Parameters of table RSFRONTENDINIT

Within this post I want to introduce few interesting facts about this table. A first fact (and very obvious one) is that table is dedicated to frontend requirements of particular BW system. The minimum frontend requirements for any backend Support Pack are stored here. Below see description of parameters stored in the table. Most of them are not documented at all. The case might be that are supposed to be used only internally by SAP. We all know that sometimes even internal settings may help in specific situations. That was also my motivation to write this blog post. 

I used to analyze SAP BW standard code in order to explore parameters meaning. Might be that I’m not always right about their meaning. Therefore I would encourage you to share your experience with the parameters. On other hand there is at least one SAP note discussing some of parameters - 1510916 - Collective Note: RS_FRONTEND_INIT parameters. Notice that in the most cases listed below parameters set to X means it is switch ON – enabled.

1.    Values in this table are being customized by calling transaction RS_FRONTEND_INIT.

2.    Table validation from Solution Manager (SolMan) – content of this table can be validated from SolMan by Configuration Validation functionality. By this values are compared and validated between one reference system and several target systems.

3.    Meaning of parameters: VER_MIN_ANA*:

a.    VER_MIN_ANA:        minimum revision of BExAddin.dll, e.g. 140

b.    VER_MIN_ANA_3X:   minimum revision of sapbex.xla

c.    VER_MIN_ANA_7X:   minimum revision of BExAnalyzer.xla

d.    VER_MIN_ANA_SAPBEX0: minimum revision of RRMX launcher (sapbex0.xla)

4.    Meaning of parameter ANA_CTX_SENS_DBL_CLK: activation of context sensitive double click functionality within navigation over hierarchy nodes in BW report’s output. 1345468 - BExAnalyzer: context sensitive double click on hier. nodes

5.    ANA_FLAG_EXAMPLE – setting of BEx Query Analyzer? , e.g. Y

6.    ANA_SINGLEDPREFRESH – If you have a workbook with several queries and you aim to refresh single query set this to X. , e.g. X

7.    ANA_USE_INPUT_TABLE - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. X

8.    ANA_USE_SIDGRID - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. X

9.    ANA_USE_TABLE - setting of BEx Query Analyzer, Performance improvement for frontend/backend communication, 1179647 - Performance: Network load in BEx Analyzer, e.g. X

10. BUFFER_CONTAINS_DATA – Special usage of note 1094799 - Corrections in the BEx Analyzer server runtime, e.g. X

11. OS_FLAG_EXAMPLE - ? , e.g. Z

12. QD_EXCLUSIVE_USER - setting of BEx Query Designer, used to restrict access to Query Designer 7.x. By this you can protect your BW 3.x based queries from accidental and unwanted migration to 7.x version. 962530 - NW04s: How to restrict access to Query Designer 2004s

13. QD_FLAG_EXAMPLE - setting of BEx Query Designer, ? , e.g. X

14. SERVER_VERSION – version of SAP BW backend, format: XXXYY, XXX – BW version, YY – Support Pack level, e.g. 70019

15. TEXT_VERSION - allows to force text cache update on all frontends, e.g. 0002

16. VER_ACT_ANA - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 140

17. VER_ACT_OS - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 0

18. VER_ACT_QD - actual version of BEx Query Designer, e.g. 229

19. VER_ACT_RD - actual version of BEx Query Report Designer, e.g. 132

20. VER_ACT_SEL - actual version of BEx Query Analyzer, e.g. 0

21. VER_ACT_WAD - actual version of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 154

22. VER_MIN_OS - minimum version Operation System, e.g. 0

23. VER_MIN_QD – minimum version of BEx Query Designer, e.g. 229

24. VER_MIN_RD - minimum version of BEx Report Designer, e.g. 132

25. VER_MIN_SEL - ? , e.g. 0

26. VER_MIN_WAD - setting of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 143

27. WAD_OBJ_VERSION - setting of BEx Web Application Designer, e.g. 3

BW specific ABAP report RS_SYSTEM_SHUTDOWN

This report is used to prepare BW system for activities like system restart or system copy. To list at least some of basic activities for which shutdown is required:

·         Start and stop of system for some reason (e.g. error no OS level, file system etc.)

·         Migration, system copy

·         Saving and recovering data (back or restore of system)

Report was introduced with BW 7.1 version which is version of BW just used by used by Business ByDesign (ByD). Before ABAP Stack based BW systems is shutdown activities that are in progress in BW must be stopped. In case you going for soft shutdown which means BW system is not prepared for restart all active background jobs are canceled. Similarly data acquisition daemons (RDS) jobs are terminated without stopping the daemons.  No open data requests are closed. We can avoid issues like this while using this report. 

Report basically does following activities:

·         Stop/ restart  process chains

·         Stop/ restart  real-time data acquisition

After properly executed system restart you can use same report to start demands again. As of Support Package 07 for SAP NetWeaver 7.1 BI (SAPKW71007) report is RFC enabled.

Reference material:

Basic Administration Tasks

1122236 - RS_SYSTEM_SHUTDOWN: Warning in the case of open RDA requests

1225876 - RS_SYSTEM_SHUTDOWN: Function module

886102 - System Landscape Copy for SAP NetWeaver BW

How determine SAP BW server version

Basically this is nothing else just the version of SAP BW. There are (of course) several ways how to find it out. 

1. Via menu System. The very basic and the most common way is to have a look to system status information. This can be done while you are logged into B system via SAP GUI. Here go to menu System->Status:

Here choose Component information:

He Here we see that BW is of version 7.00 and the highest Service Pack installed is no 20.

2. Table where this information can be find. Also you can have a look where information about all installed software components if stored. The table name is called CVERS. You need to supply SAP_BW into field COMPONENT. Here’s output:

Are you aware of any other ways? Tell it in the comment :-)

Source system connection tool

If you need to test several source systems in BW it is quite time consuming and boring task. You have to go to TA RSA1 in section of Source systems and manual right click on every source that has to be tested. In order to automate this task and of course to get test done faster SAP provide useful tool. It called Source system connection tool. It is available via transaction RS_LOGSYS_CHECK (ABAP report RS_LOGSYS_ACTIVATE).

Whatever activity you want to perform on particular system you just simply check any of check boxes like: Check, Activate, Restore and then you run it. Once it is finished you see lights icon next to source system informing you about its status. Furthermore you can check log of this activity. Of course you can run the tests on several systems in one shot.

What is little bit surprising to me is the fact that this tool is quite old. It was available in BW systems since BW version 3.0 :-)

System manipulation error message

Here another stories about odd SAP BW system messages. This time it is error message that you may face after or during system copies. Especially in case system copy was not properly or entirely finished. When you would run e.g. TA RSA1 during system copy it may appear. The message is following:

"system manipulation!!!" SAP BW R3208

Internal control tables have been changed manually in the system by someone in your company. This leads to errors in all the connections to other systems.
To prevent further manipulation of the tables, you are no longer able to make changes in the system.

 

Issue is cause by mixed entries in RSBASIDOC table. Resolution is manual check of content of this table followed by manual adjustment of entries in this table. It can be for example that you have 2 systems with same names assigned (e.g. two myself BW system).

See some other stories about SAP system error messages:

SAP system crashes

BEx related error messages:

librfc32.dll troubles

Few more BEx messages 2

SAP BW: BEx Connectivity Issue

Error when opening BEx Query Analyzer under SAP GUI 7.10

DSO objects related error messages:

Further checking of broken DSO objects

Customizing of BW frontend version

You can force your user to use BEx 3.x or either 7.x version of BW frontend.  This means that while users execute TA RRMX or RRMXP (for workbooks), it will open for them specific BEx Analyzer version.

Notice that possibilities described below are only valid for SAP BW frontend (so called BI Add-On) within the following range: 700X.X.XXXX.525. 

If you are running BW 7.x with Support Package 10 and above:

1. Central customizing: TA SPRO -> Display -> SAP Customizing Implementation Guide -> SAP NetWeaver -> Business Intelligence -> Settings for Reporting and Analysis -> General Settings for Reporting and Analysis -> Set BEx Analyzer Version -> Choose the version of BEx Analyzer you want. Notice that above mentioned customizing path can be accessible via TA RRMX_CUST.

2. Manual customizing 1: Setting done as described in central customizing section above can be overridden for specific users: by maintaining parameter ID RRMX_VERSION (Version of BEx Analyzer used by transaction RRMX) in user’s master data (System -> User profile -> Own data -> Parameters). Here’s values for parameter:

a.    : starts BEx Analyzer depending on object version (e.g. workbook)

b.    3.x: starts the 3.x version of the BEx Analyzer

c.    70: starts the SAP NetWeaver 7.0 version of the BEx Analyzer

3. Manual customizing 2: Modifying of settings on level of operating system. Within OS Windows here’s registry entry: KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SAP\BEx\Analyzer. Notice that registry modification is not very advisable.

3. Manual customizing 3:  Modifying parameter QD_EXCLUSIVE_USER of table RS_FRONTEND_INIT. Here you can specify list of user for whom SAP NetWeaver 7.0 version of the BEx Analyzer shall be allowed. This parameter has a limitation of 30 characters. If you need to specify longer list of users proceed with workaround as described in SAP Note 962530 - NW04s: How to restrict access to Query Designer 2004s (FM RS_SYSTEM_INFORMATION modification). Wildcard (*) can be used and several user must be separated by comma.

If you are running BW 7.x below Support Package 10:

1. Central customizing: maintain parameter RRMX_VERSION_CUST in table RSADMIN.

BWA – Business Warehouse Accelerator – composite post

After few other composite notes related to HANA and BW 7.3 I’m coming with another SAP technology which (even though I write about it) deserver separate composite post.

BWA formerly known as BIA is a technology for accelerating access to data in BW. Data from cubes are being indexed into different – compressed and column based form represented in form of file. From file data is being cached in memory (blades). For details see my previous post. BWA can be considered as predecessor of HANA.

BWA SDN homepage, Market place homepage

Documentation:  
Administration of BWA
Installation Guide - BWA 7.20 
Update Guide – BWA 7.20

1393505 BWA 7.20: Central note

1392570 BWA 7.20: Installation 

1392526 BWA 7.20: Update

BWA Support Toolkit (note 1517326, introducing blog) 

Revisions overview: BWA 7.00  BWA 7.20 Note 1148111 - BW Accelerator Revision / BW Support Package - Compatibility 

Blogs:

Part I: BIA Changes Everything!

Part II: Preparing for a SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator Implementation

Part III: Checking Data Consistency with SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator

Part IV: BIA Monitoring and Maintenance

Part V: Aggregates vs. BIA

Part VI: Custom Development

Part VII: Disaster Tolerance and Backup And Recovery for BI Accelerator

Part VIII: Improvements and major parameter changes for BI Accelerator

BIA Index Build Job Demystified

BIA Index rollup
Top 10 transactions for BWA management
The need for SAP BWA

Trainings:
BW - Business Warehouse Accelerator BW361 v074

- 28/09/2011 update -
BWA has reached its ultimate version. It is 7.20. As of this final version there will be only revisions comming as regular product's fixes but not new development planned for BWA. SAP's strategy to replace BWA by HANA.  
Current end dates:
End of mainstream maintenance: 31.12.2015 
End of extended maintenance: 31.12.2017


Check Product Availability Matrix for details. 

- 14/01/2012 update -
SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator is NOT Dead

System change option for SAP BW systems

This topic is quite often being discussed in SDN’s forums. The thing is how to set up BW system client’s setting in order to allow:

1.    Successful source system connection creation

2.    Customize settings on BW object’s settings in production environment

Basically all the relevant settings must be done in two transactions: SCC4 – client independent related settings and SE06 – name-space settings.

1.    In case we are about to create connection from SAP BW to its SAP based source system we need to so called open the system. This is done in TA SCC4 via settings following options:

a.    Changes to repository and cross-client customizing allowed

b.    Automatic recording of changes

c.    CATT and eCATT are allowed

Moreover you need to set following changes to name-spaces:

a.    Customer name-spaces set to modifiable

b.    Customer developments HOME set to modifiable

c.    Local developments (no auto transport) LOCAL set to modifiable

d.    SAP BW SAP name-space /BI0/ set to modifiable

e.    SAP BW customer name-space /BIC/ set to modifiable

Notice that after successful source system creation you need to close system reverting those settings.

2.    Speaking about BW systems system settings in production environment. This scenario highly depends on practices within particular organization. E.g. there might be rules in place like all the developments event objects like InfoPackages, DTP, starter variants of Process Chains must be created in DEV system and transported afterwards to PROD. However some organization can freely allow e.g. objects mentioned above to be changed in PROD environments. To customize this there is a tool called Transport Connection introduced. Tool is available in TA Administrator Workbench (RSA1)->Transport Connection or directly via TA RSOR. Within its Object changeability we can set particular objects to “not changeable” or “changeable” state. This is then influencing either developer/admin can change those objects without being asked for transport request.

For more details see:

184586 - System change option and BW