BI Activities involved in SAP BI 7.4 upgrade – Part 1
BI Activities involved in SAP BI 7.4 upgrade – Part 1
Summary
The objective of the document is to give information on the activities performed during and after BI 7.4 upgrade.
System Information
Before Upgrade: SAP BI 7.0 SP 22 – SAPKW70022
After Upgrade: SAP BI 7.4 SP 7 – SAPKW74007
Introduction
The introduction about SAP BI 7.4 is absolutely not necessary here since we have lot of information already available all over SCN
Please don’t expect that I am going to give some information which is not available anywhere. The below details about the activities performed during and after the upgrade might be also available here and there.
I have tried to include our project experience during the upgrade which will be useful in overcoming the practical difficulties.
We have started our actual upgrade in mid of June and ended up in mid of September in four different BI systems. Secondary Development system, Development System, Quality System and Production. We still have a project testing system which is not yet upgraded.
It is always better to have one system to be excluded from the upgrade, so that we could use that for testing and comparing purpose (Just a personal thought since it was very useful for us to check the changes before and after upgrade)
BW Sizing Information required for Quick Sizer
Quick Sizer is a Web-based tool designed to make the sizing of the SAP solutions easier and faster. It has been developed by SAP in close cooperation with all platform partners and is free of cost. With Quick Sizer you can translate business requirements into technical requirements. Simply fill in the online questionnaire, an up-to-date survey that is based on business-oriented figures. The results you obtain can help you select an economically balanced system that matches your company’s business goals.
The information that we have provided gives an outline of whether we need to upgrade our hardware component as well before our application upgrade.
You could get all information about Quick Sizer in SCN market place using your login id, password. We will go into what we have done actually to get the required information
Basis Team is fully responsible for updating the information into the Quick Sizer tool. There are lot more information provided other than BW sizing. Here I will explain what we have done from BI side.
The information that is required from a BI system is divided into five different tables. Based on each table, the required information varies
- Table 1: Throughput – User Groups of SEM-BPS
This table s related to Integrated Planning and BPC information. We should give the information like how many planners, how many real time infocubes and the volume of data etc.
- Table 2: Throughput – Query & User Distribution
Here we should give information related to normal, business and super users. How many of them are using the reports, how many reports in total, how much time spent by them on an average.
- Table 3: Throughput – Data Upload to BW Server
Here we need to give information about what is the volume of data expected on a daily basis which is actually based on the ECC transactions.
- Table 4: Throughput – Definition of Infocubes
This is time consuming table. As from the name, you could have find out that we are going to give all the information about each and every infocube present in the system. This holds information including number of dimensions, number of key figures, average volume of data, records in initial load and many more
- Table 5: Throughput – Definition of ODS Objects
This is also same as the above table, but DSO specific information. Number of text fields, numeric fields, average volume of data, records in initial load and so on.
Issues faced in Quick Sizer tool
The first three tables will not be of much issues. But the tables related to cube and DSO will give errors that the information provided is wrong or not sufficient.
See a sample error message
There are scenarios like we may have to manipulate the data for those two tables.
We might not be able to get some data accurately. For example Average length of character fields in DSO. There are almost 300 DSOs in our system. It is not feasible to get the char length of all fields and calculating the average. So initially we left that field blank for all entries. But the tool gave error only for few DSOs for which we have calculated the average length and uploaded it.
For some cubes, the total number of requests was more than 10000 and the quick sizer didn’t accept 5 digits initially. Later when all other issues were rectified, it accepted 5 digits as well.
In some cases, whatever values we give, it didn’t accept. Then we gave NA and it worked. So it sometimes works in trial and error basis.
PS: We didn’t spend much time to analyse the reason for these issues. Since it was not one or two errors and we were keen in resolving the issues as early as possible and proceed further.
Important Tables which we used to get information
We have not used all of the below tables, but most of them. But I have tried to list out all tables related to Infocube and DSO which will be useful in many scenarios. There are lot more other than these tables listed below.
RSDCUBE – Directory of Infocubes
RSDCUBET – Texts on Infocubes
RSDCUBEIOBJ – Objects per Infocube (where-used list)
RSDDIME – Directory of Dimensions
RSDDIMET – Texts on Dimensions
RSDDIMEIOBJ – InfoObjects for each Dimension (Where-Used List)
RSDCUBEMULTI – Infocubes involved in a Multicube
RSDICMULTIIOBJ – MultiProvider: Selection/Identification of InfoObjects
RSDICHAPRO – Characteristic Properties Specific to an Infocube
RSDIKYFPRO – Flag Properties Specific to an Infocube
RSDICVALIOBJ – InfoObjects of the Stock Validity Table for the Infocube
RSDODSO – Directory of all ODS Objects
RSDODSOT – Texts of all ODS Objects
RSDODSOIOBJ – InfoObjects of ODS Objects
RSDODSOATRNAV – Navigation Attributes for ODS Object
RSDODSOTABL – Directory of all ODS Object Tables
RSODSSETTINGS – Settings for an ODS
This activity seem to be very simple, but it takes many days to get all the required information from the production system. There are lot more activities coming in the next couple of documents.
Thanks for your time! Please feel free to add any comments.
Other Documents published by me
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-59138 – BI Activities involved in SAP BI 7.4 upgrade – Part 2
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-58355 – Performance Tuning for Data loading in process chains
http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-58038 – Procedure to Load data using Setup Table
Handy doc, Thanks for sharing your work experience.
Today i learned some information about new tool.
waiting for next series...
Regards,
Harish
Hi Harish
Thanks for your comments. I will be uploading the other important tasks soon
Hi Karthik,
Very nice document.Can I have your contact detail.
Please can you share with me via-Santosh.biw@gmail.com
Kind Regars
Santosh
Mibile-9916019993
Nice stuff Karthik.
Could you please brief on the Risks involved in this upgrade.
Rgds,
Subir
Hi Karthik,
Good Work...
Regards,
Arun
Hello friends can you let me know the timeline for DEV/QA/PRD upgrade?