SAP Website Login Certificate (Single Sign-On)

One annoying problem I had with the SAP website was the number of times I have to enter my username and password while browsing through this site.
If for example I wanted to browse to the product availability matrix ( http://service.sap.com/pam) I would see the following.

Clicking ok on the above message led me to my login prompt.

Once I had logged in, if I wanted to browse to for example http://service.sap.com/support , then I would be requested the above information again. Clearly this can become annoying.

To get around this, SAP provides us with ability to use single sign on. This can be found the “SAP Trust Center Services” website which can be found at http://service.sap.com/tcs

• When this page loads, click on the link “Single sign-on in the SAP Service Marketplace with your SAP password” which can be found under the “Service Corner” section.
• Again under the “Service Corner” section, click on “Apply for an SAP passport”
• Type in your password and click “Apply for SAP Passport”
• Click “Yes” on the potential security violation message. This will be displayed twice.
  
• Click “yes” on the next message to install the certificate.
• You will now be redirected to the certificate installed confirmation page.

We now need to test to confirm this has worked.

• Close all internet browsers.
• Launch your internet browser and browse to http://service.sap.com/pam
• In the “Choose a digital certificate” message, you can see your certificate, click ok and you should be straight into the SAP website.

I hope this saves you some time.

SAP Performance and workload analysis

There are three transactions that we can use to analyse the performance of our SAP system.

• OS06 which allows you to monitor the operating system
• STO3 is the “Workload and Performance Statistics” transaction
• STO4 which is the database performance transaction

These are quite good because when you know them then you can perform analysis on any SAP system. It will not matter whether it is on UNIX, Windows or whether you are using Oracle or SQL Server database. The SAP interface will be the same.
Let’s look at these one by one. (STO4 will be detailed in future posts.)

Operating System Monitor (OS06)
When this loads, the following is displayed which displays an overview of the current CPU, Memory, SWAP usage etc (scroll down to see more). Unlike windows task manager which would keeps refreshing automatically, here you have to click on the “Refresh Display” (or F5) to update the stats.

Click on “Detail Analysis Menu”I like this screen. From here I can get loads of information, most of which I could easily find on a Windows machine but wouldn’t on a Unix box. Also unlike windows, from the above screen I can get information on stats from the previous 24 hours and averages.

The “LAN Check by Ping” functionality is also good. If you can’t remote onto the SAP server, you can use this utility to ping from the SAP Server using the SAP GUI.

Workload Monitor (ST03)
When this is run, the following screen is displayed which gives you on overview of your instances.
To get a more details, from the left, in the “Workload” tree, expand an instance and select a date.A lot more stats will be displayed. These can be printed, exported; you can even find the total for columns or display a graph, all using the icons above the stats. No need for Microsoft excel anymore.

SAP Processes

The application layer of a SAP system provide the following services:

Dialog service (DIA)

• Executes requirements of current user session
• At least 2 dialog processes exists so that SAP internal processes can be handled
• Not assigned to each user. Only assigned when data needs to be executed which it is run in memory

Background processes / Batch work processes (BGD)

• Tasks that are run in the background
• Used for tedious tasks that require no user input in dialog mode
• Can be scheduled at certain times or after an event
• Must be supported by at least one instance with one corresponding work process

Update service (UPD)

• Makes asynchronous changes to the database
• Used in non-time critical scenarios
• At least one required in SAP system

V2 Update service (UPD2)

• Update service has been further divided, the less critical parts of the update service have a separate V2 update service that can execute part of the update collectively
• Is not required

Output Service / Spool Service (SPO)

• Output requests are sent to output service, for example the printer, fax etc
• Stored temporarily in TemSe (temporary sequential objects) until outputted (Can be stored in RDBMS or file system on server)
• At least one must exist in system

Enqueue service (ENQ)

• Provides lock management for SAP transactions
• Only on one instance in entire SAP system

Process overview in SAP can be seen using transaction code SM50.

When this transaction is run, it only shows a snapshot of when the transaction was run. It is not like windows task manager which refreshes automatically. You therefore need to refresh this using the refresh icon on the top left or F8

In the above screen shot, we can see I have three dialog (DIA) processes.

One “Running” (which is my session that I used with my SAP GUI) and two “Waiting”. This means that a total of three user requests can be made to my SAP instance at any one time.

If I wanted to add more dialog processes (i.e. allow more users requests to be processed concurrently), I would need to edit my “Instance” profile using transaction RZ10, by changing the value of 'rdisp/wp_no_dia' to for example 10 for ten dialog processes.

I can now add loads of dialog processes, background processes etc but there will come a time when all the resources will be taken up. When many users connect and do transactions, it will eventually become slow.

This is when we need to look at tuning or maybe we would need to reduce the number of some other processes or simply add a new server for example a Dialog server to handle all user requests. I could then reduce the number of DIA processes on the above server and it should be quicker again. I will go into all these in future posts.

SAP Sizing

Sizing is important when it comes to SAP. SAP is very resource hungary. It takes up a lot of hard disk space and a lot of memory.

We therefore would want to make sure we have enough hard disk, memory etc for the business otherwise we are going to get a lot of complaints.

First off, we need to ensure the hardware we are planning to buy is supported by SAP. This information can easily be found on the SAP web site.

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/linux?rid=/webcontent/uuid/792dd957-0d01-0010-319b-e1211e5c66b0#section4

We next ask the suppliers of the hardware (for example IBM) to size the solution.

They may provide consultancy and most likely ask us to fill in a questionnaire. The following is a link to a questionnaire from IBM. It is good to have a look at this as it provides details as to what information is required to size SAP.

http://www-03.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/PRS261

The hardware suppliers may also ask you to fill in the SAP Quick Sizer. Once filled, this will provide a number on SAPs which is the number of standard dialog requests per hour (good idea to increase this a little). The hardware suppliers would then be able to make a recommendation.
http://service.sap.com/quicksizing - requires SAP Login.

Some additional info
To find out information about the SAP product, we can use the Product Availability Matrix (PAM) on the SAP website. http://service.sap.com/pam - this requires a SAP logon. Once you are logged in, search/click for the SAP product, e.g. SAP Netweaver 7.0. From the “General” tab, click on “Installation/Upgrade guide” – here you will be able to find documentation on planning/installing/upgrading etc.

SAP Daily Quick Checks

As a SAP Basis Administrator, you need to be able to carry out some simple quick checks to ensure the SAP system is running as smoothly as possible.

The diagram below lists SAP transactions that are commonly used as a quick check.




The transactions highlighted in orange are the most important to check.

I will elaborate on the transactions above in future posts.

SAProuter

SAP GUI uses the TCP/IP protocol to connect to a SAP system.

A SAProuter can be used to allow SAP GUI to connect to SAP Systems in other networks segments, for example when the SAP System is on another subnet or behind a firewall.

To connect to a SAP System on another network, when setting up the parameters in SAP GUI to the SAP system, you will also need to define a “SAProuter String”.



A SAProuter string is a list of SAProuters that must be passed in order to reach the SAP System.
This string consists of hosts which is defined with a “H” and services which is defined with an “S”

• A host is the SAProuter to connect to.
• A service is the port in the SAProuter to connect to.
  

When a SAProuter receives a request to a port, it then forward the connection onto either another SAProuter or the SAP system.

Lets take an example. Let say the following SAProute string is defined.

/H/CustGateway/S/3299/H/SAPGateway/S/3299/H/SAPSystem/S/3201

What does this mean? Well if we break it up into services and hosts, we can see the following

/H/CustGateway/S/3299/H/SAPGateway/S/3299/H/SAPSystem/S/3201

1. Firsly SAP GUI tries to connect to a server called CustGateway (this could be an IP address) to port 3299
   
2. When CustGateway receives this request, it forwards it onto a server called SAPGateway to port 3299.


3. When SAPGateway received this request, it forwards onto a server called SAPSystem to port 3201

Some extra info:

All SAP GUI connections are made to the “Dispatcher” on a SAP system. The port number for the dispatcher always starts with 32 and consists of four digits. The last two digits are the instance number.

In the above example, we connect to port 3201, this means we are connecting to instance 01.

SAP Backup and Restore

In case of a disaster, you will want to ensure you have a backup of everything you need in order to restore to the original state.

Backup
Below is a list of what is a must to backup.
(Note: The information below is based on a Microsoft environment, including Windows Server and SQL Server)

• Database – Ensure a full backup is carried out every night on production. DEV and QAS does not require full backup, differential can be used. Ensure the following databases are backed up.
  Master which is used to store all of SQL Servers system information such as users, databases etc.
  MSDB – used by SQL Server to schedule alerts and Jobs.
  
• Transaction Log – on a production system, this should be backed up every hour. This will therefore allow for a maximum of an hour’s loss of data.
  
• SAP Tree structure which can be found in folder “..\usr\“. Backup all the SAP files under the usr folder.

• Operating System – create a backup of the “system state” which allows you to restore the operating systems configuration files. These include Boot.ini, the registry, SYSVOL, Active Directory...

Restore
Assuming the operating system has been installed, there are two options

Option 1

• Reinstall SAP
• Apply the SAP tree structure over the above install
• Restore database

Option 2 (Quicker)

• Restore System State
• Reapply SAP tree structure
• Restore database.

SAP Transaction DB02 can be used to check some database settings such as the database size. I think this is quite good because it doesn’t matter what database is used, the SAP transaction can be used as a consistent GUI to find database information.

How the SAP hard disks are structured

SAP uses are a lot of hard disk space, not only for the application but also for the data that it stores.
Both of which are very important and therefore we need to use a method in which we can recover data in case of disk failure. For this reason we use RAID – “Redundancy array of inexpensive disks”

The two types of RAID SAP recommends is RAID 1 and RAID 5

• RAID 1 uses two disks and is a mirror of each disk. If one disk fails, replacing it will recreate the data.
• RAID 4 uses three of more disks. It uses striping where data is written across many disks to improve speed and parity. Therefore if one disk fails, it can be replaced and the data would be recreated.

The minimum recommended structure is to have

• RAID 1 disk with the Operating System, Page file, Temporary Database, SQL Executables, SAP Executables and the transaction log.
• RAID 5 disks would only hold the database.

The recommended structure is to have a three RAID 1 and one RAID 5 setup.

• RAID 1 disk with the Operating System, Page file, Temporary Database, SQL Executables, SAP Executables and the transaction log.
• RAID 1 disk with the Temporary Database, SQL Executables and SAP Executables
• RAID 1 disk with the transaction log.
• RAID 5 disks with only the database.

Both the minimum and recommended structure should have the RAID disks partitioned as below

• C Drive: (RAID1) Operating System
• D Drive: (RAID1) Page File
• E Drive: (RAID1) Temporary Database
• F Drive: (RAID1) SQL Executable and SAP Executables
• G Drive: (RAID1) Transaction Log for the database
• H Drive: (RAID5) Database

The disks should be formatted in NTFS.

SAP NetWeaver 7.01 - ABAP Trial Version (Part 2 of 2) - Installation

With the prep work done, we are ready for the installation.

1. Install the Java Runtime Environment, JRE 1.4.x using the “Typical” option.
   
   
2. Browse to and run \start.htm
   
   
3. Click next twice and re-check the system requirements. Whether you have a DHCP server or not, install the loopback adaptor and don’t forget to edit the hosts file. Instructions for this can be found using the link near the bottom of your webpage you are on. This is important and apparently can cause problems.
   To confirm the loopback adaptor is setup correctly, from the command prompt, run the command “Ping 10.10.0.10”. If this result in replies then we are fine and if not, check the above.
   
   
4. Click back to move back to the “system requirements” screen and then next twice. We can now see the installation instructions and are ready to install.
   
   
5. Install the SAP Management Console by running \sapmmc\sapmmcX86u.msi
   • Installation is simple, click next twice and then finish to complete the installation
   
   
6. Install SAP by running \image\setup.exe
   • If the following screen is displayed, reboot and run setup.exe again
   
   • Click Next
   • Select “I accept the terms of the license agreement” and click next
   • Specify directory or leave as default, next to continue
   • Enter a master password and repeat. Next to continue.
   • Click Install
   • Click Next to continue
   • Click Finish
   This took just over an hour to install.
   
   
7. Reboot the computer
   
   
8. Start the application server: C:\SAP\NSP\SYS\exe\run\startSystem.cmd or Start->Programs->SAP Netweaver ABAP Trial Version->NSP->Start Application Server
   
9. We can now log into SAP. There are two options
   • SAP GUI: Browse to and run \start.htm and click next till you reach the “Getting started” web page and follow the instructions to install the SAP GUI.
   • Web GUI: http://localhost:8000/sap/bc/gui/sap/its/webgui?sap-client=000
   Click “Log On” and enter the username: bcuser and password:minisap

In summary, this installation was straight forward. No problems to report which is something I was expecting.

I installed the Java (although this wasnt stated in the instructions) because in a previous version it was mentioned in the requirements.

SAP NetWeaver 7.01 - ABAP Trial Version (Part 1 of 2) - Preparation

This two part blog will detail how I installed the trial version of SAP NetWeaver 7.01 SR2. This install will be valid for 4 weeks.

This includes the following
• Database Layer: MAX DB 7.7
• Application Layer: SAP Netweaver 7.01 ABAP Application Server
• Presentation Layer: SAP GUI for Windows version 7.10

Download Source
1. Open your favourite browser and go to http://sdn.sap.com
This is the SAP Developers Network website.

2. Click on “Downloads” from the horizontal menu

3. Click on “SAP Netweaver Main Releases” which can be found under the “Software” section

4. Click on “SAP NetWeaver 7.01 - ABAP Trial Version”

5. Read and ensure you have the minimum operating system requirements
Click “Click here to download”

6. Enter you SAP username and password. If you don’t have one, register, its free.

7. There are two files to download. Select each one and click on the agree button to agree to the license. This will open a new window and download should start.

8. Download both .rar files to the same folder and extract part1 only. (My extracted folder size was 3.28GB)
7-Zip is a free tool that can be used for extraction and can be downloaded from http://www.7-zip.org


We now have the SAP installation files.

Install the Operating System if you are not using your own computer. Ensure the minimum requirements are met.

I will install SAP on Windows XP SP2 formatted in NTFS with 1GB RAM in a virtual environment. 40GB Hard disk space (enough to include the source). Hostname has to be less than 13 characters (e.g. testsystem1). You will also need to use an admin account to install.

Copy the SAP source to the newly installed operating system.

You will also need the Java Runtime Environment, JRE 1.4.x which can be downloaded from http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/download.html
Download the J2SE v 1.4.2_19 JRE or the latest version of 1.4

Three Tier Architectures

SAP consists of three layers.



Database Layer where the RDBMS database is for example SQL Server or Oracle.

Application Layer is the layer where the SAP executables are installed. This layer connects to the database layer to do all the processing and contains a SAP instance.

Presentation Layer is the GUI that you use to connect to the SAP System via the application layer. This could be through the SAP GUI (SAP FrontEnd), a Web GUI or even a Java GUI (on a mobile phone).

Communication between the layers is via TCP/IP

Two tier architecture would have the database and application layers on one machine and the presentation on another however the three tier architecture is the most common. I will however build a two tier system due to lack to hardware.

Three Tier Landscapes

SAP can be installed on a one-tier or two-tier however the three-tier system is most common.



Within these systems, we have clients which are a commercially and organizationally independent unit in the R/3 System, which means that it has its own data environment.
CUST: Master Configuration - Customising and Developing client
TEST: Unit testing client
QAS: Quality Assurance Client
PROD: Production (Live) Client

One tier system would have all of the above clients on the same machine. This has the advantage of using minimal hardware and requires fewer administration however there are disadvantages which include
• Global customisation will affect all clients – for example when configuring / testing the printer, it will affect all clients.
• Other clients can affect productions performance and performance is a big deal in SAP.
• Cannot test upgrade in a one tier system.
• Development immediately affects production.

Two tier system would have the production client on a separate machine to the other clients. This allows the data to be secure, performance from other clients does not affect production and development is kept separate from the production. The disadvantage is that DEV and QAS testing is carried out in the same environment and transports (Moving ABAP which is custom SAP Code from one client to another) from development immediately become active in production.

Three tier system is the recommended and most common landscape. It has the following advantages
• Production data is kept secure from other clients.
• Production performance is not affected by other clients.
• There is an independent test and QAS environment
• Transports are verified (in QAS) before they are delivered to production.
The main disadvantage of the three tier system is that it is the most expensive because of the increase in hardware requirements.

All that said, because I dont have the hardware and because I am only going to be building my environment for playing around (SAP SandBox), it will be a one tier system.

What do the SAP Basis techies do?

Basis is the environment that allows us to administer and manage SAP R/3 and the SAP Components

It provides
• Administrative Tools
• Runtime Environment
• Distribution or resource



There are four main responsibilities of Basis

Operating System which involves Installation, Networks, Security Admin, Printing, Generic Maintenance, Monitor system performance and logs, Virus protection, Backups and Disaster Recovery procedures

Database which involves Installation, Backup and Recovery, Performance Monitoring, Problem analysis, DB Re-orgs / Re-indexing, Monitor of free space, memory and connections, Checks for missing indexes / Creation of new ones, Creation and test of DR procedures and Checks on Database security

SAP R/3 System which includes SAP installation, Upgrades, Security Admin, System monitoring, Client copies, Transports, Batch management, Gui installs, Printing Admin, Monitor R/3 Alerts, Bug fixes, Patch application, Workload analysis, Performance Tuning, External interface management, Archiving and Generic user support

Hardware which includes sizing and all the hardware used.


All of the above I will need to know inside out and will blog as I go along.

The difference between Basis and Netweaver and whats with all the versions?

Although the installation of SAP is still commonly called Basis, from the diagram below, we can see SAP Basis is old (See Blue blocks). Basis has had many functionalities added to it over the years and is currently called Netweaver 7.0. So when you hear Basis, think Netweaver 7.0



Netweaver 7.0 comes with SAP ERP 6.0

So what does that mean?

SAP is the Acronym for Systems, Applications and Products.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a company-wide computer software system used to manage and coordinate all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data stores

ERP 6.0 is commonly known as ECC 6.0 and is the latest ERP solution which brings together core ERP functionality with the Technology of SAP Netweaver 7.0 and Business Intelligence (BI) to provide a more comprehensive and an even more complete ERP offering to organizations.

ECC stands for Enterprise Core Components (currently on version 6) and enables SAP to build and develop an environment of Finance, Logistics, Sales, Material Management, HR, etc that can function upon the foundation of the central component.

Netweaver 7.0 contains the SAP Kernel core and the operational environment.

Well, I hope that has cleared something up.

Solution Manager Key

Before SAP can be installed, there are a few pre-requirements that need to met. One of these is to generate a solution manager key which is required during the SAP installation. This is detailed below.

Run SAP Logon and double click on your Solution Manager SAP Server

Login into Solution Manager

Run transaction code SMSY by entering into the text box at the top left and pressing enter

In the "SYSTEM LANDSCAPE - SAP Solution Manager" screen, from the menu on the left, right click on "Systems" and select "Create new system"

In the "Create New System" box, enter the SAP SID in the System box, select product and version as in the example below. Click on the save icon to save this system

From the menu, select "System" and then "Other Object"

In the "Select Other Object" window, enter the SAP SID in the "System" text box

Click on the "Generate Installation/Upgrade Key" icon at the bottom of the above window

In the "Gernerate Installation/Upgrade Key" window, enter the SAP SID, System number and the SAP Servers hostname.

Finally click on Generate Key. This will the key required during the installation of SAP

Thinking of doing a SAP Course, but which is the right one, how do you find it and how much does it cost?

The SAP website is huge, working through it seems to be a maze but I think I have got my head around it.

1. Start with the obvious, http://www.sap.com/
2. Click on Explore SAP Services, under SAP Services or click http://www.sap.com/services/index.epx
3. From the menu on the left, select Education -> Certification
4. In the “SAP Education” screen, from the “Find a certification” box, select some criteria’s and click Find
   · For example, I selected Technology only from the second box.
5. The “Certification Finder” screen will display a list certification options for example
   SAP Certified Technology Associate - System Administration (MS SQL DB) with SAP NetWeaver 7.0
   Click on the certification of interest.
6. The “Certificate Role” screen will display the Level (how difficult), a roadmap, and the associated test. Click on the link under “Certification Tests”
7. The “Certificate Test” screen will show you the tests booking code which will be required when you want to book this exam. It also shows the topics that will be covered and which courses these topics are covered in.
8. Click back to go back to the “Certification Role” screen and select the link under “Education” to view the Related Curriculum Path.
9. The “Curriculum” screen shows the road map, which courses to take to achieve the certification. (Note the exam codes on the right boxes)
10. To find out more about these courses, click on the course. Here there are two tabs, one displays the course description, the other details the location of course, when it is available and the cost.

What I have done so far

To get me started, I was fortunate to attend an internal training course in May. This was the fundamentals of SAP and covered the following.

• A Brief History
• SAP Standard CORE Modules
• SAP ECC Overview
• Basis Concepts
• Operating system
• Database
• R/3 system
• Hardware
• Installing SAP
• System Architecture
• System Architecture – Landscapes / Tier Concepts
• Starting and Stopping SAP
• System Environment – Instance environment
• The SAPGUI Interface
• User Administration Clients / Users
• Clients Concepts
• Spool Administration
• Transport System
• Operation Modes
• Background Processing
• System Monitoring
• Backup & Recovery
• Workload Analysis
• Periodic Maintenance checks
• System error analysis
• Applying Support Packs SAP / OS level
• Essential Transactions
  

It was good, it gave me a true insight as to how huge SAP really is and the above was just an overview.


Next step was to find a test system to practise the above. We have internal test systems but wanted to set this up myself. This I will detail in another post once I have set it up.

I have also bought a book which I would recommend. It is SAP Netweaver AS ABAP System Administration. I have read the 1st and a bit of the 2nd chapters and would recommend it.
http://www.amazon.com/SAP-NetWeaver-ABAP-System-Administration/dp/1592291740

Why SAP

After getting to know Windows servers, databases and various other applications, I wanted to further my career. I could have taken the functional (business) route or maybe something like project management, but I wanted to stay techie for a little while longer.

There are many applications out there that I could have chosen to pursue such as Microsoft Office. Everyone I know uses Outlook and Word, how many acually use it to its potential, probably not a lot but then how many need to? Also what is the market like for an experienced Word techie. A quick search on jobserve shows some but not a lot of $$$ and to me, its not that interesting.

SAP has been around for a while and searches on job sites showed that there are a lot of jobs out there and in big companies. The $$$ seemed to be good also. But what is SAP and would it interest me?

I spoke to a few SAP experts and came to the following conclusions

1. It is an ERP solution - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_ERP

2. Its huge - you will never know it all. There are many modules within SAP, such as FI (Financials) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_R/3#Modules - to fully understand FI, I would need to have previous experience in finance or the HR module where I would need a good understanding of human resources. Both of which I dont. The techie side of SAP which involves installing, upgrading etc is SAP Netweaver (which used to be SAP BASIS) - this is what I will learn and then move onto one of the other modules.

3. There are a lot of SAP words like transports and transactions code which just seem to be SAP buzz words.

For example transports is just another word for moving SAP programs (created in a language called ABAP) from test system to a QAS system or production system - Im sure this has been over simplified, but thats how I understand it currently.

Also transactions codes, these are simply shortcuts to certain screens. There are many screens in SAP and drilling down the menu trying to find what you want can take a while therefore transaction codes (or shortcuts) are used.

4. To make the big $$$, I will need to have at least 2 full SAP lifes cycles as in two projects where I have contributed from the start to finish.

5. Training cost a bomb!

Clearly this is going to be a challenge but the rewards far out weigh the challenges.

The beginning of a long journey

I have started this blog to keep a track of how I am progressing in the world of SAP.

Currently I am working for a SAP VAR (value added resellar - company who sell SAP) but not actually working in the SAP team. Ideally I'd like to move into the SAP arena and working here allows me to have experts around me as well as access to the SAP website.

I am experienced in Windows 2003 Server and SQL Server 2005 therefore will concentrate on an implementation on this enviroment.

My experience of SAP is next to nothing, in fact, last month (May 2009) I attended an internal course to understand the architecture of SAP Netweaver and the pre-requirements was to have SAP Gui installed. I asked around and found out that this is SAP Front End.

I will detail as much as I can in this blog which will hopefully help others when starting a career in SAP. There is a lot of information on the internet about SAP but not a lot on how to get started in SAP.