These posts discuss and highlight technical SAP Basis Administration topics.
SAP Dispatcher: Structure, Functions, and Caveats
Architecture and Functions
Think of the SAP dispatcher as the gatekeeper of a gated community. He makes sure that authorized personnel enter and directs them to the appropriate place. The SAP dispatcher lies between the Internet and your SAP system. It is the entry point for HTTP(s) requests into your system, which consists of one or more NetWeaver application servers. The SAP dispatcher can accept or reject connections. When it accepts a connection, it balances the load to ensure an even distribution across the servers. The SAP dispatcher plays a vital role in security and also balances the load in your SAP system to maximize efficiency. You can use the SAP dispatcher in ABAP/Java systems and in pure Java systems, as well as in pure ABAP systems.
Structure of the SAP Dispatcher
The architecture is the same as the architecture of the Internet Communication Manager (ICM). The SAP dispatcher uses the same HTTP paradigm and is likewise structured in modules from sub handlers. But unlike the ICM, the SAP dispatcher does not directly pass incoming requests to a work process (such as a server process). Instead, it sends them to the ICM of the application server. The response of the application server to a request returns to the client using the same network connection via the dispatcher. If the application server, acting as the client, opens connections to external HTTP servers, these connections go direct to the server (or possibly via a configured proxy) and not via the SAP dispatcher. The SAP dispatcher has the function of a “reverse proxy,” rather than that of a “proxy.”
Directing HTTP Requests
Like the ICM, the SAP dispatcher uses a number of handlers to process incoming requests. With the exception of the ABAP handler and the Java handler, the handlers are called in the exact same sequence as conventional processing of HTTP requests. The dispatching handler comes last and enacts the load balancing, then forwards the request to the ICM of the appropriate application server.
Functions
The SAP Web dispatcher performs the following tasks:
· Selects appropriate application server (persistence with stateful applications, load balancing, ABAP or Java server).
· Filters URLs. You can define URLs that you want to be rejected, and by doing so restrict access to your system.
· Acts as Web cache. You can use the SAP dispatcher as a Web Cache to improve the response times and to conserve the application server cache.
· Manipulates requests. Depending on the SSL configuration, you can forward, terminate, and (re)encrypt requests.
Caveats
The SAP dispatcher is only useful in the Web environment. In the classic SAP system, load is balanced by the message server. Also, the SAP dispatcher forwards incoming HTTP requests to the application servers and returns the responses from the back end to the client. Outgoing requests (such as requests to a different SAP Web Application Server) are not sent via the SAP dispatcher. They are sent via the proxy server for the appropriate intranet.
Recommendations
It’s a good idea to use the SAP dispatcher when you use an SAP system with several SAP NW AS instances for Web applications. The SAP dispatcher is a program that you can run on the machine that is connected directly to the Internet. And, it is easy to get it set up. It requires minimal configuration; you just have to enter some simple parameters into the profile. The SAP dispatcher is helpful whether you want to cover one or both aspects of its functionality. If your main interest is in security functions, SAP dispatcher is your answer. If it is in load balancing, SAP dispatcher is your answer too. You get both benefits in one application.
Like any good gatekeeper, the SAP dispatcher gets to know the neighborhood and maintains everyone’s safety while keeping things running smoothly. At 1st Basis, we can make sure your SAP dispatcher conforms to your actual needs. Get the gatekeeper. Contact us today.
SAP IDES: The Perfect Steppingstone to SAP Mastery
IDES stands for “Internet Demonstration and Evaluation System” and in the SAP R/3 world it represents a model company. Using IDES, you can do training that will increase your knowledge and competence with SAP. In the newer S/4HANA IDES System, SAP offers Model Companies that offer the same training advantages, and also gives you the option to use them as templates to accelerate implementation and development. This blogpost examines SAP IDES and Model Companies and how they can help your business maximize SAP systems.
SAP IDES – What Is It
SAP IDES is a theoretical company running SAP, an international organization with subsidiaries throughout the world. It demonstrates how real-world business processes and scenarios would play out. It includes application data for a number of different possibilities, all of which can be run in the SAP system. IDES is designed for the amateur; it will walk you through different scenarios, showing you how the SAP R/3 System works and how it enhances your best practices. Basically, it is an educational system for SAP users who want to become more proficient and use the SAP R/3 System to its fullest. Many of the demonstrations and exercises used by SAP for the R/3 System training program are based on IDES data. IDES is the perfect complement to the SAP training program.
SAP IDES – What It Covers
IDES includes logistics, finances and accounting, as well as human resources. It can develop your skills in product cost planning, overhead management, profitability analysis, and planning. It can show you how best to deploy your sales and distribution resources, materials management, and production efficiency. It shows how the R/3 System is able to support a variety of industries, from boutique single-item production to engineering-to-order to repetitive manufacturing. IDES is not based around a particular kind of company though; it is the processes and practice-oriented data that are common to them all. The IDES group manufactures products as diverse as escalators, automobiles, and concrete.
SAP IDES – Subgroups by Geography
IDES has four subgroups based on geography; European, Asian, Latin American, and North American. There are two IDES model companies in the North American sector. Each of these model companies has its own clearly defined business objectives and is organized according to local business practices and legal requirements. Accounting and human resources for each individual company have been adapted to meet the particular business objectives. The American companies produce goods, carry out purchases, and engage in sales activities. They have also been set up to use flexible, standard, costing. The data and built-in best practices incorporate various U.S. legal requirements as well.
Model Companies
Since SAP S/4HANA, SAP has offered Model Companies, taking the IDES package a bit further. These Model Companies give the client pre-packaged, ready-to-use end to end solutions. The Model Company combines best practices with those solutions and includes data packages that deliver relevant outcomes. These Model Companies do more than offer training opportunities; they offer real-world applications. The include versions covering 17 industries and 12 Lines of Business (LoBs). They are available as ready-to-run and as assemble-to-order. You can also decide on pre-packaged applications, configurations, and sample data. All of this means accelerated implementation, and therefore increased efficiency and productivity.
SAP IDES gives you the chance to really exploit the capabilities of your SAP system. With the Model Companies, you can even have a template to bring your organization into the digitized, integrated future – which is now. 1st Basis offers hosting and support of IDES system at a lower cost than the cloud.
SAP GRC Auditing: Why It’s Crucial for Your Organization
Most people hear the word “audit” and begin to tense up. That’s probably because it is typically used in the context of an IRS audit, and nobody wants that. However, an audit is simply an objective examination and evaluation, usually of financial records, and in this context, including systems, applications, and products as well. When you use an SAP landscape, you have the finest business architecture around. It only makes sense to make sure that it is performing at optimal levels. With good SAP Auditing, you will have no worries about governance, risk, or compliance (GRC).
SAP Governance Auditing
Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERPs) are integrated programs that maintain all of a company’s transactions in a single database. They are key components of your SAP landscape whether you have SAP HANA or any other type. With your SAP landscape reflecting your particular business model, the roles and responsibilities of every agent in the organization is clear. SAP Audits can assess risks to the critical business data that is accessed by multiple users across the company. Inaccurate, invalid, or fraudulent data entered at one point can affect the accuracy of data across the system. Ideally, integration with SAP Risk Management and SAP Process Control will make the SAP Auditing process seamless. You will be able to gain precise insights and real-time analysis of potential problems.
Risk Auditing
Security audits are procedures that let an auditor trace a single transaction as it interacts across a range of connected applications. SAP internal security audit systems can automatically detect transactions that violate security protection protocols. SAP managers and internal auditors use security audits to search for fraudulent transactions, discover control system failures, and access violations. Other security concerns that auditors search for are unauthorized customer profile changes and unauthorized changes to master data files. SAP Auditing streamlines these processes with automated checks and mobile capabilities. That means the ability to assess risks at high speeds and clarify problematic situations keeps your business running smoothly.
Compliance Auditing
Companies have a duty to adhere to all state and federal regulations for their particular industry as well as to protect clients’ private information. SAP Auditing keeps them current with regulations and evaluates whether a business is complying with state and federal rules governing the privacy of information in the company’s control. Businesses that operate internationally are required to comply with any applicable international business and privacy regulations as well. With SAP Auditing, companies can be confident that their SAP systems protect the privacy of consumer information, employee information, and proprietary business information. SAP Auditing means that you have the internal controls demanded by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) too.
SAP Auditing keeps your company running smoothly and safely. It chooses high-value issues for further investigation. It empowers your internal auditors to conduct timely risk assessments, and it automates and accelerates the auditing process. With SAP Auditing, you have a simpler approach to creating, tracking, and managing audit issues. It also speeds up the resolution of those issues. Unlike an IRS audit, SAP Auditing allows you to relax, knowing that your SAP landscape is being monitored and objectively assessed.
You have the finest enterprise resource planning (ERP) software available in SAP; now you need to know how to optimize its use. The best way forward is to use the Computing Center Management System (CCMS) to monitor, control, and configure your SAP system.
Monitoring
Your CCMS can conduct system-wide monitoring and automatic reporting. It produces alerts that are assigned a severity and color coded. One of the best attributes of the CCMS monitoring architecture is that it offers a flexible framework so that your specific business landscape can be monitored in the way best suited for you. Instead of one over-arching monitoring and administration program, elements of the monitoring architecture function largely independently of each other.
The CCMS alert monitor includes:
*Status indicators (green, yellow, red) for all components
*Alerts if a status indicator is not in the green range
*Easy access to methods for analyzing alerts
*Alert tracking and management
*Complete, detailed monitoring of the SAP system, host systems, and databases
It is important to note that the release of the 4.0 alert monitor has replaced the previous monitoring and alert system in the CCMS. This new monitor offers all of the functions that were available in the old alert monitor as well as new, more reliable alerts and more advanced and powerful features. CCMS is a feature of Solution Manager and while the capability, along with the software, is free, setup and maintenance is not and can be fairly pricy. Small- to Mid-sized SAP customers may fair better using a 3rd-party solution (like 1st Watch).
Controlling
Optimizing Log on Behaviors. Your CCMS can control how the whole system is being used and automatically improve efficiency by logon load balancing. Load distribution allows you to dynamically distribute SAP users across workprocesses. If you have specified work groups, you can increase their efficiency by setting up multiple logon workgroups. You can assign one or more application servers to certain workgroups or specific applications. When users log on to the system, they are automatically logged on to the server that currently has the best performance statistics or the fewest users. You can assign particularly important workgroups with time-sensitive transactions to application servers with better response times.
Background Processing.
Your CCMS can control the background processing of routine tasks, resource-intensive programs, or long-running programs. With the SAP system, you can choose from a variety of methods for scheduling and managing jobs. You can run both SAP-internal and external programs. And you can run related programs as “job steps” within a single background processing job. That way, a single background job can accomplish a complex task that consists of multiple processing steps.
Configuring
With your CCMS running, SAP Basis administrators can direct the configuration of SAP profiles. SAP profiles are operating system files that contain instance configuration information. Individual configuration parameters can be customized to the requirements of each instance. That means that the professionals at 1st Basis can use configuration parameters to delineate the runtime of elements like main memory size, or shared memory. Your CCMS can determine which work processes the instance itself provides and where other services like database hosts can be found. SAP materials advise that you use the CCMS to maintain configuration profiles. This means that you should not edit the active profiles directly at operating system level.
The CCMS really makes SAP Basis work best for your business. If you have questions or want to make sure that you’re getting the best possible performance of your SAP System, consult with the professionals at 1st Basis. We will assess how your CCMS is functioning and make any adjustments necessary.
