Learnings during upgrade to BW 7.3 - Part I

[Former Member]

Its been more than four months since we went live with BW 7.3 SP5. There have been some struggles during the upgrade, but there have also been benefits with moving to BW 7.3. Picking the subject of upgrade to 7.3 looks like a mighty task for my 1st blog. I'll try to do justice to it and make it as detailed as I can. I can't promise that it will be structured in a proper manner, but will try to list all the issues, surprises and benefits of doing an upgrade. I also implemented various OSS notes (a lot of them!) during the upgrade. I'll list them wherever necessary.

I came onto the project after 7.3 SP5 was installed on sandbox and development preliminary tests had already been done.

Process Chains -

Extensive testing of process chains was possible in the test system. This did bring out multiple issues related to the new system.

1. PSA deletion - In some cases, the PC chain variant for PSA deletion failed. OSS note 1693303 was implemented and program RSAR_PSA_CLEANUP_DIRECTORY was run. This fixed some of the failures, but some of them remained in the system. I had to implement OSS note 1299635 and create a new program that took care of the issue.
2. RSDDTREX_INDEX_ADJUST - All PC's that had a variant to run this program failed. In earlier releases, the parameter p_cube is populated. In 7.3, this has been changed to p_objnm. I had to change all the variants for the program in order to fix the issue.
3. DSO Activation - DSO activation failed for objects where the automatic QM status flag was not enabled. SAP provided additional code to an existing program. OSS note 1674047 provides more detailed information.
4. Cube compression - PC's that contained variants for cube compression failed with message, "Error:Inconsistent Input Parameter (I_PDIMID)". OSS note 1636709 fixed the issue.
5. Attribute change - Attribute change run fails. OSS note 1659807 fixed the issue.

Transports -

The transports seem to have gotten better in terms of checks that the system does. The system now checks to see if any dependent objects are missing from the task and if so, it gives an warning. This gives a developer an option to add any missing pieces so that the requests does not fail.

The system also checks the component versions between the source and target system. The transport will fail if the target has a different component version than the source. This happens if you have created a transport in 7.0/7.1 and are trying to move it after the upgrade. The component version of the request is older than the target. You can either create a new request and copy all objects in this new request or manually import the old request by checking the option 'Ignore Invalid Component Version' within Import options.

Part II - Bex queries and MDX.

Part III - Data modelling and BWA.