I simply do not have the space to completely
cover the installation and configuration of each mySAP component and
enabling products. However, I thought it would be beneficial to address
what I believe are either the core challenges or problem areas related
to installing key mySAP components. In some cases, simply knowing up
front what is needed to perform an installation—the prerequisites or
planning details—represents the biggest stumbling block to a successful
installation. In others, understanding what is happening behind the
scenes of an installation, or a heads-up into the quirkiness of an
install process taken for granted by veteran installers, will get you
through the process.
In the next few pages, I cover the following components:
R/3 Enterprise
mySAP BI
mySAP CRM
mySAP KW
mySAP PLM
mySAP SCM
mySAP SEM
mySAP SRM
Installing R/3 Enterprise
After all of the planning and preparation tasks
outlined in the R/3 Enterprise InstGuide have been performed, read
through the following SAP Notes, available at http://service.sap.com/notes:
You also need to search the SAP Notes Website
for notes related to R/3 Enterprise running on your specific database
and operating system platform. For example, SAP Note 529151 covers
installing R/3 Enterprise in Windows environments. Similarly, SAP Note
529150 addresses known installation challenges with R/3 Enterprise and
SQL Server.
After you have finished your required reading,
you’re ready to begin the installation (which, not surprisingly, looks a
lot like Web AS 6.20). Special considerations or conditions include the
following:
If you want to use LDAP (for the
Microsoft Management Console’s SAP plug-in, for example), you need to
specify the type of LDAP integration to be set up during the R/3
Enterprise installation. Select from either the Windows 2000 Active
Directory Service or the Generic LDAP (applicable to UNIX and Windows
machines) choices. Otherwise, select No LDAP.
For
MCOD installations, you need to specify the password for the
SAPMssXPUser user. As with all passwords set during an installation, I
recommend going with something simple and standard, so that no one has
to think twice
about what to enter. This practice alone has probably saved my
colleagues and myself countless hours of time and productivity.
MCOD
installations have only recently been supported in a cluster. Read
through SAP Note 421112 for details, keeping in mind that clustering may
only be performed after the last MCOD system has been installed in the
MCOD landscape.
Unless you are performing
a homogenous SAP system copy, you will want to specify the Load
Packages from EXPORT CD option, rather than Load Packages from MIGRATION
CD.
For the number of parallel jobs,
enter the number of CPUs in your host system. For newer Intel processors
supporting hyperthreading (where one processor appears as two to the
OS), I suggest sticking with the number of physical
CPUs. I had an installation hang after I entered “8” for a 4-CPU
system; after rebooting and restarting the installation, I changed this
number to 4 and everything worked as expected.
The
installation will take quite a few hours, and according to the
installation status bar, will appear to hang at 65% and again at 75% or
so (the numbers vary depending upon the specific release of Web AS).
Rest assured that the system is being installed. To verify this,
however, check your CPU and database activity levels with an operating
system tool like Task Manager or PerfMon (Windows), or top, iostat,
vmstat, w, or a similar utility (UNIX).
It’s common to install a number of application
servers in an R/3 environment—this is called “installing a dialog
instance.” The installation process is similar (though much shorter) to
installing the DB/CI; preparations need to be made, a SQL Server database client component
(rather than a full-fledged database) needs to be loaded on the
application server, and then SAPinst needs to be run. When asked for the
dialog instance number to enter, I use the same
number as the Central Instance for dialog installs performed on a
dedicated application server (a server physically separate and different
from the CI). Conversely, I specify a different
number when the application server instance is loaded on a machine with
multiple instances. In this way, in the future it will always be easy
to differentiate one instance from another, as either the host name or
the instance number will be different.
Primary mySAP BI Installation Considerations
The primary Business Intelligence offering from
SAP continues to be its very successful Business Information Warehouse
(BW) product. Installation preparation and planning is very similar to
that of R/3 Enterprise or Web Application Server 6.20, which is not
surprising considering that SAP BW 3.1 is based on Web AS 6.20. I could
only find one major difference—if installing BW on SQL Server 2000, you
can optionally install a “bridge” between SAP MOLAP—Multidimensional
OLAP—and Microsoft’s MS Analysis Services. This also requires installing
an SAP Gateway instance along with the OLEDB/ODBC data sources
corresponding to the SAP BW 3.1 database, all of which is performed after the core BW installation has been completed.
Before you begin installation, obtain the
updated relevant SAP Note. For example, for BW 3.1 on SQL Server 2000,
read SAP Note 552911, entitled “SAP BW 3.1 Content Server Installation
on Windows.”
Note
The official minimum requirements for 3.1 are
512MB of physical RAM (another 50% on top of your sized RAM requirement
is needed to support Unicode systems), three times the physical RAM plus
1GB for pagefile sizing, and Service Pack 2 for the Windows 2000 OS.
SQL Server 2000 Enterprise Edition is required for an SAP installation,
and in this case Service Pack 2 is required as well.
System installation will be significantly faster
than an R/3 installation performed on similar hardware, as SAP BW’s
default database start size is significantly smaller. After the system
is installed, nearly all the same Basis transaction codes available in
R/3 will be available for BW. Finally, remember that only two clients
are installed by default—client 000 and client 066. Like other
components, a client copy must be executed as part of the
post-installation procedures.
Primary mySAP CRM Installation Considerations
CRM version 3.1 is a complicated product, not
only in terms of the specific components and servers that may be
required to support your CRM vision, but the connectivity to additional
mySAP and other enterprise solutions. Because of this, I recommend
obtaining the latest installation and configuration guides available at http://service.sap.com/crm-inst.
And to help you understand at minimum what must be installed for a
mySAP CRM 3.1 system, refer to the following list and install the
products and component in this order:
WP-PI 5.0 plug-ins on all back-end systems (like CRM and BW), which will enable communication with Enterprise Portal, installed next.
Enterprise Portal 5.0 SP4 patch level 2, including the Knowledge Management platform.
Business Package for CRM 3.1, which is available at http://www.iviewstudio.com/. An installation guide for this particular product is available from the crm-inst site on the SAP Service Marketplace.
Business Package for Campaign Management.
Business Package for Portal User.
Business Package for Communication.
The aforementioned list may also be found in the
CRM Master Guide, which should be checked for more recent information
prior to performing an installation. Additionally, critical SAP Notes
that need to be read beforehand include 525457 (SAP CRM 3.1: Information
on Installation), 543841 (CRM: Support Packages Collective Notes), and
515499 (Release Restrictions for R/3 Plug-In 2002). In addition, look
through 497413, 497414, or 497415 for installation hints and
troubleshooting advice specific to CRM on Windows, UNIX, or the IBM
eServer iSeries, respectively.
Installing the SAP Knowledge Warehouse 6.0
SAP Knowledge Warehouse 6.0 consists of a number
of components, central of which is SAP Web AS 6.20 (including the first
16 Support Packages). The SAP Knowledge Provider (KPro) and the SAP
Content Server/SAP DB Server (which is where the contents of the SAP
Knowledge Warehouse are stored) are the core components. A TREX server
enables full-text searching against the SAP DB, and a Performance
Assessment Workbench (PAW) Communication server provides a way to push
feedback from SAP KW learning units back into the Knowledge Warehouse;
both of these are necessary components as well.
To facilitate communication back to R/3 systems
that do not reside on Web AS, a SAP ITS server is required. And finally,
to actually use the Knowledge Warehouse, front-end clients require IE
5.0 or newer, Microsoft Office 2000 or newer, the Knowledge Workbench (a
PC authoring tool integrated with Microsoft Office), the SAP KW Viewer
(for display only), the SAP KW Translator (for converting HTML and
multimedia objects), and Arbortext Epic Editor 4.2.1, which allows the
KW user to create and edit XML documents.
Installing mySAP PLM
SAP’s role-based mySAP Enterprise Portal is the delivery vehicle for mySAP PLM, specifically mySAP Product Lifecycle Management Using cProject Suite 2.0, which consists of a number of functional areas like
Lifecycle data management
Lifecycle collaboration
Program and project management
Quality management
Asset lifecycle management
EH&S: Environment, health, and safety
To enable this functionality, the SAP Solution
Manager and the cProject Suite version 2.0 are necessary. Obtain the SAP
Solution Manager via the SAP Service Marketplace (it is not included
with your mySAP PLM media or download kit). The cProject Suite 2.0 ships
with PLM, and consists of two applications, cFolders 2.0 and cProjects
2.0. The first enables Internet-based collaboration within PLM, and the
latter supports end-to-end project management (from conception to
planning, implementing quality processes/checks, and finally production
or completion of a project). Before starting your installation, be sure
to read through the most current technical documents regarding PLM
implementation, available at http://service.sap.com/plm-inst.
And then download SAP Notes 536926 (cProject Suite 2.00 Installation)
and if necessary 539024 (Migration from cFolders 1.1 to cProjects 2.00).
And of course, you’ll want to review the latest notes and installation
tips for installing Web Application Server; SAP Notes 407565 or 492208
are helpful for Windows-based and UNIX-based Web AS installations,
respectively.
SAP labels collaboration projects (projects enabled with cProjects) as CPR and cFolder-enabled collaboration as CFO.
With these labels in mind, it is quite easy to work your way through
the Master Guide for PLM and determine minimum versions, mandatory
components, and optional components of a mySAP PLM solution that fits
your needs, as designed by your SAP Solution Architects and SAP
technology/sizing partners. This is critical, because mySAP PLM normally
interfaces with a number of other mySAP components like BW and R/3;
successful integration requires the correct versions not only of SAP R/3
and BW, but also of the R/3 plug-ins (PI 2002.2 or higher), ITS 6.10
(if non-Web AS-enabled R/3 systems are part of your solution), and so
on. Remember, the R/3 plug-ins need to be installed on the SAP Web AS
server as well as any back-end systems with which PLM will communicate.
And Web Application Server 6.20 requires Support Packages 1 through 8
prior to installing the cProject Suite.
Other solution components may come into play for
your particular PLM solution, too. SAP Content Server and a product
called ECL Viewer 4.0 (to view documents stored in cFolders) are
sometimes deployed, for example. More details on these and other
optional components can be found at http://service.sap.com/PLM.
As for a high-level technical design, SAP AG generally recommends that mySAP PLM be installed in the following manner:
cFolders should be installed outside
your intranet, to allow for collaboration with your external partners
without the need for allowing access into your company’s secured
resources.
cProjects, on the other hand,
should be installed within the intranet, and therefore protected by a
firewall. It is assumed that cProjects enables intercompany project
management.
Of course, other layouts are possible. But SAP
AG’s experience in this regard should be considered as a de facto best
practice, and heeded wherever possible.
Primary mySAP SCM Installation Considerations
The three primary components of mySAP Supply
Chain Management currently include SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer
3.1, SAP Event Manager 1.1, and SAP R/3 4.6C, all of which can be
enabled in terms of installation and operations support through the SAP
Solution Manager. Four primary business scenarios are supported by mySAP
SCM today, each consisting of many low-level business processes:
Demand and Supply Planning
Procurement
Fulfillment, including Global Available-to-Promise, Transportation Management, Outbound Order Fulfillment, and more
Supply Chain Performance Management
SAP AG recommends reading the following SAP
Notes prior to beginning an SCM installation, as appropriate in your
particular case:
523886, SCEM 1.1 Add-On Installation on Basis 6.20, which covers the installation steps for the SAP Event Manager (EM) add-on.
523885 Collective note for Add-On SCEMSRV, which covers all subsequent SAP Notes related to SAP EM.
523883, detailing the release strategy for the SAP EM Add-On.
515537 or 436231, which address the plug-ins for versions 2002.1 and 2001.2, respectively.
431502,
which provides updates to the mySAP SCM Master Guide. Information
related to mySAP SCM that was not available when the Master Guide was
last published/updated, and all corrections to the mySAP SCM Master
Guide, are reflected here.
429400, detailing recommendations for Planning Versions for SAP APO Demand Planning.
196998, which addresses SAPGUI hardware and software platform support and system requirements for the SAPGUI for SAP APO.
66971, which provides more information on supported front-end platforms (supported Microsoft Windows SAPGUI releases).
Unlike other mySAP “3.1” releases, APO 3.1 is
founded on SAP Basis 4.6D rather than Web Application Server 6x. And
embedded into APO is SAP BW 2.1C, used to build info cubes related to
planning support. Other core mySAP SCM components that are normally
installed include
SAP liveCache 7.4.
SAP APO Optimizer 3.1.
SAP
EM 1.1, which resides on Web Application Server 6.20 (though it is
recommended that it be loaded on a dedicated server, and not a Web AS
6.20-enabled R/3, CRM, BW, or APO server that you might already have in
your landscape).
SAP R/3, the version of
which depends on your particular business scenarios. For example, R/3
version 3.1I and higher is supported for Demand Planning and ATP, but
Outbound Order Fulfillment requires version 4.6C or higher.
SAP R/3 plug-ins (the version of which depends on the scenario[s] being implemented).
SAPGUI for Windows 6.10 or greater (6.20 required at minimum to support Outbound Order Fulfillment, however).
SAP ITS 6.10 or greater, for SAP APO 3.1, if you are using the WebGUI (SAPGUI for HTML) or still using SAP Workplace.
SAP ITS 6.20 or greater for SAP EM 1.1 support (if used).
Optional—If an external SAP BW data warehouse for reporting is desired, it must be SAP BW 3.0A.
Optional—If a Web AS system is desired in addition to the aforementioned Web servers, it must be Web AS 6.10 or higher.
Optional—Any currently supported version of SAP Workplace can be optionally deployed as well.
In my experience with APO, the actual APO server
installation goes fairly smoothly. However, I have had problems in the
past with older versions of liveCache. Be sure to download the
product-specific installation PDF for liveCache from the SAP Service Marketplace.
While you’re at it, obtain the same installation document for the
Optimizer server, too. I also suggest reading through SAP Notes 431498
(liveCache Installation note for APO 3.1) and 431497 (Optimizer
Installation note for APO 3.1) prior to installing either product.
SAP liveCache leverages a different installation
tool and process than SAPinst or R3Setup, called LCSETUP. To begin a
liveCache installation, you actually must first install the tool on the
server to become the liveCache server (not your APO or other server).
The following process assumes a Windows 2000 platform:
1. | Execute lcsetup.bat from the correct OS-specific folder on the liveCache installation CD. For example, for Windows environments, execute \NT\COMMON\lcsetup.bat.
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2. | After
answering a question related to the name of your SAP APO server (the
SID), and providing the directory path where LCSETUP will copy its
files, you are then asked to log off. Best practices dictate rebooting
this liveCache server as well, to ensure a fresh environment in
preparation for the actual liveCache installation.
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3. | After the liveCache server is backed up, log in using the same installation ID used to run the lcsetup.bat file, and choose Start, Programs, SAP liveCache Setup, Install liveCache Instance.
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4. | Enter the name of the liveCache server (for example, LCA).
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5. | Select the drive letter that will contain your liveCache executables. I recommend keeping these off the C: drive.
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6. | Enter the domain of the liveCache administration user.
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7. | At
the point in the installation where memory can be configured for use by
liveCache, I recommend using it all. Note that the number that appears
by default during the installation process is the maximum amount of RAM
that the system recognizes—this is an excellent way of ensuring that you
can actually access the RAM you have installed in your server.
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8. | Later,
you will be asked how many devspaces should be used by liveCache. At
least one is required; the total devspace allocated should be two times
the size of physical RAM installed in the server, and no less than 3GB
regardless.
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9. | Finally,
after some additional devspace-related and other interview questions
are answered, you will be asked to confirm starting the actual liveCache
installation. After the installation process has completed, be sure to
restart the server.
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SAP liveCache pagefile sizing differs from
typical mySAP solutions. Given liveCache’s memory-hungry role, it’s not
surprising that some versions of the liveCache installation guides
suggest the total size of all pagefiles should equal at least five times
the size
of physical RAM. However, SAP Note 337445 is much clearer with regard
to Windows-based liveCache systems—the pagefile is automatically set to
the size of physical memory available, rather than a multiple. Further,
you should refrain from setting the pagefile too large, as known issues
with starting liveCache exist in this case. So the 10GB max pagefile
size rule-of-thumb is not applicable in this case, either, regardless of
how much physical RAM is installed.
Windows memory management can further complicate
your liveCache installation. For example, access to RAM above 4GB is
explained in the installation document for liveCache 7.4. Note that
enabling this access must be addressed prior to installing liveCache; otherwise, the memory not seen by SAP during installation can not be used.
Beyond pagefile sizing, because liveCache and
Optimizer servers represent glaring single points of failure in any SCM
solution, it’s becoming more common to cluster these products. This
might hamper a speedy installation, however—although it is actually
pretty easy to cluster these products, clustering still adds to the
complexity of your SCM solution, and therefore the time required to
install and later support it.
After the liveCache server is installed, a
number of post-installation activities need to be performed. The
liveCache instance must be initialized by logging in to your SAP APO
server and running transaction LC10. Then, report /SAPAPO/OM_LCCHECK
must be run via transaction SE38 to check both the liveCache instance
and the SAP APO COM routines. Optionally, you can install the
administration tools for SAPDB and SAP liveCache on Windows-based
liveCache servers. Finally, to periodically reorg the liveCache COM
objects, set up job /SAPAPO/OM_REORG_DAILY to run daily.
Installing mySAP SEM
Installation of the SEM-Java 3.1B component is
predicated on SAP Web Application Server 6.20 technology, and valuable
primarily for its Management Cockpit function. Using the Cockpit, both
real-time and reporting mySAP data can be formatted and viewed,
indicating the health or position of your company. Strategic Enterprise
Management accomplishes this lofty goal by combining historical SAP BW
reporting data with data gleaned from various functional areas within
your core R/3 environment, including financials, logistics, and human
resources modules.
To install SEM-Java 3.1B, perform the following high-level installation tasks:
1. | Install SAP Web Application Server 6.20 or higher (if it is not already installed).
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2. | Install the SAP J2EE Engine.
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3. | Install the Software Delivery Manager (SDM) on the central instance of the Web AS server.
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4. | Install SAP Internet Graphics Server 6.10 or higher.
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5. | Install SAP BW Version 3.0B or higher.
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6. | On top of BW, install the SAP BW Financial Basis 1.0 add-on.
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7. | Install the SAP BW SEM-BW 3.1B add-on.
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SAP Note 511461 details the installation of SEM 3.1B, and Note 320641 addresses configuring the Internet Graphics server.
To actually install SEM, the Software Delivery
Manager is used. SEM is delivered in the form of a Software Delivery
Archive (SDA) file, which is ZIP-compatible. The SDA for the SEM
Management Cockpit 3.1B is loaded by the SDM into its Repository and
then installed on the SAP J2EE Engine. This is done by copying the mc.ear file from the SEM installation CD to the SDA’s inbox, and then using the SDA to “deploy” the SEM Management Cockpit product.
Primary mySAP SRM Installation Considerations
mySAP Supplier Relationship Management (mySAP
SRM) brings together two solutions, SRM E-Procurement (extended existing
components of the former mySAP Procurement and Business-to-Business
products) as well as new components and services delivered through the
SRM Supplier Collaboration Engine (SRM SCE). As you would expect, the
E-Procurement solution includes Enterprise Buyer, Requisite BugsEye, and
eMerge. But it also includes SAP BW, the SAP Integrated Catalog, SAP
User Management Engine, SAP MarketSet Adapter, and SAP Enterprise
Portal. The SAP Collaboration Engine (SCE), on the other hand, consists
of the SAP Bidding Engine and SAP Supplier Self Services. Note that SRM
SCE needs to be licensed for using the new mySAP SRM functionality
(functionality beyond what is available by default via SRM
E-Procurement).
All of these products can be managed by SAP
Solution Manager, which is installed as an add-on to SAP Web AS 6.10 or
higher, an SAP R/3 4.6C instance, or mySAP Workplace 2.11. For large SRM
system landscapes, it’s recommended to install SSM on a standalone
server, however.
Two key SAP Notes should be reviewed prior to attempting an SRM installation, including:
492536, the SAP Note that provides updates to the SRM Master Guide
503196, a composite Note for Enterprise Buyer 3.5 installation tips and issues
Additionally, two Integration
Components are associated with mySAP SRM, the SAP Exchange
Infrastructure and SAP Content Integrator. Depending upon the business
scenarios you are implementing, the SAP Exchange Infrastructure may be
mandatory, optional, or not even required. The SAP Content Integrator is
an optional component in all cases, though it only applies to a limited
number of business scenarios.
