When SAP BEx will die?

-      - Update on 13/03/2019 –

It is clear now that BEx is obsolete. As BEx Analyzer front end tool as per SAP Note 2609031 is being sun setting and development part – BEx Query Designer is being replaced.

The BEx Analyzer shall be migrated to Analysis for Office and BEx Query Designer shall be migrated to Eclipse plugin– BW Modelling tools.

More info:

2609031 - Sunset of BW Business Explorer (BEx)

1322923 - Maintenance strategy / deadlines BW Business Explorer (BEx)

2095909 - BW Business Explorer (BEx) and dependencies on Microsoft Office, operating systems, and browsers

1995532 - BI 7.x tools - HW\SW requirements and Compatibility of Microsoft Operating Systems and Office Products

2333840 - BI 7.x tools in 750 - General Information & Limitations

-      - Original post - 

Might be that you got similar questions from your customers as well. SAP is replacing its BEx portfolio with BusinessObjects. What shall we do? Start to look for new BW front end? Try to still to BEx as long as possible? Can we live without support from its producer? In case we should switch to other tool, what tool to pick up?

In this post I just try to focus on topic of how long SAP is going to maintain BEx releases. In particular we need to distinguish between developing of new BEx version and its maintenance.

In case of 2nd question related to BEx version maintenance we have nice SAP note 1322923 - Maintenance strategy / deadlines BW Business Explorer (BEx) which answers this. SAP is maintaining BEx per different operation systems (OS). For those OSs which are not supported by their vendor; SAP stops maintenance as well. This date is called de-support date. After expiration of OS manufacturer support SAP is checking compatibility of BEx patches for approximately 1 year. This is called post mortem QA procedure. Just to highlight most used OSs:

Windows XP Professional:

De-Support: March 31, 2014

          Post mortem QA: until December 31, 2014

Windows 7:

De-Support: January 13, 2015

          Post mortem QA: January 14, 2020

In case of 1^st question developing of new BEx versions we can refer above mentioned SAP Note as well. It is said in there that within the upcoming versions of SAP GUI (currently under the shipment phase is version 7.3) there will be new versions of BEx as well. We all know how it is with SAP Notes. They all get updated from time to time. I would not be surprised if there will be no such a sentence in future in this note. Therefore we need some other more less “official” SAP sources related to this topic. According SDN’s Bex homepage; quote: “BEx is continuing being delivered within next SAP NW BW and currently there is no is no planned end of life”.

Whatever SAP has ever said days of BEx are not that bright as it would be seen. BusinessObjects portfolio is proffered by SAP. This might be experienced while you would be talked to SAP accounts managers. I have also seen projects where customer was assessing several BI frontend tools and SAP applied only with BusinessObjects and not with BEx. Of course that non SAP BusinessObjects has won.

However you perceive this topic I would say that SAP BEx will be with us for some time and there is no hurry to replace it in midterm perspective.

To see for how long your version of SAP GUI will be supported see following post:

When your SAP GUI will die?

I/O database operations

You might hear mostly from SAP basis people about I/O database operation. They used to refer to that in case something in SAP system is getting to be processed very slowly.

Basically I/O operation of any computer system or part of computer system refers to communication between two parts of system. E.g. Part A of the system passes information to part B of the system. B then return processed information back to part A.

From DB point of view we would say that any operation in the DB is I/O one. As it has to get information as an input; process it and return back information about its status.

In SAP BW we have so called intensive I/O database operations which are time and resources consuming and usually effects large portions of data. Those are following:

Index oriented: creating/rebuild/coalescing/fragmentation of indexes

Table oriented: conversions, reorganization

Client/system oriented: client/system copies/deletions, Unicode conversion

DB statistics: generating

Others: objects validation, DB media recovery, incremental conversion

For further studying this topic see following links:

Difference between DB and BW statistic

Note 806554 - FAQ: I/O-intensive database operations

Note 588668 - FAQ: Database statistics

P.S. Google calls their annual web developer conference as Google I/O :-)

How to clear BW/(SAP AS) caches

There are several places across BW tools from where clearing of different types of cache can be done.

BEx Web Application Designer metadata cache: stores metadata information about objects related to web templates. You can also delete the cache in which metadata information belonging to current opened template within the session to BW backend. To delete this cache choose in BW Web Application Designer: Menu Tools -> Setting -> Delete cache -> Delete cache. Documentation for NW2004 can be found here. This is not valid for BW based on version 7.x.

 

OLAP Cache: so called Query cache is type of cache is used to buffer BW queries data sets to be available for next query run. In this case OLAP processor first checks cache and do not need to read the data out of BW infoproviders. To clear OLAP cache run TA RSRT -> Cache monitor -> Delete or you can go via TA RSRCACHE. Online docu here. If you want to do it from your custom ABAP program you may use function module: RSR_CACHE_CLEAR_ALL_CACHES.

 

HTTP server cache: this is related to HTTP server build in SAP AS server. You can clear it via TA SMICM -> Goto -> HTTP server cache -> Invalidate cache -> Global in system. Online docu here.

BW Accelerator Consulting Services by SAP AG

I have write few posts about SAP services provided by SAP Active Global Support (AGS) like BW Go live Optimization session and moreover also about how to prepare your BW systems for those sessions. In current post I focus on services provided by SAP AG for SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator (BWA). Notice that BWA was renamed from Business Intelligence Accelerator (BIA) in January 2009.

There are 2 main groups of BWA services:

1. Consulting services:

1.A Pulse Check Service: Aim is to identify possible BI Accelerator use cases or changes to implement it in your landscape.

- Data model analysis, collection of key BI Accelerator queries.

- Evaluation of key queries on customer system (to identify critical impact of BI Accelerator on queries and maintenance).

1.B. Proof-of-Concept Service:

- Lab environment (remote): Customer provides real business data to SAP

- Customer system (on-site): Evaluation of predefined query scenarios with BI Accelerator on customer BW 7.0 production system.

1.C. Full Implementation Service: Regular implementation of BWA through complete implementation cycle.

- Installation, Configuration and Upgrades

- Performance Optimization Activities

- Post-Installation Assistance

1.D. Health Check: Help existing customers to maximize performance of BWA.

2. workshops:

W26BII (INTRODUCTORY) High-level introduction for new users

1. Architecture and Infrastructure

- TREX/BW Accelerator Services

- BW Accelerator Engine Details

- BW Accelerator Index Concepts

2. Operating BW Accelerator

- Creating BW Accelerator Indexes

- Updating BW Accelerator Indexes

- Query Execution with BW Accelerator

3. Administration and Maintenance

- BW Accelerator Monitor (RSDDBIAMON2)

- TREX Admin Tool (TREXADMIN)

W26BIA (ADVANCED) Deep technical knowledge for power users

1. Administration and Maintenance

- Installation and Upgrades

- Adding and Removing Blades

- Python TREX Administration Tool

- TREX AlertServer

- Resource Usage Analysis

2. Performance Analysis and Optimization

- Indexing Performance

- Query Performance

3. Troubleshooting

- Root-Cause Analysis

- Advanced Monitoring Concepts

- High Availability

For details of those services see here.

Preparation for SAP Remote Services/Sessions for BW

There are certain SAP services provided by SAP Active Global Support (AGS) like BW Go live Optimization session which might help customers to run their BW solution better. You as an customer can request those session via raising customer message on OSS in area: Remote Service Request of component: SV-BO-REQ and type query: Request for the Delivery of a Remote Service (for details see Note 560499 - Global Support Customer Interaction: Telephone/fax/e-mail or service.sap.com/goinglivecheck).

Once you requested it you need to prepare your system for connection from SAP. Basically there are following main requirements:

1. Your BW system must have the latest ST-SER release 701_2010_1 on the Solution Manager. Otherwise SAP cannot perform any of remote session.

2. You must have a SAP Solution Manager 7.0 (formerly 4.0) with Support Package (SP) 15 or higher installed in your system landscape

There is an ABAP report called RTCCTOOL provided that helps you to determine either you are running correct software components. Report is analyzing tools that you need for SAP sessions by online connecting to SAP OSS. Missing articles like notes, add-ons are listed afterwards. You need to implement this missing stuff before session. For details about RTCCTOOL report see SAP Note 69455.

3. Performance collectors (TA ST03N) and OS collectors (ST06) are configured and running properly.

4. Users that you going to provide SAP must have proper authorization to perform the session. Usually users with authorization profiles SAP_ALL and SAP_NEW are provided.

5. You need to open connection to particular system that is going to be examined on OSS. Particularly following types of connection are needed to be opened:

- R/3 Support
- BW GUI
- BW RFC
- HTTP Connections (if using type BW Java e.g. for web reporting)

6. BW statistics should be up and running.

For more details see SAP Note 160777.

To see all detailed description of all Support Services for Customers using SAP Enterprise Support Services see following SDN link.

What year 2010 gave to SDN?

I started last year (2009) with brief summarization of initiatives that were newly introduced on SDN. This time let me continue and take a look on new stuff that year 2010 brought on the SDN field. Following here few new SDN initiatives:

1. Idea Place: ideas.sap.com is an place where SCN community members can put ideas in any area of an relation to SAP products, services etc.
2. SAP Community Network Shop, SAP Premium Educational Products and Resources  sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/shop – meanwhile those “shop” terms was rebranded under new name SAP Community Network eLearning - Online SAP Training.
3. SDN Code Exchange Platform: sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/code-exchange allows community members to share and collaboratively develop prototypes, showcases, add-ons or event start-up ideas they would like to developed or already started developing in form of projects. Provides platform for support of code and release management, online discussions and blogs, documentation and issue tracking.
4. SAP Community Netweaver Developer Edition / License – Was introduced in Jan 2010 as addition to miniSAP versions of SAP software. See here licenses comparison to find version that suits you and download it from here. Regarding previous offerings like NetWeaver Development Pack see this FAQ. For license maintenance go here.
5. In-Memory section sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/in-memory. Soon followed by introduction of "four-element (3 focus areas)" strategy at TechEd 2010 in Berlin. Here’s SAP offers a mixture of on-premise, on-demand and on-device applications, and better application orchestration capabilities.

Regarding challenges I see in upcoming year 2011; the biggest one from my point of view would be an integration of all SCN functionalities closer together. Some parts of SCN pieces are still isolated island where user needs to login separately (idea Place) or running on different platforms (blogs, wiki, etc.). From this perspective I see a room for improvement and it is a great to see that something is going on e.g. here.

Possibilities of BEx Queries documenting

A lot of people are struggling with BEx queries in lot of areas. For example when you need to know how particular key figure is calculated. This can be very painful even more in case you have several nested structures where one key figure is comprised from several others and those are again calculated, restricted etc over and over again.

However there are some possibilities how to see query in different view apart of regular development tool – Bex Query Designer.

1. TA RSRTQ (ABAP report RSRQ_QUERYDEFINITION) - Query Definition.

On selection screen of this tool you can choose the query which definition you would like to see. On the output screen you can see all particular properties of the query: Query Properties, Filter, Characteristic Restrictions, Selection, Default Values, Rows/Columns, Free Characteristics, Rows, Columns, Cells, Formulas, etc.

  

2. Metadata repository, this is pretty know method how to see basic properties of BEx Query. You can access it from TA RSA1->Metadata Repository:

BW 7.x: How to design start/end/expert routine within transformations?

There are several points that you need to recon while coding start, end or expert routines. 

Basically you need to be aware which data are you processing either it is source_package in case of start routine; result_package in case of end routine or even both tables in case of expert routine. Basically you do LOOP ABAP statement over one of those internal tables and you modify it or add new rows. There are available corresponding work areas (source_field, result_field) and field symbols (, ) that make you looping easier. 

Another point to be considered is creating new records within routines in one of its data_package internal tables. Here’s field called RECORD which needs special treatments. In case of end routine you need to populate value of this field by calling standard method new_record__end_routine.

In case of error handling you can populate called MONITOR. By this you can send messages to the Data Transfer Process (DTP) monitor. This makes maintenance of BW application easier. BW administrator sees error in monitor and can recognize its root cause directly by analyzing message instead of digging in coding or in ABAP dumps. Coding can be maintained like following:

IF sy-subrc <> 0.

  monitor_rec-msgty = 'msgty'. "e.g. W

  monitor_rec-msgid = 'msgcls'. "e.g. RS

  monitor_rec-msgno = '100'.

  monitor_rec-msgv1 = lv_par1. "Parameter 1

  monitor_rec-msgv1 = lv_par2. "Parameter 2

  monitor_rec-msgv1 = lv_par3. "Parameter 3

  monitor_rec-msgv1 = lv_par4. "Parameter 4

  APPEND monitor_rec TO MONITOR.

  RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE CX_RSROUT_ABORT. "aborts whole processing
*  RAISE EXCEPTION TYPE CX_RSROUT_SKIP_RECORD. "skips this particular record

ENDIF.

For  further reference see following SAP Notes:

1227667 - Guidelines for expert routine: Design rules
1223532 - Design rules: Adding records to end routine
1258089 - Design rule: Adding records to the start routine

- update 21.01.2011 - 
In case of expert routine, breaking processing of load via raising of exception doesn't work (CX_RSROUT_ABORT). You have to use method send_message of class cl_rstran_expert_rout_srv.

- update 19.05.2011 - 
Some more SAP Notes on this topic:
1349820 - Expert routine: Technical enhancements

Limitations of DTP’s filter

Recently I encounter interesting behavior regarding amount of entries that DTP’s filter is able to populate. I created ABAP routine to fill up entries in filter. Since my routine produced quite big portion of data; I was curious how much entries is system capable to process.

For first run my routine produced over 1mil records. However data load in general was not successful. It was set to red with following message BRAIN299:

I still have an impression that load could be successful since I compared the data entries produced in filter and apparently they all were processed correctly. So I assume load would be OK.

Afterwards I tried to lower number of entries produced by my DTP Filter routine. My intention was to get number of entries which system is able to process without this error. I succeeded with 21.001 entries. All higher entries like 21.002 ended again with error mentioned above.

There is following note available on OSS:

1077708 - 7.0 Support Package 16 DTP filter restricted to 10,000 lines

According this Note seems that this restriction was even lower in past. Till SP#16 restriction was 10.000 records. Since I did my testing in system based on SP#20; here’s restriction is 21.001 records. Would be interesting to check either this restriction is removed in newest version 7.3 of BW.

SAP BW 7.3 is almost here

Well, at least it is here according documentation available on help.sap.com.

As it was announced during SAP TEchEd 2010 in Berlin NetWeaver 7.3 and along with that BW 7.3 is coming. Two weeks ago I noticed that BW 7.3 documentation appeared on hep.sap.com as well.

 

SDN BW 7.3 page is still quite about general availability but NW 7.3 it should be released soon I believe.

Fresh news out of SAP Note: 1407532 - Release Restrictions for SAP NetWeaver 7.3. Yesterday on November 29th 2010 SAP NetWeaver 7.3 entered Ramp-Up program. This means clients of SAP who participated in ramp-up can use it productively and they receive development support from SAP. Hope it gets into the unrestricted phase soon.

See collection of materials related to SAP BW 7.3 here.

Overview of BW 3.x to 7.x migration possibilities per BW objects

I was curious how migration of BW features and objects from version 3.x to 7.x is supported by SAP functionalities. Especially what are the tools available (if there are any) and basically what does it takes to perform such an upgrade? 

I went through a lot of documents available on SDN and here’s the short summary of possibilities that we have in case of migrating particular BW objects within upgrade or migration projects.

Further follow-up with these materials:

Steps for Migrating 3.x Dataflow into 7.x Data Flow

SAP NetWeaver 7.0 Migration of Business Explorer and BI Integrated Planning

Migration of 3.x objects to BI 7.0

Upgrade to NetWeaver BI 7.0 - SAP Notes

Upgrade from BW 3.X to BI 7.0 SP13

Changes in BW 7.0 and BW 3.5

Migration of 3.x BEx Queries to BI7.0 - Useful Tips

Queries or Workbooks Migration - Errors and Fixes

- 06-03-2013 update –

There is a new migration cookbook available prepared by SAP aiming ot make 3.x to 7.x BW objects migration easier. Have a look into SAP Note: 1807522 - BEx 3.5 Objects Migration to BEx 7.0

How to look for DSO’s tables?

There is a nice and useful functionality available in TA RSA1 to access data in DSO across its all 3 tables (in case of normal DSO): New, Active and Change Log. If you navigate into InfoProviders section in Modeling area and you choose right mouse click on particular DSO you select Manage menu. There is a tab strip called Content. 
Here you can specify particular data you are interested in:

New data - contents of the activation queue

Active data – contents of A table = active data

Change log – contents of change log table

So this is easy part. But what to do in case you need to determine DSO table via runtime in your custom ABAP? In this case we can use information stored in field ODSNAME_TECH in table RSTSODS. Or there is a nice tiny standard ABAP method provided called get_tablnm from class cl_rsd_odso.

And what about I just want to quickly see DSO data in data dictionary transactions like SE11 or SE16? Here’s hint: put a prefix /BIC/A or /BI0 in front of DSO and you get active table. Here you need to recognize either you looking for table of Business Content DSO or custom created one:

 


for Business Content DSO replace /BIC/ with /BI0/.

Prerequisites for BW 7.3

BW 7.3 is almost here, should be released this month. To see all of its new features read this post. Therefore customers are asking how about to upgrade to this version. Unfortunately there are some limitations.

First of all platform version matter: You cannot upgrade to version 7.3 from version below 7.x. Sequence is to first upgrade to 7.x and afterwards you can go for 7.3. No 7.3 upgrade for systems based on 3.x. Version 7.x meant here is pure technical upgrade. So you do not need to have all the functionalities of 7.x in place but platform as in overall must be based on 7.

Secondly data flows: They do not need to be migrated into the 7.x fashion specifically but it is advisable. So this is not real prerequisite :-) Usually customers are performing just technical upgrade; just align with SAP’s maintenance matrix and do not loose support from SAP. After that they stop and to not deploy new features of 7.x like new authorization concept or new data flows. Framework of data flows in 7.3 seems to be much more powerful (copying of data flows, DTPs, process chains, repetition/reversing of migration etc.) comparing it to 7.0. However SAP advice to migrate to 7.x fashion right after you did technical upgrade to 7.x.

Thirdly new authorization concept: Old concept of the BW 3.5 reporting authorizations will technically no longer be available. Therefore again it is essential that before 7.3 upgrade you have migrated to new 7.x authorization concept.

I’m very excited about this new version of BW. Looking forward to hearing from you in blog comments as soon you touch this version :-)

See SDN’s official news and update page regarding SAP BW 7.3.
See Features of SAP BW 7.3
See collection of materials related to SAP BW 7.3 

SAP Business Technology Factory

Within some BW SAP Notes (e.g. 1125108) I noticed a term SAP Business Technology Factory. Mostly it was mentioned in case of advanced services provided by SAP in following areas:

• BI Authorization Migration Service, consists from:
• Migration planning (system analysis, concept adjustment, project planning)·          
• Migration of the old BW reporting authorizations to the new BW 7.0 analysis authorizations 
• Test and GoLive support of BW projects

This sounds quite interesting for customers. Usually I would assume that SAP has a reach of experience in these areas. Therefore could deliver such a services with high expertise.  I tried to find something more about SAP Business Technology Factory. It seems that it is organization within SAP aiming to help other arms of SAP like SAP Consulting. Apart of BW they have huge portfolio of services in other areas of business technology like:

•  Analysis of current systems and interfaces
•  Identification of system requirements
•  Presentation of results, including recommendations on new updates/upgrades
•  Quotation/project planning
•  User workshops

Furthermore there are following particular factories:

• Upgrade Factory
• Unicode Factory
• Testing Factory
• Output Factory
• Minimum Downtime Factory
• Enhancement Package Factory
• Modification Clearing Factory
• BW Authorization Migration Factory

What is for me the most interesting is that under the SAP Business Technology Factory brand they offers standardized update/upgrade services at a fixed price. However I’m not sure if this is not valid predominantly for Germany customers. Anyway seems to me great initiative rather focusing on delivering real results than time and material consulting. 

For more information see following:

www.sap.de/factory

www.sap.com/germany/services/consulting/factory/index.epx

www.sap.com/m1/erpupgrade/erp_index.htm

service.sap.com/factory

mailto:Factory@sap.com