SDN Meets Labs Impressions / Session reports
The day started with a good message: W-LAN or for non German WiFi was up and running for full internet access. Unfortunately not in the Audimax and the other Presentation rooms. But that could be a problem with my W-Lan adapter.
Key Note
In the Key Note presentation there were some redundancies for TechEd ’04 attendees. New for me was information about the steps SAP do creating a Enterprise Service Architecture. SAP already have the “Dictionary” of Enterprise objects like Employee, Organizational Modell, Customer, Supplier, Order or Shipment. This is available via the BAPI Browser or via http://ifr.sap.com/. Now they adding Patterns to this Objects which allow Developers a consistent use of the Objects. There are always Methods to search, create, update and delete Objects. Ivo Totev promised to have a new Sneak Preview for NW 04 in May or June available.
Performance & Stability
After the Key Note I’ve joined the Performance & Stability Presentation done by Christian Wiele. He started with some Project Management tips. It’s important to have separate Project Teams for Development and Performance and Stability Testing. To guide the Team into the right direction there had to be a definition of Key Performance Indicators (KPI). This can be for example be time for a dialog step, Network Load, Network Roundtrips or Hardware Requirements. The KPIs can be approved by Performance Metrics they are: CPU Time per Dialog Step (DS) in ms, Memory consumption for the Framework, User and Processing, Network Load in KB/DS, # of Network Roundtrips/DS and End-User response time in s/DS. The End-User response time includes Server response time, Network response time an Rendering time on the client.
Start Point for Performance test should be the single user. Because only when the application performs well for a single user it can scale for many users. Tools that can be used for Single User Performance Measurement are Profilers from 3rd party or the SAP Tools like Sherlock and Application trace. In the newer NW04 Releases also a Java Applicaiton Responsetime Monitor (JARM) will be available. A Single Activity Trace (SAT) is coming with it. Other Tools are Distributed Statistical Records (DSR), SQL Trace and HTTP Trace or Sniffers like Ethereal. Scripted Performance Test can be done via a test Tool like LoadRunner which records HTTP Traffic.
To do Load Testing you should choose a realistic think time to simulate real user behavior. SAP recoments about 10 seconds. Especialy for Java application you should randomize the thinktime to avoid a resonance effect with the Garbage Collector. The script should also take care of correct session handling. Otherwise it could lead into unwanted memory leaks. Enshure that the test script is rearly doing what it is supposed to do! Or you will fnd problems that not really exist.
A scalable system fullfills this requirements: response time remains stable with increasing load and resource consumption increases lineary. Unfortenately Java does not scale as good as a ABAP Application because a full Garbage Collector run takes long when the Heap Size is big. The Garbage Collector (GC) also scans all objects of the Framework. There is no way to exclude this objects from the GC run. Some other Tools for Performance Test where mentioned by the Auditorium: Jmeter, MS Web Application Stress Test Tool, GC Output and CCMS. Important for Java Applications calling load balanced backend Systems is to have the RFC Loadbalancing setup correctly. Transaction AL08 can be used to configure it. Christian recomended to activate RFC Round Robbin.
NetWeaver Development Infrastructure
Roland Hamm presented the SAP NetWeaver Development Infrastructure (NWDI). NWDI was developed to support the 1500 Java Developers inside SAP. It had also to make it possible to Deliver also Source Code like it is already done in ABAB Systems to the customer. The important Acronyms building the NWDI are Change Management Service (CMS), Component Build Service (CBS), Design Time Repository (DTR), Name Server and System Landscape Directory (SLS). The smallest entitiy of a application is a Development Object (DO), they can composed to Development Components (DC) out of them a Software Component (SC) is built. In Web Dynpro Applications delivered by SAP no user exits to customize the GUI are avaliable. Customers can do this only via modifications. Source Code will only be delivered in Service Packs and not in Patches.
Operations, Monitoring
In this Meet the Expert session there was a good introduction from Christoph Nake in the toolset for Operations Monitoring. The CCMS plays today and also in future the important role in providing a central instance for Monitoring data, doing online monitoring, alerting, auto-reactions and History. User Interfaces to CCMS are Transaction RZ20, SAP Solution Manager, Solution Manager Diagnostics and the new NetWeaver Administrator coming with NW04 SP12. Today Solution Manager and Solution Manager Diagnostics require two different systems. Solution Manager requires a WebAS 6.20. Solution Manager Diagnostics a WebAS 6.40. By the end of the year the Ramp up for Solution Manager on NW04 should start.
Another Tool are the Distributed Statistic Recors which provide daily monitoring of ABAP, Java, ITS and BC instances. The key features are central detailed and overview aggregated monitoring data, online monitoring and history. It can be accessed via Transactions ST03, STAD, ST03G and STATTRACE. As I learned in the Performance & Stability Session before there is JARM for Java Application Response Time Measurement. Key features are detailed and overview monitoring data and online monitoring. JARM runs automatically for SAP software. UI’s are JARM viewer & reporter and the NW Administrator. JARM is only available for SAP Applications.
Christoph’s recomendation for a Monitoring Infrastructure is to setup a central monitoring system on top of a SAP NW04 SP 12 double stack (ABAP and Java) instance. On this system the Daily monitoring Central CCMS Moinitor, Central Stats and Central Log Viewer, NW Admin, Alerting, ABAB scheduling and Landscape Date should be avaliable. Alerting via SMS can be done by connecting via SCOT to a 3rd Party Product Topcall.
Demo Jam Session
The best Session for me as a ABAP Developer was the presentation of the new Editor features like Syntax Highlighting (Coming with a new SAP GUI Patchlevel) and the Autocomplete functionality which sould be avaliable in a new ABAP Server release. For my basis colleague the cross stack (ABAP and Java) Job Sceduler “Redwood Explorer” will be interessting. It should be avaliable in NW04 SP12.
Evening Event
After we get some real nice food we started playing “Kicker” (foosball). They started a contest and Falko, Nicolle, Meinrad and I created the Team Hella/Siteco. We went straight to the final and won there also against the SAP Product Management. Our Pice was one of this MP3 Players. Fotos can be found on Flickr.