Best practices for creating a sound strategy and a thorough plan for your SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence

upgrade
Dr. Bjarne Berg
2008 Wellesley Information Services. All rights reserved.

What Well 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

Examples Wrap up Bonus material: ideas for the business case

2

Why Upgrade end of support

BW Ve rsio n
2.0B 2.1C 3.0A 3.0B 3.1C 3.2 3.3 3.5

Re le ase date
8/14/00 12/18/00 11/15/01 5/13/02 11/11/02 3/31/03 8/30/03 3/31/04

End o f mainstre am mainte nanc e

12/31/2005 12/31/2005 12/31/2005 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 3/31/2010

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
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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.
1. Five years of mainstream maintenance at the standard maintenance fee
2. One year of extended maintenance at an additional two percent maintenance fee* 3. 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.
*check with your account executive to see what your fee may be

The Bigger Picture NetWeaver ??

Enterprise Portal
Visual Composer BI Kit KM

Business Explorer Suite (BEx) Information Broadcasting BEx Web

Web Analyzer BI Pattern Web Application Designer Report Designer

BEx Analyzer
MS Excel Add-in

BI Consumer Services

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

BEx Query Designer

BI Platform UDI
SAP JDBC XMLA ODBO Query

Analytic Engine

Meta Data Mgr

Data Warehouse

DB Connect

BAPI

Service API

File

XML/A

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 management of many systems & databases

Why Upgrade to NW BI 7.x?

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 some of the major new features of version BI 7.x:

Web Application Designer BI Accellerator BEx Broadcaster BEx Query Designer BEx Report Designer ReModeling Toolbox Security Changes New ETL Interface BPS Integrated Planning PDF print Real-time data warehousing BEx Web Analyzer

We will now take a quick look at these features

Web Application Designer is improved

The Web Application Designer is improved with new chart types (Heat Map, GANTT & Milestone Trend Analysis), as well as new layout elements such as tab strips. WAD also has new stepby-step wizards for maps, command editing to create Web API Commands and charts, as well as a simplified wizard for layout elements such as radio buttons, action buttons etc.

WAD is a key tool for all SAP BI shops and in BI 7.x the tool is simplified and more powerful.

This reduce the amount of custom coding required with the help of Command wizards, Auto complete and support for HTML tags.

New: Integration with NW BI 7.x BEx Report 7 Designer.

Why upgrade? - BI Accellerator for BI 7.x

SAP BW Any tool

The SAP BI accelerator makes query response time 50-10,000 faster. You use process chains to maintain the HPA engine after each data load
HP, Sun and IBM have standard solutions ranging from $32K to $250K+ that can be installed and tested in as little as 2-4 weeks (+ SAP license fees)

New Broadcaster features of BI 7.x

New Object Types You can broadcast BEx query views and formatted reports (reports) in addition to Web applications, queries and workbooks. Reports are a new BEx object type developed within the new BEx Report Designer tool.

New Output Formats New output formats are based on the distribution type you select. But, you now can broadcast web documents as PDF files.

New Broadcaster features of BI 7.x

New Distribution Types You can broadcast to any printer using Adobes PDF, Printer Common Language (psl) or Post Script (ps). (hint: Set up the printers under tools CCMS print).

You to broadcast user-specific information based on attributes in the master data attributes using a distribution list in BI (bursting of emails). The information can be controlled by the system so that users only see data related to them.

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New Broadcaster Features of BI 7.x (cont.)

Exception broadcasting is now available in the Broadcaster. Create the exceptions in the query designer and select distribution type in the broadcaster. You can also use additional distributions types (subordinate) and create rules for when the exception report is monitored/ executed. Exceptions can be based on single events or levels of any performance measure. NOTE: To manage all alerts and workflow tasks from a single location, an alert is integrated with the portals universal worklist in the central alert framework of NW application server. You can use multiple distribution types to create a setting that broadcasts over many channels (e.g., the printer and the portal).
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New Broadcaster Features of BI 7.x (cont.)

To increase the performance of key queries, you can fill the OLAP Cache, or the MDX Cache. This is useful if you have large numbers of users accessing a query, or you have a query that accesses a high volume of data. The Fill Precalculation Store distribution type allows you to precalculate Web templates, and the Precalculate Value Set option allows you to fill precalculated value set variables with values for characteristic values. The precalculated value sets are then available as variable values in BEx queries. Old Reporting Agent scenarios still run in NetWeaver BI 7.x. However, the Reporting Agent will not be developed any further and is removed from the BI 7.x Workbench. You can now only reach the Reporting Agent using transaction code REPORTING_AGENT

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Better web printing leveraging PDF and web controls

PDF based BEx Web printing now include a variety of functionality, such as:
1. Fit to page width

2. Repeat column headers 3. Fit to one page 4. Wallpaper 5. Page margins 6. Export Themes (e.g. black & white) 7. Format & Allignment 8. Additional Headers & Footers 9. Print graphics and tables
10.Batch Printing via Broadcaster
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BEx Query Designer gets a facelift

The 3.5x BEx Query Designer
This new property pane makes it easier to format and control displays than in the past.

You can choose if you want the old or the new look after the upgrade

The BI 7.x BEx Query Designer

Note:
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Why upgrade? - BEx Report Designer

This new 7.x tool was created to simplify the formatting of reports and fix many of the printing issues in previous versions of BW.
We now get color control, headerfooter control and many new features such as location control of cells and integration of pictures, charts and fixed text.

Source: SAP AG, 2008

For many, this tool may reduce the need for 3rd party tools to address structured reports.
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Why upgrade? The Remodeling Tool Box

In BI 7.x you get a new tool to add characteristics and key figures to your model. In older BW versions, if you forgot to include a field in your infocube , the rework was quite substantial and often involved reloading the infocube as well. In the first releases of BI 7, you could not transport the new models, now you can. You can also:
Remove, exchange, replace, add & fill dimension characteristics and key figures. NOTE: during (dictionary-based) conversion process, queries are not possible; aggregates will be automatically deactivated and must be rebuilt afterwards

Source: SAP AG, Richard Brown, Aug. 2008

NW BI 7.x goes a long way to address the complaints that BW is a hard to maintain environment with forever fixed models.

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Why upgrade? - Better security features

There are many new security features in NW BI 7.x, and a conversion is needed (all or nothing). Role menus are displayed in the portal and passwords becomes case sensitive.
Authorizations are fundamental building blocks of the new reporting concept and security contains both the data value and hierarchy restrictions. The new security can be built using new RSECADMIN transaction
Source: SAP AG

ASUG Security Upgrade by Eric Dwyer, Nike: http://www.asug.com/client_files/Calendar/Upload/EA1_upgrade_bw_security_2.ppt

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Why upgrade? - More Authorization Objects

Authorization objects for the Data Warehousing Workbench: S_RS_DS: For the DataSource or its sub objects (BI 7.x) S_RS_ISNEW: For new InfoSources or their sub objects (NW BI 7.x) S_RS_DTP: For the data transfer process and its sub objects S_RS_TR: For transformation rules and their sub objects S_RS_CTT: For currency translation types S_RS_UOM: For quantity conversion types S_RS_THJT: For key date derivation types S_RS_PLENQ: Authorizations for maintaining or displaying the lock settings S_RS_RST: Authorization object for the RS trace tool S_RS_PC: For process chains S_RS_OHDEST: Open Hub Destination You get the ability to use much lower Authorization objects for the Business Explorer: security granularity for S_RS_DAS: For Data Access Services developers and users!! S_RS_BTMP: For BEx Web templates S_RS_BEXTX: Authorizations for the maintenance of BEx texts

Authorization objects for the Admin of analysis authorizations S_RSEC: Authorization for assignment and administration of analysis authorizations S_RS_AUTH: Authorization object to include analysis authorizations in roles
Changed Authorization Objects: S_RS_ADMWB (Data Warehousing Workbench: Objects):

New sub objects: CONT_ACT Installing Business Content; USE_DND - Drag & Drop to InfoAreas and application components; CNG_RUN - Attribute change run Source: SAP AG July 2008

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Upgrading to BI 7.x Security

SAP has created an ABAP migration tool to help you upgrade security in NW BI 7.x. To access it, goto transaction code SA38, and execute migration program RSEC_MIGRATION.
About 80% of you security setup is expected to make it using this tool. i.e. customer exit variables for the object 0TCTAUTHH does not migrate, and you will have to manually reassign all hierarchy nodes. While you upgrade, the old security is left intact and you can switch back if absolutely needed (IMG setting). Plan to testtest..and test

More Great Details about the Security Upgrade at :

http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/ swp/Berg/Articles/ BI 7.x_Authorizations.pdf
(Source: Amelia Lo, SAP)

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Why Upgrade? - Better interface for ETL Design

On a typical DW project, 40-60% of project effort will be spent on data integration, transformation and loads (used to be higher when tools were more immature).

SAP NetWeaver BI 7.x has a new and better GUI and formula editors to write complex transfer rules, update rules and data mapping.
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Why upgrade? - BPS Integrated Planning (still supported)

1
InfoProvider

2
Aggregation Level

3
Filter

4
Planning Function

5
Planning Sequence

6
Pattern

You can now create planning templates using the web based planning wizard to create models using patterns in the data (tool: Road map Pattern). Queries based on aggregation levels can now also write back to the InfoProvider

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Source: SAP AG, 2008

Why upgrade? PDF Print

You can also use the PDF to create reports based on BEx web applications, queries and reports using the Adobe DS (comes with BI 7.x). The only Gotchas.. Your users now need to install Acrobat Reader (free at http://www.adobe.com/ products/acrobat/readstep2.html). The PDF document can also be Broadcasted through BEx Broadcaster
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The PDF options allows companies to protect reports from changes by employees by taking a snapshot of the data regardless of subsequent updates to the data warehouse.

Risks: no link back to SAP BW is needed and security is not validated.

Why upgrade? - Real-time Data warehousing gets better

NW BI 7.x has more features for updates that does not follow the typical asynchronomous (batch) updates. This include: 1. We can use XML to fill the PSA directly 2. Daemon-based update from delta queue (BW API) 3. Daemon-based update of the ODS and minimal logging

Note: XML documents creates many tags that will slow down large dataloads due to the size of each XML record (relatively large) However, it works great for smaller streams of data.
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Why upgrade? - BEx web Analyzer integrates Excel

The Excel integration in the BEx analyzer is far better. Unlike the old days of dynamic HTML, you can now use the BEx analyzer more like a real application without refreshing the whole page every time you click on something (this is due to the Java component in BI 7.x)

Source: SAP AG, 2008

News: BEx browser went away in BI 7.x

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Why upgrade? - Drag-and Drop in BeX web Analyzer

You can drag a characteristics into a filter area and automatically filter on that value, and you can also drag it into a column header or a a row. Building conditions and activating them was often confusing in earlier versions and exception based reporting was sometimes not easy to create for beginning users. BI 7.x has now simplified this with more wizards that helps users to build this step-by-step.
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BEx web analyzer is a better user tool than in the past. You now get the best world of Java & the web instead of the more clunky user experience related to Dynamic HTML

What Well 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

Examples Wrap up Bonus material: ideas for the business case

26

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. We now have SAP BI 7.0 and the content releases 7.0.1 and 7.0.2 and 7.0.3 are now available. Planned upgrades should also include the content release 7.0.3.

Details around each content release is available at http://help.sap.com The current content (7.0.3) is available at: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/
helpdata/en/ 44/16e6f7a6f30d19e10000000a114a6b/RN_703_en_final.pdf

Apply content when you need it, to the technical release you have!!
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How can you weigh the choices of Technical or Functional?

Technical
Less Time

Functional
Longer Project Tons of New Functionality Increased User Satisfaction Opportunity to Sunset other BI solutions

Less Money Less Risk Less Functionality

Source: SAP AG

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Weighing Towards a Technical Upgrade

A technical upgrade is the safest way to proceed It is also the fastest and the least expensive
Your user community will notice little to no change UNTIL you start rolling out the new functionality
Source: SAP AG

Technical

Functional

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Weighing Towards a Functional Upgrade

A functional upgrade (which includes all the technical activities) will make the biggest impression on your user community This will take longer and cost more money

Technical

Functional

You will be able to sunset other solutions sooner

You will get the most benefits from usability and management

Source: SAP AG

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An Upgrade Strategy
Think bigger than BW..
Tip

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 SAPs release strategy for each component you are using and plan ahead,instead of last-minute mustdo projects.
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Some hints on the upgrade client, engines and usage types

We are in a transition period, when some items of BI 7.x are separate engines, some are clients, and other are usage types. Key question: is you organization committed to java and the new BI 7.x direction? -- if so, go java all the way..
Note: standard system copy and SAP migration tools have no standard support for splitting or merging systems with different usage types

Source: SAP Installable software units

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Some upgrade choices the architecture 1

Upgrade

Or

Upgrade

Or

Upgrade

Or
Source: SAP AG May 2006

Note: Depending on your current installation of SAP BW, you have different upgrade options
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What Well 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

Examples Wrap up Bonus material: ideas for the business case

34

Typical Training Requirements

Technical Upgrade
Basis Training on new solution, if necessary
Could also be handled via Knowledge Transfer from Integration Partner

Basic Mgmt of Netweaver Portal (if deploying)

Functional Upgrade
Development Team Delta Training (DBW70E) Report / Presentation Team Delta Training (DBW70R) Integrated Planning Training (DBW70P) User Training for new tools

35 35

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. You need to have the SAP solution Manager to generate the key during the upgrade to NW2004 SR1, and you will need to be on Solution Manager release 3.2 SP8 or higher to make it work (note: 805390).

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NetWeaver BI 7.x Upgrade paths

Current Release BW 3.5 (min. SP04) and ABAP, any content release (3.5.x) BW 3.1c (min. SP14) content 3.2 or 3.3 BW 3.0B (min SP20) BW 2.1C (min. SP18) BW 2.0B (min. SP26 & Basis SP29) Other SAP BI 3.5 Java components (i.e. UDI) on WAS-Java NW 2004s Release/support NetWeaver 2004s usage type ABAP, (usage BI java and EP can be add-ins or separate systems. Must be upgraded to SAP BW 3.5 first and then BI7.0 (upgrade with NetWeaver 2004s Support release 1) System with usage type SAP AS Java

BW Ve rsio n
2.0B 2.1C 3.0A 3.0B 3.1C 3.2 3.3 3.5

Re le ase date
8/14/00 12/18/00 11/15/01 5/13/02 11/11/02 3/31/03 8/30/03 3/31/04

End o f mainstre am mainte nanc e

12/31/2005 12/31/2005 12/31/2005 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 12/31/2006 3/31/2010

Can be upgrade d to
2.1C, 3.0B, 3.1C, 3.50/3.51 3.0B, 3.1C, 3.50/3.51 3.0B, 3.1C, 3.50/3.51 3.1C, 3.50/3.51 3.2 and 3.3 must be applied before 3.5 3.3 must be applied before 3.5 3.5

Still supported

37

Some hints Upgrade programs SAPup and SAPjup You will need to install the NetWeaver Application Server Java and the specific user type, before you can use all the features of BI 7.x (i.e. Business planning and analysis services, Enterprise data warehousing, Reporting and analysis scenarios etc). You can install this as a separate system or as an add-in to the upgraded ABAP server. SAP provides a software program called SAPup to help you upgrade the WAS (ABAP) and SAP BW. It is called a system switch upgrade.

Note: if you already have java installed, you can also use the upgrade program called SAPjup, to upgrade the WAS-java.
If the WAS-Java was installed on the same system as the WASABAP (as an add-in) you need to run both the SAPup and SAPjup programs in parallel (see the Master upgrade guide for more details).
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Some hints on the upgrade - Unicode conversion

G o o d

Unicode has been available since BW version 3.5.1. and is now highly recommended as part of the upgrade (hint web application T h i n g designer is now also unicode compliant). Some things to remember and plan for:
Area Memory Processing power Disk space Recommended increased capacity 20% 20-25% 20-30% 45-50%

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Planning Your Upgrade a Hardware Example

Example
Production 12 CPU 96GB RAM Sandbox 4 CPUs 32GB RAM

This west coast company reallocated their Sun-6900 box (on Oracle) and have 3 Appservers on the production box.. 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 (BEx Broadcaster) The hardware also allows them to have a system where performance between the boxes are comparable.

Development

4 CPUs 32GB RAM

Test 4 CPUs 32GB RAM

Key numbers: 3.1 Terabytes of data; 2810 named users and about 620 active users

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Resources
Team Lead

Basis resource

Technical reviewer BW Developer

Upgrade Support External

Regression Testers

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.
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Sample Timeline - complete landscape for large BW implementation

W1
Project startup and Team training Preparation for upgrade of Sandbox system and roll out of SAPGui Upgrade Sandbox system Test functionality and decide what to implement in upgrade (What has the best ROI) Plan upgrade of production landscape And roll out of new functionality to users Upgrade development system Test and validate upgrade Implement new functionality Upgrade Test system (Copy of production if possible) Test and validate Test system and user training & roll out of SAPGui Upgrade Production system Test and validate Production system

W2

W3

W4

W5

W6

W7

W8

W9 W10 W11 W12

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
The more content you have the longer the upgrade (the more you have to regression test) 42

Minimum Timeline and Basic events:

Do initial upgrade guide and note research [1-2 days] Upgrade BW sandbox and do Upgrade a copy of

cursory issues check [1-4 days]

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)] any correctional transports. [3-5 days?]

Once the initial regression test is complete, create

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. Plan for regression test glitches and production cut-over.
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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, youd 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, youve already done a dry run just do production and copy back to production support unless the size makes this impractical [~ >500GB]
Don't Forget

Hardware requirements changed if you also did unicode conversion (recommended)

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What Well 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

Examples Wrap up Bonus material: ideas for the business case

45

Step -1: Hardware install and BWS Copy

BWX BWD BWQ
3 1 2 4

BWP

In this real example, we are also installing new Hardware. This gives us lot of flexibility First, we copy the old development system to the new Sandbox (new HW)
Feb 4 11 18 25 3 10 March 17 24 31 April 7 14

BWS

BWX

BWX

BWX
January 21 28

Hardware install Copy BWD to new BWS Upgrade DB2 to latest version Post processing of box Rename/restore old BWS box Download latest patches for upgrade

46 46

Step -1: BWS Unicode conversion, Java upgrade & test

BWX BWD BWQ
3 1 2 4

BWP

At this stage you should document and test all work that occurs. Some time has to be set aside for notes research and unforeseen issues. We want to creating a repeatable process, so no ad-hoc activities are allowed.
Feb March 18 25 3 10 17 24 31 April 7 14 4 11

BWS

BWX

BWX

BWX
January 21 28

Start upgrade BWS Start shadow instance SPDD start ICNV start Start syst. downtime upgrade activity Complete BWS upgrade Post processing Basis and functional testing Unicode conversion Java upgrade

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Step -2: System copies

BWX BWX BWX
3 1 2 4

BWP

You now freeze the development and can take copies of the BWD and BWQ system and prepare for upgrades. The old BWP is still running as the productive system..

BWS

BWD

BWQ

BWX
January 21 28 4 11 Feb 18 25 3 10 March 17 24 31 April 7 14

Copy BWD Development freeze Rename BWD Copy BWQ Rename BWQ Copy PDW (no rename yet). It is still the production system..
48 48

Step -3: BWD upgrade

BWX BWX BWX
3 1 2 4

BWP

We now repeat the process. Remember, you have already upgraded BWD once (in step-1) and should know the need for any post processing. Don't ignore the need for technical and functional testing.
Feb March 18 25 3 10 17 24 31 April 7 14 4 11

BWS

BWD

BWQ

BWX
January 21 28

Complete Prepare on BWD Apply fixes Start upgrade BWD Start shadow instance SPDD start ICNV start Start syst. downtime upgrade activity Complete BWD upgrade Post processing Basis and functional testing Unicode conversion Java upgrade

49

Step -4: The real test -- BWQ upgrade

BWX BWX BWX
3 1 2 4

BWP

Notice, we refreshed the new BWQ from BWP, so this is really a BWP upgrade

BWS

BWD

BWQ

BWX
January 21 28 4 11 Feb 18 25 3 10 March 17 24 31 April 7 14

Complete Prepare on BWQ Apply fixes Start upgrade BWQ Start shadow instance SPDD start ICNV start Start syst. downtime upgrade activity Complete BWQ upgrade Post processing Basis and functional testing conversion Unicode Java upgrade Functional test and go/no-go decision

50

Step -5: The Big One: Cut-Over weekend.

BWX
1

BWX
2

BWX
3 4

BWX

BWS

BWD

BWQ

BWP
January 21 28 4

Contingencies should be made. I.e. notice that is any showstoppers occur on 20th, the old BWP can be renamed back, or if the time becomes too short the Unicode can be done the next weekend.
Feb 11 18 25 3 10 March 17 24 31 7 14 April 18 19 20 21

Java install Remove data in new system Rename BWP Complete Prepare on BWP Apply fixes Start upgrade BWP Start shadow instance SPDD start ICNV start Start syst. downtime upgrade activity Complete BWP upgrade Post processing Basis testing Functional test Unicode conversion (TBD)

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Lessons learned
Old version Duration Scope Number of environments Number of core team members Hardware switch Testing Unicode Hardware Mfg. 3.1C 10 weeks Retail 3.5.3 9 weeks Government 3.5.3 10 weeks Finance 3.1C 12 weeks Energy 3.5.3 14 weeks

3 Tb/900 users 6 Tb/300 users 1 Tb/80 users 9 5 4 4 No 2 weeks No Sun 3 No 2 weeks Yes IBM Unicode took a bit longer than expected. Wait with rollout of new functionality until you have a stable environment

7 Tb/1,200 users 4 Tb/500 users 4 4

Lessons Learned

Have the right people in place. Wait until they are available and have a core business team for short bursts of testing

4 5 3 Yes Yes No 3 weeks 4 weeks 2 weeks Yes Yes No Sun Sun IBM If possible, reload the data during Unicode Could have done Did not have the conversion this faster, if right technical (faster). business people people involved. Hardware had been This added 6 switch removed scheduled for weeks to an a lot of risk and testing earlier. otherwise made the Otherwise straight-forward upgrade faster. smooth process. upgrade.

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What Well 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

Examples Wrap up Bonus material: ideas for the business case

53

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 all 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 BI 7.x upgrade is an extensive one and you should treat it as so. Cross reference new features & functionality with your organizations pain pointsand ensure the upgrade costs do not exceed the business benefits
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What is next?

do not exceed the business benefits

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Resources
COMERIT (presentations, articles, accellerators)
www.comerit.net

The document NW BI 7.x Upgrade master Guide is available at https://websmp108.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700005412772005E.pdf

Business content and extractors SAP BI 7.0.3 available at http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04s/helpdata/en/44/16e6f7a6f30d19e10000000a114a6b/ RN_703_en_final.pdf Component upgrade guide SAP Netweaver BI 7.x ABAP available at http://help.sap.com

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Your Turn!

How to contact me: Dr. Bjarne Berg bberg@comerit.net

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The Business Case for upgrading Some ideas

Strategic: Timing of releases - BI 7.x is a major BI release - better to absorb it and new technologies now Technology like Java and EP usage type is mature and stable enough for productive use All included technologies are the future of SAP software development - unicode, java and portal especially - it is better for the technical team to become experienced in installing and maintaining them in a non critical application like reporting and data analysis before applying this know-how to mission critical applications like mySAP ERP 2005/ECC 6.0 (R3) While BI 7.x has a lot of new technology, much of which has been tested for over ten months, there is no requirement to convert to newer features on upgrade - BW 3.x content can be migrated scenario by scenario. Integrated Planning features are the best planning approach Technical: Better administration capability thru Netweaver Administrator - and BW load and query statistics have been redesigned and a cockpit provided which includes better process chain support Unicode support The GUI component, used by developers even if end users are 100% web based, is in maintenance and SAP supported past 2010. In addition, the Visual composer component can be used for development, which may shorten KPI reporting request turnaround time. BI capability is integrated into the new ECC - but will likely not be used as an integrated reporting component. Utilizing the BI 7.x BI usage type allows early adoption and testing of enterprise services BI Accelerator capable - indexes InfoCube data - acts as super fast aggregate to overcome bad modeling or design or simply huge data volumes. (hardware based, provided separately) New additional support for near-line storage of infrequently used data
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The Business Case for upgrading Some ideas

Functional: Security changes - new model is provider oriented, not the old R3 transactional model - enables better architecture of security solution for reporting, dashboarding and planning - new security implementation has enhanced monitoring, auditing and test tools. Better linked extract performance - helps with larger volume extracts, consolidated data transfer Better now before a larger volume of data, larger user community and more content requires testing or is affected by downtime Allows greater automation and self service capability, freeing business experts for more strategic and less daily operational workload. (source SAP What's new in BI 7.x)

Migration towards single user interface (via EP usage type) in place, tested and scalable before ERP upgrade
One BI Toolset - Report Design takes place in the new BEx Report Designer Specific new components which may drive a component based business justification: (source: SAP
New Developments in SAP BI)

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The Business Case for upgrading Some ideas

Modeling new features: remodeling toolbox - change InfoCubes without rebuilding them enhanced datastore objects (ODS) - write optimized objects enhanced InfoSets (can integrate InfoCubes into join with time dependent Master data) new, unified datasource definitions enhanced remote capability - remote master data access without replication better EDW transformation - graphic UI, simplification of transfer rules, new end and expert routines unit conversion - new capabilities during data load and reporting streamlined Data Flow control definition and process chain build - includes better real-time data acquisition new Data Transfer Process (DTP) for better transparency, filtering and parallism in staging, and delta management Real time EDW push from XML to PSA vs delta queue Completely redesigned Administration Cockpit and Statistics for BI runtime, Data load and new Data load status stats. redesigned BW "Warehousing Workbench" Improved Business Content Analysis - overview, search and analysis capability New process chain functionality and process types Better Data quality thru improved error handling Re-partitioning capability - removes drop and rebuild restriction 60

The Business Case for upgrading Some ideas

Reporting new features: Redesigned Business Explorer Suite of tools... New Query Designer tool is VB, .NET based unicode compliant, and has enhanced UI features. New Query Designer supports multi-selected objects, and has options for BI Integrates planning New report designer tool for better formatted reporting BEx integrated Web Application Design - more model driven with new layout chart and map wizards New Web App designer -new layout elements, web items, chart types (GANTT) and is planning aware Improved intuitive ad-hoc design on the web with better drag and drop PDF based BEx web printing Excel based data entry capability New Information Broadcasting features (query views, formatted reports, data bursting, exception broadcast, alerts etc) Visual Composer BI kit for modeling BI applications - can integrate heterogeneous DataSources (OLAP/relational) Planning Improvements - speed of analysis, access to real-time data for forecasting, planning wizard using roadmap pattern Planning capability built into Query designer - ie queries based on aggregation level can write back to infoprovider Planning layouts can be done in Web Application designer - create-configure layout, bind data and configure interaction
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