monthly basis, from the SAP Website.

For on-premise customers, HANA is licensed in one of two major ways:

First, is as a proportion of your Software Application value (SAV), just like you can license other databases from SAP. This could be for your whole estate, or for a specific product like BPC.

Second, is by the unit, which is 64GB of RAM. There are a few editions of HANA, depending on your need, that bundle other software and allow more, or less, restrictive usage. The pricing is tiered, depending on the number of units you buy, and accretive.

In all cases, HANA licensing includes a lot of functionality that you would pay extra for in other databases. For example, Dev, Test, HA, DR licensing are always included. And if you buy HANA Enterprise, you have access to all functionality at no additional cost – including Predictive Libraries, Spatial, Graph, OLAP, Integration and Web. HANA contains a huge amount of functionality that would require 20-30 different SKUs from Oracle.

For those customers who need the base functionality of HANA but not the bells and whistles, there is now a HANA Base Edition, on which you can add other functionality as required, at a lower cost point.

Feature	HANA Base	HANA Platform	HANA Enterprise
Partitioning, Compression, Security	✓	✓	✓
Calculation Engine, Aggregation Engine	✓	✓	✓
XS Engine, River, SQLScript, HANA Studio	✓	✓	✓
BRM, BFL	✓	✓	✓
Smart Data Access	✓	✓	✓
Predictive Analytics Library	✗	✓	✓
Geospatial	✗	✓	✓
Planning	✗	✓	✓
Graph	✗	✓	✓
Search, Text Analysis	✗	✓	✓
System Landscape Transformation, Data Services	✗	✗	✓

~~~Contd.

SAP HANA Series - 4

HANA Overview - 4

Is SAP HANA a database, platform, appliance, or cloud?

SAP HANA was designed to be a truly modern database platform, and as a result the answer is: all of the above. A modern database should be a database, platform and be available on-premise or in the cloud.

SAP has a large installed-base of on premise ERP customers, and the HANA platform supports their needs, especially the need for an enterprise-class database. Many of those customers are looking for an on-premise database to replace the traditional RDBMS.

The demanding needs of an in-memory database mean that SAP elected to sell SAP HANA as an appliance, and it comes pre-packaged by the major hardware vendors as a result.

However the future of business is moving into the cloud, and SAP HANA is available as Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) with HANA Cloud Platform and Managed Cloud as a Service (McaaS) with secured HANA Enterprise Cloud and via 3rd party cloud vendors. Customers can also choose Hybrid deployment model that combines on premise and cloud. More details on this are available here.

How does SAP HANA compare to Oracle or IBM?

SAP HANA was designed to be a replacement to Oracle or IBM databases, either for net new installations or for existing customers. In most cases it is possible to move off those databases easily, and gain reporting performance benefits out of the box. Then it is possible to adapt the software to contain functions that were not possible in the past.

All three of the major RDBMS vendors have released in-memory add-ins to their databases in the last year. All of them support taking an additional copy of data in an in-memory cache, or in IBM’s case columnar tables.  All of them provide improved performance for custom data-marts.  But make no mistake; caching data has been around for a long time, while an in-memory database platform to run transactions and analytics together in the same instance is a new innovation.

Traditional database caching solutions are similar to the GM and Ford response to hybrid cars – take their existing technology and bolt new technology to it. SAP HANA is more akin to Tesla, who rebuilt the car from the ground up based on a new paradigm.

And so HANA’s capabilities from a business application perspective are 3 years ahead in technology from what others have.

~~~Contd.

SAP HANA Series - 3

HANA Overview - 3

What SAP Applications run on SAP HANA?

SAP CEO Bill McDermott said “HANA is attached to everything we have”.

Almost all the major SAP Applications now run on the SAP HANA platform. This includes the SAP Business Suite (ERP, CRM, PLM, SCM) and the SAP BW Data Warehouse.

The BI Suite including BusinessObjects Enterprise, Data Services and SAP Lumira are all designed to run on the HANA platform.

There are a set of Applications Powered by SAP HANA including  SAP Accelerated Trade Promotion Planning, SAP Collection Insight, SAP Convergent Pricing Simulation, SAP Customer Engagement Intelligence, SAP Demand Signal Management, SAP Assurance and Compliance Software, SAP Liquidity Risk Management, SAP Operational Process Intelligence, and SAP Tax Declaration Framework for Brazil.

In addition, SAP runs much of its cloud portfolio on HANA, including the HANA Cloud Platform and SAP Business ByDesign. The Ariba and SuccessFactors apps are in the process of migration.

What’s the business case for SAP HANA?

We’ve built business cases for HANA deployments of all sizes and whilst they vary, there at a few common themes:

• TCO Reduction. In many cases HANA has a lower TCO. It reduces hardware renewal costs, frees up valuable enterprise storage and mainframes and requires much less maintenance
• Complexity to simplicity.  HANA simplifies landscapes by using the same copy of data for multiple applications.  Our implementations have shown that adding additional applications to a HANA dataset are very fast and easy, delivering business benefits quickly.
• Differentiation. HANA’s performance, advanced analytics (Predictive, Geospatial, Text analytics) and simplicity often mean a business process can be changed to be differentiating compared to competitors. Customer scenarios like loyalty management, personalized recommendations and anything where speed or advanced analytics capabilities are differentiating are all candidates.
• Risk Mitigation. Many customers know that in-memory technologies are changing the world and so want to put an application like SAP BW on HANA or LOB Datamarts as a first step, so they can react quickly for future business demands.

~~~Contd.