Whitepaper - SAP Optimization Guidelines

WHITE PAPER

SAP Optimization Guidelines An Analysis of Options for Optimizing SAP Business Applications with Riverbed

SAP Optimization Guidelines

copy 2013 Riverbed Technology All rights reserved 1

OPTIMIZING SAP OVERVIEW OF OPTIONS

Identifying the Right Solution Business applications running over SAP as they move data between the data center and endpoints (such as branch office users and mobile users) may utilize several different network protocols These protocols exchange data as part of larger solutions such as SAP Opportunity Management SAP CRM7 SAP CRM4 and portals utilizing SAP GUI This guide focuses on two main on-the-wire technologies SAP NetWeaver and SAP GUI One or both of these protocols may be used to deliver a highly customized platform that serves as a foundation for business applications Riverbed Steelheads can optimize both SAP NetWeaver and SAP GUI using different deployment techniques In choosing the best option some guidelines can help assess which deployment is the right fit Additionally SAP has made some decisions in their software that affect the overall optimization level that can be achieved This may vary according to the specific version level of the SAP software in use This is discussed in detail later in this document This document does not cover the internal details of the SAP technology and does not cover either NetWeaver or SAP GUI protocol specifics which are best left to the extensive SAP documentation Instead the landscape of options for how to optimize these protocols with Riverbed is covered as well as a discussion of the tradeoffs of each The intent of this document is to enable a decision of how best to optimize SAP traffic with Riverbed In designing an overall solution that meets requirements it is important to involve the SAP counterpart in the process This will ensure that all resources (technical and otherwise) are available for the design and that the solution meets customer needs

SAP NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver also known as ldquothin clientrdquo is an HTTP-based solution that is used to offer secure Web-based access to customer information Users do not need a customized client to access NetWeaver-based applications they can access them directly in a browser Because of this advantage many customers building new applications or those who have built them recently are using NetWeaver as the foundation technology Customers using SAP Enterprise Portal are using NetWeaver and these portals are sometimes built with a tool called Dynpro There are numerous other tools provided by SAP for building these applications including NetWeaver Visual Composer NetWeaver Developer Studio and ABAP Workbench Customers using these tools are most likely using NetWeaver to implement their business processes and this traffic will be found traveling on the wire between the branch office and data center In terms of interaction with RiOS portals and business applications built with NetWeaver have some common characteristics

Authentication Users are typically authenticated with a user-ID and password inside an SSL-protected session Client certificates may also be used (client certificates with NetWeaver have not yet been tested with RiOS)

SSL-based security for HTTP (https) Steelheads can use standard https optimization techniques for optimizing these streams

Single sign-on for multiple applications can be enabled and is supported by the SAP software Deployment Options for SAP NetWeaver

Riverbed provides two options for optimizing NetWeaver each with tradeoffs in terms of deployment complexity benefits and cost Riverbed is fully certified (ldquoSAP Certifiedrdquo) for interoperability in the NetWeaver environment which should reassure customers that the solution has been fully tested and validated by SAP Labs



Customers wishing to see the official certification information can go to this public URL for RiOS 8x

httpwwwsapcompartnersdirectoriesSoftwareISVSolutionsepxcontext=21B87D61C0F646A22B2A6DB254A010CA8C9C141B7529F029F515B7F49325E097605E236313F854A01816911FBE869FE308CD168F5D975B09CCB1744511ACD15074B0D60E868C0E712D85742AA3CD1E0E7c416AAFBBB2783D489A14FFAD1F352AD638A8679D925A45B5

Customers wishing to see the official certification information can go to this public URL for RiOS 6x httpwwwsapcomecosystemcustomersdirectoriesSoftwareISVSolutionsepxcontext=21B87D61C0F646A22B2A6DB254A010CA8C9C141B7529F029F515B7F49325E097605E236313F854A01816911FBE869FE308CD168F5D975B09CCB1744511ACD15074B0D60E868C0E712D85742AA3CD1E0E|416AAFBBB2783D489A14FFAD1F352AD6FB31B14E0649A811 Certification is required every two years by SAP and these versions were the latest available at the time of certification

Figure 1 Example Deployment with NetWeaver

Option 1 Optimize NetWeaver directly by Riverbed RiOS As shown in Figure 1 above Steelhead appliances (or Virtual Steelheads) can be deployed normally between the NetWeaver servers and SAP clients Normal SSL and non-SSL HTTP blade configuration results in SDR optimization as well as latency reductions For the maximum possible benefits of latency reduction the following settings should be used RiOS 6x Users For RiOS 6x the optimal blade settings are shown in Figure 2 URL Learning Parse and Prefetch and the Object Prefetch Table should all be enabled in a Server Subnet rule The Server Subnet rule destination should match the subnet of all NetWeaver servers used in the data center



Figure 2 HTTP Blade Settings for NetWeaver (RiOS 6x)

RiOS 7x and 8x Users For users of RiOS 7x and 8x no additional settings should be necessary as the software will automatically detect the most optimal options for the traffic types in the network Optionally for all RiOS versions supporting SSL SSL-specific settings can be enabled for SSL optimization Consult the Riverbed standard SSL configuration documentation for details In some cases the server certificate must be obtained from the SAP application Also consult the SAP documentation for instructions on doing this as it varies by application and may or may not be available Other acceleration results for this option are shown in Appendix 1 This deployment model is desirable because it does not require additional software to run on the RiOS appliance Option 2 Accelerate Application Delivery (AccAD) on VSP AccAD (short for Accelerate Application Delivery) is a software package available from SAP that can be used to accelerate NetWeaver traffic The following resources are available for overview and deployment discussions relating to AccAD

The AccAD homepage httpwwwsdnsapcomirjsdnnw-accad

A community page also links together some resources for AccAD here including a forum for customer discussion httpscnsapcomcommunityaccad-for-netweavercontent

This option shown in Figure 1 where the SAP logo is highlighted allows the customer to consolidate their existing AccAD installation or add it to their network without the requirement of an additional appliance The AccAD software uses approximately 1G of RAM and 30G of disk and is a 32-bit package that can run on any VSP-enabled appliance (VSP 6x or later is required) Consult the AccAD homepage above for the current requirements or specific numbers relating to your installation Riverbed and SAP have jointly written a deployment guide for the SAP AccAD software that can be found via the below link (a login is not required) How to Deploy Accelerated Application Delivery for SAP NetWeaver on Riverbed Steelhead httpwwwsdnsapcomirjsdnnw-accadrid=libraryuuid104fc422-e4b1-2d10-b790-ad3840bf449d This document contains instructions for downloading creating and configuring the package for Riverbed VSP with multiple deployment and proxy options



Comparison of the Two Options

Figure 3 Example Screenshot of RiOS SAP Optimization Results

Figure 3 contains a screenshot from a Riverbed Steelhead appliance showing optimization results for a summary of traffic across the network over a 7-day period In this example port 8000 traffic (labeled as ldquoSAPNetweaverrdquo) has been optimized by over 95 over the period This type of example is very common because of the multiple types of traffic being transferred over the WAN (CIFS and HTTP in this case) Many customers will see a variety of protocols and traffic types With the additional ldquootherrdquo traffic



passing through the Steelheads it is likely that data reduction is able to increase due to increased data redundancy (for example logos copyright text and company policy statements)

Figure 4 Portal Login Time over a 100ms T1 LAN

Figure 4 shows example time measurements for a typical operation (Portal Login) The AccAD software provides a slight time improvement in this case Important Note on No-Cache Option It has been observed on some SAP NetWeaver installations that the HTTP traffic has the lsquono-cachersquo option set in the HTTP header This must be disabled in SAP before AccAD can fully optimize the traffic If you see results with very little speed improvement check that lsquono-cachersquo is disabled Consult the SAP account team or documentation for details on how to do this

SAP GUI SAP GUI also known as ldquothick clientrdquo is an older technology from SAP that is used to implement many different types of business processes across the enterprise The protocol used by SAP GUI is not currently optimized by the HTTP blade but does run over TCP and can be optimized with Riverbed SDR An example SAP GUI deployment including typical ports for the various processes is shown in Figure 5



Figure 5 SAP Processes and TCP Ports

The dispatcher port handling the dialog service is most commonly used by SAP GUI-based applications and a socket will be opened from the client host to the dispatcher (ie a connection may exist from a client at a branch office to a dispatcher in the data center) This service will typically reside on TCP port 3200 A summary of the ports you may see on the network is given in Figure 6

Service Port Description

SAP Dispatcher 3200 or 32xx Used by many applications handles the lsquodialogrsquo service

SAP Gateway 3300 Handles communication between SAP systems

Message Server 3600 Handles the lsquoinforsquo service

SAP Router 3299 Handles connectivity to SAP services (VPN for example)

Print 515 Handles printing through SAP GUI or a standard LPD service

Figure 6 Common Ports

By optimizing the dispatcher service users will experience overall lower bandwidth utilization (from SDR) as well as a faster user experience from local delivery of data to the application Recommended Settings



The following settings should be used to achieve SAP GUI optimizations Consult the Riverbed Steelhead Deployment Guide (available on supportriverbedcom) for guidance on how to configure these settings at an enterprise level

No Steelhead individual protocol blade settings are necessary (ie in the protocol-specific software blades)

Compression and encryption must be disabled in the SAP GUI client (this is explained in the next section)

QoS can be enabled for ports 3200 or 32xx since this traffic is often interactive in nature

Optionally Path Selection in RiOS 8x can be used to separate traffic across different WAN links according to different service needs For example business-critical traffic can be forwarded to an MPLS circuit with other traffic being forwarded to a local ADSL link

Disabling Compression in the SAPGUI Client The following method may be used to disable compression on the SAPGUI client in client versions 6x Reports from the field of clients with a 7x version suggest that the ldquowarning dialog windowrdquo may not be able to be disabled in that version and subsequent versions see below for details To disable compression on the clients prior to version 72 the user must create a user environment variable called TDW_NOCOMPRESS with the value of 1 Use the following steps on the Windows-based client

1 From My computer right click on Properties or from the Control Panel click on System

2 Then click on Advanced followed by Environment Variables

3 In the Environment Variables window click the New button in the section User variables (not system variables)

4 Type TDW_NOCOMPRESS in the Variable Name field and 1 in the Variable Value field

These steps are illustrated in figure 7 below



Figure 7 Configuring the Environment Variable

In general a reboot of the client PC is not necessary however we have observed some cases where a reboot is required to implement the change If a reboot is possible without disruption of service the user is encouraged to reboot at this step just as a precaution To undo this change either change the variable value to zero or remove the variable that was just created For additional optimization the following SNC (Secure Network Connection) settings can be attempted This has not been tested and it is recommended that the SAP account team advise as to whether the customer should use this option

1 To launch the SAP GUI locate the shortcut for SAP Login

2 The logon program will appear and at the same time the popup window indicated in Figure 7 will appear

3 Select Systems then select the appropriate item and press lsquoChange Itemrsquo

4 Selecting lsquoDetailsrsquo will bring up the below screen also shown in Figure 7 Optionally disable the checkbox that enables SNC here



Figure 7 Secure Network Connection screens

Disabling the Error Window In some circumstances where the above settings cannot be enabled the following screen (or similar screen) may appear when the SAP LOGIN application is launched

Figure 8 Example error window

To disable the window go to the SAP R3 menu on the client (this is in SAP Front End -gt SAP GUI Configuration) and select lsquoNotificationsrsquo in the left-hand screen The lsquoShow warning messages in a dialog boxrsquo and lsquoShow error messages in a dialog boxrsquo checkbox options can be disabled on this screen as shown in Figure 9 In some versions of the client (notably versions 720 (or 72) and later) it does not seem to be possible to disable this message because of updates to the SAP GUI software and options If this is the case in your environment please contact SAP to request a resolution



Figure 9 Disabling Messages in SAP GUI

Appendix 1 Example Customer Results and Screenshots of SAP Optimization Riverbed has an established history with many customers for optimization of SAP GUI and NetWeaver traffic This section contains some example screenshots and typical results from customer deployments The images and notes here are intended to supply customers with additional data points for determining what they might see in their own deployment of Riverbed to optimize SAP traffic Each subsequent page contains one image and associated notes



Screenshot 1 Example Testing Report of Time-to-Complete Measurements In this example from a custom report taken from a testing project the customer observed the time to complete for several operations in the CRM component of SAP The test used 128kbps of bandwidth The time to complete for each operation was significantly reduced



Screenshot 2 Example Cascade Pilot Report of Transfer Rate This screenshot is a report taken from Cascade Pilot showing the Steelhead impact on the overall download rate The result of adding Steelheads to the SAP deployment is clear in this case ndash the download rate (shown on the ldquoYrdquo or vertical axis) is much higher in the optimized cases



OPTIMIZING SAP OVERVIEW OF OPTIONS

Identifying the Right Solution Business applications running over SAP as they move data between the data center and endpoints (such as branch office users and mobile users) may utilize several different network protocols These protocols exchange data as part of larger solutions such as SAP Opportunity Management SAP CRM7 SAP CRM4 and portals utilizing SAP GUI This guide focuses on two main on-the-wire technologies SAP NetWeaver and SAP GUI One or both of these protocols may be used to deliver a highly customized platform that serves as a foundation for business applications Riverbed Steelheads can optimize both SAP NetWeaver and SAP GUI using different deployment techniques In choosing the best option some guidelines can help assess which deployment is the right fit Additionally SAP has made some decisions in their software that affect the overall optimization level that can be achieved This may vary according to the specific version level of the SAP software in use This is discussed in detail later in this document This document does not cover the internal details of the SAP technology and does not cover either NetWeaver or SAP GUI protocol specifics which are best left to the extensive SAP documentation Instead the landscape of options for how to optimize these protocols with Riverbed is covered as well as a discussion of the tradeoffs of each The intent of this document is to enable a decision of how best to optimize SAP traffic with Riverbed In designing an overall solution that meets requirements it is important to involve the SAP counterpart in the process This will ensure that all resources (technical and otherwise) are available for the design and that the solution meets customer needs

SAP NetWeaver SAP NetWeaver also known as ldquothin clientrdquo is an HTTP-based solution that is used to offer secure Web-based access to customer information Users do not need a customized client to access NetWeaver-based applications they can access them directly in a browser Because of this advantage many customers building new applications or those who have built them recently are using NetWeaver as the foundation technology Customers using SAP Enterprise Portal are using NetWeaver and these portals are sometimes built with a tool called Dynpro There are numerous other tools provided by SAP for building these applications including NetWeaver Visual Composer NetWeaver Developer Studio and ABAP Workbench Customers using these tools are most likely using NetWeaver to implement their business processes and this traffic will be found traveling on the wire between the branch office and data center In terms of interaction with RiOS portals and business applications built with NetWeaver have some common characteristics

Authentication Users are typically authenticated with a user-ID and password inside an SSL-protected session Client certificates may also be used (client certificates with NetWeaver have not yet been tested with RiOS)

SSL-based security for HTTP (https) Steelheads can use standard https optimization techniques for optimizing these streams

Single sign-on for multiple applications can be enabled and is supported by the SAP software Deployment Options for SAP NetWeaver

Riverbed provides two options for optimizing NetWeaver each with tradeoffs in terms of deployment complexity benefits and cost Riverbed is fully certified (ldquoSAP Certifiedrdquo) for interoperability in the NetWeaver environment which should reassure customers that the solution has been fully tested and validated by SAP Labs




























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Date post:	08-Dec-2016
Category:	Documents
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Whitepaper - SAP Optimization Guidelines

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