sand dna nearline for sap net weaver bw 7.0

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© 2012 SAP AG 1

SAND/DNA Nearline for SAP

NetWeaver BW 7.0

Applies to:

SAND/DNA Nearline for SAP NetWeaver BW 7.0

Summary

This document is a tutorial which provides hand-on introduction to the following aspects of SAND/DNA Nearline for SAP NetWeaver BW 7.0 and the SAP NLS (Nearline Storage) interface.

• Basic Nearline functionality:

o Nearlining and reloading of Infocubes

o Query access to Nearline data

Author(s): Ram Tomar

Company: Bajaj Hindusthan Ltd..

Created on: 04 June 2013

Author Bio

Ram Tomar has completed his Master in Computer Application from U.P Technical University. She has 6 years of SAP experience. She has been working on SAP NW BI since 5 years. Apart from SAP BI she has experience in SAP ABAP and hands on experience in SAP QM modules.



© 2012 SAP AG 2

Table of Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

Topics .............................................................................................................................................................. 3

Activating Data Archiving Process for an Infocube ............................................................................................ 3

Nearlining Data from an Infocube ....................................................................................................................... 6

Reloading Nearline Data into SAP Netweaver BW .......................................................................................... 10

Accessing Nearline Data using SAP Business Explorer (BEx) ........................................................................ 13

Related Content ................................................................................................................................................ 15

Copyright........................................................................................................................................................... 16



© 2012 SAP AG 3

Introduction

Nearline Storage (NLS) is a type of Data Archiving Process.

Using the NLS, you can archive and store transaction data from InfoCubes and DataStore objects.

The data archiving process consists of three main steps:

... 1. Creating the archive file/near-line object

2. Storing the archive file in near-line storage

3. Deleting the archived data from the database

A data archiving process is always assigned to one specific InfoProvider and has the same name as this InfoProvider. It can be created retrospectively for an existing InfoProvider that is already filled with data.

Nearline storage is recommended for the data that is still in use. Storing historical data in near-line storage reduces the data volume on Info providers; however the data is available for BEx queries.

Topics

• Basic Nearline functionality:

o Nearlining and reloading of Infocubes

o Query access to Nearline data

Activating Data Archiving Process for an Infocube

The objective is to activate a Data Archiving Process (DAP) for the InfoCube ZEDU98I and to determine the parameters of this DAP. Assume that the data will be moved to nearline storage ("nearlined") on a yearly basis starting with the year 1990. It should be possible to nearline data for different company codes independently.

Step 1

Use the LISTCUBE transaction to verify the contents of the InfoCube for all years.

Figure 1: Content of Infocube



© 2012 SAP AG 4

Verify the data for the earliest year, 1990.

Figure 2: Verify Infocube Data

Step 2

Start the RSDAP transaction and enter your InfoProvider name in the field provided.

Figure 3 : Create Data Archiving Process

Start editing (creating) the new Data Archiving Process.

On the first tab, uncheck the ‘ADK-Based Archiving’ option and specify the general nearline connection information as shown in Figure 4.

Select Time slice Archiving as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4 : Nearline connection info

Step 3



© 2012 SAP AG 5

Nearline connection information also needs to be specified on the Nearline Storage tab (depending on the support package level installed). The technical details for communication with the nearline provider must be specified on this tab as well, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 : Nearline Connection details

Save the Data Archiving Process.

Step 4

On the Selection Profile tab, define the characteristics that will determine the "slice" of data to be saved to nearline storage. As we want to nearline on a yearly basis, "Calendar Year/Month" is used as the primary partitioning characteristic; as we want to be able to nearline different company codes independently, "Company code" is selected as an additional partitioning characteristic.

The Semantic Group tab is optional and depends on the requirement.

Figure 6 : Defining characteristic of the Nearline slice

Activate the DAP.

Successful activation can be verified by looking at the entry for the Active Version, which should be set to Executable = Edited Version.

Figure 7 : Activated DAP



© 2012 SAP AG 6

Nearlining Data from an Infocube

Objective is to move data for the year 1990 in the InfoCube ZEDUnnI to nearline storage. This is done using an Archiving Request from the Manage screen for the InfoCube.

Step 1

After the Data Archiving Process is activated, a new Archiving tab appears in the Manage screen for the InfoCube. As no Archiving Request has been created at this point, no Archiving Request information is displayed.

Figure 8 : Archiving Tab

All Archiving Request information for this specific InfoProvider will be available on this grid.

Step 2

Create a new Archiving Request by clicking the Archiving Request.

Determination of the nearline slice is based on a relative time calculation. As we want to nearline a complete year in our example, we set the value of the “Only Complete” field to “Year(s)”. This ensures that the Archiving Request nearlines complete years. In order to nearline the year 1990, we have to determine the offset from the system date when the Archiving Request is created. In 2012, we would choose all data records older than 21 years. This results in an Archiving Request specifying that the Calendar Year / Month must be less than or equal to December 1990.

Settings on the "Further Restrictions" tab should be ignored in this exercise.

In the Process Flow Control section, adjust the "Continue Processing Until Target Status" setting to carry out the Archiving Request only up to the point where the request is generated. This means that the Archiving Request will not actually be executed in this step, which simply defines the slice.

Select to start it In Background (or In Dialog as you will only generate the request but not yet execute it) and choose the button that does not simulate as shown in the Figure 9.



© 2012 SAP AG 7

Figure 9 : Defining the Data to be Nearlined

Step 3

Going back to the Archiving tab on the Manage screen, you can see some of the relevant Archiving Request metadata:

Figure 10 : Archiving Request

Click the button in the Lock Status field to start executing the Archiving Request. On the dialog box that appears, under Action, choose to continue until Status 70. This covers the complete loop, including data deletion in SAP NetWeaver BW. Start the job in the Background.

Figure 11 : Continue until archive request is completed



© 2012 SAP AG 8

The overall status of the job is displayed along with corresponding metadata on the grid showing all Archiving Requests.

Figure 12 : Active request

You can access the corresponding nearline data via the adjoint nearline provider with the $N suffix. In this example, this is the InfoCube ZEDUnnI$N.

Figure 13 : Data in Nearline Provider

Compare this to the values from Figure 2, the results should be the same. The grid also shows that we have nearlined 363 records in one data package, using roughly 126 kilobytes in the database as shown in Figure 14.

Figure 14 : Info of Active Job

Step 4



© 2012 SAP AG 9

Use the listcube transaction to verify that the data for the year 1990 has been deleted from SAP NetWeaver BW.

Figure 15 : Verify data deletion from BI Infocube



© 2012 SAP AG 10

Reloading Nearline Data into SAP Netweaver BW

Objective is to reload nearline data back into SAP NetWeaver BW.

Step 1

Identify and select the Archiving Request used to nearline the data of company code 4000 for the year 1991. In the example, this is the request with the SID 243.

Figure 16: Archived Requests

Click the button in the Status field to trigger the reload. Reload the data in the background.

Figure 17: Reload the Data

The reload request appears in the list of all requests in the Archiving tab, after the grid is refreshed. The corresponding Archiving Request is set to a status of yellow as shown in Figure 18.



© 2012 SAP AG 11

Figure 18: Reload Request in the Requests List

The reload involves three phases: copy, verify and delete.When the reload has finished, all requests displayed on the grid once again have a status green:

Figure 19: Completion of Reload Request

The reloaded slice of data is now not available via the adjoint nearline provider. Because it has been reloaded, it is available only from the online provider:

Figure 20: Reloaded Data Available via Online Provider



© 2012 SAP AG 12

The reloaded data appears as a new APO request in the list of data load requests.

Figure 21: Reloaded Data as APO Request in Request List

This request is not yet compressed, as can be seen from the list. It must be compressed before this data slice can be nearlined again.



© 2012 SAP AG 13

Accessing Nearline Data using SAP Business Explorer (BEx)

Objective is to access nearline data using a BEx Query.

Step 1

Start the BEx Query Designer (BW 7 Version) and create a new query on the InfoCube as shown in Figure 22.

Figure 22: New BEx Query

Check the data: only the online data of the InfoCube will be visible.

Step 2

In order to see the nearline data as well, use theRSRT transaction to adjust the query properties.

Figure 23: Adjust the Query Properties

In the query properties window, click to check the “Read Near-Line Storage As Well” option box.



© 2012 SAP AG 14

Figure 24: Read Near-Line Storage as Well

Step 3

The complete result set, merging online and nearline data, is displayed.

Figure 25: Complete Result Set

This is similar to the results now shown in BEx.



© 2012 SAP AG 16

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sand dna nearline for sap net weaver bw 7.0

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