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Building on the Google Apps Marketplace integration with Google that SAP announced in December, SAP StreamWork users will now be able to share Google Docs – including documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other files – directly in SAP StreamWork. These documents will stay up to date in SAP StreamWork as changes are made to Google Docs.

SAP StreamWork developers have been gathering feedback from users and have responded with solutions to the most commonly requested productivity enhancements, including:

• Ability to easily find experts and connect with people in their company: A new “People” button at the top of SAP StreamWork helps people search for and connect with others in their network who may be able to contribute ideas, information or other value to a project or decision-making process.
• Document versioning for all types of files: Teams can now eliminate the confusion that comes with managing multiple documents to help ensure everyone’s input is captured and tracked.
• Worklists: Users can organize their activities into groups, including the ability to add a single activity to multiple worklists.
• Live filter: A quick search function that helps users find activities by keyword.

“We are working quickly to both integrate and build from scratch solutions that strengthen collaboration and decision-making in all types of organizations,” said Holly Simmons, senior director, OnDemand Marketing, SAP. “In doing so, we are giving SAP StreamWork users an ever-widening business context in which to make informed decisions.”

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Who would have thought it? Along with the Volkswagen Beetle and the Sony PlayStation, the Apple iPad is now one of the most successful product launches in economic history. In Germany, almost 500,000 iPads have already been sold, while an estimated 10 million tablet PCs flew off the shelves last year in the United States. Around one million tablet PCs are predicted to be sold in Germany in 2011, and the iPad is destined to remain the measure of all things, despite new competing products such as the Samsung GALAXY Tab and the RIM BlackBerry PlayBook – see also the article Top 10 Business Apps for the iPad.

Trend 1: Smartphones and tablets will oust PCs

And that’s not the end of the story. More than a third of the conventional PC market is set to be taken over by tablet devices, making every third new PC a tablet computer. At least, that is what analysts Goldman Sachs are predicting. If we believe the mobile advertising company Smaato, by 2013, there will be more smartphones with access to the Internet than there will be conventional PCs.

Of the mobile devices sold in 2011, 85% will have an Internet browser. In the coming year, there are slated to be 82 million mobile Internet users throughout Europe. The market share of mobile operating systems will remain constant, with 37% Symbian (Nokia), 25% Android, 17% iOS (Apple), 15% RIM (BlackBerry), and 6% other providers.

Dearth of Intel and Microsoft

What is conspicuous about the new tablet market is the almost complete lack of the two heavyweights Intel and Microsoft, which have been selling their processors and operating systems in the traditional PC segment (netbooks, notebooks, desktop PCs) successfully for nearly 20 years now. The information technology research and advisory company Gartner assumes that smartphones like the iPhone and tablet PCs like the iPad will be a match for PCs with virtual desktops – see the article Virtual Desktops Through Citrix Receiver 1.1.

Mobile Internet: location-based services

In retrospect, it took the mobile Internet almost 12 years to get through to the masses. The BlackBerry was the first e-mail machine for those on the move, and to this day, surfing with it is not as easy and enjoyable as with the iPhone. Apple has spawned entire ecosystems, including apps and functions.

The mobile Internet is becoming increasingly important, the more so as location-based services (LBS) are experiencing great popularity. The technologies required, such as GSM/EDGE/HSPA/HSPA+, are being continuously extended and exist in the form of the mobile technology standard LTE in Sweden, Norway, and parts of Germany and Austria.

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Trend 2: 3D images and 3D videos

The market for three dimensional images has yet to be decided. It started with the successful movie Avatar, which was filmed digitally in stereoscopic 3D. Stereoscopy – often also known as 3D imaging – involves creating the illusion of depth using various techniques.

In the mobile sector, the focus is currently on smartphones that create a three dimensional image using the touchscreen and that are slated to hit the shops in 2012 at the latest. Market research company In-Stat predicts that around 60 million devices with a 3D display will be sold throughout the world in 2014.

The three dimensional perception of electronic images requires two images from slightly different angles, which imitate how people’s eyes work in a natural environment. The gfu (a Frankfurt, Germany-based society for consumer electronics) is expecting a wide range of 3D-enabled products. For example, 2010 saw the appearance of cameras such as the Fuji FinePix REAL 3D W3, which take pictures and record videos in real 3D – and also display them. In the consumer area, the game console Nintendo 3DS, which displays a stereo image without the need for special glasses, is slated to appear in 2011.

Such developments are also to be expected with full HD displays with a diagonal measurement of 22 inches, because the possibilities for 3D images and 3D videos are almost endless. For example, they are used in medical technology, architecture, mechanical engineering, and vehicle construction – to name just a few areas.

Trend 3: Social media goes mobile

Just a short while ago, Facebook and co. were seen as mere distractions for teenagers – but now everyone’s doing it. And even large companies have discovered social media as a public relations and marketing instrument. Some 75% of all companies listed on the DAX index of the Frankfurt stock exchange use Twitter as a channel to inform customers, and smaller companies are following suit. In total, there are 500 million Facebook users worldwide.

The term social media covers a range of social networks and communication services that are used as platforms for exchanging views, impressions, and experiences. These include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Myspace, LinkedIn, and XING. The main aims are to confirm contacts (LinkedIn), have as many followers as possible (Twitter), or be “Liked” (Facebook).

If a company wants to continue to be successful in the future, it must use the Internet to actively engage with its customers. Facebook and Twitter, for example, offer a communication platform to involve consumers in the process of developing and designing new products.

Companies that are open to social media will notice that communities tend to develop a life of their own. Unlike customer and employee magazines, which only have a one-way communication channel, interested readers or employees can post their own comments about articles – which may be positive or negative from the company’s perspective. Organizations must be particularly careful when dealing with internal matters about products and strategies, which must not be permitted to go beyond company boundaries via social media under any circumstances.

However, a central topic for many decision makers at companies is: How can the increased attention gained through social media be translated into new orders and – ultimately – a tangible increase in sales? So far, no one has been able to prove whether Facebook and Twitter activities have led to customer sales.

Market researchers assume that social media will focus more on mobile devices in the next five years. These include smartphones with their various operating systems and also tablet PCs.

Trend 4: Apps will replace bulky software packages

Smartphones led the way, and now it’s the turn of tablet PCs: While bulky software packages that take up several gigabytes of memory are still installed on conventional PCs and notebooks, most apps take up just a few megabytes. And a huge range of apps is now available.

Apps can be downloaded free of charge or purchased, and can be used in office scenarios, to increase productivity, as tools for virtual desktops, as voice-over-IP applications, as location-based services, or to access complex ERP software at major companies, to name just a few examples.

In the near future, tablet PCs and smartphones will be compatible with the latest Web technologies, such as HTML5, CSS3, and mobile AJAX, enabling all content to be displayed optimally on all devices. This raises the question of the extent to which apps can be developed, when they must constantly be adapted to changing conditions like resolution and operating system support.

Trend 5: Virtualization and Cloud Computing

According to market research company Gartner, total revenues generated from software as a service (SaaS) amounted to U.S.$ 9.2 billion in 2010, which is 15.7% more than in 2009 (U.S.$ 7.9 billion). And SaaS is playing an increasingly important role in the area of enterprise software. In the near future, many organizations will, for example, dispense with their own infrastructures for e-mail, backup, and security – and save costs by renting instead.

Today, Gartner says, it is already common for applications for communication, collaboration, and content management (CMS) to be rented. And there’s a close connection between SaaS and cloud services, which amount to some 75% of sales. Gartner assumes that this will rise to over 90% in 2014, because SaaS is continuously developing and increasingly overlapping with cloud service models.

Furthermore, Gartner predicts that the size of SaaS implementations will increase within organizations. Ten thousand employees could be supplied with rental software at one go, instead of just several hundred, as is currently the case. In addition, companies will start to invest in SaaS without involving their internal IT department in every decision-making process.

And finally, Gartner observed that social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are increasingly included in SaaS.

Trend 6: Augmented Reality

In 2010, applications for augmented reality (AR) became established on the market. Most of these applications are offered as apps for smartphones and tablet PCs. With the help of AR, additional information can be displayed at certain locations by the camera of the smartphone generating an image. Places such as bars, restaurants, banks, and shops are shown in the immediate vicinity.

Augmented reality can be adapted to the individual smartphone user, to the time of day, and to the place, enabling quite different “additional information” to be made available. As well as information about the places (location-based services, LBS), virtual objects such as business cards and advertising banners can be displayed.

In the not-too-distant future, there will be enhancements to operating system interfaces in which program windows and icons are shown as virtual devices in real space and are operated using glances or finger pointing. For smartphones such as the iPhone, AR browsers are available from Layar and acrossair, for example.

Trend 7: Real-time analysis of data

SAP High-Performance Analytic Appliance (SAP HANA): real-time data evaluation

Almost all companies – regardless of the industry in which they operate – are today fighting against an ever-rising tide of data: The volume of data they have to manage is on the increase, both for transactional and analytical applications. What’s more, creating reports from ERP and CRM data is becoming increasingly time-consuming. And the data is at least two hours old, so no one can really talk about “real time” in such cases. At the end of the day, the various interfaces and software applications result in high total cost of ownership (TCO).

By accessing the data in the working memory directly (in-memory computing), it’s possible to combine historical key figures and trend indicators with current data sources, to create a forward-looking analysis. In the results, you can immediate see sudden changes that would have remained hidden had the old technology been used. With business intelligence applications, OLAP (online analytical processing) cubes are deployed, which enable a multidimensional view of existing datasets.

Basically, it’s all about shifting the functions of relational databases and OLAP cubes straight into the working memory of a server. As a result, sales staff can, for example, use their smartphones to access the data record and select criteria such as product, sales revenue, and so on, as well as alter the queries.

Trend 8: Smart grids for e-mobility

The smart grid is an area of research that requires a powerful IT infrastructure, including software and applications. Integrating information technology into systems for creating, distributing, and consuming electricity promises to make energy use highly efficient. Information technology is decisive for electric mobility and vehicle telematics, because it enables electric cars to be recharged over a wide area, traffic to be better coordinated, and high levels of safety to be achieved.

Electric cars are the cars of the future, and, in the medium term, they will gradually replace conventional vehicles powered by internal combustion engines. But it’s crucial to hook electric cars up with the energy infrastructure (that is, grid and recharging technology) – because, in the smart grid, electric cars can be used as huge energy storage systems and new remuneration models can be adopted to provide power.

This means that electric mobility depends to a great extent on the results of research conducted into rechargeable batteries about energy density and storage capacity. The success of electric mobility will also be impacted by whether we succeed in integrating renewable energy – such as solar and wind power – and high-performance energy storage systems into the smart grid on time.

Trend 9: Servers and energy efficiency

In the hardware sector, the spotlight is moving to the microserver segment, where greater integration of the processors improves the performance per watt. Load management has also been optimized for modern multicore processors, which now consume practically no electricity if the load is zero. According to Gartner, Unix servers are still on the decline, while providers of x86-based systems recorded growth in the third quarter of 2010. The global server market generated sales of at least U.S.$ 12.3 billion in Q3/2010, Gartner estimates. This represents 15.3% more than in the previous year. Of all the manufacturers, Hewlett-Packard generated the most revenue with servers in Q3/2010, registering sales of U.S.$ 3.94 billion. The company has a market share of 32.1%, while the market’s number two is IBM with U.S.$ 3.71 billion and 30.2%, and third place goes to Dell with U.S.$ 1.79 billion and 14.6% of the market.

The times when data centers were still planned with huge amounts of space and a time horizon of up to 15 years were over when energy prices began to rise and the economic crisis hit. Now, the focus is mainly on energy-efficient data centers that offer as high performance as possible in as little space as possible. As far as energy is concerned, only about half of it is consumed by the servers themselves. The rest is used for air conditioning, uninterruptible power supply, and infrastructure – see also our article 1 Watt Performance, 0.3 Watt Cooling.

That’s why it’s useful to record and visualize the temperature distribution. This enables thermal hotspots to be identified and removed using special measures. The temperature distribution in the data center can, for example, be optimized by regulating the air volume flow. Unnecessarily low temperatures and dangerously high temperatures can be avoided, resulting in cost savings, less downtime, and improved availability.

It is therefore no surprise that there was a move toward rack-optimized systems in the third quarter, compared with the first half of 2010. Sales rose by 23.7% in terms of items sold, with revenues increasing by 31.2%. Also popular at the moment are blade servers: During the same period, items sold rose by seven percent and revenues increased by 26%.

via SAP.info

SAP Terminology

A few terms to help the uninitiated:-

• SAP – World class, highly integrated business system processes and software used by many of the world’s largest and medium sized businesses.
• APO – ‘Advanced Planner and Optimizer’, SAP’s primary module aimed at supply chain planning, now changed its name/morphed into SCM ‘Supply Chain Management’.
• PP & PP-PI – SAP’s modules that deal with the business processes around manufacturing and supply operations. PP is essentially a production job model responding to customer orders, whereas PP-PI is aimed at continuous production models – most factory scenarios.

My Background

Since 2003, I have spent most of my time understanding and implementing SAP APO supply chain planning systems in many business scenarios within the FMCG market. For the 7 years prior to that, I implemented SAP for manufacturing operations, so I’ve gained a good background of SAP generally and APO specifically.

What is SAP APO or SCM

SAP in a system sense, appears to be a highly integrated set of modules. Mostly these modules sit within what is called R/3 or ECC…the core part of SAP. Core SAP holds the reins on integrated data throughout the SAP world so data about a plan to make something is all within core SAP and is linked in to master data defining materials and resources.

The SAP functionality to build supply chain plans is also within core SAP but in reality for most purposes it is near unusable in any practical sense. The practical side of automated planning requires a great deal of computing power and, for that reason, APO was conceived.

APO or SCM as it is now called, is in three parts:-

• DP – Demand Planning (forecasting) – can be linked to Customer Relationship Management to pull data about campaigns etc from there
• SNP – Supply Network Planning – it views the organization as a network of locations (factories and distribution centres primarily) which all have individual stock projections and stock keeping criteria. Calculations in SNP drive dependent requirements down to supplying locations (production and receiving stores)
• PPDS – Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling – the production plans are calculated here to meet the dependent requirements from locations within the supply network, passed down from SNP. PPDS is linked in with Material Requirement Planning, which is part of core SAP, to schedule inbound material components required by the production plan.

Master Data and Integration between Core SAP and APO / SCM

Despite APO or SCM now being on its sixth sojourn, it is still a long lost cousin in SAP integration terms. APO has many master data tables that mirror core SAP but generally with different names and with more attributes that are specific to planning. APO also has various planning versions which support what-if planning, each planning version can have its own version of master data.

The overall picture is one of a lot of master data complexity to support the functionality. However the complexity is really needed to support these calculations when you understand that SAP is highly configurable and has to deal with many different scenarios. Of course your company might be only interested in 20% of this opportunity and the other 80% is essentially noise! This isn’t a APO fact, this is a SAP one and to be fair one that is general for all configurable enterprise systems and not just SAP.

Where APO and data does become complicated in a peculiarly SAP way is that it has something called the Core-Interface that passes master data and transactional data between core SAP and APO. As transactions and master data changes pass through this interface, trying to keep the two systems in synchronization, they can frequently get stuck when activities happen out of sequence! This places heavy demands on the users (of various departments) to do their activities following a script with a specific sequence.

When activities happen out of sequence, transactions for the material or product in question get held in a queue needing manual intervention. Someone will then have to diagnose the problem and unpick it! Working with APO requires specific technical support in this area. For a large company this role will be a full time job and for an international company, there could be a team of people doing this!

Production Plan Calculations

Production planning uses a number of graphical interfaces, the two main ones being:-

• Production Planning Table – spreadsheet type interface with plan quantities in cells which represent a bucket of time (month, day, shift, etc)
• Detailed Schedulers Planning Board – Gantt type planning board with time as an axis and orders appearing as slugs in time.

Planning and scheduling calculations can be done manually by typing numbers into cells or dragging and dropping orders into new positions. It can also be done by background calculations. There are two broad approaches – Heuristics or the Optimizer.

Heuristics

I remember as an under graduate being told heuristic methods were those arrived at through experience…”suck it and see” approaches. SAP uses the term to mean customizable calculations based on an underlying algorithm to do a specific job eg. create new planned orders. Customizing in this context would be getting the algorithm to create orders based on specific parameters. In simple planning terms, heuristics are a bit like MRP calculations.

Optimizer

There are lots of ways to “skin a cat” as the story goes and similarly there are usually many different ways of creating a production plan, all of which may well be valid! The chosen plan will be chosen because it priorities one aspect above others or maybe there is a hierarchy of important aspects to achieve in the plan, eg. just in time, maintain shelf-life, etc. The Optimizer needs to know the relative costs of aspects so that it can rank their importance. You then set the Optimizer off and give it a period of time to do calculations. It will calculate the plan many times over and when the clock stops, it checks to see which of its plans was achieved at lowest cost (ie. highest achievement of rankings).

What’s it like using APO?

Unless you have very flexible and short supply routes, the Optimizer is very difficult to use because every time you run it it will come up with a different answer. Most continuous process businesses can’t cope with changing their inbound supply plans to this degree and so the Optimizer if used at all, might have to be restricted to those materials that have components that can be sourced very quickly.

The heuristics provide a means of working with APO that most scenarios can cope with. Some levels of planning become an automatic reaction to plans in other areas and so these can be set to automatically plan each time something changes that relates to them.

From a planners perspective, APO is a heavy tool to crack a nut but they are likely to be relating a lot to spreadsheets and failing to see the positive side of APO in being integrated with their other business systems. You raise an order in APO and it gets worked on in core SAP, APO being updated in real time with what’s going on for stocks etc.

I recall visiting a planner three years after I’d implemented APO. Lets call him Jim, as that was his name! Prior to SAP, he had a very flexible graphical planning board and all their questions were based around how can SAP be made to be like the tool they had. They had no integration between that tool however and their MRP and stock control systems and that could often cause them stock-out surprises! So it would be fair to say that Jim wasn’t overly keen on moving to SAP and APO. Three years on, he was managing considerably more production capacity and singing APO’s praises. He was well aware of its problems, including the poor integration between APO and R/3 but it was bringing him more benefits than he had previously and as a factory they had learned how to manage their processes more effectively, which in turn brought fewer integration problems.

Resourcing to support APO

I had the privilege of working with APO’s founder PP-DS developer, Guy Lauwers, on a prototype project between Nestle SA and SAP SA in 1999-2000. APO PP-DS has changed little in concept since its days known as PFS. Since then, with over ten years of APO, SAP have studiously avoided tackling its integration issues. It is a great shame as it is the single biggest drain on resources to support APO and continues to undermine its credibility.

I hope my description of SAP APO and what it entails has opened your eyes rather than put you off. If you’re using SAP as an enterprise-wide system, SAP APO is very usable. It takes quite a long time for planner to pick up because there are a lot of buttons and widgets that create noise for learning and half of their understanding is in how their process now interconnects in real-time with other processes within the organization.

So expect to have to spend time and money on supporting APO and when constructing project plans remember that APO can only plan when all the APO master has been built on top of the underlying core SAP master data. Don’t expect rabbits out of planners hats if you haven’t allocated sufficient project time for this activity!

The top 5 areas to address performance issues are:

1. Add hardware by adding application servers. This will have some impact on the DB server but may improve response time. The same holds true for adding CPUs/memory to the server(s). However, you are dealing with a “black box”– you do not really exercise control over the system and the solution may not be sustainable.
2. Tune the system with profile parameters or increase the buffer sizes to improve response times. You can do this even if you are not very familiar with the software. The drawback to this approach is that SAP is very scalable and can run on several different databases and Operating System and each has a different method to tuning and tools to use.
3. A third option is to modify the business processes by re-scheduling load so that you can distribute load more evenly across servers and time. This effort will be more local than the other two options and may require the involvement of several different groups.  This can be done with Operation Modes, Logon groups, or as simple as moving jobs to different times or different servers.
4. Tuning the application by analyzing and improving customizations, configuration, functions and performance is much more sustainable but requires business knowledge as well software expertise. Also, the modifications should be tested carefully as there may be some business risk involved.
5. The fifth option is to optimize the code itself which requires application and software knowledge. It is the most sustainable solution by far and strongly recommended by SAP. Programs running slow are the biggest complaint, so naturally we look at the longest running programs. My experience has shown that Z* (custom) programs are the worst offenders.  This code needs to be optimized by a developer.

There are many tools available to aid with this process.  EarlyWatch sessions are a free service by SAP that evaluates your entire setup and gives you recommendations.  The ST* transactions show program buffers, response time, CPU and memory utilization.  This will help with adjusting parameters or noticing if you have a hardware or software bottleneck.  This can be done by your internal Basis team or more in-depth analysis can be provided by BayForce’s Technical team which also has Functional experts to assist with the more difficult tasks. To delve a layer deeper, you must use the database or operating system tools available to best tune the system.  BayForce can cover this need as well.

Performance analysis is an ever evolving task. More tools are becoming available and the current ones are improving.  Keep your eyes open during the monitoring of the system and you can take action on potential issues before they happen.

About the Author

Darin Fredenburg has over 10 years of SAP Basis experience and has participated in full lifecycle projects as well as provided production support to numerous clients throughout the US.  Darin started out as an ABAP programmer and then transitioned into a Basis role giving him diverse technical experience allowing him to diagnose issues quickly and effectively.  He has directed project teams in addition to being the sole Basis support for a corporation.  Darin has a wide range of experience on DB2, SQL Server, and Oracle as well as many Operating Systems.  He is currently BayForce’s Lead Basis Administrator providing support to our Managed Services clients.

800 aircrafts at SR Technics: Business processes have to run smoothly (photo: SR Technics)

Poor performance, stability, and availability can have various causes in SAP systems. In some industries, the “only” culprit is data quantities that are growing at a disproportionate rate. Large retail chains, for instance, process millions of movement data records in their SAP applications every day.

In most cases, however, the reasons behind drops in performance are more complex. The Swiss aviation services provider SR Technics, for example – which shares real-time information on the 800 aircraft it supports with around 500 customers – counts on its central SAP ERP application to always be up and running at a high level of efficiency. “Our business processes have to run smoothly; we can’t risk any reduction in performance,” explains Adrian Wirth, vice president of SR Technics’ IT group. Due to its constantly increasing amounts of data, the company planned and carried out a migration of its SAP application from an aging UNIX platform to a modern, highly accessible hardware platform with a corresponding storage solution. However, the move did not produce the performance boost SR Technics had hoped for. Quite the opposite, in fact: Despite the platform’s more powerful components, the SAP software’s dialog response times and batch program runtimes were even longer than before. “The performance improvements we were expecting from the migration to more potent hardware never materialized, so we had to switch back to our old infrastructure a few days later,” Wirth recalls. Then the investigation into the cause of these events began.

Hardware not always at fault

As this example shows, performance shortfalls in SAP applications cannot always be traced back to a lack of hardware resources. Individual issues can combine to cause greater problems that place unnecessary strain on these systems. In the case described, incorrectly configured hard drive systems, unstable clusters, and performance problems related to the ZFS file system were responsible.

On their own, each of these problems would have been compensated by SR Technics’ new and improved hardware; only the combination of all three led to the company’s serious performance issues. The nature of this conundrum was also such that even more powerful hardware would not have made the slightest difference.

VMS Benchmarks

Why do IT managers often find it hard to pinpoint the actual causes of performance deficits? They often suspect a single reason, make a corresponding change, and typically dismiss the reason out of hand when no improvement occurs. Meanwhile, the attempted modification may actually be part of the solution. The concurrence of multiple causes often amplifies their effects, but since this amplification is nonlinear, it can be difficult or impossible to gauge. This exacerbates the problem.

Assessing individual system reports is not enough to get to the root of the issue; software that performs holistic analysis of SAP systems and their architecture is required. Model-generated monitoring based on benchmarks makes this possible (see text box).

Just such an assessment gave SR Technics key insights into why its SAP ERP system had not exhibited the performance expected following its hardware upgrade. The results recommended modifying the company’s hardware configuration and system architecture, as well as adjusting these aspects to users’ actual behavior. “Since implementing the VMS recommendations, we’ve come to expect fast response times, rapid batch processing, and high uptime in all of our IT processes. Our SAP users are also pleased,” Wirth says in summary.

Targeting complexity

One of the most important conclusions to draw from this case is that there is no universal means of optimizing SAP system performance. The demands business-critical processes place on SAP systems in terms of processing speed, response times, availability, and stability vary by situation. Companies in the automotive industry, for instance, have to be able to handle forecast and sequenced delivery schedules for just-in-time and just-in-sequence processes in seconds. For telecommunications providers, fast response times at call centers are a competitive advantage. At the beginning of each new month, publicly traded companies are obligated to submit their reports for the previous month – the generation of which involves a series of batch processes.

All of these requirements are different; even more importantly, they almost always come in groups. This leads to interdependencies, which makes it very difficult to apply the solution for a particular issue to other cases. Specific problems constantly manifest themselves in different areas.

SR Technics has demonstrated what to expect: When combined, application complexity, the abundance of contingencies among individual components, and limited resources augment one another, leading to nonlinear performance. Since this complexity cannot be avoided – indeed, it will actually increase due to virtualization and other modern technologies – companies must learn to deal with it. In complex systems, improvements only take hold when executed jointly in a coordinated manner. A single action will not have the desired effect, and the series of measures needed depends on the case at hand. Only a complete system analysis capable of factoring in as many aspects as possible can deliver a comprehensive overview and identify the elements needed to achieve optimization.

Via SAP.info

A variety of versions: Microsoft offers Office 2010 in seven variants.

Though it’s hard to think of a new feature as controversial and slow to catch on as the “ribbon” interface introduced in Office 2007, Microsoft has stuck to its guns and integrated the concept into Outlook, as well. The company has, however, evidently taken the extensive user criticism to heart and made numerous improvements.

For instance, the tried-and-true “File” menu has made its return. It enables users to access Office 2010’s “Backstage” view, which contains key functions such as “Save” and “Print.” The interface’s individual ribbons can also be adjusted to meet specific preferences.

The other Office applications have only seen minor improvements. Of particular note is the incremental search function in Microsoft Word, which displays every instance found – along with its context – in a preview sidebar. Microsoft Excel users, meanwhile, will be excited to start using “sparklines” – tiny graphics that display the progression of data streams in diagrams. Unlike conventional Excel diagrams, users can integrate sparklines into rows to achieve better clarity.

With incremental search, you can comb through even lengthy Microsoft Word files in real time.

While it does not come close to offering the functional diversity of products like Cyberlink PowerProducer and Adobe Premiere Pro, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 now supports enough audio and video editing to enable users to shorten videos, for example, without additional programs. Each of the new Office applications can also work with images much better than before: With just a few mouse-clicks, users can crop pictures, apply graphical filters, or add a 3D effect. In many cases, this eliminates the need for an extra image-processing program.

Online control center: Users can start the Office 2010 apps through Windows Live.

Office in the cloud

With Office 2010, Microsoft is seeking to bring its customers a software suite they can use anywhere – whether on desktop computers, smartphones, or applications in the cloud. To make this possible regardless of the user’s location, Office 2010 supports fixed integration of Windows Live SkyDrive, a Microsoft service that offers 25 free gigabytes of online storage.

In addition, Microsoft has made available Web versions of four of its applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. These online applications – which support every popular browser, not just Internet Explorer – are free for anyone interested to use and only require a Windows Live account. While Web users will have to make some concessions in terms of functional scope, Microsoft’s cloud offerings do contain all of the key components needed to get real work done on letters, spreadsheets, and presentations while on the move.

Microsoft Office Word 2010

According to Ralph Haupter, the new head of Microsoft Germany, a virtually unlimited number of users can work on online documents at the same time; connection bandwidth is the only limiting factor. The corresponding data is updated in real time, making it possible to track changes as they are made. All those currently working on a document are constantly displayed at the bottom-right of each user’s browser.

Integrated social networks

Meanwhile, Microsoft is keeping pace with the times by integrating social networks into Outlook 2010. The application’s Social Connector, for example, incorporates status updates from contacts on Facebook and other communities. By the end of June, Outlook will also be able to interface with Xing, a social network popular in the German-speaking countries. Microsoft offers an online overview of the services Outlook currently supports.

64-bit Office

As we reported in our first article on the subject, “Office 2010 – SAP Gives the Go-Ahead,” the latest version of Microsoft’s suite is the first to be available in 64-bit form. This version is mainly of interest to users who have to contend with huge Excel files (more than 2GB in size). The 32-bit variant seems to be the better choice for everyone else, as its 64-bit counterpart does not support the majority of Office 2010 plug-ins – including one that integrates the SAP GUI into Outlook, to name a prominent example.

Via SAP.info

The following is part two in BayForce’s series on Solution Manager and details specific issues and key steps to consider when implementing ChaRM.

Click here to view the first part of this series “Solution Manager: What Is It & What Can It Do For Your Business”.

Solution Manager Part II: ChaRM Revealed

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SAP has been encouraging customers to use Solution Manager for quite a while now; somewhat subtly in the beginning by making this the only channel to acquire installation keys.  Customers with impending installations or upgrades reluctantly raced to stand up minimal instances of Solution Manager for the sole purpose of obtaining these keys while the remaining customers ignored it.  Initially Solution Manager was widely viewed as a nuisance, one more instance of SAP that needed to be supported.

These initial instances of Solution Manager were very basic installations that a competent Basis resource could install and configure within a few hours. They required little attention or interaction unless new installation or upgrade keys were needed. Solution Manger has evolved into a comprehensive set of tools that provide system performance monitoring, problem tracking, root cause analysis and change and transport management. This new functionality requires extensive configuration and can touch every instance within an enterprise.

If you’ve attended Sapphire or SAP TechEd in the last few years you’ve no doubt seen a presentation on Solution Manager.  SAP advertises Solution Manger as an included component, sometimes leading customers to believe that to activate its vast functionality requires only basic configuration.  This combined with the historic belief that Solution Manger is a simple system, requiring little effort to install, has misled many an executive or manager. This is compounded by Basis/Technical resources believing that having mastered the support of SAP prepares them for the new requirements of Solution Manager. While the basic installation of Solution Manger remains a relatively simple task for a technical resource, gone are the days of a 1 day installation and configuration of Solution Manager.

To appreciate this complexity it’s valuable to break down the components of Solution Manager and identify some of the common pitfalls and challenges many customers face.  The first and largest challenge is the decision process.  Questions such as what components will be activated, what problems will be reported, who will be notified, where will the server reside, will it be a discreet instance and will it function as a central or distributed manager of change and problem tracking.  These decisions rest with the project management and/or executive sponsors of the project.  The challenge is people don’t know what they don’t know.  Until the functionality of Solution Manager is peeled back layer by layer, management not only doesn’t know the answers, they don’t even know there was a question to be answered.  Progress is hindered until these questions can be answered.

I know how glamorous the SAP product presentations appear.  Customers are almost convinced that 90% of the advertised functionality comes with the installation itself.  This is not true at all.  Each installation of SAP Solution Manager is a unique configuration based on specific customer needs.  It’s not unlike configuring any other component of SAP.  For proper project planning it could be compared to configuring FI, a fundamental component of SAP. Experienced project teams staffed with power users and supplemented by consulting partners spend months developing business process blue prints and migration plans.  Careful consideration is made to plan cutover during a weekend.  Integration and performance testing scenarios are planned and executed.  Support for critical projects such as this must start from the top.  Can you see how the perspective that Solution Manager is essentially a Basis component merely needing activation is harmful to proper budget and project planning?

SAP has provided a comprehensive, useful toolset that can function beautifully as the central system management console when properly implemented.  However, Solution Manager provides functionality for several business functions, each with specific, unique challenges that must be considered.  I’ve found that most clients are focusing on ChaRM as the primary component to implement, so the following provides some specific information and issues relating to this component.

ChaRM Misunderstandings & Technical Challenges Explained

A common misunderstanding is the belief that implementing ChaRM will provide a pre-defined workflow and change management process.  It’s true that ChaRM will force customers to adhere to a plan and inherently provide consistency but that is accomplished by the customer providing the plan.  If your transport management process is a mess today, it will be hard to adapt to ChaRM without first adopting a consistent plan.  The first critical step will be to identify users who will create transports, manage transports, test transports and approve transports.  These users can either be manually assigned at the creation of a transport, or based on pre-defined criteria, they can be automatically assigned.  They must exist and be identified or ChaRM cannot function.

One of the benefits of ChaRM is that it will provide much more formidable structure to organize transports automatically using multiple factors that previously were performed manually or thru substantial custom development.  To realize this robust functionality, however, customers must learn how to create and manage Solution Manager Projects thru maintenance cycles.  Decisions will need to be made as to which transports move into what environments based on the project(s) they are assigned to.  A well defined set of criteria must be in place to sort transports into categories of routine, emergency or standard maintenance and different processes must be established for each of these along with potentially different transport routes.

Once Solution Manager is properly understood and appropriately planned, then you finally begin experiencing, and can address the technical challenges.  Following are several of the key steps and issues you should be aware of when implementing ChaRM.

There are many configuration steps to complete the activation of ChaRM.  These start with 2 critical activities that are actually not part of SolMan and are common problems.  First, the SAP SLD (System Landscape Directory) must be setup.  This is the foundation that provides the entire system mapping to Solution Manager and ChaRM.  Another critical SAP specific task is to establish the Transport Routes and consolidated Transport Routes for the environment.

Transport routes must be defined in STMS in order for Solution Manager / ChaRM to function.  Many initial problems are related to the SAP configuration being incomplete or non-compliant with ChaRM.

Following SLD and transport route related issues as the most common trouble areas, problems caused by a flawed basic configuration of ChaRM run a close second.  It’s important to verify that the configuration of ChaRM was completed correctly.  This verification can be accomplished like other SAP components via the IMG using transaction SPRO.

Another significant step often overlooked is the creation of an RFC connection between the ChaRM client and client 000 in the Solution Manager instance.  This can be accomplished with transaction SMSY.  Because clients often move their transport domain controller from development to production once they’ve gone live, it is necessary to recreate the RFC connection to the new instance if this occurs.

Additionally, it is important to verify that ChaRM has been activated by confirming that the table BCOS_CUST contains the following entries.

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This will confirm that ChaRM has been activated for specific clients.

The activation of the BC Set for ChaRM SOLMAN40_CHARM_BASICFUNC_001 must be completed and Extended Transport Control must be activated.

Verify that the domain controller has been properly created within transaction STMS.

To request a link between two transport domains, proceed as follows:

1. Log on to one of the two domain controller systems, in SolMan system, for example:
2. Call transaction STMS (always being in client 000)
3. Choose Overview > Systems

The system overview appears.

Choose SAP System > Create > Domain link

The dialog box Request for Linking 2 Domains appears.

Enter system name, DEV for example, hostname where is installed the system and system number, all this information is in SM51 of the DEV system, if DEV system is the domain controller of your real landscape.

Your SAP System performs the following actions automatically:

• Generates the required RFC destinations
• Sends the address data of the controller to the controller in the other domain

Afterwards, you need to logon in the domain controller, client 000, of your real landscape and confirm the link between these two domains as follows:

• Log on to the domain controller in the other domain
• Call Transaction STMS in client 000
• Choose Overview >Systems. The system overview appears
• Position the cursor on the domain controller where you requested the domain link, DOMAIN_SMM in our example, and choose SAP System Approve
• Confirm the prompt and distribute the configuration

The two domain controllers now exchange all necessary information about the systems in their domains. This information is distributed to all systems in the domain whose controller you are currently logged on to. A transport profile is generated, which contains all systems in both domains.

You have to see something like this in your SolMan system (called SSM in this real example):

And this in the DEV system (called ED4 in this real example):

To check that the domain link is good, go into the SolMan system and in the development system to STMS->transport routes, in the top of the screen you will see that in the SolMan system, the systems belonging to the other transport domain appear like boxes and are the same if you go to STMS in the DEV system, the box of the SolMan system can be seen.

Another area where a lack of experience can lead to a number of frustrating problems and wasted time through trial and error is the creation of a “Project”.  Projects are the fundamental mechanism for managing change in ChaRM.  There are 2 types of projects– implementation and maintenance.

For reference to creating projects please click here.

1. 1. Select SAP Solution Manager 7.0
2. 2. Select Learning Map for Supp Organizations/Serv providers
3. 3. Open Change Request Management section and see the iTutor called “Create a Project”

The following screen shots will walk through the process of creating and activating a ChaRM maintenance project.

Under the System Landscape Tab:

Systems: the Logical component is entered

Take into account that all systems that belongs to the TMS landscape must be assigned to the same logical component because all systems must have the same product version except when upgrading.

This means that in the same logical component each system must be assigned a role; you can have a minimum of two systems for a ChaRM scenario but you can have, for example, 5 systems with different roles in your real landscape.

The following screen shot represents this example:

A problem that many customers struggle with when trying to create a project is the inability to activate ChaRM. This will happen when the landscape that is defined in Solution Manager doesn’t exactly match the landscape in STMS.  Until these landscapes are consistent, ChaRM can not be activated.

Under the IMG project tab: define the project

ALWAYS define projects in the development system ONLY!  The project must be defined in the development system so that it can be assigned to all transport orders that are created with a Change request in the SolMan system.  This is an absolute requirement when using ChaRM.

See the above iTutor to see how to define this IMG project.

Don’t define IMG projects in other roles, systems, different from development.

Under the Change Request tab: Select “Activate Change Request Management”

Select Create Task List

Select the name of your Maintenance Cycle also called Project Cycle.

Note: Choose Lock/Unlock Group/Subsequent Groups to unlock the tasks in the task list.

If all is working correctly a Task List and a Maintenance transaction type SDMN (called Service Desk Transaction in the screenshot) is being created.

Service Desk Transaction Tab: shows the SDMN document for this project cycle.

The task list is one representative of the cycle and represents the system landscape tracks with tasks to be used by an IT operator for managing project related IT activities, especially imports.

The SDMN transaction represents the service request for managing the phase changes.

It is recommended that you activate and change the phase by executing transaction CRM_DNO_MONITOR using transaction type SDMN.

So, phase shifts should be done from within the cycle transaction SDMN but not from within the tasklist.

In the case of the Task list not being created, please run the Check (transaction /n/tmwflow/charmchk) or go to the Application Log via the button or calling SLG1 directly.

In both places you will get information as to why the Task List and the Maintenance Cycle is not being created.

These steps will help verify that SAP and Solution Manger / ChaRM have been correctly configured to support the features of ChaRM.

I hope you find this document helpful in understanding and implementing ChaRM.  These are just some examples of common problems that are experienced by customers implementing ChaRM and not a comprehensive list.  This document is also not a replacement for proper consulting help.  It’s imperative to have not only an experienced technical resource, but one who’s specifically experienced with Solution Manger implementation and configuration.  There is a reason that SAP has a specific certification program for Solution Manager.

If you would like assistance evaluating, implementing, or trouble-shooting your Solution Manager system, please contact us and we will be happy to set up a preliminary call to discuss.

About the Author

Ken Asher holds a Masters degree in Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science. He has over 17 years of SAP experience and has worked as an SAP America liaison to various clients to resolve critical architecture and solution issues throughout his career including during his time with Andersen Consulting/Accenture.  Ken was also a member of SAP’s ATAC team for advanced technical application consulting.  He has a deep understanding of SAP architecture and has worked with all of the latest SAP technologies.  In many of his previous projects he has been responsible for reviewing and recommending strategy as well as project planning for SAP clients including GMAC, Raytheon, and MIT.  Ken is currently deployed by BayForce to assist Amtrak with multiple ongoing projects including one of their largest initiatives for Strategic Asset Management.

To contact Mr. Asher or discuss how we can assist you with your upcoming projects, please call Kim Snow, Vice President of Delivery at BayForce, at 813-908-8593 or send an email to ksnow@bayforce.com.

The Proof of Concept Upgrade – A Small Investment Today, for Significant Savings Tomorrow

One piece of advice I offer to customers as discussions of an upgrade start taking place is, before you even start writing your upgrade project plans, strongly consider executing a Proof of Concept Upgrade project. This is a low cost and extremely effective means to properly plan for and execute an SAP upgrade. In the numerous upgrades I’ve been involved in managing, the projects that start off with a Proof of Concept upgrade having already taken place are almost without exception the smoothest and most predictable.

Right-Click the PDF icon and select to download this Proof of Concept Upgrade article.

A proof of concept upgrade project consists of copying your productive environment to a new system(s), performing the technical upgrade on that system, and initial functional testing taking place. Use of software testing tools can be used in conjunction with this effort as well.

No two SAP systems are “the same”. Your SAP system is comprised of your servers, software, configuration, data, and connecting systems. Your SAP system will always be unique to your environment. Due to this, no two SAP upgrades are the same, and the key here is that you’re gleaning as much information as possible about the total effort involved in your upgrade, before committing to a timeline, methodology, or budget.

I normally recommend a Proof of Concept upgrade take place 6 months prior to the planned start of an upgrade project. This accomplishes several things.

1. It identifies any technical dependencies that your Basis group will need to be prepared for during or before the upgrade cycle. Often times, dependencies on software versions, pre-existing issues with your SAP system (which may have been lingering unseen since your last support pack project, upgrade, or possibly, your initial installation), or possible compatibility issues with connecting systems get overlooked until you’ve reached the upgrade timeline. Any one of these issues could quickly turn into a timeline consuming, costly, and game changing project issue if they’re not discovered before you’re on a critical timeline.
2. Better prepares your functional, security, and ABAP teams for necessary changes by giving them additional insight into the changes that will be necessary during the upgrade. Once again, this information is critical for properly planning the actual upgrade timeline.
3. Identifies and familiarizes your team with new features of the software that may be of interest for implementing.

The Proof of Concept upgrade should ideally consist of a copy of your productive landscape. While many companies may find it too costly to exactly reproduce all systems involved, the closer this can be done will greatly help identify compatibility issues. Whatever the case may be, this landscape should be isolated from your actual productive landscape, and ideally, your actual upgrade timeline.

Plan on using a full database copy of your production data for the system. This will better ensure that data-related issues during the actual upgrade process are replicated during the sandbox phase, as opposed to during the critical path of your actual upgrade project timeline.

All in all, keep in mind that there is a tremendous amount of change during any SAP upgrade process and the changes involved will impact all areas of your SAP team. The more you can know early on, before going into the project, will only help you keep your project on-time, on-budget, and successful.

For more information about BayForce SAP Technical Services click here.

About the Author

Adam Marcus has over 12 years of SAP experience and has directed teams of 20+ consultants delivering services to as many as 50 clients at any one time. Adam has served as a Director and Practice Manager in the SAP Managed Services industry for 7 years.

To contact Mr. Marcus or discuss how we can assist you with your upcoming projects please call Adam at 262-643-4817 or email amarcus@bayforce.com.

Client

Click on the icon above to download this article as a PDF.

Jason Finishing Group is a global brush manufacturer with production facilities in 12 countries and customers in over 100. Their brushes are used for hundreds of applications in the manufacturing finishing process to improve repeatability and cycle times. In 2009 Jason Finishing Group implemented SAP with the assistance of a Big 4 integrator. The same integrator provided post go-live support utilizing an off-shore support model in addition to Jason Finishing Group’s own internal support team consisting exclusively of Super Users.

Challenge

Jason Finishing Group faced a number of challenges associated with their SAP support model. Internal bandwidth was extremely limited due to the small number of internal Super Users. The internal team also lacked the practical SAP knowledge and experience required to support such a complex SAP implementation without risking day-to-day business operations.

Jason Finishing Group also faced increasing issues with their SAP Support Provider’s off-shore model. SAP support was adversely affected as issues with time zones, communication barriers and business process knowledge for this mid-sized manufacturer became increasingly frustrating and time consuming.

Additionally, Jason Finishing Group identified gaps in their SAP system (specifically in their financial reporting capabilities in COPA and BI) that needed to be addressed quickly.

Solution

BayForce was initially selected to fill the gaps identified in Jason Finishing Group’s SAP system due to the fact that our Platinum-level Consultants are experienced with multiple years of practical SAP knowledge, possess exceptional communication skills (both written and verbal), possess business process knowledge and were able to understand Jason Finishing Group’s unique needs.

BayForce was able to provide Jason Finishing Group with Platinum-level remote support at a significant cost savings that was flexible and based on their teams availability as to not disturb their normal working process. In phase 1 of this project, BayForce was able to deliver this functionality before their fiscal year end and prepare the road map for their global reporting template.

Jason Finishing Group’s Executive Team was so pleased with BayForce’s ability to complete this project on-time and on-budget with minimal disturbance to day-to-day business operations that we were asked to become Jason Finishing Group’s exclusive SAP service provider.

BayForce has gone on to provide Jason Finishing Group with our SAP Managed Services Solution (BayForce Remote 360) which encompasses a complete family of support solutions that are completely customized to their unique environment offering Jason Finishing Group true three hundred and sixty degree support, covering their Basis/Netweaver, Functional, and ABAP support needs.  Jason Finishing Group is now able to leverage BayForce’s “Always On” Emergency Production Support, Dedicated Remote Support Teams, and our U.S.-based Platinum-Level Consultants.

BayForce immediately set up an SAP Early Watch Session and provided Jason Finishing Group with an executive summary of recommendations detailing improvements that could be made to greatly improve the efficiency of their ECC and BI environments.

BayForce has gone on to make a number of significant, proactive, changes and upgrades to Jason Finishing Group’s SAP environment such as a reimplementation and upgrade of Solution Manager, Support Pack implementations, and a QA environment refresh.

Why BayForce?

BayForce, a Certified SAP Services Partner, has focused exclusively on providing SAP services since 1996. Our service offerings encompass the entire SAP suite and include (but are not limited to) full lifecycle SAP Project Services, SAP Managed Support Services, and Staff Augmentation.

BayForce was not selected based solely on our ability to deliver Platinum-level consultants that deliver consistent results, posses years of practical experience, and possess exceptional communication skills.  We were also selected because we take a holistic approach to meeting our clients’ unique business requirements, including developing alternatives to business issues not identified during the initial selection process. BayForce’s ability to provide a combination of remote and onsite support, and our commitment to ensuring that internal teams are acclimated with changes to the technical environment through knowledge transfer, also weighed heavily in the decision to select us as an SAP service provider.

Another determining factor in BayForce’s selection by Jason Finishing Group was our flexible SAP Managed Services Solution (also known as BayForce Remote 360).

BayForce’s SAP Managed Services offer a robust portfolio of completely customizable services that cover all of our client’s Technical and Functional support needs. Clients are able to take advantage of our U.S.-based, Platinum-level resources while ensuring their SAP environment is monitored and maintained 24/7. BayForce’s Managed Services are available at varying levels of commitment and can be customized to fit any budget without sacrificing service integrity.

Our Managed Services ensure “Steady State Operations” by offering a wide range of services such as 24/7 emergency support, system monitoring, proactive troubleshooting and error resolution, transport management, performance tuning, support stack applications, and landscape refreshes among others.

BayForce’s dedicated remote support team model provides a depth and breadth of experience and knowledge unattainable with individual consulting models, while providing our clients the continuity of resources to ensure your support is being provided by resources intimately familiar with our client’s individual SAP environments, policies, procedures, and internal support teams.

Benefit

BayForce’s approach to meeting the business needs of Jason Finishing Group quickly established BayForce as a partner upon whom Jason Finishing Group can depend. The routine process improvement efforts allow Jason Finishing Group to recognize continued operational excellence not just internally, but throughout the entire SAP landscape.

Contact Us

If you are interested in learning more about our SAP Managed Services or another of our other SAP Services (such as Staff Augmentation) please contact us using the information below:

Contact: Kim Snow, Vice President

Email: ksnow@bayforce.com

Phone: 813-908-8593