Unlocking the value of SAP system change intelligence

How to avoid an SAP systems disaster with Rev-Trac Insights

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Executive summaryThere is no doubt, SAP is a complex environment. New technology adoption to keep pace with competitors, has resulted in solutions and landscapes of increasing complexity. As SAP environments grew to meet ever more demands from the business and customers, Revelation Software Concepts (RSC) introduced Rev-Trac Insights for deep visibility into systems of all sizes. The Rev-Trac Insights suite of applications provides change intelligence and insights in SAP custom code and system information.

With Rev-Trac Insights, users can analyze, decide and act on important system information in real time. You can base decisions on fact, not guesswork. Ultimately, the software reduces risk in SAP systems by providing real-time accurate intelligence on systems and code.

The application suite provides real-time intelligence in three areas, delivering tangible and measurable benefits:

• Developers are code-centric, and Rev-Trac Insights’ Developer Utilities help them work faster and more productively.

• Managers know how fragile a complex landscape can be. Rev-Trac Insights’ Landscape Management applications help them understand the state of play in each system. This can be of paramount importance when, for example, un-promoted code left in QAS leads to incorrect test results.

• Stakeholders from developers to CIOs understand the cost of recreating custom code if it is lost, for example during a crash, restore, backup or system restart. Rev-Trac Insights’ Object Repositories guards against potentially expensive disasters with auto-save and archiving and keeps custom ABAP code and data dictionary objects safe and secure.

Rev-Trac Insights helps businesses to significantly reduce the risk of crashes or unscheduled downtime. Even small changes carry risk of accidental disruption and the more complex the system, the greater the risk. Rev-Trac Insights provides specific data to the appropriated team member/s, who can then act quickly to make improvements or to avoid disaster. It safeguards custom code and eliminates the risk of lost work.

This whitepaper describes the eight Rev-Trac Insights’ applications, stating technical and business benefits of the intelligence they deliver.

An RSC solution

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Table of contentsExecutive summary 2

Introduction 4

Section 1: Rev-Trac Insights lets you see inside your system 5

Developer Utilities 6

Code Ferret 6

Watch Bot 7

Match Box 8

Landscape Management 9

Matrix 9

WIP Window 10

Cold Case 11

Object Repositories 12

Life Saver 12

Version Vault 14

Section 2: Rev-Trac Insights addresses security risks 15

Conclusion 16

About the author 16

Get in touch 17

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Introduction Rev-Trac Insights responds to the need for change intelligence in addition to well governed change control on complex SAP system-based infrastructures. The Rev-Trac Insights’ suite of applications reduces risk by providing essential fact-based information on current systems to authorized managers, developers and other SAP IT team members. Its real-time intelligence enables decisions based on fact, not guesswork, and saves time in multiple areas on a day-to-day basis.

Rev-Trac Insights delivers real-time intelligence on system state and custom ABAP code in three areas:• Developer Utilities• Landscape Management• Object/Code Repositories

Together, these visibility tools provide the means to analyze systems, notify users of changes to objects or systems, keep custom ABAP code safe and accessible. The tools also find ABAP code anywhere on

a system and reveal changes or inconsistencies between

objects and systems.

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Section 1: Rev-Trac Insights lets you see inside your systemSAP system-based infrastructures have multiple stakeholders – project team members, basis and release managers, developers and team leaders, and users. These stakeholders require different types of change intelligence at different times. Users, for example, may only need to know when a change will arrive. Others need more precise change intelligence. That’s where Rev-Trac Insights comes in.

Packaged within a maintenance-free, secure virtual appliance, Rev-Trac Insights is easy to install, update, maintain or remove. Its applications are both secure and user friendly. It runs in a separate virtual machine (VM), communicating with systems through SAP’s own connectors using standard security safeguards, so it never poses a risk to the system itself.

Figure 1: Checking code standards using Code Ferret

Developer UtilitiesDevelopers are code-centric, and Rev-Trac Insights helps them work faster and more productively.

Code FerretMaster the custom ABAP code on your system, no matter where it resides: Never lose another code snippet. If it’s on the system anywhere, Code Ferret finds it immediately. You can find specific types of objects, such as functions, that were changed by a particular developer, for example a departed contractor, during a specified date range. Or go right to that bit of code you remember seeing somewhere the other day. Here, Code Ferret checks code standards (Figure 1) and also noses out functions coded by a particular developer during a specified period.

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Watch BotKeep on top of your systems: Watch Bot lets you decide what to monitor, how to report it and who gets the reports. Did someone make a manual change directly in QA or PRD, bypassing your processes? Watch Bot will spot it. It will inform you of changes to complex objects or even whole development classes. It can round up changes made overnight in your absence and email you a report each morning. And it can sound an alarm if a system goes unstable, goes down or comes back up. Watch Bot can issue auto-alerts to monitor object changes or detect potential parallel development issues between BAU and Project landscapes, as in Figure 3.

Figure 3.1: Watch Bot alert rule

Figure 3.2: Watch Bot parallel development alert email

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Match BoxNever lose work to an out-of-sync object: Developers know how quickly objects can fall out of sync if a transport on one system changes an object copied to DEV from another system. Match Box detects even small differences between code versions, so you can directly see conflicts in a single view, compare objects and prevent problems. Differences between systems, versions or even other named objects show up in a single, color-coded view that allows for easier sorting. In Figure 4, Match Box shows differences between objects on separate systems.

Figure 4: Match Box diffs btween systems

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Landscape ManagementKeep your landscapes stable. Team Leaders to CIOs and managers know how fragile a complex landscape can be. Prevent out-of-sequence version imports or old and forgotten code being accidentally carried in an unrelated transport. Understand the state of play in the individual systems to ensure each is the same. For example, significant amounts of code lying un-promoted in QAS can distort test results and destabilize PRD if promoted. Rev-Trac Insights’ Landscape Management applications can prevent such mishaps by enabling users to identify such code beforehand.

MatrixUnderstand your SAP landscapes: Matrix compares systems in detail, so you can visualize and quantify the differential between DEV, QAS and PRD. It works by analyzing objects on every specified system and revealing the differences. Are overtakes and overwrites increasing between BAU and Project landscapes? Matrix makes it easy to track down the sources. In Figure 5, see how Matrix can reveal objects that need re-syncing after refreshing QAS from a backup of PRD.

Figure 5: Matrix finding objects to re-sync

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WIP WindowMonitor work in progress: It’s much easier to manage development teams if you can click a button and view their workloads. Which work hasn’t yet gone to QAS or PRD? Or, what work has a departed contractor not completed. WIP Window reveals all this and more. Explore unreleased changes in DEV as well as changes not yet moved to PRD and use the information to balance workloads between teams or individual team members.

Figure 6: WIP View

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Cold Case Keep systems stable and trim the costs of keeping unused old code: Over time, any system accumulates forgotten or abandoned work from any number of sources. Consultants move on, projects change, transports go stagnant. Any code left behind costs time and money and can interfere with integration testing. Cold Case identifies who created an abandoned object and why it stopped advancing, enabling you to remove it, complete it, move it to a repository or even promote it directly into PRD. You’ll clean up your system, and potentially rescue thousands of hours of lost work. In Figure 8, Cold Case identifies code that, in three months, has not moved beyond DEV.

Figure 7: Cold Case identifies code that has not yet moved to PRD

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Figure 8: Life Saver showing different timestamps on same transport

Object RepositoriesSafeguard your custom code and eliminate the risk of lost work. When a program’s custom code gets lost during a crash, restore, backup or system restart, it can be an expensive disaster. With Rev-Trac Insights you can quickly rebuild, analyze or simply browse through active objects and recover previous states after an unexpected loss or change of plans.

Life SaverAuto-saved snapshots puts you in control of ABAP changes: Eliminate problems with changed ABAP objects and take control of back-outs using Life Saver. Better than a simple “back-out” button that gives you little or no control over the results, Life Saver creates and displays auto-saved, point-in-time snapshots of active code in any system. Later, you can view, compare with earlier or later versions, or restore to a better state as needed. No more ‘backing out blindly’ and hoping for the best – Life Saver puts you in control. Figure 10 is an example of a transport with two different timestamps, compared in Life Saver to show what changed.

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Version VaultKeeps custom ABAP code and data dictionary objects safe and secure: Your teams will never have to reinvent the wheel. Version Vault keeps historical data dictionary and code objects easily accessible, continually updating all associated audit support data in an external repository of custom SAP objects. When you review the complete development version history it’s easy to discover the differences between versions of object attachments.

Figure 9: Version Vault object differential

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Section 2: Rev-Trac Insights addresses security risksThird-party software is an integral part of business operations in today’s digital economy. These solutions can for example help businesses maintain systems stability, reduce costs, meet compliance and improve delivery times for products and services. Keeping your data secure is paramount, Rev-Trac Insights addresses the risks in three areas:

The solution is Safe and Easy to install: Rev-Trac Insights runs in the Rev-Trac Web Core, which is pre-configured to run Rev-Trac Insights applications efficiently on either VMware virtual platforms or Microsoft Hyper-V. The

Rev-Trac Web Core includes up-to-date components such as the underlying operating system and Web application server, and the latest Java releases. Rev-Trac Insights is free of installation and configuration problems - you simply download a single file.

The application suite is secure: Rev-Trac Insights is easy to secure from outside eyes. It supports HTTPS/SSL – simply upload your own certificate, matching your chosen VM hostname. You can enable the software to open via HTTP connections

or set-up an enforced policy requiring all connections to via HTTPS/SSL for security. Additionally, passwords sent between both Rev-Trac Insights and the SAP login systems are encrypted. Of course, OpenSSL’s widely publicized “Heartbleed” vulnerability is closed in Rev-Trac Insights.

It Gives You Control Over Who Can Use the Apps and Where: Simply have Rev-Trac Insights run authentication checks on users at login. Rev-Trac Insights provides options to turn on and enforce authorization check log-in, giving you

complete control over its use.

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ConclusionThe value of change intelligence can’t be overstated. Rev-Trac Insights is an excellent complement to your change control processes already in place. If you haven’t automated your processes, Rev-Trac Insights provides a great starting point to understanding your actual change control needs.

• Rev-Trac Insights is secure – All communication with the SAP systems uses SAP-standard JCo RFC connections and access can be further secured by encrypting all HTTP communication.

• Rev-Trac Insights is portable – You can copy, move or reassign Rev-Trac Insights’ VM functionality between systems whenever you decide. No complications, no reconfigurations, no problems. Just copy or move the VM file.

• Rev-Trac Insights is safe and shows immediate ROI upon implementation.

• The Rev-Trac Insights application suite quickly becomes a resource that developers and managers can’t live without.

It’s easy to get started. Rev-Trac Insights is included with any standard Rev-Trac Platinum License or can be licensed as a stand-alone product. Using the Rev-Trac Web Core requires no license. For information about the licenses that are required to run Rev-Trac Insights permanently, contact sales@rev-trac.com. For more information about Rev-Trac Insights request a call here.

About the authorAs Vice President Business Development, Rick Porter is responsible for RSC’s Rev-Trac software sales and marketing strategy, and for sales of RSC Rev-Trac software products and services. This includes researching and understanding the change control challenges faced by SAP IT teams and the broad range of solutions available, including how best to position RSC’s SAP change control automation software products.

If you find this whitepaper helpful, you might wish to subscribe to the Rev-Trac SAP change control articles where he regularly contributes.

Copyright © 2018 Revelation Software Concepts Pty Ltd. All rights reserved.

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