Walkthrough Checklist for Query Performance

1. If exclusions exist, make sure they exist in the global filter area. Try to remove exclusions by subtracting out inclusions.
2. Use Constant Selection to ignore filters in order to move more filters to the global filter area. (Use ABAPer to test and validate that this ensures better code)
3. Within structures, make sure the filter order exists with the highest level filter first.
4. Check code for all exit variables used in a report.
5. Move Time restrictions to a global filter whenever possible.
6. Within structures, use user exit variables to calculate things like QTD, YTD. This should generate better code than using overlapping restrictions to achieve the same thing. (Use ABAPer to test and validate that this ensures better code).
7. When queries are written on multiproviders, restrict to InfoProvider in global filter whenever possible. MultiProvider (MultiCube) queries require additional database table joins to read data compared to those queries against standard InfoCubes (InfoProviders), and you should therefore hardcode the infoprovider in the global filter whenever possible to eliminate this problem.
8. Move all global calculated and restricted key figures to local as to analyze any filters that can be removed and moved to the global definition in a query. Then you can change the calculated key figure and go back to utilizing the global calculated key figure if desired
9. If Alternative UOM solution is used, turn off query cache.
10. Set read mode of query based on static or dynamic. Reading data during navigation minimizes the impact on the R/3 database and application server resources because only data that the user requires will be retrieved. For queries involving large hierarchies with many nodes, it would be wise to select Read data during navigation and when expanding the hierarchy option to avoid reading data for the hierarchy nodes that are not expanded. Reserve the Read all data mode for special queries—for instance, when a majority of the users need a given query to slice and dice against all dimensions, or when the data is needed for data mining. This mode places heavy demand on database and memory resources and might impact other SAP BW processes and tasks.
11. Turn off formatting and results rows to minimize Frontend time whenever possible.
12. Check for nested hierarchies. Always a bad idea.
13. If “Display as hierarchy” is being used, look for other options to remove it to increase performance.
14. Use Constant Selection instead of SUMCT and SUMGT within formulas.
15. Do review of order of restrictions in formulas. Do as many restrictions as you can before calculations. Try to avoid calculations before restrictions.
16. Check Sequential vs Parallel read on Multiproviders.
17. Turn off warning messages on queries.
18. Check to see if performance improves by removing text display (Use ABAPer to test and validate that this ensures better code).
19. Check to see where currency conversions are happening if they are used.
20. Check aggregation and exception aggregation on calculated key figures. Before aggregation is generally slower and should not be used unless explicitly needed.
21. Avoid Cell Editor use if at all possible.
22. Make sure queries are regenerated in production using RSRT after changes to statistics, consistency changes, or aggregates.
23. Within the free characteristics, filter on the least granular objects first and make sure those come first in the order.
24. Leverage characteristics or navigational attributes rather than hierarchies. Using a hierarchy requires reading temporary hierarchy tables and creates additional overhead compared to characteristics and navigational attributes. Therefore, characteristics or navigational attributes result in significantly better query performance than hierarchies, especially as the size of the hierarchy (e.g., the number of nodes and levels) and the complexity of the selection criteria increase.
25. If hierarchies are used, minimize the number of nodes to include in the query results. Including all nodes in the query results (even the ones that are not needed or blank) slows down the query processing. The “not assigned” nodes in the hierarchy should be filtered out, and you should use a variable to reduce the number of hierarchy nodes selected.

Plant Maintenance (PM)  

IW31                                  Create Plant Maintenance Order

IW32                                  Change Plant Maintenance Order

IW33                                  Display Plant Maintenance Order

IW34                                  Create Notification Order

IW51                                  Create Service Notification

IW52                                  Change Service Notification

IW53                                  Display Service Notification

IW54                                  Create Service Notification roblem notification

IW55                                  Create Service Notification :Activity Request

IW56                                  Create Service Notification :Service Request

IW57                                  Assign deletion Flag to Completed Service Notifications

IW58                                  Change Service Notifications: Selection of Notification

IW59                                  Display Service Notifications: Selection of Notification

1) Discuss how the different releases of R/3 since version 3.1i differ in terms of hardware requirements:

(looking for the fact that every new release – to 4.0B, 4.5x, 4.6x, 6x – requires additional RAM, processing power, and even basic disk space just to host the same number of users).

2) Response time ’seems’ to be slow, per a number of users that have called in to the help desk – how do you troubleshoot this?

(looking for: Check app servers for avg response times in DIALOG using ST03, compare to baseline stats; may also ask a user which particular transaction he is running, and then check the history of that transaction via ST03. Ask the user to enable response time checking on his SAPGUI, so that you can check his specific response time between the front-end and the application server. You will also want to ensure no one has changed logon load balancing, check ST04 for cache hit rates, and check ST06 for CPU utilization for users & system)

3) You want to look at the real-time activity of all work processes on a single application server. How?

(looking for: execute SM50 on that particular app server – need to either login to that app server, or redirect yourself to it vis SM51)

4) Similar to question three, but you wish to see activity across all application, background, and update servers in your particular system:

(looking for SM66)

5) Explain how to layout or architect an SAP database server in terms of data, logs, and so on, to achieve the best performance:

(looking for: keep data and logs on separate spindles, RAID 1 or 1+0 best, separate data in discrete data and index volumes, move logs to separate high performance RAID 1 drive pairs, prefer hardware RAID to software/OS RAID)

6) You need to know how many users are logged into Production application server #2, and what transaction each user is running real-time. How do you do this? 

(looking for: AL08, though there’s some value to be gleaned from ST07, too, but only at a high level – ST07 does not give you the detailed user view).

7) If a user’s batch job is running too long, and it is deemed necessary to cancel it, what’s the BEST way/process to cancel it?

(looking for: SM37)

If one of your Basis colleagues is talking about “program” or “CUA” buffers being swapped out, what transaction can you run to see exactly what he is talking about?

(looking for: ST02, swaps show up with a red background to make them easily noticeable)

9) Explain the role of cache in a disk subsystem:

(looking for: posted writes, to allow the OS to continue processing requests, rather than waiting for a write to be physically committed to a disk drive)

10) You need to cancel a user’s SAPGUI session. How?

(looking for: run SM04, find the correct user session, Press Enter, and select option to cancel the session)

11) You need to look at table locks (lock entries). How?

(looking for: SM12)

12) How do you view the system log?

(looking for: SM21)

13) You’ve just been asked to lock the user account of an end-user being let go today. How do you accomplish this?

(looking for: run SU01, enter the end-user’s login ID, then Ctrl+F5, or click Lock/Unlock button)

14) You need to look at all ABAP dumps generated over the last 2 days. How? 

(looking for: ST22)

15) Explain logon load balancing, and why it improves performance:

(looking for a discussion centered around the value of distributing functional groups/users onto discrete application servers, such that not more than one or two functional areas share a server. In this way, it’s more likely that most of the programs and data related to that functional area will be cached, thereby enhancing performance for those user….rather than swapping programs and data in and out….thus, it helps primarily in memory management)

16) Explain the make-up and role of a standard 3 system landscape:

(looking for Development/Test/Production – functionality/code is developed in the Development environment, and then promoted to Test where it and other functionality is tested together. Eventually, when the configuration is both stable and accurate in terms of business process requirements, the code is promoted to the Production environment.

17) You’re running a SAP BW/Oracle system on Windows 2000 SP3, and SP4 is finally released. SP4 fixes a known low-priority issue you have been battling in Production. How do you get the update into Production?

(looking for a conversation on change control/change management processes, including testing the impact of the potential change in Production in a sandbox or test environment, and then letting it sit to ensure the change has no other adverse impact, and then methodically promoting the change to development and after more time to Production. Often, changes like these are bundled in change waves or change releases, and incorporated during scheduled monthly or quarterly maintenance windows. Since it’s a low priority issue, there should be no need to compress the change management cycle. And never put a change directly into Production!

18) Explain how to layout or architect a database server for maximum data availability:

(looking for: data must be on a RAID protected set of volumes, logs must never be completely filled/must be dumped to tape, data and logs can not reside on the same physical or logical drives)

19) Why should the cache in a disk subsystem should be battery-backed up:

(looking for: without batteries, any posted writes still sitting in cache will never be physically committed to the database – the data will be lost if power is lost to the disk subsystem. Thus, a corrupt DB results, necessitating a lengthy restore process)

20) You need to see how large the database is getting in terms of size at a Windows OS level, and verify how much of this allocated space is actually being used by the database. How?

(looking for: in Windows, use Explorer to navigate to the various drive letters upon which the DB files reside, and right click each file, click properties. Then, in the SAPGUI run DB02 to see both allocated and used database space)

21) Your Basis Team Lead requests that a new user account ZANDEGE be created in the Technical Sandbox, with the same profiles/rights as your own. Explain how to do this:

(looking for: login to the Technical Sandbox, run transaction SU01, and copy your user account to a new account named ZANDEGE)

22) You need to review jobs to ensure that the daily housekeeping jobs have completed successfully. Which SAPGUI transaction can you run?

(looking for: SM37, to view status of jobs).

23) Explain some of the differences between ITS and Web AS:

(looking for: ITS, or Internet Transaction Server, is SAP’s original method of Web-enabling applications like R/3 and BW. It works by converting RFC to HTML, presenting the HTML to a WebGUI, and on the trip back to the application server, converting the HTML back into RFC. ITS resides on a separate server of set of servers, and only executes on Wintel platforms. Web AS, on the other hand, is SAP’s true application server. It includes the traditional Basis layer and more; all new components actually sit on top of Web AS. Web AS supports both ABAP and in newer releases, Java)

24) What is the difference between mySAP and mySAP.com?

(looking for the fact that mySAP refers to solutions like SCM, BI, etc., whereas mySAP.com refers to specific SAP components like SAP APO or SAP BW)

Basis questions

Ask him/her to describe how SAP handles Memory Management?

ST02 / ST03 In general via table buffers, you could go into the whole Work Process, roll in, roll out, heap (private) memory, etc. however just as a Unix or DBA admin would know, is you look this up when needed for the exact specifics.

Must have SAP RESOURCES 

Ask him/her to describe where they would look at the buffer statistics, and what steps they would use to adjust them?

ST02, RZ10

Ask him/her to describe how to setup a printer in SAP or where they would look to research why a user/users can not print?

SPAD, SP01, SM50, SU01

Three main technical areas

DB (what is the directory structure/ where are the files kept oracle alerts, init.ora, redo logs, archive logs, etc.; possibly some basics stuff like what to do “high level” when the archive directory fills up, etc. Keep this minimal as from a SAP basis admin point of view Oracle is just a big giant bit bucket and SAP can handle to the daily monitoring and maintenance itself.

OS (what is the directory structure (what is NFS mounted and why / where are the message files contained for the OS error log; basic commands for the OS eg. Unix, mv, cp, ls, grep, ps-ef, df-k, etc. That is pretty much all the SAP basis admin will need to know. Client/Server architecture.

SAP (what is the directory structure / where are files located ie. profiles – start, instance, default (what are they and what is the order of precendence) start is for statup only, instance is the first to be read then the default and if a given parameter cannot be found in the instance or then the default then the internal standard is taken from RZ10 setting.

You can ask them to ran Transaction codes to you. Menus constanly change so go with T-codes. He should have a good knowledge of the following areas; transports, user / print / spool / batch management, monitoring, client tools and copies, support packages, kernel patches, workload analysis, Roles and Security, etc.

The standard list of t-codes is pretty much

SM50, SM51, SM66, SM12, SM13, SM21, DB01, DB02, DB13, ST01, ST02, ST03, ST04, ST05, ST06, SU01, SUIM, PFCG, SCC4, SE01, SE09, SE10, SPAM, SM35, SM36, SM37, SPAD, SP01 SCC3, SCCL, SCC9 this are pretty much you heavy hitters for monitoring and support.

Must have SAP RESOURCES

Ask some troubleshooting questions:

I would ask in general how he would troubleshoot the following:

- User cannot connect to SAP

check SAP logon settings, ping the host, check message server, check dispatcher, etc.

- User cannot print

check SAP user setup, check SPAD, check spools, check unix queue or print queue at the os level, etc

- System seems slow

check SM66, SM51, SM50, SM21, ST06, ST03, SMLG, AL08 etc.

Some important things to remember is to ask not get specific to your installation or specific system setup as all SAP instances are different, keep your question to general topics and general answers.

The most important thing to notice when choosing a candidate is not how they parrot back answers to you, but if they can
a) think for themselves and
b) they actually like to and will keep on learning as no one knows it all and
c) they have a good background and willingness to perform analyis and will keep on digginging until the answer is found or until their resources are exhausted and then they will pull in what is required to figure it out.

Must have SAP RESOURCES

A excellent post i found  for sap best practice, it requires Market place access though. Wealth of information for people who are new to SAP arena.

SAP Best Practice ‘Business Scenarios’ address implementation of the SAP Enterprise Portal from the perspective that a business has certain goals and objectives it needs to accomplish. SAP Best Practices for Enterprise Portal’s goal is to leverage the portal to support these business goals and objectives, by using basic portal functionality and integrating other SAP and non-SAP solutions where required.

To implement each SAP Best Practices business scenario listed in the “Scenario Installation Table” on this page, you must implement a series of building blocks according to the scenarios documentation. The size and content of the blocks can vary from simple technical functions, to more complex functions that can be used as standalone solution elements.

For detailed information and documentation on the installation procedure of each scenario, review the the table to the right. Each link brings you to a scenario description. Additionally, you will find the technical information related to the scenario along with its business process procedure and a list of the building blocks required to run the scenario.

How to get started:

1. To implement a scenario, choose the link for the scenario from the list on this table.
2. Review the scenario’s description to see if it meets your requirements, and then choose the Scenario Installation Guide in scenario’s document list.
3. Then, simply follow the instructions in the Scenario Installation Guide. This document will lead you through the complete implementation of the scenario, and point you to the necessary building blocks when required.

Note:

All SAP Best Practices for Enterprise Portal scenarios can combined with other SAP Best Practices solutions.  If your company would like to integrate other SAP Solutions into your landscape quickly, but don’t yet have them configured, review other SAP Best Practices solutions for an accelerated pilot, or implementation starting point.

Relevant SAP Best Practices solutions include:

• SAP Best Practices for CRM
• SAP Best Practices for Business Intelligence (based on SAP BW)
• SAP Best Practices for Baseline (based on SAP R/3)
• SAP Best Practice for HCM
• and more…

For more information, please refer to SAP Service Marketplace at http://service.sap.com/bestpractices for more information.

·         Take this time to set the stage for your particular mySAP project in terms of Solution Vision, SAP components to be implemented, business drivers, project timelines, key milestones, and other project-specific data.

·         Determine whether this new SAP component to be sized is being integrated with an existing SAP landscape, replacing a current system, or simply refreshing a current system. If vendors have little direction in this regard, then the resulting sizings will probably be so different as to be incomparable.

·         Review the numbers you have shared through your RFI, Questionnaires, or Quick Sizer output, and make sure that everyone understands your definition of what the term “user” means to you.

·         Clearly identify your priorities in regard to the following[md]TCO, performance, availability, scalability, and manageability. Giving your hardware vendors this kind of insight helps to avoid huge surprises when you finally receive their version of what you need in terms of an SAP solution sizing.

·         Discuss your system architecture and other technology biases, including whether you prefer a central system approach to a more distributed architecture, whether you are biased for or against a particular Operating System or database product, and so on. You should also share what hardware, OS, and database platforms your current enterprise software solutions depend upon.

·         Along these same lines, be sure to share the skillsets and experience you already have in-house with regard to various hardware, OS, and DB platforms, and how likely you are to change or accept something new.

·         Discuss your views and thoughts with regard to risk: Are you willing to try something brand new, or reasonably new, if the potential rewards are great? Do you tend to favor a conservative approach to solution sizing, or something perhaps more innovative or leading-edge?

·         Identify which SAP system landscape components must absolutely be sized (like Development, Test, and Production), and which might be “in the air” (like a Business Sandbox, Technical Sandbox, Training system, and so on). Include whether you prefer the same platforms and components across these systems (a high level of standardization), or whether initial budget constraints require a different approach. The more details the better.

·         Similarly, address the sizing of each database for each system landscape component.

·         If scalability was not previously covered in detail, indicate something as to the scalability that the system must provide. For example, does your company intend to grow or shrink significantly through acquisitions, mergers, or divestitures over the next 12-36 months?

·         In terms of accessibility and front-end desktop or laptop requirements, will Internet access be required? What about new desktops or other client devices?

·         If certain vendors have already been selected, I think it makes sense to share this information as well. For example, as a hardware vendor with excellent relationships with a number of the “Big 4,” I like to hear about whether an SAP consulting organization has already been selected to do the functional work of implementation. Similarly, it’s helpful to understand which systems integrators, if any, have already been selected, or whether a certain database or Operating System vendor has already been given the nod.

·         You also need to discuss any plans for stress-testing, and any thoughts you might have on proof-of-concept exercises. Every now and then, at little to no cost, you can leverage an SAP technology partner to actually “prove” that his solution operates as advertised. This is more often the case with new SAP Solution Stack alternatives that a particular technology partner is anxious to “get into production” for the sake of selling more of the same solutions down the road. In example, I’ve been involved with POCs related to proving the scalability of new hardware platforms and different database products.

·         Open up the call at this point for questions. Usually, questions involve clarifying why or how you completed the questions in various SAP sizing questionnaires, or clarification of data provided in your RFI.

·         I believe that it makes sense to end the call with a synopsis of everything that has been discussed, and a specific date by which you expect all solution sizings in your inbox, along with reiterating what you perceive to be the greatest risk in your SAP project plan. This latter point serves to remind all of the participants on the call how important your SAP project is to your business, and therefore should underscore the importance that each vendor places in his solution sizing efforts. Follow up these words with a written 1-2 page document shared via email.

Before any sizing begins, a conference call between the SAP customer and various SAP technology partners (sizing partners) is very helpful – by determining the answers to the following questions, the sizing engineers greatly improve their chances of architecting a mySAP solution “right” the first time, and thus avoid or minimize subsequent and time-consuming re-sizings. The sizing engineer should ask the following:

• Why are you implementing SAP?

(business reasons will impact HA and other considerations)

• Are you interested in a low cost/maximum value solution?

(price sensitivity will drive platforms)

• Is overall performance/response time the driving factor behind the configuration?

(max performing disk subsystem/RAID configuration, more application servers)

• Is overall availability of the system critical or simply ‘important’ – how many nines of availability are you looking for?

(HA and DR considerations)

• Does your company anticipate growing/shrinking via acquisitions/mergers/divestitures soon?

(impacts role/potential for scalability in the solution, or the ability to easily redeploy assets if no longer needed)

• Are you biased towards one OS over another (i.e. W2K or a specific version of UNIX)?

• Are you biased towards a particular database/RDBMS? (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, etc)?

• Are you biased towards a particular hardware vendor (HP, IBM, other)?
• Do you want the ‘latest and greatest’ hardware? (technology perspective – hot plug RAM or PCI, support for the fastest processors with the most cache, platforms that support the most RAM, 64 bit architectures, etc) Why?

• Do you want the ‘latest and greatest’ database release? Why?

(risk vs potential for improved performance or latest HA options)

• Do you want the ‘latest and greatest’ OS release? Why?

(risk vs potential for improved performance or latest HA options)

• What level of expertise do you have in regards to implementing and supporting SAP?

(will drive specifying a solution stack with which the company is familiar)

• Do you understand the role, or need, a ‘Technical Sandbox’ specified for your SAP system landscape?

• What about a ‘Training’ system earmarked for end-users? Other specialty systems?

• Will you want to provide Internet browser-based access to the system to be sized?

• Will you be implementing another mySAP.com component shortly after this system?

(might drive adoption of platforms with a longer life cycle)

• Who has been selected as your systems integration partner (SI) and functional partner?

(may drive platform, based on their expertise or core competencies)

• Who is your hardware reseller, or are you buying direct?

(indicated price-sensitivity and to some extent partners, and therefore competencies)

• Are there any vertical industry solutions expected to be implemented as part of your mySAP solution? Which ones?

(this drives core sizing in terms of CPU, RAM, and disk requirements)

• What do you perceive to be the greatest risk in implementing this SAP system?

• Will you be stress-testing the proposed solution prior to Go-Live? Why/why not?

(drives “super-sizing” of, or building additional overall capacity into, the solution)

Types of Project Management for SAP Projects

• 1. Project Integration Management coordinating all other phases, and managing the five project process groups – Initiate, Plan, Execute, Control, & Close). Focus on Project Plan development, execution, and overall change control:

1)       Project Definition (specific task, start/end dates, why this project is unique)

2)       Key risks – List of Constraints (limit options) and Assumptions (assumed to be true)

3)       Description of the ‘Project Plan Methodology’ to be used (i.e. hard tools like the PM software and specific charts, etc., and soft tools like kick-off meetings & status-review mtgs)

4)       List of Stakeholders (client) and their skills/knowledge

5)       PMIS – Project Management Information System, tools and techniques used to gather. Integrate, and disseminate outputs of the other PM phases

6)       Project Plan Execution – most of the budget is consumed here. Identify what it is.

7)       Overall Change Control – identify how change will be managed and coordinated, given that it will affect cost, risk, quality, scope, and schedule/staffing. Outputs from Change Control include Lessons Learned, Corrective Action, and the actual project plan updates.

8)       Project Plan Development results in the PROJECT PLAN, which consists of:

a)       Project Charter & most of the above

b)       Scope Statement

c)       WBS – Work Breakdown Structure, including cost estimates, scheduled start dates, and naming who is responsible for each  WBS task (responsibility assignment)

d)       Performance measurement baselines for schedule and cost

e)       Major Milestones, and target dates for each

f)        Key or required staff

g)       Open issues & Pending Decisions

h)       Might also include a ‘Project Organization Chart’ in large projects