Floating Alias – a very useful tool – SAP EP 7.0

I am glad to share the very useful information of an existing tool on Portal (a standard delivery) – Floating alias. I am trying to cover the following points.

• Alias –
• What is an Alias/ System Alias in SAP portal –
• Some Features –
• Navigation to check the system aliases –
• What is Floating Alias –
• Use of Floating Alias –
• And Why I found this helpful –

Alias –

Used to indicate that a named person is also known or more familiar under another specified name.

A false or assumed identity.

What is an Alias/ System Alias in SAP portal –

Alias can be used for several things in Portal (e.g URL and System etc)

In SAP Portal System Aliases are names that system administrators define for each system they create so that portal components can reference these systems. They are a means of retrieving the information stored on database servers without having to know the name of the server.

Some Features –

Each system must have at least one system alias through which it can be accessed.

A system alias should reference only one system.

There can be any number of aliases pointing to the same system.

Aliases do not get exported during a transport operation.

When copying a system, or transporting a system object, you need to define new system aliases.

Navigation to check the system aliases –

From the top-level navigation bar choose System Administration → System Configuration →System Landscape.

From a folder containing systems, right-click a system name and choose Open → System Aliases. This opens the System Alias Editor, and displays the existing list of aliases created for this system.

What is Floating Alias –

A floating alias is an alias without a system.

Log on portal and navigate to below location to see all the :

system administration -> system configuration -> floating aliases -> then tick “Display all aliases” -> see all this aliases.

Generally without a tick, you should be able to see if there is/ are any floating alias/ aliases in your portal system.

During a migration project (SAP ep 7.0 to 7.3 release), specially, this floating alias tool was very helpful to me.

As all of us have worked on several implementation and support projects, we know the pain when we are given with a support and maintenance project in Portal.

I found it hard during the initial days in any support project. Specially, when identifying the systems when there are problems in the operations.

During my migration project, I had to dig in to a very large PCD landscape/ folder structures to identify the systems and the details.

Use of Floating Alias –

Log on portal and navigate to below location to see all the :

system administration -> system configuration -> floating aliases -> then tick “Display all aliases” -> see all this aliases.

Why I found this helpful –

Here you can see all the available aliases and their PCD Path, which is my interest area in troubleshooting different issues during my initial days in the project.

This tool has saved me a lot of time and enabling me to help the clients with quick fixes and response on our initial findings.

PCD Paths to the system objects used in several user navigation nodes/ iViews are specially very helpful for troubleshooting.

This tool is not available in Portal 7.3 release. SAP has a very matured and easy to use tool for managing systems and to make Administrator’s life easy.

I will write about more tools for SAP EP.

Biroj 🙂