SAP BI NW 2004s Review

BI in SAP Netweaver 2004sFeatures, Benefits, Upgrade Issues

Sergei PeleshukDecember 15, 2006

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What We’ll Cover …

• Introduction to Netweaver 2004s• What is New in Release 2004s• Technical vs. Functional Application Upgrade • Summary

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Resources

• SAP TechED 2006, AmsterdamNew BI Modeling Capabilities in SAP Netweaver 2004sUpgrade and Migration Aspects for BI in SAP Netweaver 2004s

• Dr. Bjarne Berg, MyITgroup Ltd.,

SAP Projects 2006, OrlandoCreating an upgrade plan and strategy for SAP NetWeaver 2004s

Whereto

FIND it

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SAP NetWeaver: Big Picture

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.

Source: SAP AG

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Portal Collaboration

INFORMATION INTEGRATION

Bus. Intelligence

Master Data Management

Knowledge Mgmt

PROCESS INTEGRATION

Integration Broker

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APPLICATION PLATFORM

J2EE

DB and OS Abstraction

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Why Upgrade to NW 2004s?

One of the major reasons for upgrading your BW environment is the availability of new content and features in the next release, including:

New modeling capabilities Web Application Designer BI Accellerator New BEx tools ReModeling Toolbox Security Changes New ETL Interface BPS Integrated Planning PDF print Real-time data warehousing

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Why Upgrade – end of support…

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

BW Version

Release date

End of mainstream maintenance

2.0B 8/14/00 12/31/20052.1C 12/18/00 12/31/20053.0A 11/15/01 12/31/20053.0B 5/13/02 12/31/20063.1C 11/11/02 12/31/20063.2 3/31/03 12/31/20063.3 8/30/03 12/31/20063.5 3/31/04 3/31/2010

#1 reason for upgrade:

“Because I had to!”

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Benefits: Better interface for ETL Design

SAP NetWeaver 2004s has a new and better GUI and formula editors to write complex transfer rules, update rules and data mapping.

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).

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Benefits: Real-time Data warehousing gets better

NW 2004s 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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BI Statistics in NW04s …

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Business Explorer Suite

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BEx Query Designer

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Benefits: BEx Query Designer gets a needed ‘facelift’

The 3.5x BEx Query Designer

Note:

The NW2004s BEx Query Designer

This new property pane makes it easier to format and control displays

than in the past.

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BEx Analyzer

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Benefits: 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 NW2004s)Source: SAP AG, 2006

News: BEx browser goes away in NW2004s

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Benefits: 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. NW2004s has now simplified this with more wizards that helps users to build this step-by-step.

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

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BEx Web Application Designer

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Benefits: Web Application Designer gets better

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 step-by-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.

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

WAD is a key tool for all SAP BI shops and in NW2004s the

tool is simplified and more powerful.

New: integration with NW 2004s BEx Report

Designer.

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Benefits: BEx Report Designer is here!!

This new 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, header-footer control and many new features such as location control of cells and integration of pictures, charts and fixed text.

For many, this tool may reduce the need for 3rd party tools to address structured reports.

Source: SAP AG, 2006

Don't Forget

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Benefits: New 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 NW2004s).

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

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.

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Benefits: BI Accellerator for 2004s

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

Both HP and IBM have standard solutions ranging from $32K to $200K+ that can be

installed and tested in as little as 2-4 weeks

SAP NW 2004s BI

HPA Engine/Adaptive Computing

DataAcquisition

InfoCubes

AnalyticEngine

SAP

BW

Any

tool

1. In-memory processing

2. Dictionary-based, smart compression using integers

3. High parallel data access / horizontal partitioning

4. Column-based data storage & access/vertical table decomposition

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Better security features

There are many new security features in NW 2004s, 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

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

Source: SAP AG

Resource

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Upgrading to NW2004s Security

More Great Details about the Security Upgrade at :

http://csc-studentweb.lrc.edu/ swp/Berg/Articles/

2004S_Authorizations.pdf(Source: Amelia Lo, SAP)

SAP has created an ABAP migration tool to help you upgrade security in NW 2004s. 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 test…test..and test…

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BPS Integrated Planning

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

1 2 3 4 5 6

InfoProvider Aggregation Level Planning SequencePlanning FunctionFilter Pattern

Source: SAP AG, 2006

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Technical vs. Functional Upgrade

• Technical Upgrade Copying 3.x functionality “as is” to the NW04s platform

• Functional Upgrade = Migration Step by step process Analyze what is needed from the new functionality for each

service Implement new functionality (NW04s)

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Technical Upgrade

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Some hints on the upgrade - Unicode conversion

Unicode has been available since BW version 3.5.1. and is now highly recommended as part of the upgrade (hint web application designer is now also unicode compliant).

Some things to remember and plan for:

Area Recommended increased capacityMemory 20%Processing power 20-25%Disk space 20-30%

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SAP BI NW 2004s Review

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