SAP GUI 7.20 released

SAP GUI 7.20 has been released on 12 April 2010
Support for SAP GUI 7.10 will be to to April 12th, 2011.

SAP GUI 7.10 SP 13 - Support for Office 2007 Formats (*.docx and *.xlsx) and for Internet Explorer 8

SAP released SP13 for SAP GUI beginning of May. This service pack brings along two important new features:

1.Support of IE 8 in SAP GUI, see SAP note 66971
2.Support for Office 2007 files (*.docx and *.xlsx), note 1286768

“With new changes done in SAP Office Integration, both old .DOC & .XLS as well as new *.DOCX & *.XLSX files of MS Office will be supported.
Previously from SAP Office Integration it was only possible to work with compound document formats. As new Microsoft Office 2007 (*.docx, *.xlsx) files are non-compound document, it was not possible for SAP Office Integration to support the same. Now *.DOCX and *.XLSX format are also supported.”

SAP changed this in SP 13 for SAP GUI and DOCX as well as XLSX files are now supported. See also SAP note 1286768.

TMS setup in high availability systems

When you setup the transport system in a landscape,SAP automatically generates
RFC destinations to the different servers.But they only point to one host by default and cannot be changed in SM59.
SAP Note 943334 can help you with this. It uses report 'TMS_MGR_LOADBALANCING' to change the definitions in STMS to access the systesm via their message servers and then update SM59.
Now transport can happen as long as 1 instance per system is up.

AIX Virtual Memory Management: Tuning Recommendations

I recently had to deal with a system which had a lot of RAM available but was still paging a lot. It was running AIX 5.3. Eventually we found note 973227 which gave us the correct parameters for tuning SAP virtual memory. Also look at note 1157425 which gives some details on configuring the correct amount of AIO processes for AIX.

Change Livecache user password

I recently had an issue changing the Livecache user in a SCM 5.0 system.
Changing the password in the ABAP stack transaction LC10 was easy.
But you also have the change the password in the Livecache database.

So do that you need the following commands.

(XXX is the database name)
1.Start the Livecache DB command line : dbmcli -d XXX -u control,[password]
2. Login as Superdba : sql_connect superdba,[password]
3.Change Livecache user password : sql_execute alter password sapr3 [new password]
4. Make the new password known : user_sap sapr3,[new password]

If you don't know the SuperDBA password you can execute the following command after step 1 above : user_put superdba password=[new password]

Solution Manager EHP1 : upgrade steps

I recently upgraded 2 Solution Manager 4.0 systems to EHP1 and here is the steps I followed:

1.Update Java stack to SPS17 (including IGS) via JSPM.This step is a prereq. Time = 5-7 hours.
2.Update Java stack to EHP1 (including IGS) via JSPM. Time = 3-4 hours
3. Update SPAM/SAINT patch level to 33.
4. Update Kernel to 7.01 patch level 23.
5.Install EHP1 via SAINT on ABAP stack.Time = 9-15 hours

Notes :

• You need BI_CONT 7.03 installed in the ABAP stack before you can upgrade to EHP1.
• Make sure the Java Heap parameters is set correctly before running JSPM
• You have ample free disk space in the disk drive that SDM in running in, as it creates files temporariliy when compiling in JSPM.
• Make sure all the plugins in the system is upgraded to it's latest level before installing EHP1.
  

Below a screenshot of what SAINT looks like before your start EHP1 install :

Upgrading Solution Manager 7.0 to 7.0 EHP1 (Stack 18)

Solution Manager 7.0 EHP1 (Stack 18) is now available for download. Please make sure that you read note1169247 before starting the upgrade. Also check out this detailed presentation on what EHP1 contains.

Unicode Conversion: Troubleshooting

There is a good SAP note with checklists and a troubleshooting guide attached on when problems or errors occur during conversion from non-Unicode SAP System
to Unicode. This SAP Note applies for Single Code Page and MDMP system
conversion. Have a look at Note 765475.

SQL Server 2008 : What's New?

Have a look at this Teched document on the new features on SQL Server 2008 from a DBA's perspective.

SQL Server 2005 SP3 almost ready

Microsoft is putting the final touches to SQL 2005 SP3. It only contains fixes and no new functionality.Hopefull SAP wont take too long to certify it for Productive use.

Troubleshoot Single Sign-On with SAP Logon Tickets

Have a look at SAP Note 701205 if you have trouble with Single Sign-on that is not working.
The collective note 1257108 is also helpfull.

SQL2005 - Installation prerequisites/checklist in Cluster

SAP also released another handy new note that details everything you need to install SQL 2005 in a Windows Cluster. See note 1257296

SAP Solution Manager 4.0 becomes SAP Solution Manager 7.0

SAP Solution Manager 4.0 will be known as SAP Solution Manager 7.0 as of 1st of May 2008.
More at http://service.sap.com/solutionmanager

Netweaver 7.1 Screenshots

Below is some screenhots I took from a NW 7.1 Installation I am busy with,

The SAP MMC Console, notice all the new functions in left pane.

The new J2EE Homepage :
The new Netweaver Administrator (replaced Visual Administrator)
The web based MMC Console (http://localhost:5xx13 ) where XX = instance no

SAGUI 6.40 support end in October 2008.

SAP will not support SAPGUI 6.40 after 14 October 2008. This is partly because the 6.40 GUI was developed with Visual Studio 2003 which will be de-supported by Microsoft on 14th of October 2008. See Note 147519 on this topic.

Dynamic Kernel Parameters for the Security Audit Log

With Netweaver AS ABAP 7.1 you can now enable the kernel parameters for the Security Audit Log dynamically in RZ11 without restarting the server. Check here for more details.

IPv6 Support in SAP NetWeaver 7.10

IPv6 is now supported with SAP Netweaver 7.10 .
Have a look at this SAP doc on this subject.

New in Netweaver 7.1 : SAP Management Console

With NW 7.1 SAP released a new web based tool (java applet) which you can use to perform simple central monitoring and administration tasks including the following :
Monitor and control (start, stop, or restart) the SAP system and its instances with a single tool.

● Display SAP log and trace files, start profiles, instance parameters, the system environment, SAP environment, Internet Communication Manager (ICM) queue statistics, and so on.

● Display and control Java processes.

● Display the ABAP work process overview and control ABAP processes.

● Monitor system alerts.

● Display the current status tree.

● Display the list of all access points to an SAP system.

● Display information about the AS Java threads, sessions, caches, aliases, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) sessions, remote objects.

● Display Java Virtual Machine garbage collection and heap memory information of the application server.

● Save the current console configuration in a file to reuse it later or to forward it to other users.

● Start third-party tools (such as Telnet), if available, to manage an application server.

Read more about it here.

New in Netweaver 7.1 ABAP Stack - Dynamic Work Processes

Spotted this today, SAP has added a new type of work processes called the Dynamic Work Process.
It basically allows the dispatcher to start/stop additional work processes according to the system's demand. Read more about it here.

Front-end printing with control technology

SAP has introduced a new front-end printing method recently. Have a look at note 821519. This method does not use SAPLPD and communicates directly with the Windows Spooler. You can now also choose which local printer to print to.Given you have the latest support packages it can even be used from 46C systems.