1. Creating an upgrade plan and strategy for SAP BW and NetWeaver
Bjarne Berg
MyITgroup Ltd.

2. Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
What We’ll Cover …
Why upgrade
End of support
New support strategy & NetWeaver
New features and capabilities
Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
Content Vs. Technical upgrades
Upgrades with NetWeaver
Planning and Executing the upgrade
The upgrade plan
The business case
Staffing, duration and scope
Questions and Answers

3. Why Upgrade – end of support…
#1 reason for upgrade:
“Because I had to!”
Many upgrades are driven by end of support for a certain release.
SAP has now created a maintenance system that consists of:
- mainstream maintenance
- extended maintenance
- customer-specific maintenance

4. The 5-1-2 maintenance strategy
Going forward, SAP will provide five years of mainstream (standard) maintenance, with the option to extend their maintenance coverage for a period of up to three years for small premiums over the standard maintenance rate.
Five years of mainstream maintenance at the standard maintenance fee.
One year of extended maintenance at an additional two percent maintenance fee.
Two more years of extended maintenance at an additional four percent maintenance fee per year. After these eight years, customer-specific maintenance begins, providing a program of support and services uniquely tailored to individual customer requirements.
The plan covers SAP solutions based on the SAP NetWeaver platform including mySAP SCM, SRM, PLM, CRM, and industry add-ons.

5. Stop looking at infrastructure and technology…
The Bigger Picture
Stop looking at infrastructure and technology…
Start looking at the big picture…
How are you going to make it all work together?
And,.. how will you plan your upgrades to make sure it does so in the future?
Source: SAP, Léo Apotheker

6. The Bigger Picture – NetWeaver ??
Source: SAP AG
COMPOSITE APPLICATION FRAMEWORK
PEOPLE INTEGRATION
Multichannel
access
Portal
Collaboration
INFORMATION INTEGRATION
Bus. Intelligence
Master Data Management
Knowledge Mgmt
PROCESS INTEGRATION
Integration
Broker
Bus. Process
Mgmt
APPLICATION PLATFORM
J2EE
DB and OS Abstraction
ABAP
LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT
...
NetWeaver is a set of solution components that provides a comprehensive architecture.
All components of NetWeaver can use the same operating system release, and the same database release.
All components can be run within a single physical server if it is a small configuration, thereby reducing the number of systems and databases to be managed.

7. The Big-Picture - NetWeaver
The leaders
NetWeaver came from “nowhere” to the top-3 position in less than one year after launch!!!
“A SAP survey of 200 customers found that SAP deployment reduced costs in three areas: integration through the use of NetWeaver components, consolidation of the IT landscape and the implementation of best practices using product functionality.”
on NetWeaver and TCO…
If SAP is you strategic choice, it is hard to ignore NetWeaver.

8. What should I consider first?
NOTE: Most components are mature and well proven (i.e. BW has been available for over 7 years).

9. The Bigger Picture
SAP now offers SAP NetWeaver solutions and components in a synchronized release cycle. All components are delivered in a single package.
The exception is Master Data Management, the newest member of NetWeaver. MDM 2.0 is able to use NetWeaver ‘04 (it can use XI 3.0), but is still based on WAS 6.20.
NetWeaver use WAS 6.4 and therefore share a common technical foundation.

10. The Bigger Picture
BW 3.5 is part of the NetWeaver 04 standard availability was given in Sept. 2004
Included in NetWeaver-04 is:
BW 3.5
Portal 6.0 Service Pack 3
Exchange Infrastructure 3.0
MI 2.5
Web Application Server 6.4
SAP Composite Application Framework (CAF 1.0) is a tool for building applications on-top of NetWeaver without using low-level programming interfaces (APIs). It has been available as an add-on since Aug CAF 2.0 will be available with the next release of NetWeaver mid-year 2005.

11. Why Upgrade – Simplified maintenance
Today companies use a variety of systems, hardware, operating systems, databases to host their many SAP components. NetWeaver provides a unified infrastructure to reducing Total Cost of Ownership.
NetWeaver is shipped as one product
All components of NetWeaver come as one shipment. It can be installed in one procedure, and can run together in one system (except MDM 2.0.)
You can upgrade SAP NetWeaver 2004 components individually as long as
the components are installed on separate systems.
You can gradually bring current components to NetWeaver level to make use of new features of a component or to reach the common IT infrastructure in several steps.
More details at: SAP NetWeaver Master Guide & NetWeaver Solution Management Guide.

12. What is New in the Release?
One of the major reasons for upgrading your BW environment is the availability of new content and features in the next release. Let us take a look at what is new in version 3.5:
Business Planning and Simulation
Information Broadcaster
Data warehousing and Business Intelligence
Universal Data Integration
Unicode Support
BeX Portfolio in Enterprise Portals
We will now take a quick look at these features

13. What is New - Business Planning and Simulation
BW version 3.5 and higher has BPS included and you also get additional functionality
Major new features of BPS in BW 3.5:
Plan towards totals (i.e. total revenue)
Remove outliers from the plan (unusual data points).
Work with incomplete time-series

14. What is New - Information Broadcaster
Users or developers can schedule reports to be delivered to them through , portal roles, zip files, or web based reports (browser & handhelds).
We can trigger the reports to run at:
Certain times
When data is loaded to the system
Or we can mail it to the users ad-hoc when we want to.
Core feature: Push Vs. Pull Strategy

15. The Web Application Designer has more features:
What is New?
The Web Application Designer has more features:
The navigational state can be stored in XML format
JavaScript can be used to customize web navigation
Corporate web templates can be reused
New chart designer with cool charts and a development wizard

16. Universal Data Integration in BW 3.5
Universal Data Connect
SAP
Non-SAP BW
BI Java SDK
SAP Query JDBC ODBO XML-A
Custom
Applications
2. Java connect-
tors
1. Universal Data Connect
3. Java
FRONT-END:

17. Universal Data Connect
BACK-END:
RELATIONAL DATABASES
1. Over 190 JDBC drivers for database connectivity
2. BI SAP Query connector for R/3, SAP CRM ad-hoc connectivity
Universal Data Connect
RFC, BAPI, API
JDBC Driver
ODBO provider
URL/HTTP
SAP Query JDBC ODBO XML-A
R/3
3rd Party BW
RDBMS
Java 2 Enterprise Edition 6.4
BW 3.5
WAS 6.4
OLAP
1. BI OLE connector a Microsoft standard
2. BI XMLA connector for web based OLAP sources

18. What is New - Unicode Support
Unicode support for SAP DB, Oracle 9.2, IBM DB2 AS400 UDB, and SQL Server:
BW 3.5 Supports multiple languages through a unicode enabled server (back-end) and a unicode enabled web front-end
For Microsoft based components the “log-on language” is supported Ệẁ
яьфдФњщ
ǻǼǽǿ
תשרחפא
ﻲﻶﻺﻕﻒﻏﻎ

19. What is New – BeX Portfolio in the Portal
BW queries can be published to the Portal Content Catalog.
The BeX Portfolio consists of applications that include collaborative information such as:
Technical metadata (run times, descriptions, priority etc)
Subscriptions of a report
Feedback of a report (i.e. comments)
Rating of report (by users)
Report details ( descriptions and use information)
Mailing of a report to others
NEWS: BW web applications are KM Objects

20. What is New – BW Content in the Portal
We can publish an application to the Portal as:
A Knowledge management object to a collaboration room
A Knowledge management (KM) object to a KM folder
An iView to the Portal Role
An iView to the Portal Content Directory
Source: SAP AG
Better integration of BW content in the portal: you don’t have to upload iView files anymore!!

21. Good reason to upgrade:
BW content in the Collaboration Room
KEY IDEA: Build BW content once and publish many different ways!!
Good reason to upgrade:
better functionality!!!

22. Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
What We’ll Cover …
Why upgrade
End of support
New support strategy & NetWeaver
New features and capabilities
Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
Content Vs. Technical upgrades
Upgrades with NetWeaver
Planning and Executing the upgrade
The upgrade plan
The business case
Staffing, duration and scope
Questions and Answers

23. Apply content when you need it, to the technical release you have!!
BW Content Upgrades
The new upgrade strategy from SAP is to provide BW technical releases as part of NetWeaver and BI content add-ons,
You do not need to perform a technical upgrade to update the business content. I.e. content releases such as the older 3.2, 3.3 and 3.51 contains more business content and can be applied via delta upgrade.
The content upgrade can occur in as little as 1-2 hours (per system) and are shipped on supplement CDs.
Any new upgrade should now plan to use content provided in
FYI: the content delivered in add-on is the same as the content in release 3.1c with 3.3. content.
Apply content when you need it, to the technical release you have!!

24. BW Release Upgrades The Technical upgrades are called BW releases.
This include changes and/or additions to technical capabilities such as improved ODSs (ver 2.x) and Process Chains (ver 3.x).
The release 3.5 is a technical release with initial add-on.
3.5 content add-ons include:
Future upgrade strategies needs to
include both content as well as release
upgrade plans for BW
3.5.3
TBD
3.5.2 2 nd
week
of June
3.5.1
Fall 2004
June 2004
March 2004
Plan a periodic review of new content before you build custom solutions

25. An Upgrade Strategy Think bigger than BW..
Apply content as soon as feasible. Especially if you have on-going development work. This way you can avoid many “work-arounds”.
You should seriously consider having all NetWeaver components on the same upgrade strategy instead of selecting each component for upgrade. This will help in the shared extractors and also substantially simplify the upgrade planning and landscape.
Look at SAP’s release strategy for each
component you are using and plan ahead,
instead of last-minute “must-do” projects.

26. Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
What We’ll Cover …
Why upgrade
End of support
New support strategy & NetWeaver
New features and capabilities
Creating an upgrade strategy for the future
Content Vs. Technical upgrades
Upgrades with NetWeaver
Planning and Executing the upgrade
The upgrade plan
The business case
Staffing, duration and scope
Questions and Answers

27. Upgrade paths
A direct release upgrade from 2.0B, 2.1C and 3.0B to 3.5 is possible.
However an upgrade from 3.1C needs to apply 3.2 and 3.3 content add-ons before upgrading to 3.5.
Remember the next release of NetWeaver is scheduled for mid-2005.

28. Upgrade Pre-planning
It is important to communicate the goals and timings to the technical team to help them prioritize their research and activity or hardware setup
Communicate goal of having existing content continue to work to functional test team, so they do not get hung up in testing new features before the upgrade is in production
Research changes to BW or the Plug-IN that may affect your existing “live” content and use this information to outline a planned “upgrade regression and correction test cycle”
The regression test should be similar to a large support pack implementation

29. Determine your upgrade “readiness”
SAP GUI – New GUI roll out, Patches? (e.g. BW 3.0B/3.1C -> 6.20 BUT… BW 3.5 -> 6.20/6.40)
PC Requirements – Need upgrade to take advantage of new features? BW 3.0/3.1c - Same PC requirements – but the devil is in the details (see OSS , 66971)
DB/OS – Are they supported on the new release? Take the opportunity to apply patches as needed.
IGS – If need rendering of charts and graphs in BW 3.x Web Applications you need IGS… BUT it now only runs under NT and W2K. (BW 3.5 will support UNIX until IGS 6.40)

30. Plan the architecture Considerations
GUI upgrade to 640, or Hardware changes needed
IGS and TREX become part of the 640/BW35 kernel & can be on the same host box
The old IGS must be in place until after graphic conversion
Live source system connections must be refreshed, but not rebuilt!
Technical approach
Review Install & Upgrade Guides as well as upgrade notes
Plan when each system in landscape is upgraded, or an upgraded system is copied
Evaluate impact to transport flow – dummy systems may be needed for a smooth transition

31. Key Factors for you environment sizing:
New content -> more users -> more app servers?
IGS -> may require new hardware
Parallel Load = more memory
ODS Layer = more space
Crystal Reports -> new hardware
Archiving -> may reduce need for space
Make sure the new software is ordered and in hand!

32. Planning Your Upgrade Example
This company reallocated their Sun-6800 box and plans for gigabit connectivity to the AppServer….
More memory allows them to take better advantage of the parallel load of the BW system as well as to cache many of the frequently run queries.
The hardware also allows them to have a system where performance between the boxes are comparable.
Production
12 CPU
96GB RAM
AppServer
4 CPUs
32GB RAM
Development
4 CPUs
32GB RAM
Test
4 CPUs
32GB RAM

33. Plan for regression test glitches – and production cut-over.
Some requirements
If you use SEM, and it resides on same infrastructure with BW you need SEM 4.0.
Plug-In PI_BASIS _640
All officially supported PI_BASIS / PI releases can be used to connect SAP BW 3.5 to a SAP source system (see OSS note )
Extractors are delivered with PI; for up-to-date versions of extractors, it is recommended to apply the latest PI in the source system
No additional hardware may be needed
Another system can be used as a temporary box needed to support upgrade
May need 5 – 10% temporary additional disk space for the production stack
Need minimum disk space (approximately G) for any new environments
Plan for regression test glitches – and production cut-over.

34. Resources
Team Lead
Basis
resource
Technical reviewer
Upgrade Support
External
Regression Testers
BW Developer
A Dedicated team with a technical team lead (100%), a Basis resource (100%) and a technical reviewer (100% is required).
In addition, a dedicated “go-to” resource for technical issues is recommended. This should be an individual that have solid knowledge about the upgrade and have done his before. SAP resources should be considered, due to their contact network within the SAP organization.
Regression testing is required on behalf or the user community. This should be coordinated with the Power Users or existing developers.

35. Sample Timeline - complete landscape for large BW implementation
The duration is driven by:
1. The number of BW systems in your landscape.
2. The new functionality your are rolling out
3. The support technology needed (I.e. app servers, GUI)
The more content you have the longer the upgrade
(the more you have to regression test)

36. At a minimum, the timeline will consist of a test upgrade of:
Minimum Timeline
Basic events:
Do initial upgrade guide and note research [1-2 days]
Upgrade BW sandbox and do cursory issues check [1-4 days]
Upgrade a copy of BW production – have key development leads regression test all live content (both systems must be connected to other landscape environments – testing extractors too!) [2-5 days (size/copy/hw depending]
At a minimum, the timeline will consist of a test upgrade of:
A copy of the BW Development system (new content glitches)
A copy of the production or production support system (BW Production dry-run and “live content” regression testing

37. Timeline (continued)
Once the initial regression test is complete, create any correctional transports. BW 3x to 35 – this should be minimal depending on active content.[3-5 days?]
Post-fix, have full team in for “Upgrade buy-in testing” that all works properly [2-3 workdays]
KEY: now freeze development and release transports, upgrade development and a test system, incorporating the fix transports generated from the upgrade regression test. This should be a clean 2-4 day process.

38. GUI needs to be 620 or 640, with BW 3.5 front end patch
Move into Landscape
At this point you have a temporary BW Dev to test patch, and perhaps static training, production and production support systems.
Ideally, you’d migrate the upgrade to these as soon as possible, but this is a stable point. You will have to decide, based on content, whether copying a test box to training makes sense (can preserve user master)
For production and production support, you’ve already done a dry run – just do production and copy back to production support unless the size makes this impractical [~ >500GB]
GUI needs to be 620 or 640, with BW 3.5 front end patch

39. Impacts to other environments
The BW upgrade adds to the PI and ALE connection, which is backwards compatible. Source system connections should remain intact, with minimal adjustment, and a replication vs. restore
Some areas will need to change and are based on your local content, and customization, but you can continue to use existing methodology until you decide to change – see the notes!
If your end users are web users, they will see no effective changes
There should be no impact to portal or R3 or other BI system connections – all dependent on the Plug-In level
Downstream data feeds should remain unaffected
Data will not have to be reloaded or deltas reinitialized in more than 95% of cases – it’s there already!

40. 7 Key Points to Take Home
Is it cheaper to upgrade to new content or risk reinventing the wheel?
A BW architecture is part of a larger decision support landscape
An upgrade strategy should contain other NetWeaver components
You upgrade strategy must include both release and content upgrades
Your upgrade time is largely a function of scope, your regression test strategy and the amount of content in your BW
The BW 3.5 upgrade is painless – no OS or DB upgrades, only a web query graphics conversion
Cross reference new features & functionality with your organization’s pain points…and ensure the upgrade costs do not exceed the business benefits

41. Resources
The document “How to… SAP BW 3.5 upgrade preparation and post-upgrade checklist” v1.10 Nov. '04 is available at
The document called “SAP’s Release Strategy – For all Major
Shipments from 2005 on” available at
The presentation called "NetWeaver '04 Highlights" - session ID NW201 available from the site

42. Director Business Intelligence
Your Turn!
How to Contact Me
Bjarne Berg
Director Business Intelligence