AUTHOR: Pushkar Deshpande and Pravin Karkhanis
Contents
BW on HANA Migration – Perspective and Approach
1 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................... 2 2 Need for SAP BW powered by HANA ............................................................................ 3 3 Planning Migration to BW powered by HANA............................................................... 4 4 Learnings from BW on HANA migration projects .......................................................... 5 5 Post-Migration Activities in moving to SAP BW powered by HANA .............................. 6 6 Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 7 About the Author ................................................................................................................ 8 About L&T Infotech............................................................................................................. 9
1 Executive Summary SAP HANA provides an in-memory platform that runs analytics application smarter. SAP BW powered by HANA, has added a lot many features to make it more powerful, robust and superfast, while reducing the data footprint. Migration of existing BW system to BW powered by HANA has become vital for each customer. BW powered by HANA provides reliability, concurrency and agility even for large data warehouse platforms. This document explains options and lists learnings for planning a migration to BW powered by HANA, thus providing a valuable experience for adopting new technology SAP HANA.
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2 Need for SAP BW powered by HANA SAP BW is an Enterprise Data warehouse product from SAP, which can transform and consolidate information from source systems. SAP HANA is an In Memory platform suited for Real time applications with very fast response time. At the core of this platform lies SAP HANA database, which is extremely efficient in handling analytical workloads. SAP BW ran on traditional RDBMS until version 7.3 at which point SAP started offering it on SAP HANA database in addition to traditional RDBMS. SAP BW powered by HANA offers significant performance benefits coupled with reduction in data footprint. With the ever growing data volumes and business requirements, there was a need to address reliability, performance and capacity issues of BW on traditional RDBMS. SAP BW powered by HANA provides a sustainable and robust platform addressing the above issues. Customers migrating to BW powered by HANA need to adopt new technology and always have questions on the approach for migration. This document provides help to address these question and provide guidance on overall migration process.
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3 Planning Migration to BW powered by HANA Before starting BW on HANA migration, it is important to define project objectives and success criteria. SAP provided migration cockpit is a one-stop-shop, which helps from checking readiness for migration to post migration tasks. BW migration cockpit should be installed and executed on the existing production system. It is advisable to complete Housekeeping activities before starting HANA migration as it helps in controlling Database size for migration thus reducing the cost implications of SAP HANA. The sizing report should be installed on the existing production system. It gives the expected size needed for SAP HANA Database which is crucial for migration. ABAP coding might have an impact on BW on HANA migration. To understand the impact, it is advised to run the ‘Code Inspector’ before and after migration to get the list of objects affected due to migration. There are multiple options possible for migrating from traditional BW to BW powered by HANA. It is important to finalize the approach before starting with HANA migration. Option 1 -In place Migration Applicable for Applicable if Advantages
Option 2- Production Downtime Minimized Approach
Source : BW 7.x non HANA
Source : BW 7.x non HANA
Small Database,
Large Database,
Flexible downtime window
Downtime restrictions
System name remains same
System name changes, Parallel system
Option 3- Only DB Migration Source : BW 7.3/4 non HANA
No change in application layer
Architecture
Tools
Databse Migration Option (DMO)
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Post Copy Automation (PCA) Database Migration Option (DMO)
BW on HANA Migration – Perspective and Approach
No special tools
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4 Learnings from BW on HANA migration projects L&T Infotech has helped several customers to migrate seamlessly to BW powered by HANA. This includes one of the largest BW on HANA migration with a database size of 40 TB. It is critical to understand following dependencies:
Netweaver Portal: SAP BW powered by HANA also requires portal to be on Net weaver 7.3 or higher.
Java Stack: Starting from 7.3 you need only ABAP stack. So if you have dual stack (combining ABAP and Java), you need to separate them.
Unicode: SAP BW powered by HANA needs Unicode system. If the existing system is not converted to Unicode, the same can be achieved during migration.
BEx 3.X Objects: It is mandatory to migrate existing BEx 3.x objects (Queries, Workbooks, WAD templates) to BW 7.0 version.
Info spokes: It is mandatory to convert existing Info spokes to open hub destination. The maintenance and execution of info spokes is not possible in BW on HANA environment.
Testing: To ensure no disruption to users after migration, it is necessary to build detailed Test cases and runbooks. It is recommended to have a detailed System Integration Test followed by User Acceptance Test covering all the Test cases.
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BW on HANA Migration – Perspective and Approach
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5 Post-Migration Activities in moving to SAP BW powered by HANA In each of the cycles above, once the system is migrated to HANA, it is important to perform below activities.
Basic Functionality Check: After the upgrade is complete, we need to perform basic functionality check. This ensures that all basic functionalities related to BW are running properly after migration.
Info Cube Optimization: SAP BW on HANA provides the HANA optimized Info cubes which significantly help data load and data access performance. The conversion of existing cubes to HANA optimized cube work is non-disruptive and do not have any negative impact. The activity should be performed in each system (Dev, Quality, and Production).
Exception aggregation in HANA: If you set the query property to “6 Exception aggregation”, the analytical engine (OLAP) function is “pushed down” to the database. The activity should be performed in each system (Dev, Quality, and Production).
Dual Maintenance: It is important to replicate the ongoing changes in the current landscape to migrated landscape during the duration of the project.
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6 Conclusion BW powered by HANA gives immediate benefit in terms of data loads, data footprint reduction and query performance. These parameters help to setup a sustainable and robust platform for critical analytical solutions.
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About the Author Pushkar Deshpande has 18 years of experience in the SAP space and works as Practice Head in L&T Infotech. He has worked with Global Multinationals providing SAP Services in USA, Europe & APAC regions. Pushkar’ s experience ranges from building Analytical Frameworks and Solutions, strategies for large databases and Upgrades & Rollouts.
Pravin Karkhanis has 11 years of experience in the SAP BW space and works as Sr. Technical Architect in L&T Infotech. He has worked with Global Multinationals providing SAP Services in USA, Europe & APAC regions. Pravin’s experience ranges from building analytical solutions and providing architectural support to various customers.
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About L&T Infotech Larsen & Toubro Infotech is a global IT services and solutions provider with presence in 23 countries. We solve complex business challenges at the convergence of digital and physical with our real-world expertise and client centricity. We enable our clients to build innovative business models, enhance operational efficiencies and create captivating customer experiences.
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