The Danish vulnerability clearinghouse Secunia gave the flaw a highly critical rating. To exploit the flaw, an attacker must trick a user into viewing a malicious website or email message, Secunia said.

SAP issued an update correcting the flaw. If you don’t have an OSS ID, you can view a PDF copy of the note - However, the one on the SAP site is guaranteed to be up to date, whereas the one here may not be.

This is important because the easiest way to reduce your database I/O in ANY application, SAP or not, is to reduce the need to go to disk. Keeping data in the Application buffer improves response time by reducing the time (both the CPU time and the I/O time) requiried by the DBMS to continually retrieve that data.

In the case of an ABAP engine, you use transaction ST02 to determine if there is any swapping going on in the first place. In the case shown below, both table buffers have some swapping - it is a relatively well tuned HR/PY system, so there isn’t much table buffer swapping despite the sytem being up for two months. Oh, and there isn’t much point in doing this on any other system except the one you wish to tune as it will be extremely difficult to replicate the load of the target system.

Select the images to open larger versions in another window or tab

In this case, we will look at the Generic Key Buffer, since it is the the worst of the two Table Buffers. Selecting the buffer in question, by double cliking on the line, results in a screen showing a little bit more detail. This has some usefull navigation features. As shown below, we are looking at the current status of the buffer, but we have the option to look at the history of the buffer. This can give us an idea of when the swaps occurred, which we can then track back to certain workloads. Moe importantly, we can look at the current status of the individual objects in the buffer.

Now we have the statistics for individual tables (or parts thereof ) that are currently loaded into this Buffer. This data is usefull in and of itself, which I will touch on in a later post, but first, select the Next View button.

The value highlighted below is the total value for Size maximum [bytes]. This is the sum of the highwater mark for each table that has been loaded into the buffer so far. In other words, the amount of storage required to accept all data requests that should be buffered, without swapping, since the instance was started.

Now, you could put this value straight in to the appropriate profile parameter and restart your system, but there are a couple of caveats.

1. If a table is marked to be buffered, but has not been read yet, it will not be included in the buffer or, therefore, the buffer size yet,
2. You need to examine the detail of both the snapshot and the history to determine if the correct tables are buffered or if they are correctly buffered (the Invalidations total suggests that there is some work to do in this area), and, most importantly,
3. This does not tell you if you have sufficient storage available to fulfill any increase in the buffer size without causing problems elsewhere

So, make sure your system has been through a pay run, or a month-end (or whatever the appropriate business cycle is) before you use this method to measure the requirement,
use sappfpar to validate the storage requirements of your new profile parameters, and
be aware that this is only the first step towards efficient use of all of the available resources.

This won’t fix all your performance problems. However, it is an important first step. Your database vendor may make the most efficient database engine there is, but calling any DBMS to get data will always be slower than getting that data from memory.

Enterprise has had enough of incremental step change where the ROI is questionable at best. The trending down of technology prices goes some way to redressing that imbalance but arguing that technology is cheap ergo high ROI is facile. As I have repeatedly said on this and other blogs, there are genuine barriers to adoption that make even free look expensive. My Irregular colleague Susan Scrupski thinks that’s a griping argument. Sure. But it is recurrent and current with few easy answers in sight. I suspect a part of the problem is because those most active in pushing these solutions have little idea about organizational dynamics or what makes people tick. I don’t say that lightly. Check out Oliver Marks blog and his experiences at large organizations.

Why does this matter in the SAP world ?

For a realistic comparison, my last SAP implementation (not upgrade) had a gloabl reach, required 5 nines reliability (scheduled application downtime is 6 hours every 3 months), and a Disater Recovery metric of 30 minutes RTO (with an RPO of 10 minutes) after a data centre disaster, for multiple mult-terrabyte databases. The customer’s management team was experienced, knew the implicit difficulties in this, and knew it would cost money. However, they were able to justify the spend, based on their business requirements.

Compare this SLA against the Google Apps Mail outages in March 2008, the Google App Engine failure (June 2008) and another Google Apps outage in October 2008.

You don’t have control over the cloud, which means you don’t have control over your data, whether you’re talking about the physical security, or secured access once the data is available.

On the other hand, with tools like ESME, the wikis and rooms available on SAP Portals, and sensible well designed Web Dynpros, under pinned by the new Java Engine architechture, you have the technology to provide your users and customers with Web 2.0 like systems, in a secure, scalable, stable environment.

1. Go to j2ee visual administrator
2. For each Server, Navigate to Cluster-> Server -> Services -> HTTP Provider
3. Enter /irj/portal in the Start Page Text Field
4. Click on Save Properties
5. Restart this service from visual administrator

Access http://yourserver.yourdomain.com and your portal login page should come up.

This means that your SAP J2EE Engine Start Page will still show up if you http://yourserver.yourdomain.com/index.html

Rather than offering specific advice, because evryone’s position is different, I’d suggest that you educate yourself about the various business and technical contexts in which SAP operates. The more you learn, the more you’ll learn which part of SAP appeals to you, or even whether SAP is right for you in the first place. It’s an investment that may get you into the SAP door, and it will keep paying off, as you will get into the habit of staying up to date with SAP developments.

An excellent resource to help you build your SAP intelligence is SearchSAP, who have an excellent catalog of podcasts containing valuable advice and direction for SAP job seekers. If you don’t have the time to listen to them immediately, download them and listen to them on a commute to work or on a plane. Some notable recent podcasts for SAP job seekers:

• SAP and SOA: Want to know how SOA is changing the SAP careers field? Listen to SAP expert Rabi Jay explain how SOA is changing SAP’s product set and rewarding particular skills over others.
• The SAP skills shortage: What it means for you. The good news for SAP job seekers is that SAP demand is higher than qualified supply. Some areas of SAP are more open than others. In this podcast, David Foote explains which SAP areas are paying the most and which areas are not as hot.
• SAP explains its certification program: SAP offers three levels of certification. Learn what the levels are, why SAP thinks certification is important for hiring managers and why getting certified by SAP partners instead of by SAP may be pointless.
• How can ABAP developers survive in a NetWeaver era?: ABAP is SAP’s proprietary development language, but recent moves towards SOA (particularly in NetWeaver) have offset the once-unchallengeable status of ABAP. Developers should listen to this podcast to learn how to polish their skills for the SAP jobs of tomorrow.

Another extremely good resource is the SAP Developer Network. This is designed for practicing SAPers, so the Getting Started link is about getting started in the Software Devloper Network, but some usefull posts include:

• Trial Versions of SAP Software: How to obtain and install the free trial versions of SAP software. The best news is that these will run in Virtual machines, so you can install several different versions (Linux, Windows, DB2, maxdb) and experiement.
• SDN Subscriptions. SDN subscriptions offer on-line convenience, lower-cost, term-based access to the educational content, SAP software and the related services, designed for peopel and organisations who know they need SAP knowledge, but don’t have access to (or can’t afford) full time class room training and consulting.

Another, more sophisticated, tool (without being too big) is Iperf (a single executable, with source available on the same page). Settings are changed by use of various switches.

For example, the image above shows the port used is changed to 1234, amount of sent data set to 200 MB, interval of reports set to 2 seconds for better accuracy and report format set to MBytes. The usual -help switch brings up further instructions for changing the many additional switches and settings available with this tool

The original level of SAP certification is now called the “Associate” level, aimed at inexperenced practitioners. SAP is also rolling out the “Professional” level certification for people with more extensive project experience with system integration, and applying the “Associate” skills against the Customer requirements. This is a more rigorous certification program, where project experience will be mandataory, so may carry more weight with Customers and therefore employers. Most of these certifications are available now.

There is also a third level of certification on the way also, called the “Master” level, designed for the Project or Team Leader with 10 years or more experience. These should be available from the 4th quarter 2008 onwards. Some other key points to takeaway:

• if you’re going to invest in certification, invest in SAP’s own three-tiered certification offering, which is the only official, SAP-recognized certification offering in the marketplace. Lots of third parties currently offer SAP ‘certification,’ but SAP is going to be more aggressive about regulating these kinds of claims.
• Certification is most important at the early stages of an SAP career, but fades in importance later on. It is in response to this that SAP offers a ‘master’ tier of certification to recognize and reward senior-level consultants and their experience.
• SAP’s certification seeks to encourage and enable lifelong learning. It is part of the process of becoming a better SAP consultant. Thus, certification is not an end but a means.
• There are plans to enable a social network, providing personalised training paths and discounts based on your existing and planned certifications.

Some sample questions are already available on the levels, certification focus areas, and exam preparation.pages, including

• SAP Certified Development Associate – Java with SAP NetWeaver 7.0
• SAP Certified Development Associate – ABAP with SAP NetWeaver

Depending on where you are located, and at what stage you are at in your career, you may be wondering if SAP Certification is worth spending time and money on anyway. In the BASIS field particularly, the arguments revolve around SAP specific skills versus real life experience, especially nowadays where there is so much more to maintaiing SAP systems than just the SAP systems themselves. The article does have a useful comment from John Reed, the SearchSap Careers Expert. I’ve pulled some extracts from John’s comment:

Back in the 1990s, it was possible to land an SAP job with “certification only” because there weren’t enough experienced consultants, and “Big Six firms” on large project sites were able to field teams with plenty of junior-level consultants who did not have any hands-on SAP experience other than their classroom certifications.

And there are fewer “big bang” type implementations where companies just open the floodgates and hire hundreds of consultants regardless of experience level. As a result, even though the SAP consulting market is very healthy, the power of SAP certification to land that all-important first project has diminished over the years, and I don’t expect that power to return.

Sometimes I have found that SAP hypes its own certification, but often, I find that it’s the job seekers themselves who latch onto certification and hype it for themselves.
…..many aspiring SAP professionals view certification as the easy (if expensive) way to open a door into the SAP field that is not always easy to open.

how many SAP jobs require certification? The answer is: only a small percentage. Project references are so much more important,

I think knowing how to make your current skills appealing to SAP customers and their IT departments may be more important. One good exercise is to review current SAP jobs on sites like SearchSAP.com and see what kinds of skills are required.

The key to breaking into SAP remains hard work, good overall technical and business skills, and savvy self-marketing.

Some of his comments resonate with me and my career. I had general Mainframe Systems Programming (DOS and MVS, CICS and a mixture of Databases) experience, but also Windows PC programming experience, when I applied for a job at an SAP R/2 site that was looking for a Capacity Planner. I was able to leverage my mainframe skills (JCL, CICS, Assembler, and DB2) into a Job with the R/2 BASIS group. A couple of years later, I applied for a job with an outsourcing company with a strong SAP Practice, on the condition that I was to be transitioned into R/3 BASIS. This was back when the 3.x releases of SAP were being implemented.

An example I’ve been currently working on is a network issue where a user can access the Portal from one machine but not another. I used to use separate tools to do my network monitoring and debugging (yes, there are people responsible for this, but I have won a lot of good will by providing as much data as possible), but these days ….

Net Tools 2008 has been described as The Swiss army tool for network administrators everywhere. It is a very versatile tool, and
just like any tool it can be used for good or evil. What this means is that you may find the site blocked at work.

Available functions, usefull for both the desktop and Windows Servers, include

An FTP Client for quick file transfers,
Monitor system up status with Monitor Host IP,
Mass file renamer, to rename a whole bunch of log files,
Bandwidth Monitor.

Another tool that I’ve feard of is eToolz which is a collection of network and Internet tools that provides a graphical interface for several common commands. This includes ping, tracert, DNS lookups, http headers, default ports, etcetera. This seems more directedt to someone who who supports web sites, but after all thats what the Portal is …

How To Tackle Upgrades to SAP ERP 6.0
This blog addresses frequently asked questions about the upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0, asked by customers at user group events, projects, and other occasions.  Mar. 20, 2008

How To Tackle an Upgrade (2): Technical Upgrade
In this blog, Martin Riedel, Senior Vice President and head of the SAP Global Upgrade Office, addresses frequently asked questions from customers about upgrading to SAP ERP 6.0. The questions have been gathered at user group events, on projects, and during the course of other occasions. Part 2 focuses on the technical upgrade.  Mar. 31, 2008

How To Tackle an Upgrade: Implementing Functional Enhancements
The second phase of the upgrade approach is to implement functional enhancementes. This blog post gives an overview of this phase and explains how crucial project management is. Apr. 13, 2008

How To Tackle an Upgrade (4): Implementing Strategic Enhancements
Part 4 of this blog describes how an upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0 provides the perfect basis for enabling your IT landscape for enterprise service oriented architecture (SOA) and what’s in it for you.  Apr. 28, 2008

How To Tackle an Upgrade (5): Upgrade Services for the Planning Phase
This blog post describes which services can assist you in the planning phase of your upgrade project to SAP ERP 6.0 May. 13, 2008

How to Tackle an Upgrade (6): Enhancement Packages for SAP ERP
Part 6 of this blog series focuses on some of the most frequently asked customer questions regarding enhancement packages, support packages, and upgrades.  May. 20, 2008

SAP Upgrades (7): Customers’ Experiences and Pain Points – What about Yours?
Part 7 of this blog gives you an insight into customer feedback data about SAP upgrades: What are the main challenges and pain points when planning and performing an upgrade?  Jun. 21, 2008

SAP Upgrades: When Should my Organization Convert to Unicode?
Part 8 of this blog answers one of the most frequently asked customer questions: When upgrading to SAP ERP 6.0, do we have to convert to Unicode?  Jul. 5, 2008

Create an Event in transaction SM62. Select the Maintain radio button next to User Event Names and execute. This will present tyou with the Edit User Events screen. You can add change or delete user events from here.

To use this Event as a trigger, create a job via transaction SM36. You specify the Event that will trigger this job using the Start Condition button. On the Start Condition screen, select option AFTER EVENT. The After Event fields will open for input. Fill these in and Save.

You can see which jobs are waiting for events by looking at table BTCEVTJOB (via transaction SE16). This is the system’s way of keeping track of which jobs are in the queue waiting for an event to occur. The EVENTID column contains those Events that will submit a Job. You should see several System Events here.

Now, once the event is triggered this newly created job will execute. The event can be triggered via transaction SM64 or from the Operating System (see below).

To get the event triggered from the Operating System, log into the <sid>adm user id (at the Operating System level) level and go to directory /usr/sap/<sid>/SYS/exe/run. Note that in the Unix / Linux implementations, there is an alias ‘cdexe’ that will get you there as well. Run the SAPEVT executable as follows :

sapevt <event_name> -t pf=<instance_profile_directory_and_name> nr=<sys_number>

Example:

sapevt roberts_test -t pf=/usr/sap/DEV/SYS/profile/DEV_DVEBMGS00_server001 nr=00

This will raise the event, and cause the job scheduled within SAP to execute. Once the job has executed the SAP event that was in the table BTCEVTJOB will disappear.

Every time a Background Job is run, an entry is created in table TBTCO. This contains entries such as JOBNAME, EVENTID, EVENTPARM, JOBCLASS etc. This means that once you’ve found your job name in this table (using SE16) you can double click on its entry and see that it was executed via an event.