Creating an upgrade plan and strategy for SAP BW and NetWeaver

Presentation Transcript

Bjarne Berg

MyITgroup Ltd.

What We’ll Cover …

Why upgrade

End of support
New support strategy & NetWeaver
New features and capabilities

Creating an upgrade strategy for the future

Content Vs. Technical upgrades
Upgrades with NetWeaver

Planning and Executing the upgrade

The upgrade plan
The business case
Staffing, duration and scope

Questions and Answers

Many upgrades are driven by end of support for a certain release.

SAP has now created a 5-1-2 maintenance system that consists of:

- mainstream maintenance

- extended maintenance

- customer-specific maintenance

Why Upgrade – end of support…

#1 reason for upgrade:

“Because I had to!”

The 5-1-2 maintenance strategy

Going forward, SAP will provide five years of mainstream (standard) maintenance, with the option to extend their maintenance coverage for a period of up to three years for small premiums over the standard maintenance rate.

Five years of mainstream maintenance at the standard maintenance fee.

One year of extended maintenance at an additional two percent maintenance fee.

Two more years of extended maintenance at an additional four percent maintenance fee per year. After these eight years, customer-specific maintenance begins, providing a program of support and services uniquely tailored to individual customer requirements.

The plan covers SAP solutions based on the SAP NetWeaver platform including mySAP SCM, SRM, PLM, CRM, and industry add-ons.

The Bigger Picture

Stop looking at infrastructure and technology…

Start looking at the big picture…

How are you going to make it all work together?

And,.. how will you plan your upgrades to make sure it does so in the future?

Source: SAP, Léo Apotheker

PEOPLE INTEGRATION

Multichannel

access

Portal

Collaboration

INFORMATION INTEGRATION

Bus. Intelligence

Knowledge Mgmt

Bus. Intelligence

Knowledge Mgmt

Master Data Management

COMPOSITE APPLICATION FRAMEWORK

LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

PROCESS INTEGRATION

Integration

Bus. Process

Broker

Mgmt

APPLICATION PLATFORM

J2EE

ABAP

...

DB and OS Abstraction

Source: SAP AG

The Bigger Picture – NetWeaver ??

NetWeaver is a set of solution components that provides a comprehensive architecture.

All components of NetWeaver can use the same operating system release, and the same database release.

All components can be run within a single physical server if it is a small configuration, thereby reducing the number of systems and databases to be managed.

on NetWeaver and TCO…

“A SAP survey of 200 customers found that SAP deployment reduced costs in three areas: integration through the use of NetWeaver components, consolidation of the IT landscape and the implementation of best practices using product functionality.”

The Big-Picture - NetWeaver

The leaders

NetWeaver came from “nowhere” to the top-3 position in less than one year after launch!!!

If SAP is you strategic choice, it is hard to ignore NetWeaver.

What should I consider first?

NOTE: Most components are mature and well proven (i.e. BW has been available for over 7 years).

The Bigger Picture

SAP now offers SAP NetWeaver solutions and components in a synchronized release cycle. All components are delivered in a single package.

The exception is Master Data Management, the newest member of NetWeaver. MDM 2.0 is able to use NetWeaver ‘04 (it can use XI 3.0), but is still based on WAS 6.20.

NetWeaver use WAS 6.4 and therefore share a common technical foundation.

The Bigger Picture

BW 3.5 is part of the NetWeaver 04 standard availability was given in Sept. 2004

Included in NetWeaver-04 is:

BW 3.5
Portal 6.0 Service Pack 3
Exchange Infrastructure 3.0
MI 2.5
Web Application Server 6.4

SAP Composite Application Framework (CAF 1.0) is a tool for building applications on-top of NetWeaver without using low-level programming interfaces (APIs). It has been available as an add-on since Aug.-04. CAF 2.0 will be available with the next release of NetWeaver mid-year 2005.

Why Upgrade – Simplified maintenance

Today companies use a variety of systems, hardware, operating systems, databases to host their many SAP components. NetWeaver provides a unified infrastructure to reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
NetWeaver is shipped as one product
All components of NetWeaver come as one shipment. It can be installed in one procedure, and can run together in one system (except MDM 2.0.)
You can upgrade SAP NetWeaver 2004 components individually as long as
the components are installed on separate systems.
You can gradually bring current components to NetWeaver level to make use of new features of a component or to reach the common IT infrastructure in several steps.

More details at: SAP NetWeaver Master Guide & NetWeaver Solution Management Guide.

What is New in the Release?

One of the major reasons for upgrading your BW environment is the availability of new content and features in the next release. Let us take a look at what is new in version 3.5:

Business Planning and Simulation
Information Broadcaster
Data warehousing and Business Intelligence
Universal Data Integration
Unicode Support
BeX Portfolio in Enterprise Portals

We will now take a quick look at these features

What is New - Business Planning and Simulation

BW version 3.5 and higher has BPS included and you also get additional functionality

Major new features of BPS in BW 3.5:

Plan towards totals (i.e. total revenue)
Remove outliers from the plan (unusual data points).
Work with incomplete time-series

What is New - Information Broadcaster

Users or developers can schedule reports to be delivered to them through email, portal roles, zip files, or web based reports (browser & handhelds).

We can trigger the reports to run at:

Certain times
When data is loaded to the system
Or we can mail it to the users ad-hoc when we want to.

Core feature: Push Vs. Pull Strategy

What is New?

The Web Application Designer has more features:

The navigational state can be stored in XML format
JavaScript can be used to customize web navigation
Corporate web templates can be reused
New chart designer with cool charts and a development wizard

Custom

Applications

BW

3. Java

1. Universal Data Connect

BI Java SDK

Universal Data Connect

2. Java connect-

tors

SAP Query JDBC ODBO XML-A

SAP

Non-SAP

Universal Data Integration in BW 3.5

FRONT-END:

BW 3.5

WAS 6.4

Java 2 Enterprise Edition 6.4

SAP Query JDBC ODBO XML-A

RFC, BAPI, API

JDBC Driver

ODBO provider

URL/HTTP

R/3

BW

3rd Party

RDBMS

BACK-END:

RELATIONAL DATABASES

1. Over 190 JDBC drivers for database connectivity

2. BI SAP Query connector for R/3, SAP CRM ad-hoc connectivity

OLAP

1. BI OLE connector a Microsoft standard

2. BI XMLA connector for web based OLAP sources

What is New - Unicode Support

Unicode support for SAP DB, Oracle 9.2, IBM DB2 AS400 UDB, and SQL Server:

BW 3.5 Supports multiple languages through a unicode enabled server (back-end) and a unicode enabled web front-end
For Microsoft based components the “log-on language” is supported

яьфдФњщ

Ệẁ

ǻǼǽǿ

תשרחפא

ﻲﻶﻺﻕﻒﻏﻎ

What is New – BeX Portfolio in the Portal

BW queries can be published to the Portal Content Catalog.

The BeX Portfolio consists of applications that include collaborative information such as:

Technical metadata (run times, descriptions, priority etc)
Subscriptions of a report
Feedback of a report (i.e. comments)
Rating of report (by users)
Report details ( descriptions and use information)
Mailing of a report to others

NEWS: BW web applications are KM Objects

What is New – BW Content in the Portal

We can publish an application to the Portal as:

A Knowledge management object to a collaboration room
A Knowledge management (KM) object to a KM folder
An iView to the Portal Role
An iView to the Portal Content Directory

Source: SAP AG

Better integration of BW content in the portal: you don’t have to upload iView files anymore!!

BW content in the Collaboration Room

KEY IDEA: Build BW content once and publish many different ways!!

Good reason to upgrade:

better functionality!!!

Why upgrade

End of support

The upgrade plan
The business case

BW Content Upgrades

The new upgrade strategy from SAP is to provide BW technical releases as part of NetWeaver and BI content add-ons,

You do not need to perform a technical upgrade to update the business content. I.e. content releases such as the older 3.2, 3.3 and 3.51 contains more business content and can be applied via delta upgrade.

The content upgrade can occur in as little as 1-2 hours (per system) and are shipped on supplement CDs.

Any new upgrade should now plan to use content provided in 3.5.3.

FYI: the content delivered in add-on 3.5.1 is the same as the content in release 3.1c with 3.3. content.

Apply content when you need it, to the technical release you have!!

3.5.1

March 2004

3.5.2

3.5.3

nd

2

week

June 2004

Fall 2004

TBD

of June

BW Release Upgrades

The Technical upgrades are called BW releases.

This include changes and/or additions to technical capabilities such as improved ODSs (ver 2.x) and Process Chains (ver 3.x).

The release 3.5 is a technical release with initial 3.5.1 add-on.

3.5 content add-ons include:

Future upgrade strategies needs to

include both content as well as release

upgrade plans for BW

Plan a periodic review of new content before you build custom solutions

An Upgrade Strategy

Think bigger than BW..

Apply content as soon as feasible. Especially if you have on-going development work. This way you can avoid many “work-arounds”.

You should seriously consider having all NetWeaver components on the same upgrade strategy instead of selecting each component for upgrade. This will help in the shared extractors and also substantially simplify the upgrade planning and landscape.

Look at SAP’s release strategy for each

component you are using and plan ahead,

instead of last-minute “must-do” projects.

Why upgrade

End of support

The upgrade plan
The business case

Upgrade paths

A direct release upgrade from 2.0B, 2.1C and 3.0B to 3.5 is possible.

However an upgrade from 3.1C needs to apply 3.2 and 3.3 content add-ons before upgrading to 3.5.

Remember the next release of NetWeaver is scheduled for mid-2005.

Upgrade Pre-planning

It is important to communicate the goals and timings to the technical team to help them prioritize their research and activity or hardware setup

Communicate goal of having existing content continue to work to functional test team, so they do not get hung up in testing new features before the upgrade is in production

Research changes to BW or the Plug-IN that may affect your existing “live” content and use this information to outline a planned “upgrade regression and correction test cycle”

The regression test should be similar to a large support pack implementation

Determine your upgrade “readiness”

SAP GUI – New GUI roll out, Patches? (e.g. BW 3.0B/3.1C -> 6.20 BUT… BW 3.5 -> 6.20/6.40)

PC Requirements – Need upgrade to take advantage of new features? BW 3.0/3.1c - Same PC requirements – but the devil is in the details (see OSS 161993, 66971)

DB/OS – Are they supported on the new release? Take the opportunity to apply patches as needed.

IGS – If need rendering of charts and graphs in BW 3.x Web Applications you need IGS… BUT it now only runs under NT and W2K. (BW 3.5 will support UNIX until IGS 6.40)

Plan the architecture

Considerations

GUI upgrade to 640, or Hardware changes needed
IGS and TREX become part of the 640/BW35 kernel & can be on the same host box
The old IGS must be in place until after graphic conversion
Live source system connections must be refreshed, but not rebuilt!

Technical approach

Review Install & Upgrade Guides as well as upgrade notes
Plan when each system in landscape is upgraded, or an upgraded system is copied

Evaluate impact to transport flow – dummy systems may be needed for a smooth transition

Key Factors for you environment sizing:

New content -> more users -> more app servers?

IGS -> may require new hardware

Parallel Load = more memory

ODS Layer = more space

Crystal Reports -> new hardware

Archiving -> may reduce need for space

Make sure the new software is ordered and in hand!

Planning Your Upgrade

Example

This company reallocated their Sun-6800 box and plans for gigabit connectivity to the AppServer….

More memory allows them to take better advantage of the parallel load of the BW system as well as to cache many of the frequently run queries.

The hardware also allows them to have a system where performance between the boxes are comparable.

Production

12 CPU

96GB RAM

AppServer

4 CPUs

32GB RAM

Test

4 CPUs

32GB RAM

Development

4 CPUs

32GB RAM

Some requirements

If you use SEM, and it resides on same infrastructure with BW you need SEM 4.0.
Plug-In PI_BASIS 2004.1_640

All officially supported PI_BASIS / PI releases can be used to connect SAP BW 3.5 to a SAP source system (see OSS note 153967)
Extractors are delivered with PI; for up-to-date versions of extractors, it is recommended to apply the latest PI in the source system

No additional hardware may be needed

Another system can be used as a temporary box needed to support upgrade
May need 5 – 10% temporary additional disk space for the production stack
Need minimum disk space (approximately 18-20 G) for any new environments

Plan for regression test glitches – and production cut-over.

Team Lead

Basis

Technical reviewer

Upgrade Support

Regression Testers

resource

BW Developer

External

Resources

A Dedicated team with a technical team lead (100%), a Basis resource (100%) and a technical reviewer (100% is required).
In addition, a dedicated “go-to” resource for technical issues is recommended. This should be an individual that have solid knowledge about the upgrade and have done his before. SAP resources should be considered, due to their contact network within the SAP organization.
Regression testing is required on behalf or the user community. This should be coordinated with the Power Users or existing developers.

Sample Timeline - complete landscape for large BW implementation

The duration is driven by:

1. The number of BW systems in your landscape.

2. The new functionality your are rolling out

3. The support technology needed (I.e. app servers, GUI)

The more content you have the longer the upgrade

(the more you have to regression test)

Minimum Timeline

Basic events:

Do initial upgrade guide and note research [1-2 days]
Upgrade BW sandbox and do cursory issues check [1-4 days]
Upgrade a copy of BW production – have key development leads regression test all live content (both systems must be connected to other landscape environments – testing extractors too!) [2-5 days (size/copy/hw depending]

At a minimum, the timeline will consist of a test upgrade of:

A copy of the BW Development system (new content glitches)
A copy of the production or production support system (BW Production dry-run and “live content” regression testing

Timeline (continued)

Once the initial regression test is complete, create any correctional transports. BW 3x to 35 – this should be minimal depending on active content.[3-5 days?]
Post-fix, have full team in for “Upgrade buy-in testing” that all works properly [2-3 workdays]
KEY: now freeze development and release transports, upgrade development and a test system, incorporating the fix transports generated from the upgrade regression test. This should be a clean 2-4 day process.

Move into Landscape

At this point you have a temporary BW Dev to test patch, and perhaps static training, production and production support systems.
Ideally, you’d migrate the upgrade to these as soon as possible, but this is a stable point. You will have to decide, based on content, whether copying a test box to training makes sense (can preserve user master)
For production and production support, you’ve already done a dry run – just do production and copy back to production support unless the size makes this impractical [~ >500GB]

GUI needs to be 620 or 640, with BW 3.5 front end patch

Impacts to other environments

The BW upgrade adds to the PI and ALE connection, which is backwards compatible. Source system connections should remain intact, with minimal adjustment, and a replication vs. restore

Some areas will need to change and are based on your local content, and customization, but you can continue to use existing methodology until you decide to change – see the notes!

If your end users are web users, they will see no effective changes

There should be no impact to portal or R3 or other BI system connections – all dependent on the Plug-In level

Downstream data feeds should remain unaffected

Data will not have to be reloaded or deltas reinitialized in more than 95% of cases – it’s there already!

7 Key Points to Take Home

Is it cheaper to upgrade to new content or risk reinventing the wheel?
A BW architecture is part of a larger decision support landscape
An upgrade strategy should contain other NetWeaver components
You upgrade strategy must include both release and content upgrades
Your upgrade time is largely a function of scope, your regression test strategy and the amount of content in your BW
The BW 3.5 upgrade is painless – no OS or DB upgrades, only a web query graphics conversion
Cross reference new features & functionality with your organization’s pain points…and ensure the upgrade costs do not exceed the business benefits