Implementing SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) … · 2019-11-12 · o An overview of SAP NetWeaver BW o The DB2® for Linux, UNIX and Windows (LUW) features exploited by SAP

Implementing SAP NetWeaver BW Systems on

IBM InfoSphere Warehouse

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© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2009 All

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Implementing SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) Systems on IBM® InfoSphere Warehouse™

Version 1.0

April 21, 2009

Brigitte Bläser

Karl Fleckenstein Guiyun Cao

Nela Krawez

IBM Lab Böblingen, IBM Lab Toronto



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Table of Contents Abstract..................................................................................................................... 4

1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 5

2. Overview of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware and software ............... 6

2.1. InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Offerings ................................................ 8

3. Overview of SAP NetWeaver BW ....................................................................12

3.1. General SAP System Architecture.............................................................12

3.2. SAP NetWeaver BW.................................................................................13

3.3. SAP NetWeaver BW System Sizing..........................................................15

4. SAP NetWeaver BW on DB2 LUW..................................................................16

4.1. Support of DPF and other DB2 LUW Features..........................................16

4.2. Database Characteristics of SAP NetWeaver BW Workload .....................17

4.2.1. Mixed workload on the Administration Partition ...............................17

4.2.2. Number and size of SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCubes.........................18

4.2.3. Number and size of PSA tables .........................................................18

4.2.4. Number and size of DataStore object tables.......................................18

4.2.5. Number and size of master data tables...............................................18

4.2.6. Number of times data is duplicated....................................................18

4.2.7. Number of concurrent reporting queries and other operations ............19

4.2.8. No LOAD used for data staging ........................................................19

5. Implementing SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse .........19

5.1. Mapping of SAP instances to InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Modules ..19

5.2. Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Classes ..........................21

5.2.1. C-Class Configurations .....................................................................22

5.2.2. D-Class Configurations .....................................................................22

5.2.3. E-Class Configurations......................................................................23

5.3. Sizing Recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse............................................................................................................25

5.4. Table Distribution .....................................................................................27

5.4.1. Table Distribution on C-Class ...........................................................28

5.4.2. Table Distribution on D- and E-Class ................................................28

5.5. General Recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW Installation and DB2

Configuration .......................................................................................................30

6. Summary ..........................................................................................................31

7. References ........................................................................................................32

8. Appendix: DB2 configuration for SAP NetWeaver BW....................................33

8.1. InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Modules ................................................33

8.2. Database Partition Groups and Tablespaces ..............................................33

8.3. Memory usage ..........................................................................................34

8.4. DB2 registry variables...............................................................................36

8.5. DB2 Database Manager Configuration......................................................36

8.6. DB2 Database Configuration ....................................................................37

About the Authors ....................................................................................................38

Copyrights, Trademarks & Disclaimer......................................................................39



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List of Figures Figure 1: Components of a InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse System......................... 7

Figure 2: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Classes.................................................... 9

Figure 3: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class offerings .................................... 9

Figure 4: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D- and E-Class offerings........................10

Figure 5: Typical InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D5100 configuration .................10

Figure 6: SAP System Architecture ..........................................................................13

Figure 7: SAP NetWeaver BW objects and data flow ...............................................15

Figure 8: General SAP NetWeaver BW layout on DB2 LUW...................................17

Figure 9: SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Implementation21

Figure 10: SAP NetWeaver BI systems on C-, D-, E-Classes with up to 4 Data

Modules (D-, E-Class)..............................................................................................27

Figure 11: Even data distribution of 3 tablespaces on 3 Data Modules ......................30

Figure 12: Even data distribution of 4 tablespaces on 4 Data Modules ......................30

List of Tables Table 1: CPU, main memory and storage of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-, D-,

and E-Class ..............................................................................................................11

Table 2: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW................................................................................................22

Table 3: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW................................................................................................23

Table 4: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse E-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW................................................................................................24

Table 5: Table distribution for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class .................28

Table 6: Table distribution for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D- and E-Class ......29

Table 7: System setup differences.............................................................................33

Table 8: Tablespace property differences..................................................................34

Table 9: Memory usage differences ..........................................................................35

Table 10: DB2 registry settings differences ..............................................................36

Table 11: Database manager configuration differences .............................................36

Table 12: Database configuration differences ...........................................................37



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Abstract

This paper provides guidelines and recommendations for running SAP NetWeaver

BW on IBM® InfoSphere Warehouse™. It provides an overview of the InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse and of SAP NetWeaver BW. It provides hardware sizing

recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. It

discusses the IBM® DB2® for Linux®, UNIX® and Windows® features exploited in

SAP NetWeaver BW, proposes an optimal DB2 LUW DPF database layout and data

distribution and summarizes DB2 configuration parameter settings for SAP

NetWeaver BW.



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1. Introduction

Business Intelligence (BI) databases are a class of databases with common properties,

but within this class there can be a wide variation.

When faced with a class of databases which have a more tightly constrained set of

attributes some of these general recommendations might need to be changed. This is

especially the case with SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) databases as they

tend to have some features that are atypical of a standard BI database.

This whitepaper provides guidelines and recommendations for running SAP

NetWeaver BW on IBM® InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse™ hardware and using

IBM® InfoSphere Warehouse™ software. The topics covered are:

o An overview of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware and InfoSphere

Warehouse software

o An overview of SAP NetWeaver BW

o The DB2® for Linux, UNIX and Windows (LUW) features exploited by SAP

NetWeaver BW

o Recommendations and guidelines for installing and running SAP NetWeaver

BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware and software

o SAP requirements for DB2 LUW Fix Packs and releases

o InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware sizing recommendations for SAP

NetWeaver BW

o DB2® for Linux, UNIX and Windows (LUW) DPF database layout and data

distribution for SAP NetWeaver BW

o DB2 configuration parameter settings required for SAP NetWeaver BW

The intended audience of this document consists of:

o Customers who intend to install SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse hardware and/or software

o IBM technical presales

o InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse sizing specialists who want to derive a suitable

configuration for a SAP NetWeaver BW system

o SAP sizing specialists who want to provide sizing recommendations for

customers using InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware

In general, SAP NetWeaver BW fits very well into the InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse design. For that reason, there are many benefits of running SAP

NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. However, there are some

specific requirements regarding installation and configuration which are not certified

for the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse total solution support. Therefore it should be

noted that following the recommendations provided in this document does not qualify

for the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse total solution support.



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2. Overview of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse hardware and software

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse ([8] - [15]) is the complete data warehousing

solution comprised of pre-tested, scalable and fully-integrated system components of

DB2 warehouse software, server and storage. Its key characteristics are:

o The concept of balance in the performance characteristics of the warehouse

constituent components:

”Balanced” means that the components have been thoroughly tested and are

known to function well together without significant CPU, I/O or network

bottlenecks.

o The transparent modular architecture:

Systems are configured by linking balanced building blocks (modules) together

to host a BI system and its data. Because the operation of the individual

components is well understood and has been verified by rigorous system and

performance testing, it is possible to make recommendations regarding the

number of building blocks required to build a data warehouse based on the

projected volume of data and workload that the data warehouse is expected to

handle.

o Certification:

Each InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration is evaluated using a BI-

focused testing plan that includes three stages: quality, performance, and BI

solution testing. A certified InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse solution must

comply exactly with a prescribed IBM design. In order to meet the needs of

different customers, IBM offers several certified InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse configurations on AIX, Linux, and Windows.

o Complete solution support:

For the certified InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse solutions IBM provides

advanced end-to-end support through an integrated support team. However, it

should be noted that the recommendations provided in this document for SAP

NetWeaver BW differ from the certified InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

solutions. This implies that the advanced end-to-end support cannot be provided

for SAP NetWeaver BW.

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse systems consist of the following building blocks:

o Foundation Module: The Foundation Module serves as the keystone for any

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. It hosts the catalog partition of the DB2

warehouse database.

o Data Module: Data Modules process the data in the warehouse. One data

module hosts a defined number of DB2 database partitions. To increase the

amount of raw data to be processed, additional data modules are added to the

configuration.



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o User Module: User modules handle the database connections to the warehouse.

Additional User Modules can be added to grow the number of active warehouse

users.

o Failover Module: Failover Modules are optional and provide high availability.

o Application Module: Application Modules act as a portal for applications

running on the warehouse.

A minimal InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration consists of the Foundation

Module and one Data Module. Depending on the amount of data to be processed, the

number of parallel users and the high-availability requirements, Data Modules, User

Modules and Failover Modules can be added to the configuration. Applications

accessing the data warehouse are installed on one or more Application Modules. This

is illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Components of a InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse System

For SAP NetWeaver BW, User Modules are not supported. All users connect to the

catalog partition which is located on the Foundation Module. For SAP NetWeaver

BW, Application Modules correspond to the SAP Application Servers. They will not

be covered further in this document.

Part of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse is a recommended software stack consisting

of operating system, system management and InfoSphere Warehouse software.

Information about the recommended software stack is available under the following

links:

o http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21179515 for

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse on AIX

o http://www-

01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=71&context=SSEPGG&q1=Recommende

d+Base+Software+Stack+for+Balanced&uid=swg21192752&loc=en_US&cs=u

tf-8&lang=en for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse on Linux

o http://www-

01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=3354&context=SSFVXC&dc=D600&uid

=swg21303493&loc=en_US&cs=utf-8&lang=en for InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse on Windows



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The benefits of remaining on the recommended software and firmware stack for a

Balanced Warehouse environment are:

o The software and firmware levels have been extensively tested together by IBM,

which ensures that the entire stack is a stable working environment.

o Having many customers on the same set of software and firmware levels

simplifies problem resolution because the Balanced Warehouse support team is

familiar with this configuration and environment, and can therefore help resolve

issues more efficiently.

The InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse methodology has the following advantages:

o The concept of linking pre-defined building blocks together is easy to

understand The time to deliver a data warehouse solution can be reduced

because the balanced configuration methodology minimizes the complexity of

the warehouse design.

o The total cost of the warehouse solution can be reduced because the balanced

approach facilitates efficient usage of the system resources without the danger

of bottlenecks in the system.

o The modular approach simplifies the sizing of data warehouse solutions because

it provides guidelines for estimating the amount of data and processing that a

single module can handle.

o High scalability is easily achieved by adding modules to the system.

o The methodology is a proven methodology that is quality-tested using

performance tests and validated by numerous data warehouse customers.

Furthermore, it incorporates best practices that are based on years of experience.

o For certified InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations, IBM provides

comprehensive total solution support.

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse concepts and terminology is described in detail in

[8].

2.1. InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Offerings

IBM offers 3 classes of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse platform configurations, as

shown in Figure 2.



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Figure 2: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Classes

The C-Class provides out-of-the box warehousing applications and reporting tools for

small and medium-size enterprises. The D-Class supports advanced departmental data

marts and smaller data warehouses. The E-Class supports highly scalable enterprise

data warehouses requiring ultra-high performance.

Each class contains a number of pre-defined system configurations consisting of

servers, storage system, network and software. For the C-Class, this is shown in

Figure 3 and for D- and E-Class in Figure 4. In Figure 4, configurations displayed in

light grey text are no longer available for new customers. However, customers can

still order additional Modules to extend their existing configurations. In this paper,

recommendations and guidelines for SAP NetWeaver BW are provided for all suitable

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations, including the ones no longer

available for new customers.

Figure 3: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class offerings



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Figure 4: InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D- and E-Class offerings

The most suitable configuration for a given data warehouse application depends on

performance, scalability requirements and high-availability requirements, as well as

operating system and storage system preferences.

Figure 5 shows a typical D5100 topology with high availability. The system consists

of a Foundation Module, 3 Data Modules and one Failover Module, each

implemented on an IBM System x3650 with 1 quad-core CPU and 32 GByte of main

memory. The D5100 system is configured and maintained via a separate management

server. All servers are interconnected by 3 networks: a network for the DB2 Fast

Communication Manager, a cluster management network, and the corporate network.

Additional Data Modules, User Modules, and Application Modules can be added as

needed.

Figure 5: Typical InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D5100 configuration

Table 1 lists the servers, number and type of CPUs, the amount of main memory and

the approximate disk space capacity of the servers of the InfoSphere Balanced



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Warehouse C-, D- and E-Class configurations. Those configurations that are no longer

available for new customers are marked with (*).

Class Module Server Model and CPUs Main Memory (GByte)

Storage Capacity (GByte)

C1000 All in one server

X3500 or BladeCenter S with HS21 blades 1-2 dual-core Intel Xeon 3.0 GHz

4-8 200 – 1,000


X3650 0r BladeCenter S with HS21 blades 1-2 quad-core Intel Xeon 5365, 3.0 GHz

8-16 1,500 – 3,000


X3950 M2 1-4 quad-core Intel Xeon 7350, 2.93 GHz

16-64 3,000 – 8,000

Foundation Module

X3650 2 dual-core Intel Xeon 5160, 3.0 GHz

8 680

D5000

(*)

Data Module X3650 2 dual-core Intel Xeon 5160, 3.0 GHz

16 2,720

Foundation Module

X3650 1 quad-core Intel Xeon E5450, 3.0 GHz

32 1,090

D5100

Data Module X3650 1 quad-core Intel Xeon E5450, 3.0 GHz

32 1,090

Foundation Module

X3455 2 dual-core AMD Opteron, 2.2 GHz

8 680

E6000

(*)

Data Module X3455 2 dual-core AMD Opteron, 2.2 GHz

16 3,256

Foundation Module

P5 575 2 POWER5+ 1.9 GHz (minimum)

8-16 (minimum)

280 (extendable)

Configuration 1: 4,480

E7000

(*)

Data Module P5 575 8 POWER5+ 2.2 GHz

32

Configuration 2: 8,960

Foundation Module

P5 575 2 POWER5+ 1.9 GHz (minimum)

8-16 (minimum)

3,376 E7050

(*)

Data Module P5 575 8 POWER5+ 2.2 GHz

32 13,504

Foundation Module

P5 550 2 dual-core POWER5+, 2.1 GHz (minimum, incl. management LPAR)

32 (minimum incl.

management LPAR)

1,632 E7100

Data Module P 570 2 dual-core POWER6 4.7 GHz

32 13,056

Table 1: CPU, main memory and storage of InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-, D-, and E-Class



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The different configurations fulfill specific user requirements and preferences

concerning storage system, storage capacity, operating system platform and high

availability, for example:

o The C1000, C3000, and C4000 are available in three sub-configurations, each

for different warehouse raw data sizes.

o E7000, E7050 and E7100 use AIX while D5000, D5100 and E6000 use Linux.

o E7000 provides two configurations. The first one has one DS4800 storage

system per Data Module while the second configuration uses two DS48000

storage systems per Data Module (i.e. provides double the amount of disk

space).

o E6000 and D5000/D5100 differ in the storage system used: E6000 uses DS4000

while D5000 and D5100 use DS3000.

o E7050 uses the DS8100 storage system while E7000 uses DS4800.

o Compared to D5000, D5100 provides an additional Failover Module as standby

system for the Foundation Module and the Data Modules.

o E7100 uses p6 servers

For detailed information about the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations,

see [9] – [15]. Information about the recommended software stack for the

configurations is available at the links listed in chapter 2.

For SAP NetWeaver BW, we only recommend the following configurations:

o C-Class: C3000_1000GB, C4000_2TB

o D-Class: D5100

o E-Class: E7100

The configurations D5000, E7000 configuration 2, and E7050 which are not

supported any more for new customers also fulfill the system requirements for SAP

NetWeaver BW. For that reason these configurations will also be considered in this

paper.

3. Overview of SAP NetWeaver BW

3.1. General SAP System Architecture

The SAP system architecture consists of 3 layers:

o presentation layer,

o application layer, and

o database layer.

The presentation layer provides the graphical user interface through which the users

interact with the SAP applications. SAP provides both a Windows and a Java GUI and

internet browser based access to SAP systems. The GUI or browser runs on the users

PC or workstation.



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The SAP applications are executed in the application layer. The functions of the

application layer can be distributed over multiple application servers which may run

on different hosts. Users who connect to the SAP system are assigned a work process

on an application server. The work processes connect to the database in the database

layer to read and manipulate the data required for the user requests. The general SAP

system architecture is illustrated in Figure 6.

For SAP NetWeaver BW running on DB2 LUW, the database can be distributed over

multiple servers by making use of the Database Partitioning Feature (DPF). This

extends the scalability of the SAP system to the database layer. Note that DPF is only

supported for SAP NetWeaver BW and products based on SAP NetWeaver BW, like

SAP SCM and SAP SEM.

Figure 6: SAP System Architecture

3.2. SAP NetWeaver BW

SAP NetWeaver BW is an end-to-end solution for an enterprise-wide data warehouse.

It is located in the Information Management area of SAP NetWeaver and provides

data warehousing features, reporting and analysis tools, best-practice models

(Business Content), business-analysis applications, and administrative resources.

The following are the basic elements of the SAP NetWeaver BW information model:

o InfoObjects are the master data representations within SAP NetWeaver BW.

o DataSource: DataSources contain the definition of source data (i.e. data loaded

from external sources) in a flat structure.



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o Persistent Staging Area (PSA): The PSA is the initial storage area of data,

where requested data is saved unchanged from the source system according to

the structure defined in the DataSource.

At database level, PSA is implemented as a flat table.

o DataStore objects (DSO): DataStore objects describe consolidated datasets

from one or several data sources. DataStore objects are typically used to

integrate data from different sources, for delta update into InfoCubes, and for

day-to-day decision-making.

At database level, DSOs consist of up to three flat tables. The first one (Activation

Queue) contains new data loaded from source systems that cannot yet be used for

queries or further data processing in SAP NetWeaver BW. The process of making the

data available for use is called data activation. The second (Active Table) contains the

active data available for queries and further data processing The third one (Change

Log) stores the history of data changes and is used to support rollback of data

activation.

o InfoCubes and aggregates: InfoCubes are multi-dimensional objects that are

used to answer complex business questions on topics such as revenues per

region, revenues per office within each region, year-to-date revenues, and for

comparison with previous periods. Aggregates are summarized views of the

data in an InfoCube which are materialized as tables in the database.

At database level, InfoCubes consist of two fact tables (F fact table and E fact

table) and up to 16 dimension tables. Aggregates are implemented in the same

way and have their own fact tables. They may share one or more dimension

tables with the InfoCube.

Figure 7 shows the possible flow of data into and within SAP NetWeaver BW. Data

may be loaded into the PSA first, and from there into InfoObjects, DataStore objects

and InfoCubes. It is also possible to directly load source data into InfoObjects,

DataStore objects and InfoCubes, and from DataStore objects into InfoCubes.



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Figure 7: SAP NetWeaver BW objects and data flow

3.3. SAP NetWeaver BW System Sizing

The CPU capacity of SAP NetWeaver BW systems is sized based on estimations of

the expected workload. SAP provides a tool called the SAP Quick Sizer in which

customers provide information as accurately as possible about the expected reporting

and analysis workload, the data staging workload and the number and size of

InfoCubes and DataStore objects. From this information, the SAP Quick Sizer

calculates the processing power required in SAPS (SAP Application Performance

Standard), a unit directly related to the CPU capacity of the infrastructure on which

the SAP system is to run. For a definition of SAPS see [1].

For SAP NetWeaver BW, SAPS is calculated from SAPS estimated for data staging

and SAPS estimated for reporting. SAPS for reporting are estimated based on number

and types of parallel users and query complexity. More detail is provided in [2].

The SAP Quick Sizer calculates the SAPS under the assumption of an average CPU

utilization of 65%.

The estimated SAPS are for the complete SAP system, which consists of the SAP

application and database servers. For SAP NetWeaver BW systems, the rule of thumb

for dividing the SAPS between the SAP application server and the database server is

between 2:1 and 3:1 (application server : database server). This ratio is based on SAP

NetWeaver BW benchmarks and experiences from customer benchmarks. For

example, in [3] the ratio was 2.25:1 and in [4] it was 2.72:1.

The IBM SAP International Competence Center (ISICC) provides information about

the SAPS achieved by the IBM pSeries and xSeries servers.



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The SAP Quick Sizer calculates the size of the database from the estimated raw data

which consists of the number of rows in InfoCube fact tables and the active tables of

DataStore objects. Based on many customer experiences, the rule of thumb for

database sizes running SAP NetWeaver BW on DB2 LUW is about factor 4.7 larger

than raw data. This includes also space for the database transaction logs and

temporary tablespaces in addition to PSA, InfoCubes, DataStore, Indexes and Master

Data.

The SAP Quick Sizer works very well for small and medium-sized systems of up to 1

TB database size. However, it has several drawbacks:

o When estimating the required SAPS it does not take the data volume processed

into account. Therefore, for large databases > 1 TB, the number of SAPS

required is underestimated.

o It does not take into consideration the differences in databases technology nor

database specific functionality which can reduce the data volume and improve

performance efficiency; for example, DB2 row compression and the DB2

Database Partitioning Feature (DPF).

The sizing guidelines for SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse in

this document are therefore based on evaluations of customer systems running on

IBM hardware and DB2 LUW (see chapter 5).

4. SAP NetWeaver BW on DB2 LUW

4.1. Support of DPF and other DB2 LUW Features

On DB2 LUW, SAP NetWeaver BW supports the Database Partitioning Feature

(DPF), i.e. large SAP NetWeaver BW DB2 databases are usually created with

multiple database partitions. The following tables are candidates for distribution over

multiple database partitions:

o PSA tables

o DSO tables

o InfoCube and aggregate fact tables

Distributing large tables over several database partitions is prerequisite for parallel

processing which increases database performance significantly. Furthermore it

facilitates scale out over several database servers.

Partitioning keys of the distributed tables are generated automatically in SAP

NetWeaver BW such that an even distribution of data over the database partitions is

achieved.

In a SAP NetWeaver BW DB2 multi-partition installation, database partition 0 serves

as catalog partition, coordinator partition and non-partitioned data partition for all

SAP Basis tables, master data tables, and InfoCube dimension tables. In the

following, it is referred to as the Administration Partition. It is also recommended to

store small PSA, DSO, and fact tables on the Administration Partition whereas large

PSA, DSO and fact tables should be distributed over several other database partitions.



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This leads to the general database layout shown in Figure 8, provided that all large

PSA, DSO and fact tables are distributed over partitions 1 to n.

Figure 8: General SAP NetWeaver BW layout on DB2 LUW

In addition to DPF, the following DB2 LUW features are supported in SAP

NetWeaver BW:

o Multi-dimensional clustering for PSA tables, DataStore object tables and

InfoCube or aggregate fact tables

o DB2 row compression, mainly for PSA tables, DataStore object tables and

InfoCube or aggregate fact tables. Large master data and dimension tables can

also be compressed.

For more information about SAP solutions in general and SAP NetWeaver BW on

DB2 see [5] and [6].

4.2. Database Characteristics of SAP NetWeaver BW Workload

4.2.1. Mixed workload on the Administration Partition

SAP NetWeaver BW is also a general SAP application. Every time a single SAP

NetWeaver BW query is processed this can mean 200 or more small “OLTP like”

SQL queries are executed on the SAP Basis tables. While most of these queries are

read-only, there can be numerous updates for auditing, logging or updating last used

dates. Since the number of tables involved can be in the thousands, there is currently

no easy way of partitioning or replicating these tables for efficient access across the

data partitions. SAP currently doesn’t support partitioning or replication of the SAP

Basis tables, they are always located on the Administration Partition. The same

applies to master data tables and dimension tables.



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4.2.2. Number and size of SAP NetWeaver BW InfoCubes

The number and size of InfoCubes vary considerably over different SAP NetWeaver

BW customer installations. Customer may have only a few, or up to several hundred

InfoCubes; they may have less than 10 million or up to 500 million rows or more.

SAP recommends splitting InfoCubes much larger than 500 million rows into smaller

ones and combining them under a Multi-Cube. A common practice is to divide a large

InfoCube into smaller ones containing the data for one year and creating a Multi-Cube

over these smaller InfoCubes. DB2 with the DPF feature provides near-linear

scalability. Therefore splitting large InfoCubes is not necessary for performance

reasons. However, there might be other reasons for doing this, for instance quick

deletion of old data during archiving.

The InfoCube fact tables should be distributed over several database partitions

dependent on the fact table size in order to achieve good SAP NetWeaver BW query

performance.

4.2.3. Number and size of PSA tables

PSA tables store raw data extracted from source systems. This data is then cleansed

and propagated into DataStore objects and InfoCubes. The number of PSA tables

depends on the number of source systems and the number of target master data

objects, DataStore objects and InfoCubes. Large SAP NetWeaver BW systems may

contain several thousand PSA tables. PSA tables for master data are usually small

while those for transactional data to be propagated into DataStore objects and

InfoCubes may get very large (i.e. > 1 billion rows). This is because customers tend to

keep large amounts of data in the PSA to avoid having to extract it again from the

source systems in case of errors.

4.2.4. Number and size of DataStore object tables

The number of DataStore objects usually corresponds roughly to the number of

InfoCubes, and they contain about the same number of rows. It is common to

consolidate data extracted from source systems in DataStore objects and then

propagate the data to InfoCubes. Some customers have very large DataStore objects

with more than 2 billion rows.

4.2.5. Number and size of master data tables

The number and size of master data tables depends on the customer environment.

Master data tables may contain several million rows. Some customers have master

data tables with up to 40 million rows.

4.2.6. Number of times data is duplicated

In a typical SAP NetWeaver BW system, there can be up to 4 copies of fact table data.

This comprises PSA, DataStore object and aggregates.



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4.2.7. Number of concurrent reporting queries and other operations

In a SAP NetWeaver BW system, depending on the number of active users, it is not

uncommon to have a large number of reporting queries executing in parallel.

Complex queries are also triggered by aggregation jobs which update the aggregates

of InfoCubes after loading new data.

Depending on the number of InfoCubes and DataStore objects in the system, a large

number of ETL data staging jobs loading new data could run in parallel as well. SAP

NetWeaver BW provides mechanisms of parallelizing a single data load process

which leads to more parallel activity. Especially in enterprise data warehouse systems

that contain data from all regions of the world, reporting and data load jobs usually

run in parallel.

Reporting queries and aggregation jobs cause a high workload on the database

whereas ETL jobs and moat other maintenance operations cause a high workload on

the SAP application servers.

4.2.8. No LOAD used for data staging

SAP NetWeaver BW uses SQL INSERT for data staging. DB2 LOAD is not

supported in the SAP NetWeaver BW data load processing. New data to be loaded is

processed in the SAP application server and then written to the data targets with SQL

INSERT.

5. Implementing SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

This chapter describes the mapping of SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse. It provides an overview which InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

configurations are recommended for SAP NetWeaver BW. Sizing recommendations

are also described in order to specify a suitable InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

hardware configuration for SAP NetWeaver BW systems. After that we explain a

simple method for the database table distribution which guarantees an equal workload

on all Data Modules. At the end of this chapter we give recommendations for SAP

NetWeaver BW installation on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations and

discuss DB2 configuration parameter settings.

5.1. Mapping of SAP instances to InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Modules

The SAP NetWeaver BW DB2 LUW database instance is installed on InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse modules as follows:

The database administration partition of the SAP NetWeaver BW system is installed

on the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Foundation Module. It contains:

o The database catalog function

o The database coordinator function

o The SAP Basis tables, master data tables and dimension tables



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o Small PSA, DataStore object and InfoCube and aggregate fact tables

o The Java database schema, in case the SAP system has both ABAP and Java

software stacks

The SAP installation program “SAPinst” always creates database partition 0 for the

administration partition. All SAP application servers connect to this database

partition. Additional InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse User Modules are not

supported.

The data partitions of a SAP NetWeaver BW system, containing medium-sized and

large PSA tables, DataStore object tables, and InfoCubes and aggregate fact tables,

are installed on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Data Modules. These partitions are

database partitions 1 to n.

Failover Modules for high availability can be used as specified for the InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse configurations. Currently, there are no specific SAP

requirements for high availability of SAP NetWeaver BW systems using DB2 with

the DPF feature.

The SAP application servers are installed on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

Application Modules.

Figure 9 shows the implementation of SAP NetWeaver BW application and database

layer on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Modules.



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Figure 9: SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Implementation

5.2. Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Classes

The following InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse classes are recommended for SAP

NetWeaver BW, because they best fulfill the requirements of database servers for

SAP NetWeaver BW:

o C-Classes:

• C3000_1000GB

• C4000_2TB

o D-Classes:

• D5100

o E-Classes:

• E7100

More configuration details are described in the following chapters.



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The D5000, E7000 configuration 2, E7050 configurations also fulfill the system

requirements for SAP NetWeaver BW although they are no longer supported for new

customers. For this reason these configurations will also be considered in this paper.

The InfoSphere Warehouse software used should include a DB2 version and Fix Pack

which is certified by SAP. Information about SAP certified DB2 versions and Fix

Packs are available in SAP note 101809. If the preinstalled InfoSphere Warehouse

software stack contains a DB2 version or Fix Pack that is not SAP certified it should

be replaced. It is also possible to replace the InfoSphere Warehouse software with a

SAP OEM DB2 version. Information about the supported operating system versions is

contained in the SAP installation documentation ([16]).

5.2.1. C-Class Configurations

General C-Class characteristics:

o One Database Server which includes both Foundation and Data Module

o Supported operating systems: SUSE Linux or Microsoft Windows

o DB2 Enterprise Server Edition V9.5.0 for Linux, UNIX, and Windows

o 2 CPU cores per database partition

Recommended C-Class configurations for SAP NetWeaver BW:

o 4-5 GByte memory per CPU core

o The following table contains recommended C-Class configurations for SAP

NetWeaver BW, which might need to be adjusted based on customer workload

characteristics:

C-Class Database Server / Storage Number of DB Partitions

C3000_1000GB x3650, 2 * Intel Xeon X5365 quadcore 3.0 GHz, 32 GByte memory 2 * DS3200, 24 disks (300 GByte)

4

C4000_2TB x3950 M2, 4 * Intel Xeon X7350 quadcore 2.99 GHz, 64 GByte memory 2* DS3200, 2* EXP3000, 48 disks (300 GByte)

8

Table 2: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW

More details about RAID configuration of the storage is described in [15]. Note

that the recommended memory size of C3000 servers is larger than the standard

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration.

5.2.2. D-Class Configurations

General D-Class characteristics:

o Foundation Module server and Data Module server have the same size.

o Operating System: SUSE Linux

o DB2 Enterprise Server Edition V9.1 or V9.5 for Linux, UNIX and Windows

o 1 CPU core per database partition



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Recommended D-Class configurations for SAP NetWeaver BW:

o Foundation Module can be larger than Data Module server

o 8 GByte of memory per CPU core

o The following table contains recommended D-Class configurations for SAP

NetWeaver BW, which might be adjusted based on customer workload

characteristics. Especially for a large number of Data Modules it might be

necessary to increase CPU and memory of the Foundation Module server. In

general, we assume that for SAP NetWeaver BW the Foundation Module needs

about 20% of the CPU and memory resources available for the total database.

This assumption is based on the analysis of customer production systems and on

experiences from customer proof of concepts.

Foundation Module 1 Data Module

D-Class Server / Storage Server / Storage Number of DB

Partitions

D5000

x3650, 2 dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 3.0 GHz, 32 GByte memory / EXP3000, 12 disks (146GByte)

x3650, 2 dual-core Intel Xeon 5160 3.0 GHz, 32 GByte memory / 2 * EXP3000, 24 disks (146 GB)

4

D5100

x3650, 1 quad-core Intel Xeon E5450, 3.0 GHz, 32 GByte memory / 2 * DS3400, 24 disks (146 GByte)

x3650, 1 quad-core Intel Xeon E5450, 3.0 GHz, 32 GByte memory / 2 * DS3400, 24 disks (146 GByte)

4

Table 3: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW

More details about RAID configuration of the storage is described in [9] and

[10].

Note that the recommended memory size of D5000 servers for SAP NetWeaver

BW is larger than the standard InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration.

5.2.3. E-Class Configurations

E-Class characteristics:

o Foundation Module with variable size (smaller or equal to Data Module server

size).

o Maximum size of DB server for the Foundation Module is as large as one Data

Module server.

o Operation System: AIX

o DB2 Enterprise Server Edition V9.1 or V9.5 for Linux, UNIX and Windows

o 0.5 CPU cores per database partition

Recommended E-Class configurations for SAP NetWeaver BW:

o Foundation Module can be larger than 1 Data Module server



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o 1 CPU core per database partition. Note that this is different to the InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse E7100 standard configuration.

o 8 – 12 GByte of memory per CPU core

o The following table contains recommended E-class configurations for SAP

NetWeaver BW, which might be adjusted based on customer workload

characteristics. Especially for a large number of Data Modules it might be

necessary to increase CPU and memory of the Foundation Module server. In

general, we assume that for SAP NetWeaver BW the Foundation Module needs

about 20% of the CPU and memory resources available for the database. This

assumption is based on the analysis of customer production systems and on

experiences from customer proof of concepts.

Foundation Module 1 Data Module

E-Class Minimum Server /

Storage Maximum Server /

Storage Server / Storage

Number of DB

Partitions

E7000 Cfg. 2

P5+ 570, 2*1.9 GHz, 16 GByte memory, DS4700, 14 disks (73 GByte)

P5+ 575, 8*2.2 GHz, 64 GByte memory, DS4800, 6*EXP810, 84 disks (73 GByte)

P5+ 575, 8*2.2 GHz, 64 GByte memory DS4800, 12*EXP810, 168 disks (73 GByte)

8

E7050

P5+ 570, 2*1.9 GHz, 16 GByte memory part of DS8100, 32 disks (146 GByte)

P5+ 575, 8*2.2 GHz, 64 GByte memory/ part of DS8100, 64 disks (146 GByte)

P5+ 575, 8*2.2 GHz, 64 GByte memory part of DS8100, 128 disks (146 GByte)

8

E7100

P5+ 550, 1 dual-core 2.1 GHz, 32 GByte memory, DS47000, 16 disks (146 GByte)

p6 570, 2 dual-core 4.7 GHz, 48 GByte memory, DS4800, 64 disks (146 GByte)

p6 570, 2 dual-core 4.7 GHz, 48 GByte memory DS4800, 9* EXP810, 133 disks (146 GByte)

4

Table 4: Recommended InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse E-Class configurations for

SAP NetWeaver BW

More details about RAID configuration of the storage is described in [12], [13]

and [14].

Note that the recommended memory size of the Data Modules for SAP

NetWeaver BW is larger than the standard InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

configuration.



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5.3. Sizing Recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

The following observations for SAP NetWeaver BW systems on DB2 LUW are

relevant for sizing:

o Larger SAP NetWeaver BW systems generate more workload on the database

server with

• larger BI objects

• more concurrent users

• more concurrent BI queries

• more data staging processes

o SAPS are mapped to InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations. Larger

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse systems are needed for larger SAPS values.

o Large SAP NetWeaver BW systems in general have more “passive” data, which

is less frequently accessed. Less SAPS per GByte raw data are needed for

systems, which are larger than 1.6 TByte raw data.

The following rules of thumb for sizing are the result of examining many existing

customer installations of SAP NetWeaver BW on DB2 LUW:

o The sizing ratio between the SAP application servers and the database servers is

between 2:1 and 3:1 (SAP application servers to database servers). This means

that the SAP NetWeaver BW application servers are factor 2 to 3 larger than the

database servers.

o Because of the high workload on the administration partition and the lack of

additional User Modules we recommend reserving about 20% of the CPU and

memory resources available for the complete database instance for the

Foundation Module on which the administration partition is located. For the

standard InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse classes, this restricts the number of

Data Modules that can be used or requires using a more powerful server for the

Foundation Module.

o Foundation Module: SAP NetWeaver BW generates larger workload on a

Foundation Module than other BI data warehouse solutions. A SAP NetWeaver

BW system has only one Foundation Module and no User Modules. For that

reason sizing of the Foundation Module for SAP NetWeaver BW systems is

different compared to other data warehouse solutions.

Sizing guidelines:

• Roughly 20% of the total database resources (CPU and memory) are

needed.

• Typical database size of a Foundation Module: 3% - 7% of total database

size

o Data Module:

• Roughly 80% of the total database resources (CPU and memory) are needed

• Typical database size of all Data Modules: 93% - 97% of total database size



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o Total database size is about factor 4.7 larger than SAP NetWeaver BW raw

data, which is the data size needed for all InfoCube fact tables and active tables

of all DataStore objects.

o The amount of main memory on the Foundation Module and the Data Modules

should be higher than on the standard InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

configurations.

Note:

The DB2 feature “data compression” is not taken into account in the sizing

considerations of this paper.

In general DB2 data compression reduces the database size and the I/O throughput,

because less data has to be transferred between disk and database server. Several

customer benchmarks show that the database size is reduced and smaller database

servers are sufficient in case DB2 database compression is used.

Based on customer experiences, the following list shows the sizing ranges of the

different InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse classes. In this consideration it is assumed

that the E- and D-Classes have up to a maximum of four data modules.

o Sizing range for C-Class:

• BI raw data: 0.26 TByte - 0.47 TByte

• Database size: 1.22 TByte - 2.21 TByte

o Sizing range for D-Class with maximum 4 data modules:

• BI raw data: 0.30 TByte - 1.21 TByte

• Database size: 1.41 TByte - 5.60 TByte

o Sizing range for E-Class with maximum 4 data modules:

• BI raw data: 0.54 TByte - 6 TByte

• Database size: 2.6 TByte - 28 TByte

The maximum size for BI raw data and also the database size of D-Class and E-Class

are larger, if more than four Data Modules are used. In this case the database server

size for the Foundation Module will also need to be increased.

The following graphic summarizes the size ranges of the different InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse configurations used for SAP NetWeaver BW. Up to 4 Data

Modules are used for the D- and E-Classes. A Foundation Module is as large as one

Data Module as the maximum. In general larger SAP NetWeaver BW systems can be

set up using a Foundation Module, which is larger than one Data Module. This is

different to the standard (certified) InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations,

but possible for SAP NetWeaver BW systems. Such systems have more than 4 Data

Modules. In general this is possible to grow the systems beyond the sizes described in

Figure 10 below.



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Raw Data (TByte)0.5 1 2

4 6

Workload (SAPS)

E-Class

D-Class

C-Class

DB Size (TByte)

4.6 9.3 18.5 28

E-Class

D-

Class

C-

Class

0.25

SAP NetWeaver BI systems on C-, D-, E-Classes with up to 4 Data Modules (D-, E-Class)

Figure 10: SAP NetWeaver BI systems on C-, D-, E-Classes with up to 4 Data Modules (D-, E-

Class)

Large SAP NetWeaver BW systems have more “passive” data, which is less

frequently accessed. Less SAPS per GByte raw data are needed for systems, which

are larger than 1.6 TByte raw data. For that reason the increase of the curve is reduced

for SAP NetWeaver BW systems larger than 1.6 TByte raw data.

5.4. Table Distribution

The basic idea is that larger tables should be distributed on more database partitions in

order to increase the degree of parallel processing. To keep the table distribution

simple and easy to manage, the tables are classified into a few size categories which

are mapped to a specified number of database partitions.

Following recommendations are derived from IBM internal benchmarks and customer

experiences:

o Don’t distribute small tables with less than 2 Million records. Store these tables

on the administration partition (database partition 0).

o Medium-sized tables, which have between 2 and 16 Million records, should be

distributed on 8 database partitions. This is a good compromise to achieve good

performance with acceptable parallel processing overhead.



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o Distribute larger tables with more than 16 Million records on 12 or more

database partitions dependent on the used InfoSphere Balance Warehouse

configuration class. Choose the number of partitions for table distribution, so

that 500 Thousand records are stored on one partition at the minimum. More

records on one partition are preferred.

In addition there are certain restrictions on table distribution in the SAP NetWeaver

BW application:

o The two fact tables (E- and F-fact table) of an InfoCube have to be stored in the

same tablespace.

o All aggregate fact tables of one InfoCube have to be stored in the same

tablespace.

o The active table and the change log table of a DSO object have to be stored in

the same tablespace.

If the tables differ largely in size, then the largest table should determine the number

of partitions on which the data should be distributed.

More details about table distribution are described in the chapters below.

5.4.1. Table Distribution on C-Class

In general the SAP basis tables, the SAP NetWeaver BW master data tables and the

dimension tables are small tables, which are always stored on the administration

partition.

PSA tables, DataStore tables and Fact tables could be large. Table distribution of

these tables depends on the table size.

The following table gives an overview of the table distribution of PSA, DataStore and

Fact tables:

C-Class Number of DB

partitions Table size Table distribution on

C3000_1000GB 4 < 2 Million records � >= 2 Million records �

DB Partition 0 DB Partition 1 - 3

C4000_2TB 8 < 2 Million records � >= 2 Million records �

DB Partition 0 DB Partition 1 - 7

Table 5: Table distribution for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class

5.4.2. Table Distribution on D- and E-Class

In general the SAP NetWeaver BASIS tables, the SAP NetWeaver BW master data

tables and the dimension tables are small tables. These tables are always stored on the

administration partition, which is located on the Foundation Module.

Dependent on the InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration class, up to 8

database partitions are defined on one Data Module. The following list shows the

number of database partitions for the different classes:

o D5000, D5100: 4 database partitions per Data Module.

� 4 Data Modules have 16 DB Partitions.



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o E7000, E7050: 8 database partitions per Data Module.


o E7100: 4 database partitions per Data Module.


PSA tables, DataStore tables and Fact tables could be large. Table distribution of

these tables dependents on the table size and the number of available Data Modules.

The following table gives an overview of the table distribution of PSA, DataStore and

Fact tables for D- and E-Classes with up to 4 Data Modules.

Number of

Data Modules (D5000, D5100, E7100)

Number of Data

Modules (E7000, E7050)

Number of DB

Partitions on all Data Modules

Table size Table

Distribution on

1 - 4 < 2 Million records � >= 2 Million records �

DB Partition 0 all DB Partitions

2 1 8 < 2 Million records � >= 2 Million records �


3 - 12 < 2 Million records � >= 2 Million records �


4 2 16

< 2 Million records � 2 - 16 Million records � > 16 Million records �

DB Partition 0 8 DB Partitions all DB Partitions

- 3 or 4 24 or 32

< 2 Million records � 2 - 16 Million records � > 16 Million records �

DB Partition 0 8 DB Partitions all DB Partitions

Table 6: Table distribution for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D- and E-Class

Even data distribution of the medium sized tables

The medium sized PSA tables, DataStore object (DSO) tables or Fact tables, which

have between 2 and 16 Million records, should be distributed on a subset of available

database partitions on configurations with 24 or 32 database partitions. The goal is

workload balancing over all Data Modules.

Example 1: Table distribution on 3 Data Modules

o Each medium-sized table is distributed over all available Data Modules.

o Data of each medium-sized table is stored on 2 or 3 database partitions per Data

Module.

o Large tables are distributed over all database partitions.



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Figure 11: Even data distribution of 3 tablespaces on 3 Data Modules

Example 2: Table distribution on 4 Data Modules

o Each medium-sized table is distributed over all available Data Modules.

o Data of each medium-sized table is stored on 2 database partitions per Data

Module.

o Large tables are distributed over all database partitions.

Figure 12: Even data distribution of 4 tablespaces on 4 Data Modules

5.5. General Recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW Installation and DB2 Configuration

This chapter summarizes the most important issues that have to be considered when

installing SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. A detailed

description of the installation process on the supported InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse classes is contained in [18].

As previously mentioned in chapter 5.2, it is important to use an SAP-certified DB2

version or Fix Pack for the SAP NetWeaver BW database (see SAP note 101809).

By default, SAP uses four file systems for database containers on each partition and

stores the database transaction logs separate from the database containers. Not all

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configurations provide enough file systems to follow

these recommendations. In this case, the number of file systems for database

containers has to be reduced in SAPinst.

SAP NetWeaver BW has to be installed with the SAP installation program SAPinst.

To run successfully, SAPinst requires a specific file system layout and file system

permissions which are described in the SAP installation documentation. The default

file systems provided by InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse are not compatible with the

SAP requirements. To become compliant to the directory structure needed for

SAPinst, additional directories and symbolic links may need to be created to adopt the

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse file systems and directories.



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The operating system users and groups required for SAP NetWeaver systems do not

need to be created in advance. If they do not exist SAPinst will create them.

Installing a SAP NetWeaver BW DB2 database on the Foundation Module and one or

more Data Modules requires running SAPinst on the Foundation Module first and

then on each Data Module to create the data partitions.

Before installing the SAP database instance the Central Services instance needs to be

installed. The SAP software directory created in this installation has to be NFS-

mounted on the Foundation Module and all Data Modules.

When running SAPinst on the different Modules it is important to enter the same IDs

for the SAP users and groups on the Foundation Module and on each Data Module.

The first invocation of SAPinst on the Foundation Module creates the administration

partition with all database partition groups and tablespaces located only there. This

includes the database partition groups and tablespaces for PSA, DataStore object and

InfoCube and aggregate fact tables. Additional invocations of SAPinst on the Data

Modules create the data partitions to be hosted on each Data Module without

tablespaces. Once all partitions have been created the BI Data Distribution Wizard in

the SAP DBA Cockpit can be used to move the existing database partition groups and

tablespaces for PSA, DataStore object and InfoCube and aggregate fact tables from

the administration partition to the data partitions. If there are medium-sized tables that

should not be distributed over all data partitions additional database partition groups

and tablespaces for these tables can be created in the SAP DBA Cockpit.

SAP NetWeaver BW DB2 databases should always be configured according to SAP

note 899322 for DB2 9 and SAP note 1086130 for DB2 9.5. The most important DB2

configuration recommendations for SAP NetWeaver BW on DB2 are:

o The DB2 registry variable DB2_WORKLOAD should always be set to SAP.

o This triggers a number of other DB2 registry settings which are important for

running SAP applications successfully.

o The database heap and the application memory require a significant amount of

memory. This is due to the large number of tables accessed in a SAP system and

the possibly large number of user connections. The amount of memory that has

to be reserved for locking is large whereas the memory for the utility heap

memory is smaller than for standard data warehouse applications. This is due to

the fact that SQL INSERT is used for ETL instead of the LOAD utility.

o About 25% of the memory available for one database partition should be

reserved for sorting.

6. Summary

This document provides recommendations and guidelines for implementing SAP

NetWeaver BW systems on InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse. It explains the specific

characteristics of SAP NetWeaver BW workload compared to other data warehouse

applications. It provides guidelines for sizing an InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

system for SAP NetWeaver BW and how to choose an appropriate InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse configuration. Furthermore, it provides an overview of the most

important considerations when installing SAP NetWeaver BW on InfoSphere



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Balanced Warehouse and it describes the differences in DB2 registry and

configuration parameter settings between SAP NetWeaver BW and InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse standard recommendations.

7. References [1] SAPS definition:

http://www11.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/measuring/index.epx

[2] Sizing ASAP for BW Accelerator – SAP Business Information Warehouse,

SAP AG 2004

[3] Infrastructure Solutions: Design, Manage, and Optimize a 20 TB SAP

NetWeaver Business Intelligence Data Warehouse, IBM Redbook,

SG247289, 2007

[4] Infrastructure Solutions: Design, Manage and Optimize a 60 TB SAP

NetWeaver Business Intelligence data warehouse, IBM Redbook, SG247385,

2007

[5] Building and Scaling SAP Business Information Warehouse on DB2 UDB,

IBM Redbook, SG247094, 2004

[6] SAP Solutions on IBM DB2 UDB V8.2.2 Handbook, IBM Redbook,

SG246765, 2005

[7] Internet link to InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse:

http://www.ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/balanced-warehouse

[8] Balanced Configuration Unit: Overview and Administration, Version 2.1,

IBM, 2006

[9] InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D5000: Design and Implementation, IBM,

2007

[10] InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse D5100: Design and Implementation, IBM,

2007

[11] InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse E6000: Design and Implementation, IBM,

2007


2007


2007


2007

[15] InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse C-Class:

http://www.ibm.com/software/data/infosphere/balanced-warehouse/c-

class.html

[16] SAP NetWeaver installation guides on SAP service marketplace

(http://service.sap.com/instguides):

[17] IBM DB2 High Availability Solution: IBM Tivoli System Automation for

Multi-Platforms, Version 1.01, SAP AG, March 2007

[18] Installing SAP NetWeaver BW on IBM InfoSphere Warehouse, IBM

whitepaper, forthcoming



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8. Appendix: DB2 configuration for SAP NetWeaver BW

The DB2 configuration parameter settings for SAP NetWeaver BW in the following

sections are taken from the current version of the SAP notes 899322 and 1086130.

Since these notes may change you should always consult the actual version of them

on the SAP Service Marketplace.

8.1. InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse Modules

The following table lists SAP specifics in the selection of InfoSphere Balanced

Warehouse modules.

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse

SAP NetWeaver BW

Number of Foundation Modules

1 1

Number of User Modules >= 0 0

Number of Data Modules

Depending on amount of data and workload

Depending on amount of data and Workload

Number and type of Application Modules

Depending on applications

SAP application servers (ratio between 2 : 1 to 3 : 1 between SAP application server and database CPU resources)

Table 7: System setup differences

8.2. Database Partition Groups and Tablespaces

The following table lists differences in the database partition group and tablespace

configuration between InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver BW.

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse SAP NetWeaver BW

Database Partition Groups

• PDPG for partitioned data on partitions 1 to n

• SDPG for non-partitioned data on partition 0

• SAPNODEGRP_<SAPSID> for SAP Basis and master data tablespaces on partition 0

• NGRP_DIM_<SAPSID> for the dimension tablespace on partition 0

• NGRP_FACT_<SAPSID> for fact tables on partitions 1 to n

• NGRP_ODS_<SAPSID> for PSA and DataStore tables on partitions 1 to n

where <SAPSID> is the name of the SAP system

Storage type DMS file by default Automatic storage by default (changeable)

Extent size 16 2 by default (changeable) SAP reasons:

• Avoid that the thousands of



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empty and very small tables occupy too much space (no longer an important issue because SAP now can defer creation of tables until data is actually inserted)

• Limit space consumption of MDC tables

Tablespaces >= 1 tablespaces for non-partitioned data ts_sd_small_001 etc. >= 1 tablespaces for partitioned data and indexes ts_pd_data_001, ts_pd_idx_001 etc. Additional tablespaces for InfoSphere warehousing software and tools

• Standard tablespaces for SAP NetWeaver BW (separate tablespaces for data and indexes):

• SAP Basis and master data

• BW dimension tables

• BW fact tables

• BW PSA and DataStore objects

• SYSTOOLSPACE

Number of containers per tablespace

D5000, D5100, E6000, E7050: 1 container per db partition E7000: Non-partitioned data: 1 container Partitioned data:

• 2 containers (configuration 1) per db partition,

• 4 containers (configuration 2) per db partition

E7100: Non-partitioned data:

• 1 container (9.1)

• 2 containers (9.5) Partitioned data: 4 containers per db partition

4 containers for each data and index tablespace by default (changeable) on each db partition

Temporary tablespace

db2tmp (D5000, D5100, E7100) db2tmp16k (E7000, E7050) DMS

PSAPTEMP16, SYSTOOLSTMPSPACE SMS by default, DMS supported

Table 8: Tablespace property differences

8.3. Memory usage

The following table lists the differences in the memory configuration between

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver BW.

Memory area InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse SAP NetWeaver BW Available memory

D5000, E6000: 16 GB per Data Module (1 GB Linux kernel, 12 GB database partitions, 3 GB unallocated -> 3 GB per partition) D5100: 32 GB per Data Module (1 GB Linux kernel, 30 GB database partitions, 1 GB unallocated -> 7.5 GB per partition)

See information provided in this whitepaper



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E7000, E7050, E7100: 32 GB (8 GB AIX, DB2 processes, DB2 instance -> 3 GB per partition)

Bufferpool overall memory

D5000, E6000, E7000, E7050, E7100: 33% of partition memory (1 GB) D5100: 53% of partition memory (4 GB)

33% of partition memory

Bufferpools per db partition

D5000, E6000: default (catalog): ~4 MB Permanent and temporary tablespaces: 1020 MB D5100: default (catalog): ~16 MB Permanent and temporary tablespaces: 4080 MB E7000, E7050: default (catalog): ~4 MB Permanent tablespaces: 850 MB Temporary tablespaces: 170 MB E7100: default (catalog): ~16 MB Permanent tablespaces: 840 MB Temporary tablespaces: 168 MB

One bufferpool by default

Sort memory 50% of partition memory D5100: Sheapthres = 786436 Sortheap = 8192 D5000, E6000, E7000, E7050, E7100: Sheapthres = 393216 Sortheap = 8192

Maximally 25% of partition memory Sheapthres = 0 Sheapthres_shr = max. 25% of partition memory Sortheap = 15000

Lock memory 64 MB per partition 160 MB per partition recommended as initial value (SAP data staging with INSERT causes more locking)

Utility heap 256 MB per partition 40 MB per partition (SAP does not use LOAD for data staging)

DB heap 1 to 1.5% of partition memory (~39 MB) >= 100 MB per partition (large number of accessed tables in SAP systems)

Application group memory (DB2 9 only)

164 MB per partition 512 MB per partition (large number of connections and secondary connections)

Table 9: Memory usage differences

Both SAP NetWeaver BW and InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse optionally support

row compression and recommend turning the self-tuning memory manager (STMM)

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8.4. DB2 registry variables

Since DB2 Version 8.2.2, SAP recommends setting the DB2_WORKLOAD

parameter to ‘SAP’, which sets default values for other DB2 registry values. These

default settings can vary between the different DB2 versions and Fix Packs.

The following lists differences in the registry variables set between InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver BW based on DB2 9.1.


General: DB2_EXTENDED_OPTIMIZATION=ON DB2_ANTIJOIN=YES DB2COMM=TCPIP D5000: DB2_PARALLEL_IO=*:6 DB2MEMDISCLAIM=N DB2LINUXAIO=Y DB2RSHCMD=/usr/bin/ssh DB2RQTIME=30 DB2BQTRY=120 D5100: DB2_PARALLEL_IO="*:5" DB2RSHCMD=/usr/bin/ssh E7000: DB2_PARALLEL_IO=*:5 DB2ATLD_PORTS=num1:num2, where num1 < num2 (10000 ports recommended) E7050: DB2_PARALLEL_IO=*:15 DB2ATLD_PORTS=num1:num2, where num1 < num2 (10000 ports recommended) E7100: DB2_PARALLEL_IO=*:4

DB2_WORKLOAD=SAP triggers special registry settings for SAP workload. These settings might depend on the DB2 release and Fix Packs installed. Set DB2_PARALLEL_IO to values recommended for InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse configuration.

Table 10: DB2 registry settings differences

8.5. DB2 Database Manager Configuration

The following table lists differences in the database manager configuration between

InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver BW.


• SHEAPTHRES 393216

• NUM_POOLAGENTS 5

• D5000: FCM_NUM_BUFFERS 32768 AUTOMATIC

• E6000, E7000: FCM_NUM_BUFFERS 8192 AUTOMATIC

• SHEAPTHRES 0

• NUM_POOLAGENTS <number of SAP work processes + 10%> (DB2 9.1)

• NUM_POOLAGENTS AUTOMATIC (DB2 9.5)

• FCM_NUM_BUFFERS AUTOMATIC

Table 11: Database manager configuration differences



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8.6. DB2 Database Configuration

The following table lists differences in the database configuration between InfoSphere

Balanced Warehouse and SAP NetWeaver BW.


• LOCKLIST 16384

• MAXLOCKS 10

• PCKCACHESZ -1 (a value of 8 * MAXAPPLS will be used)

• SHEAPTHRES_SHR 250

• SORTHEAP 8192

• DBHEAP 10000

• LOGBUFSZ 2048

• UTIL_HEAP_SZ 65536

• MAXFILOP 1024

• LOGFILSIZ 12800

• LOGPRIMARY 50

• LOGSECOND 0

• LOCKLIST >= 40000

• MAXLOCKS 90

• PCKCACHESZ 5120

• SHEAPTHRES_SHR 40000 (initial value, max. 25% of memory available for one database partition)

• SORTHEAP 15000

• DBHEAP 25000 (DB2 9.1)

• DBHEAP AUTOMATIC (DB2 9.5)

• LOGBUFSZ 1024

• UTIL_HEAP_SZ 10000

• MAXFILOP 1950 (DB2 9.1)

• MAXFILOP 61440 (DB2 9.5)

• LOGFILSIZ 16380

• LOGPRIMARY 20

• LOGSECOND 40 Table 12: Database configuration differences



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About the Authors

Karl Fleckenstein is the lead architect in the SAP/IBM DB2 LUW development

team. He is responsible for DB2 LUW solutions within SAP NetWeaver applications.

Karl joined IBM 1990 and worked as software engineer in several database related

projects. He has more than 15 years of experience with DB2 and 10 years of

experience with SAP basis and SAP BI technology. Karl is a frequent speaker at

IBM's and SAP's technical conferences and has published various technical white

papers with SAP/DB2 LUW solutions. He is a member of the IBM German Technical

Expert Council (TEC).

Brigitte Bläser is a Software Engineer at the IBM Böblingen Lab. She is responsible

for integrating DB2 LUW solutions into SAP NetWeaver BW applications. Brigitte

joined IBM 1984 and worked as software engineer in several database related

projects. She has more than 15 years of experience with DB2 and 7 years of

experience with SAP BASIS and SAP NetWeaver BW technology.

Nela Krawez is a lead architect for IBM InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse working in

the DB2 data warehousing performance development group in Toronto Lab. Nela has

11 years of experience supporting customers in building and managing complex DB2

systems. One of her main interests is in Data Warehouse covering areas of sizing,

database design and performance analysis.

Guiyun Cao is a performance analyst at IBM Toronto Lab. He is responsible for DB2

& SAP performance analysis, database tuning for SAP benchmarks and customer

POCs. He has about 10 years of experience on performance for DB2 with SAP R/3

and SAP BW/BI.



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Copyrights, Trademarks & Disclaimer

© Copyright IBM Corporation, 2009 All Rights Reserved.

All trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their

respective holders. The information in this presentation may concern new products that IBM may or may not announce. Any discussion of OEM products is based upon information which has been publicly available and is subject to change. The specification of some of the features described in this presentation may change before the General Availability date of these products.

REFERENCES IN THIS PUBLICATION TO IBM PRODUCTS, PROGRAMS, OR

SERVICES DO NOT IMPLY THAT IBM INTENDS TO MAKE THESE

AVAILABLE IN ALL COUNTRIES IN WHICH IBM OPERATES.

IBM MAY HAVE PATENTS OR PENDING PATENT APPLICATIONS

COVERING SUBJECT MATTER IN THIS DOCUMENT.

THE FURNISHING OF THIS DOCUMENT DOES NOT IMPLY GIVING

LICENSE TO THESE PATENTS.

The following terms are registered trademarks of International Business Machines

Corporation in the United States and/ or other countries: AIX, AIXwindows, DB2,

e( logo), IBM, IBM( logo), InfoSpere Warehouse, InfoSphere Balanced Warehouse,

Netfinity, Tivoli(logo), WebSphere.

The following terms are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation

in the United States and/ or other countries: AIX/ L, AIX/ L( logo), DB2 Universal

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Tivoli Enterprise, TME 10, xSeries.

A full list of U. S. trademarks owned by IBM may be found at

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NetView, Tivoli and TME are registered trademarks and TME Enterprise is a

trademark of Tivoli Systems, Inc. in the United States and/ or other countries.

Microsoft, Windows, Windows NT and the Windows logo are registered trademarks

of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/ or other countries.

SAP, mySAP, SAP NetWeaver, SAP NetWeaver BI, SAP NetWeaver BW, SAP BW,

SAP R/3, SAP SCM, SAP SEM and other SAP products and services mentioned

herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several

other countries.

More about SAP trademarks at.

http://www.sap.com/company/legal/copyright/trademark.asp

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries licensed

exclusively through The Open Group.

LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.



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Intel and Pentium are registered trademarks and MMX, Itanium, Pentium II Xeon and

Pentium III Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and/ or

other countries.

Java and all Java- based trademarks and logos are trademarks of Sun Microsystems,

Inc. in the United States and/ or other countries.

Other company, product and service names may be trademarks or service marks of

others.

Information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind.

Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from a supplier of these

products, published announcement material, or other publicly available sources and

does not constitute an endorsement of such products by IBM. Sources for non-IBM

list prices and performance numbers are taken from publicly available information,

including vendor announcements and vendor worldwide homepages.

IBM has not tested these products and cannot confirm the accuracy of performance,

capability, or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the

capability of non-IBM products should be addressed to the supplier of those products.

Documents

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