BI Accelerator is the new concept available in BI7.0 to accelerate the
query performance by 10-100 times.
BIA is new hardware component for
which seperate server will be maintained. We can monitor the BIA Server
with T-Code RSSBIAMON2.
Here it will give the status of the server
(Green if it is ok, yellow with warnings, Red with error).
BIA Inedexes can be created for cubes only.
BIA Inedexes can be created for cubes only.
To craete BIA Indexes for
cube Goto RSA1 --> Infoprovider--> select the cube on which BIA
Indexes to be created -->Context--> select "maintain BI
accelerator Indexes" option --> It will ask do u really want to
carete indexes for particular cube --> click on continue-->
continue--> Job will run for some time in SM37 -->click on end of
the maintenanec button once it is finished.
To drop the indexes on particular cube also follow above procedure.
We can check the status of BIA on which available from Table RSDDTREXDIR. In this table it will show each cube two times with active and off status. For all the cubes this order shuld be active and off.
For Reference check the PPT - BI Accelerator in SAP Netweaver 2004's @ Link to Article
To drop the indexes on particular cube also follow above procedure.
We can check the status of BIA on which available from Table RSDDTREXDIR. In this table it will show each cube two times with active and off status. For all the cubes this order shuld be active and off.
For Reference check the PPT - BI Accelerator in SAP Netweaver 2004's @ Link to Article
General Issues:
SAP NetWeaver is the SAP technology platform. SAP NetWeaver
Business Intelligence (BI) provides functions for analysis, integration, and
distribution of information to support decision-making. In SAP NetWeaver 7.0
(2004s) and higher, the new SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator is a package of dedicated
functions for boosting the performance of analytic processing. These new
functions enable business users to access and analyze large volumes of business
data faster than was possible in earlier releases of SAP NetWeaver BI
(including SAP BW).
Unlike traditional relational approaches (such as
aggregates), SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator does not require labor intensive
set-up nor design activities.
SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator targets two main user groups:
- · End users benefit from significantly reduced query response times (by factor 10 and more) and stable and predictable query performance; this will lead to a completely changed way of query navigation enabling end users to get much more and much more detailed information from the BI system
- The IT department highly benefits from eliminating query tuning effort (design of pre-aggregated materializations is not necessary), minimized data load cycles (substantially reduced roll-up and change run processes) and scalability
The new SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator supplements traditional
approaches (aggregates, query caching strategies, Information Broadcasting
etc.) but does not replace them. In many scenarios, SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator may be superior to other approaches, but it is not mandatory to
replace the current BI set-up and migrate to SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator.
Queries with high DB read times are significantly improved.
These are usually scenarios with high data volume. Use the statistics (for
example, ST03 or Admin Cockpit) to identify these queries. Ad-hoc reporting on
high data volumes virtually assumes the use of SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator. In
addition, the BI Accelerator reduces efforts for creating aggregates.
Therefore, if the landscape requires a high number of aggregates, the BI Accelerator
reduces the overall TCO substantially.
SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator fits seamlessly into existing
environments. It can be activated for selected InfoCubes. There are no changes
required to InfoCubes, DataSources, or queries (which may be defined in the
Business Explorer or with any third-party tool using the certified interfaces).
The sole prerequisite for using this technology is SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (2004s).
Existing customers either have to upgrade to this BI release or use a data mart
from their existing BI system to a new SAP NetWeaver BI system.
There are three main scenarios for deployment:
1. A
customer can start with SAP NetWeaver BI 7.0 (2004s) implementation; this
includes SAP NetWeaver BI, which in turn can use the BI Accelerator.
2. A
customer can also technically upgrade an existing SAP BI environment; this
upgrade is straightforward with no migration required.
3. A
third option, which may be especially attractive to those SAP BI customers who
do not plan to upgrade soon, is to implement a new and separate SAP NetWeaver
BI installation, connected to the older SAP BI system using data mart
interfaces, and use the new system as a booster for specific query needs.
SAP Analytical xApps are analytical applications powered by
SAP NetWeaver. While there is no formal relationship with SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator, this new SAP NetWeaver function is of critical importance for SAP
Analytics. Since SAP Analytical xApps opens up the benefits of business
intelligence to far more users than before, SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator with
its unprecedented scalability and performance is an essential facilitator for
analytical applications.
Platforms and Shipment:
SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator is packaged as an appliance
that runs the BIA functions within standard blade server systems equipped with
Intel processors and built-in storage. Selected trusted hardware partners
(Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett Packard, IBM and SUN are the current hardware partners)
deliver the preconfigured appliance to the customer site. The appliance must be
cabled into the existing SAP NetWeaver BI infrastructure (running SAP NetWeaver
BI 2004s or higher). Then, from within BI, a user sets the RFC connection, runs
a few routine checks, and selects the InfoCubes to be accelerated. The BI
accelerator runs on 64-bit SUSE Linux (SLES), but the rest of the customer’s
SAP landscape can continue to run on any previously supported OS and hardware.
Please contact
(a) your SAP account executive for licensing the SAP
NetWeaver BI Accelerator software and
(b) the hardware partner of your choice for the right
hardware set-up. Note that the HW partner delivers the preconfigured
hardware/software solution (requiring some additional set-up on-site).
Why is the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator
available only on preconfigured hardware from selected hardware partners?
The general SAP distribution strategy is to deliver software
that can be installed on any supported platform. The general distribution
strategy is good for delivering incremental improvements to software
functionality that runs smoothly on existing hardware but is less suited for
promoting radical innovation. With SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, SAP is
pioneering a new distribution strategy designed to speed up the introduction of
new functions. The SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator is an innovation that leverages
the benefits of new technology. To ensure that customers reap the benefits
without incurring the configuration effort and risks entailed by introducing
new hardware and software together, SAP is distributing preconfigured hardware.
SAP and the hardware partners Intel, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, IBM, and SUN work to
ensure that SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator runs with the desired speed and
stability, and customers simply enjoy the benefits. SAP is distributing the new
functions on preconfigured hardware to ensure that customers experience the
full benefits of modern, adaptive infrastructures based on blade servers. The
blade server revolution goes far beyond a compact form factor and inexpensive
upsizing. Blade servers feature highly automated administration, monitoring,
self-repair, reconfiguration, and failover capabilities. The SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator builds on these features, allowing customers simply to ignore
details that previously taxed their resources. The new distribution strategy is
designed to speed up implementation and reduce costs for our customers.
The customer already owns a storage
subsystem. Why is a separate storage included in the BIA appliance?
The storage as part of the appliance has some significant
advantages:
1. Rapid and instantaneous deployment (preinstalled hardware
and minimal configuration and integration effort)
2.Optimal performance configuration through highly
integrated hardware and software setup: Only a dedicated storage subsystem can
provide desired exclusive access, reliability and repeatable response times for
the InfoCube indexing process.
3. Reduced cost of operation (minimized and centralized
maintenance) *
4.Support only involves SAP and the HW partner, not a third
party
5.High Availability (switch-over) is depending on the
storage and cannot be offered out-of-the-box using other storage systems
Intel is collaborating with SAP to drive development and
scaling of the enterprise Service Oriented Architecture (enterprise SOA). SAP
NetWeaver with the BI accelerator conforms to the enterprise SOA. Intel has
been working toward a vision of the Service Oriented Enterprise (SOE) for some
time, which extends far beyond simply making better use of data-center
resources. It provides guidance for addressing many of the key challenges
currently faced by enterprise architects, such as traversing firewalls,
integrating third-party networks, and enabling mobile workers, while minimizing
costs. Intel and SAP have participated in co-development of SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator by utilizing key Intel technology optimizations to maximize
performance and scalability across current platforms and forthcoming multi-core
processors. 64-bit and multi-core preconfigured systems powered by Intel Xeon
processors available from OEMs such as Fujitsu Siemens, HP, IBM, and SUN enable
plug & play in existing environments with very low administrative overhead.
The BI Accelerator runs under 64-bit SUSE Linux (SLES).
64-bit is necessary to use the bigger address space for large data volumes. SAP
has chosen Linux because this is a vendor-independent operating system.
There are no plans to port this solution on other operating
systems because the reduced available combinations of hardware and software
components allow for a much robuster environment by encouraging a specific,
pre-defined setup. SAP and its partners can make sure that hardware components
are appropriately configured to support the underlying software architecture.
This translates into lower TCO and better performance.
Note: The SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (2004s) BI system attached to
the Accelerator appliance may run under any operating system supported by SAP
Performance Figures:
Using the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, the data read time
can be improved significantly. We experienced average improvements by factor 10
to 100; customers have verified this in their BI Accelerator projects.
Note: SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator does not improve network
or frontend time nor has it significant impact on OLAP/calculation time of
queries yet. This means that total query response time improvements strongly
depend on the query design.
The performance for the index build strongly depends on the
underlying data model and the power of the available hardware (parallel).
However, as a rough guideline you could assume index build times between 1 and
3 million rows per minute.
Since only master data has to be updated to the BI
Accelerator index (no transactional data is touched), the change run is fast.
Most customers reported change run times of less than a minute in average.
Landscape:
The only supported configuration for productive systems is a
1:1 connection between the BI instance and the BI accelerator. This is
important for not compromising on the performance of the BIA. A
mutli-BI-assignment would make the performance of one system depending on the
load of another BI system. In addition, this 1:1 assignment keeps
interdependencies (such as synchronized patching, backups etc.) at a minimum.
For any non-productive systems (less requirements towards high performance and
disaster tolerance), you can also connect one BIA box with several BI
instances. Note that reorganization or restart of one BIA instance affects the
others.
Do I need a BI Accelerator for each system
in my landscape (i.e., development, test and production system)?
We recommend using one BI Accelerator box for the production
system and one for the test system. This enables you to test queries - usually
with smaller data volume.
Note: there are no transports necessary from one BI
Accelerator box to another.
Hardware Sizing:
For existing BI customers, SAP
Note 917803 gives the official guidelines for both memory and disk space
sizing.
For new implementations, SAP is currently extending the
QuickSizer for the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator. This gives you an estimation
of the capacity of the required BI accelerator appliance.
The hardware partner will translate the figures into
concrete hardware set-up. Note that the hardware partners provide factory-built
box sizes.
We see compression of 1:10 and more. It depends on how
efficiently the database on the BI side stores fact tables.
Up to now, all BIA blade centers used to be equipped with 4
GB RAM per core, i.e. Irwindale blades (two single-core CPUs) had 8 GB RAM and
Woodcrest (two dual-core CPUs) had 16 GB RAM. However, SAP noticed during the
validation of the Clovertown blades (two quad-core CPUs) that the
hardware/software architecture provides best performance results if equipped
with 16GB RAM.
Staying with 16GB for Clovertown blades results in some
advantages for BIA customers, such as easy upgrade from Woodcrest to Clovertown
by replacing solely the CPUs and unchanged sizing rules.
Maintenance and Support:
Maintenance is organized in the same manner as other SAP
products. Software issues are handled by SAP, and the link to hardware partners
is via Linux Lab. Hardware partners offer the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator
hardware as a packaged appliance complete with a persistence layer on hard
disks. The customer normally makes an agreement for both hardware procurement
and hardware and software maintenance with the hardware partner. The customer
is responsible for applying patches and SPs or for contracting this work to third
parties.
Yes, every BI support package requires a minimum BIA
revision and this is checked within the BI. As a consequence, we recommend
applying the latest BIA revision after applying a BI support package.
The SAPBINews note will provide you with further information
on the interdepenceny between BI support package and BIA revision.
If a problem with my BI Accelerator
installation requires developers to access the box, how can I best cooperate
with SAP to solve it?
The SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator development team is
committed to offering all necessary support to new BI Accelerator customers.
For this purpose, if SAP help is desired, the SAP team needs to be assigned a
user with password for remote access to the accelerator hardware.
Customers are requested to set up a Windows Terminal Server
(WTS) connection to a host in the company intranet from which the Accelerator
blades can be reached and on which PuTTY is installed. PuTTY is a freeware tool
for building secure Telnet connections to hardware such as BI Accelerator
blades using SSH. Ideally, the WTS machine should also have Virtual Network
Computing (VNC) or at least a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed, so that
the SAP team can work using the TREX administration tool, which is
automatically installed with the BI Accelerator.
The SAP team observes all reasonable security precautions
for the assigned user and respects the privacy of company data. For security
reasons, the team strongly recommends use of WTS with PuTTY rather than only
Telnet; for ease of working, the team appreciates provision of access through
VNC.
Technical Aspects - Query Performance:
Traditional approaches to the optimization of query response
times require some form of pre-aggregation. SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator
performs aggregation quickly during query execution because it processes the
entire query in memory with no disk reads.
The BI Accelerator owes its speed to a series of
breakthrough innovations; for some, patents are pending. Query processing is
performed entirely in memory, using extremely compact index structures that are
persisted on a separate file server with gigabit connectivity to avoid the need
for database reads. To create the indexes, database tables are decomposed
vertically and stored by column, not row, and the indexes can be split
horizontally for highly parallel processing on multiple processors. Smart
compression is used based on dictionaries and integer processing, and optimized
to run on 64-bit Intel CPUs. The algorithms are innovative and use TREX search
engine technology. Flexibility is increased by adopting the adaptive computing
paradigm. SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator runs on blade server infrastructure that
allows for a dynamic assignment of hardware resources to ensure high
availability and good load balancing.
SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator can be used in (almost) all
cases where aggregates can be used:
- · Real-time InfoCubes: closed requests can be indexed by the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator, open requests will be read from database
- · MultiProviders: any indexed InfoCube as part of the MultiProvider will use SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator. Note that overall query performance is defined by the slowest InfoCube in a MultiProvider environment
- · Inventory handling: InfoCubes containing non-cumulative key figures can be indexed
Note: there is only one expceptional scenario where SAP
NetWeaver BI Accelerator and aggregates are not congruent: With InfoSets, an
SQL statement is generated and, hence, the SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator cannot
be used.
If the Query Execution Filter Value Selection is set to Q /
Only posted value for navigation for a characteristic, the value help in query
execution uses the data manager. This means it also uses the BI Accelerator
(similar to how it uses aggregates) if applicable (for retrieving the SIDs,
texts are read from the database).
SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator is used for all queries on
InfoCubes which are indexed. In addition to Business Explorer, the following
features/interfaces also make use out of SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator:
1. OLAP
interfaces: XMLA, ODBO, OLAP BAPI
2. listcube
3. custom-specific
implementation based on INFOPROV_READ
Please check the statistics for all critical queries (e.g.
via Query Monitor RSRT or via technical content queries/Admin Cockpit). Just
have a closer look at the share of database time (opposed to OLAP or frontend
time); SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator may cut down the database time almost
arbitrarily.
There is no reason to switch off the OLAP cache, and we
recommend that customers keep the OLAP cache switched on for InfoCubes with BI
Accelerator indexes. The cache settings should be the same as for InfoCubes
with aggregates. Using OLAP Cache takes load off SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator
and contributes to its high scalability.
Technical Aspects - Administration:
How complex are the setup and maintenance
for customers implementing BI Accelerator functions, and what is the impact on
TCO?
Setup and maintenance are simple. Customers need to set the
RFC destination and choose names for server hardware; everything else is
automated.
The first step is then index creation.
The second step is activating and filling.
If a query hits a BI Accelerator index, which is only stored
on the file system, it loads the relevant data into main memory before
processing it. If you have highly critical data, you may either set the BI
Accelerator index property flag 'Always keep the BI Accelerator index in main
store' or you may schedule the report RSDDTREX_INDEX_LOAD_UNLOAD in a process
chain preceding the first query access.
Once I have set up the SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator and I have moved from aggregates to the BI Accelerator for specific
InfoCubes, do I have to change the process chains with respect to roll-up and
change run processes?
No. The processes are the same for aggregates and process
chains. However, some processes might be less relevant. (see next question)
Do I need to compress the InfoCubes and
include DB indexes and DB statistics for the InfoCube when I use SAP NetWeaver
BI Accelerator?
Compression: DB statistics and DB indexes for the InfoCubes
are less relevant once you use the BI Accelerator.
In the standard case, you
could even completely forgo these processes.
However, note the following
aspects:
- · Compression is still necessary for inventory InfoCubes, for InfoCubes with a significant number of cancellation requests, and for InfoCubes with a high number of partitions in the F-table. Note that compression requires DB statistics and DB indexes (P-index).
- · DB statistics are necessary in particular for real-time InfoCubes and reading the most current data.
- · DB Indexes (index on the time dimension) are necessary in particular if the E fact table is not partitioned. Note also that you need compressed and indexed InfoCubes with up-to-date statistics whenever you switch off the BI Accelerator index.
- · DB Indexes (index on the time dimension) are necessary in particular if the E fact table is not partitioned.
- · Note also that you need compressed and indexed InfoCubes with up-to-date statistics whenever you switch off the BI Accelerator index.
Is the BI Accelerator index automatically
adjusted when I compress an InfoCube containing non-cumulative key figures
(inventory InfoCube)?
No. The index is not automatically adjusted. All queries
still work even though the performance might decrease if the reference point is
not up-to-date. In order to propagate the most up-to-date reference point to
the BI Accelerator index and thus avoid decreasing performance, we recommend a
frequent index re-build for inventory InfoCubes (for example, weekly).
Transaction RSRV offers you all important checks regarding
performance and consistency and offers repair programs to rebuild or adjust BI
Accelerator indexes.
Are there any implications on the data
model such as line item dimensions, split InfoCubes, or dimension modeling when
using SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator?
Although some modeling guidelines might become less relevant,
we recommend using the same modeling rules as before.
We recommend using the delta index for large database
tables. Make sure that you regularly use RSRV to check the size of the delta
index and to trigger the merge as a repair (alternatively, you can use report
RSDDTREX_DELTAINDEX_MERGE). A customer can run this check as a regular BI
Accelerator monitor check, which then displays any warnings in the monitor.
Statistics are collected in table RSDDSTATTREX.
Basically, high availability is not part of SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator as an appliance, but can be implemented on a project basis.
No, for some calls the connection between SAP NetWeaver BI
Accelerator and BI is defined via ICM (Internet Connection Manager) and uses
http. As the connection between the two servers is a point-to-point connection
(with a dedicated network in between), there are no security issues. In
addition, http ensures best performance of the network connection.
Outlook:
DataStore objects are usually used for building the Data
Warehouse layer. This consolidation layer is usually not used for
multi-dimensional reporting. However, there are development plans for a new
InfoProvider type which is logically a combination of DataStore object and
InfoCube. For this new type, SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator can be used.
SAP is planning to move more and more complex and
time-consuming analytical operations to SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator such as
top n reporting or counters.
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