SAP Basis Administrator - Now working in Denver

System Migration Preparation Steps

2012-01-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

For bigger projects like system migrations, I've found that many of the steps are similar across different projects. This is my quick list of items that will need to be considered when migrating a system to a new box:

SAP system profiles
User environment scripts (in the home directory)
Unix services files
Printers/Spool settings
Storage partitions
adm and ora accounts
crontab based events

In SAP, there are also these steps to be considered

RFC's that need to be changed/restored
Certificates that will need to be exchanged/updated
Partner profiles that need to be updated
Logon groups
Update background jobs (remove server specific settings)
Identify any AL11 directories that need to be updated
Note any saprouter settings that may need updating
Updates needed for SLD updates

Another thing I like to do is complete a full check of the current system to capture any non-fatal errors that appear. This helps determine if a problem in a migrated system is a known issue or one that needs to be resolved.

Other settings I like to record and logs to capture for reference include:

Settings in SCOT (domain name etc.)
SAPLicense screen
Settings in the system change options
Settings in STMS
Snapshot of current logs
Certificates settings in STRUST and SNC0
SDCCN

This is just my cheat-sheet of steps for the preparation phase. Next will be the steps that need to be complete just prior to a migration.

Questions for Basis Candidates

2012-01-09T12:17:00.000-08:00

At my last few jobs I was asked to help screen candidates for an open Basis position. These are some of the questions I used to see which of the candidates was serious (who took the time to find out about the company before coming in for the interview) and gauge their level of Basis knowledge.

What do you know about our company?
What do you like most about Basis work?
Why do you want to leave your current position?
What Databases have you worked with and what was the largest (in TB)?
What background have you had with system recoveries and DR methodology?
Provide us with your background on system and client copies? How was this done? How long did it take? Did you use any specific methods or software?
Have you had any experience with clustering (Unix/Windows)?
Approach or philosophy to system tuning (ABAP and Java)? What tools would you use to monitor these?
Experience acting as a tutor and the development of documentation?

Other Criteria to consider:

How would this person fit within the current team?
Does this person show a tendency to share information?
Has the person received adequate training to complete the job tasks?
Is the person well versed in project management or compliance reporting requirements?

Starting a VNC Session

2012-01-09T10:15:00.000-08:00

These are some basic steps I follow when I need to setup a VNC Server session on a

system so I can use the VNC client (useful for running programs like SAPINST remotely).

Log into the server and execute the command ‘vncserver’

Record the server and the port echoed by the command above (example: 192.168.0.1:3.0)

Issue this command to make the xwindows session available from any incoming connection:

xhost + (note on some systems you may need to issue the command: ‘vncconfig -iconic -nowin&’

first to keep the vnc session resident on the system)

SAP BASIS - My Oracle Parameters Cheat Sheet

2012-01-09T09:46:00.001-08:00

These are steps for checking and updating the oracle parameters against

SAP’s recommendations.

I. First, check the current parameters against these SAP Notes:

830576

601157

1171650

Generally, the parameter file is stored here:

/oracle/102_64/dbs/spfile.ora

II. Make a backup copy of the current spfile with these steps:

Log into the system as the adm account and run this command to enter

Oracle: sqlplus / as sysdba

Within SQLPlus, create the backup with this command:

create pfile=’/tmp/spfile_’ from spfile;

Type ‘exit’ to leave SQLPlus

III. Create a script to apply the needed updates.

Here is an example (note that yours will be different):

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_optim_peek_user_binds"=false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_push_join_predicate"=false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_table_lookup_prefetch_size" = 0 SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_bloom_filter_enabled" = false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_fix_control" = '4728348:OFF' SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_in_memory_undo" = false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_index_join_enabled" = false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_optimizer_mjc_enabled" = false SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET "_sort_elimination_cost_ratio" = 10 SCOPE=SPFILE;

ALTER SYSTEM SET EVENT='10027 trace name context forever, level 1',

'10028 trace name context forever, level 1',

'10081 trace name context forever, level 1',

'10183 trace name context forever, level 1',

'10191 trace name context forever, level 1'

comment='Recommended by SAP NOTE 830576' SCOPE=SPFILE;

For expediency, I have generally just cut and paste this into the Oracle session.

This can also be directed into SQL plus.

IV. Verifying the Parameters Against SAP’s Recommendations

Open the text file in SAP Note 1171650

Log into the SAP system, run transaction SE38, and execute program RSORADJV

In the text box, enter the text from SAP Note 1171650 and execute the program.

Review the recommendations to ensure all parameters match the requirements.

[Note: blog copied from my self hosted site (it runs on FreeBSD at http://www.haynesworld.net/wurd]

SAP TechEd 2009 - Phoenix - The Start

2009-10-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

This convention has started out just fine. I got to Phoenix late and just barely made the early registration at the convention center. I got to the hotel only to find that my room key didn't work. So I hauled all my stuff down the nineteen floors to the lobby only to be told to come back and wait for security to help me with my door (apparently their thought was I am too stupid to know how to use an electronic key). Magically it worked when I came back up so 'apparently' I'm not that stupid.

Talked with an interesting gentleman named Keith from the Canadian Railroad. He's a system architect here to learn about SAP for the first time. We discussed how much there is to learn about SAP and why it may be better to just try to learn as much as one can 'fire hose' style.

As much as that sounds like a bad idea it's actually a good one. There's so much to learn about SAP that trying to figure it out one tiny bit at a time takes too long. It's better to jump in with both feet, gather as much information as you can, and let time help you figure out the larger aspects of these massive applications.

I also had a chance to catch up with an old colleague that I worked with on a 4.7 install in Montana. All of the original SAP applications I installed have been replaced. But many of the smaller Linux based applications that I helped develop are still running in the same form that I left them. It's good to know that something I built in my Pre-SAP admin days are still alive and kicking (demonstrating the stability of Linux based applications).

My last task for the night is to get ready for tomorrow by downloading my agenda (one thing I forgot to do before flying in).

Tomorrow I look forward to meeting new folks and catching up with a few others. Good times ahead.

Crazy Day

2009-07-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those crazy days where you have little time to sit down and sort out the day before the requests start coming at you. This morning it started off with a bunch of transports coming for our European system. We've recently taken over this system so we have been getting up early to move transports in while the folks over there can test. The upside is we have been updating like crazy. The downside is there is quite a bit to keep track of.

Once that blast was finished I started off with some requests for user changes. Our other basis guy is out so I took over the auth updates. These sound all so simple but like everything else with SAP it requires a bit more energy as changes need to be tested and updates verified. Luckily, we only added a few transactions to a new role so we just verified that the transactions worked for a series of company codes.

The next project came up as some functional folks working on some IDOC payment transfers wanted to start the process of moving transports into a QAS system. From my side, all they needed was some verification on what should move when. I responded by listing all the changes that needed to be made and the order they need to be made in (create directories first, then setup the port and then the partner profile). Once they had this info they wanted to test some port setups in DEV and called for my assistance once again. So back I went to discuss the role of the ports (WE21) and partner profiles (WE20) and if they could assign one port for each message type within the partner profile (this is possible).

In testing we came across an interesting issue. We updated the ports within a partner profile and went back to test with some unprocessed IDOCS (within BD87). This did not work because the old IDOCS had the port settings already cast within the IDOCS themselves. So to test the new ports we created new IDOCS (which confirmed that the new port settings worked as needed).

Finally, I ended the day working on some metrics for a new SAN that is being installed. Due to resource constraints, the original SAP systems were installed on to one storage partition. We provided the size of this to the vendor but found out that these are not that helpful since we will be splitting up partitions for the various application areas (this will include partitions for the Oracle logs, data, control files and so on).

In short I was busy all day. It feels good to be so productive. The hardest part about being so busy is I had little time for some planning that needs to be done. But tomorrow is another day which will hopefully be less busy.

Migration Follow-up

2009-06-24T18:48:00.001-07:00

After completing a system migration and trying to fix the issues created by using a newer SAPINST I thought I would follow up with one final set of steps I followed to complete my install.

To fix the kernel issue I downloaded and extracted a new set of tools and a set of brtools to match the kernel. The SAPINST program installed version 7.00 of the BRTOOLS which won't work with Oracle 9.2. so I had to 'downgrade' to a working version. Before applying the new kernel and brtools, oradev was able to attach to the database and update statistics. But after the update I started receiving an 'NLS' setting error. I tromped through all of the environment variables thinking this was the issue but everything I tried failed. That's when I returned to the Oracle Client install and re-ran the linking script named 'CROCLLNK' (the whole command was 'CROCLLNK -v -b 64'). That fixed the brtools issue for both oradev and devadm. Luckily, the SAP notes were helpful on this matter so score one for the folks in support.

Again, I think the lesson here is to not use the latest version of SAPINST to complete the import portion of a migration.

Hetero Migrations

2009-06-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

I just came through a test where I migrated an SAP system from an old Solaris system to a newer system running on AIX. Which, on paper, seems like a simple process but yet isn't.

I have to express some frustration because the migration tools from SAP often get in the way of completing a simple project. And most of the issues that arise from these tools are often things that could have been fixed if there had been more diligent programming and better access to specific pieces of information.

One example is the migration key. I created one of these ahead of time in hopes that I could save time by not having to stop during the data import just to generate a key. Did that work? Nope. I found out the way I was generating the key was wrong (I had selected R/3 as the application type and not 620 which was the kernel). This is not mentioned in the migration guide.

When something like this fails it can be from various reasons. Is a library missing? Did I leave out an environment variable setting? I have to look through each of these potential issues when a SAP migration fails because the logging just isn't very helpful. Even worse, this error shows up late into the migration process. So the immediate thought is, should I start over? Did I just waste the last 10 hours on this only to run into a minor issue that stops the whole process? Again, this creates a huge amount of wated time that could have been saved with better programming and/or documentation.

The next issue I ran into was an issue created by the R3load program. On import, R3load created multiple entries into one table. Then the entire install crashed because it tried to create an index on a key field with duplicate entries. How stupid is that? The whole migration fails because it can't create an index on a table that I could create manually once the entire migration is completed? That's just silly. How about some restart options that would allow me to get through this? [a newer version of the R3load program did not fix the issue as mentioned in a recent SAP Note]

The other issue I was presented with was the SAPINST program itself. Creating the R3load data from the source system was easy. I just set up the system to generate the export files. But the import process was another matter. For these systems I was migrating from 4.7 to 4.7. The implementation guide states to use the latest SAPINST program to complete the system copy process. Okay. That should be easy I think to myself. So off I to to run SAPINST on the target.

Normally, what I like to do with a system migration is to install a regular version of the application first. This helps get many of the technical issues out of the way (at least that's the plan) and assists in seeing if the system is sized appropriately. Then I wipe out the DB and go back to re-install it using the exported migration data. This works fine except for some crucial problems that the new installer introduces.

First, even though I chose NOT to install the SAP kernel files the installer ignores my choice and installs them over my current (and in this case an older version) kernel folder. Same thing happens with the DB client files. I chose not to install these and yet the installer uncompresses these into a new folder (again this created a version issue since I was migrating into an Oracle 9.2 database and the client files contained the programs for Oracle 10.2). Again, I found this out during the migration process and it cost me yet more time as I had to locate an older version of the Master Installation programs to continue the process.

I was able to complete the migration and now have the process documented to the point where we will be able to repeat it several more times without the huge delays encoutered during the massing learning process outline above.

So if you have to complete any kind of migration yourself, be prepared for spending lots of time hunting down solutions based on the error messages dropped into one of many log files and not based on the information within the system copy guides.

Hope that is helpful!

Apps that Irk Me and one that suprisingly doesn't

2008-05-08T09:21:00.000-07:00

I am trying to break the mindset I have that applications need to be hosted locally in order for them to be valuable or useful. I am used to having the DB server be on a system I can administer or a webserver that I can tweak by updating a config file using vi. So I am highly skeptical that an online application can provide me all the necessary functionality needed to complete my tasks.

I apply that same 'locally hosted' mentality to office suites (although, I don't really know why). I just want to have them local so I at least the ability to change or fix one of the upteen hundred silly things that seem to happen with Microsoft applications (one example being the stupid disappearing menus in Excel 2007). Which brings up the question of whether we have reached the pinnacle of usability with Excel (which I will save for later in this post).

So I am off to try and create documents using Google Docs (http://docs.google.com).

So far, I have been able to copy in a list of performance metrics taken from a clients system and create a graph. Hmm. That is a pretty big step for an online application. Even more impressive is I did not have to hunt for menu or icon needed to create the graph. Its right there on the front screen (see micro screen shot below). That's cool. I don't have to hunt for something. That probably saved me at least 45 seconds and quite a bit of invective energy.

What impressed me even more was I created the graph based on three columns of information and did not have to identify which column contained the labels and which contained the data. That's amazing! This application created a graph without my having to go back and poke around through the selection parameters. I'm stunned I tell you. In all the years of using Excel I can't remember a time where creating a graph did not at least require going back and making adjustments to the data.

So, back to the question about whether we have reached the pinnacle of usability with applications like Excel. I have to believe that at some level there is nothing further that can be added to this spreadsheet, in this current format, to make make it more efficient as a tool for creating reports. All the gizmos and extra doodads in Excel 2007 make it less usable and more annoying. Do we really need to have hiding menus? No.

So, if using local apps means having to live through the silliness of ever expanding application gizmo wizardry, then maybe there is something to this hosted application thing after all.

Back from the Westminster Elks Club

2008-04-22T19:15:00.000-07:00

It was a joyful occasion. We met my mother in-law and her boy friend at the local Elks club for dinner. The thin t-bone steak was pretty good and the potato and corn were good additions.

Other than that nothing else of note happened today. I had quite a few meetings at work and was too busy to get back to by SAP Business by Design.

A brief note about BBD. It is a very clever application. It takes much of the functionality found in the Enterprise Portal and applies pre-set business processes against it. So quite a bit makes sense from the minute you log into the hosted application.

Once you do log in you are met with the home page which presents any outstanding tasks that are nearing a due date or have been recently assigned by other workers. Across the top of the screen are tabs that contain business concentrations. Each of these can be assigned one-by-one to each user.

After learning some basic navigation, I was able to go from concentration to concentration. What made the transition easy is each default page within each concentration is the same for each one. So when you go from one concentration to another, you are met with the same layout.

That may not seem terribly important for seasoned SAP users but for mid-market companies that lack the resources for training, this can make a big difference. This can also play a key role where a user is tasked to many different assignments and has to remember how to complete a process in between them.

So far my impression of BBD is favorable and I look forward to how the interface is extended in the future.

I just want to record the adventure I had buying a new car.

2008-01-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

I. Background
Before I go too much further I have to mention that I don’t buy cars often. My last purchase was a used 1984 RX-7 (which I still have) and my last new car purchase was a 1996 Ford Ranger. I have also worked for a subprime auto loan lender. So not only do I know auto finance well I also know how dealerships work and how slimy their sales tactics are.

I am one of those people who studies in detail the objects that I want to purchase. For months I have been poring over the car guides from Consumers Report and Road and Track along with watching episodes of MotoWeek. Generally, I am a car nut (I am one of those crazies that gets up at stupid hours to watch Formula One races) so I pretty much know all the details about what I want to purchase. After several months I came up with these cars as candidates for purchase:

Honda Pilot
Honda CRV
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Rav4
Hyundai Sante Fe
Suburu Forrester
Mitsubishi SUV

The timing was good all around. The truck was getting tired and we just moved to Denver. I started working downtown which requires a good car for the commute. We also needed a car that has four wheel drive for the snow and enough seats so we could pick up relatives from the airport.

II. The Dealers
First, I want to cover the dealers I visited because I think this represents a large part of buying a car. I know from experience that dealers can be crooks. That is a bold statement to make but it is a fact of life. Dealers exist on the edges of civility when it comes to the legality of buying and selling cars. They generally have the same legitimacy as street vendors selling fake Rolexes.

Honda
I live in Westminster which means I started looking at cars on 104th street. The first dealer was the Honda One dealer off of Federal Boulevard. First let me state that it was a nice place. The cars were displayed well and the wife and I were met within a few minutes down in the used car area. We entered the new car area and were greeted by another sales person. This guy showed us the cars and answered our questions without being pushy. Generally, I liked the place because it felt like we could look at the cars without being pushed into a purchase.

Toyota
The next place was the Toyota dealer off of highway 25 and route 36. We drove up to the showroom and found somewhere between 5 and 10 sales people skulking outside the tall windows. My wife mentioned that they looked like a bunch of vultures. The young guy who stepped up and greeted us was nice but did not know much about the cars. He led us to a highlander and then a Rav4. I will note later why I did not like these cars but will briefly mention that the interiors looked cheap and the prices high. After looking at a RAV4, we went inside. The dealer did not have any brochures for either car and the sales managers astounding recommendation (which he wrote down on the back of his business card) was to visit www.toyota.com. Wow. I can’t imagine what the look on my face was but I can imagine that it was one of disbelief that someone could be so pathetically unhelpful. In short, we felt hounded by the sales vultures and I felt like the dealer was not willing to deal. We walked out with the feeling that we were escaping a sleazy cheap operation.

Subaru
The next dealer was the Suburu place on 104th. After driving up we were greeting in a few minutes by a salesman. He asked a few questions and starting showing us what we were interested in. The best part was he let us look around without trying to put us in a car we did not like. He opened up a car and sat in it with us to show all the amenities. When we wanted to look at another car he ran off to get the keys. All in all I liked the sales guy because he let the cars sell themselves and did not push too hard. I probably would have purchased a car from this dealer if not for the small size of the cars and the expense of the Tribeca.

That was it for my wife. She was tired so we went home and discussed what we had seen.

Denver Children's Museum

2008-01-14T10:05:00.000-08:00

I am writing this blog on my lunch hour so I apologize for the staccato style of writing (it comes from being interrupted quite a bit).

This weekend was beautiful in Denver. So the wife and I gathered up our energetic two year old (there's a redundancy I need to work on) and took him down to the Children's museum in Denver.

It is a wonderful place. Especially for a kid like mine who doesn't get outwardly excited about something new (much like his father but unlike his Mother who has been known to dance during the installation of a new washing machine).

We walked in and found a firetruck. He did not get excited. Probably because he took a ride on a real firetruck (bigger, louder and way more exciting since he got to sit in the drivers seat) a few months back in Vail.

He did get excited when we took him into a room that was setup for younger kids. There was a small fishing boat where he could pick up fish using a velcro adapted pole and another room where he could turn knobs on a big centerpiece that had big bolts sticking out of it.

What is so funny about kids is how excited they can get about even the smallest of things yet get so overwhelmed so quickly by the very same things. I could tell after a few minutes in each area that the stimulation was overrunning his ability to deal with it. So he would pick up just one thing and play with that for a while (in this case it was a fish).

I find myself doing the same things some times. When we have people over, sometimes the noise level rises above my ability to deal with it. I can almost feel my brain slowing down as a greyness fills my vision. To decompress I need to get into a quiet room for a while (usually in the basement which is really quiet). So it is good to know that my kid reacts the same way. It must be a natural thing.

After playing in the infant section for a while we went upstairs to where some of the older kid areas are. Once was an construction place where kids could follow printed instructions on how to create models out of plastic bottles and boxes. The area was a madhouse with excitement and I could tell Alex wanted to stop and watch. So we walked through and to the other side. He wanted to do what the other kids were doing but at two, he just isn't there yet (it would have been frustrating for him since he's like me in that he thinks he can do everything and yet can't).

The next area was an enclosed basketball court and health displays. Here, we sat Alex down and had him color a giraffe ('raffe' in toddler talk) with colored pencils. After measuring his height, we went off to the wooden train area where he was able to push an engine around the tracks. After that was a small dance area where we dressed him up first as a king and then a sheriff.

We left soon after that. The kid was just getting a bit too tired and hungry.

The funny thing about your kids is they are enough like you that you just know when they have had enough. Part of it is knowing that you yourself have had enough and the rest is just an intuition you get from looking in their eyes and seeing that the excitement has just overwhelmed the system. The thing to do is take them out, get them a meal, and let that superfast little brain start processing all the stimulus it just recorded. But first get some sugar into the system. The brain will need it.

We stopped at a restaurant on the way back which was probably a mistake. He was so tired by this point that he started falling asleep in the booster. We gave him some french fries and oreos but really, all he wanted to do is lay down and sleep. We ate our meals, took him home, and after an hour or so he was out and had to be put to bed.

So, it was a successful visit to this fun little museum. We will be going back (quite a few times I imagine).

Things are good

2008-01-13T16:10:00.001-08:00

First, here is a quick update.

I am coming to the end of a six month contract I have supporting the folks at StarTek. So at the end of January I will be going to work for MindWorks, which is the company that I was consulting through.

It has been a good contract and I have learned quite a bit. The workload fell significantly when a project was cancelled and my role changed to support two landscapes (BI and ECC 6.0) instead of four. The hard part was quite a bit of the challenge went away. I like working on the edge being forced to learn something new everyday.

I am not sure what I will do for MindWorks. I know they have quite a few projects going on and they promise that there are more to come. Which will work well for me since I like going into new situations and having to learn a huge amount in a short time.

The basis guy for StarTek will do a very good job. He as the right attitude to learn SAP and the aptitude to maintain it. Being the 'Basis' guy at a small company (a small installation rather) can be a challenge because you are often asked to resolve non-technical issues. And like many small companies this one has embraced SAP on the technical side but not yet on the functional.

Whelp. That is about it for the update on the job side. On the family side of things the news has been very dramatic. Which I will update later.

Now blogging from Denver

2007-10-10T20:13:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I blogged so some catching up is needed.

I moved from Helena Montana to the Denver area. I loved living in Montana but unfortunately there are few SAP administration jobs there. Sure, I could have taken a job as a system administrator working my way though a MicroSoft MCSE or just learning about a new version of Linux. But that is really pretty bland and boring after working on an enterprise level application like SAP.

Right now I am a consultant to a company in Denver called StarTek. This is a unique corporation that provides outsourced call center services to different telecom companies throughout the country. Their services are unique and they are able to quickly setup services for new customers within a few weeks.

They are a NetWeaver site which means they are on the latest versions of SAP software. This has been great for me since I am learning a bit more everyday on how to manage the newer systems and make them work more efficiently for my client. The contract for this job will come to an end in the next few weeks so I will be off looking for my next opportunity (if you have one, please let me know!).

So I have just completed my fourth year of administrating SAP systems. There have been so many new SAP sites added in the last few years that four years is starting to sound like a long time compared to many other SAP admins. But I do have to say that after this much time it still feels like I have so much more to learn.

I do like Denver. Living in a larger city does have its downsides. The traffic is bad and you have to be just that much more careful when walking around. But for a large city it is still laid back enough that people still say hi to one another. Even better is the improved access to food. I have food allergies so shopping and eating out is always a challenge. But with this many restaurants I have at least some ability to pick and choose where to go. Helena had about three restaurants that were passable enough for me to eat without getting a headache. The rest were so gross and pathetic that we never went back.

Whelp. That is about as much of an update as I can muster for now. If thoughts come later, I will put them down.

Take care