What does SAP S/4HANA version 1709 have to offer?

What does SAP S/4HANA version 1709 have to offer?

SAP released S/4HANA 1709 in September 2017, as its third release of S/4HANA core. The past releases of
1511 and 1610 S/4HANA Enterprise Management had laid the building blocks e.g. core data-model
changes, FIORI Analytical Applications, VDM’s starting of Integrated / Embedded Solutions. In the current
release SAP has added a few more pillars for digital transformation with IoT, Machine-Learning, Big Data
Analytics to name a few.

SAP S/4HANA has already reached a milestone of 1000 live customers and with each release SAP is
providing broader industry coverage and a go to platform for Digital transformation.

The core values in S/4HANA are still the same and untouched. S/4HANA is still outstanding in: Real-Time
Analytics, Simulation, and being able to handle multiple dimension at the same time. A number of new
features and notable enhancements have been applied. In this blog we will have an initial look at these.

SAP S/4HANA 1709 – Key Innovations

Below we see the key innovations in various areas, and we will go into some of the details of the
innovations (new innovations in black, existing/enhanced innovations in yellow).
Key Changes in the area of Finance
The key innovations in Finance are shown below:-
SAP is introducing a new soft close and prediction functionality, that, together with the financial closing
cockpit provides the ability to close the books using an abbreviated closing procedure.

Key innovations in the SAP Logistics area

SAP continue to provide innovation in the logistics area with focus on new areas like quality management,
EWM and some specific functionalities like Available-to-Promise and Advanced Variant Configuration.

With SAP S/4HANA 1610, SAP enabled EWM as a side by side with core, in this release SAP has gone
ahead and provided more features in this release in area of EWM.

The key innovations in EWM are shown below:-

In the new release, SAP has also improved features for the Transportation management solution, as
shown below:
This release also focuses on the Quality Management solution and has made the changes below:
The additional features in Sourcing & Procurement build upon the strides which were made in the 1610
release:
ATP functionality has also been extended from 1610, with a number of additional functionalities:
S/4HANA 1709 industry specific enhancements
Below we note the key innovations offered in various industry sector verticals. These innovations are
helping clients make a business case to make the move. Note however a lot of these innovation were
initially a part of the cloud version of the solution and are consolidated and offered with the 1709 release:
Any upgrade would still involve one of the following the 3 modes:-
However clients who are already on any version of S/4HANA / suite on HANA will also need to go through
a DB upgrade as S/4HANA 1709 is for HANA 2 DB. This path is shown below.
To improve the experience when adopting SAP S/4HANA, SAP recently launched a new set of tools. The
SAP Transformation Navigator, which helps customers determine their go-to solutions.

To sum up
SAP S/4HANA 1709 appears to be a key release and will be a version many clients will be looking to
upgrade to from their current SAP release.
SAP S/4HANA has reached a very important milestone of 1000 live customers and these are across various
industries and geographical distribution.

Although this current release does not offer earth-shattering new features as such, it provides an
extension / addition to the key offerings in each area. The product has really stabilised and offers far more
clarity and a more predictable path for client IT teams to proceed with digital transformation. This will
make 1709 the go to release version for most EHP series clients.

All in all the new release promises to be another exciting solution and further affirm the market leadership
of SAP. It will also create a lot of new projects and work for SAP Consultants, especially those who have
managed to already acquire S/4HANA experience. Stay tuned later this month for my next blog, on how
to upskill to S/4HANA ( please bookmark Eursap’s Blog page and check back for more soon!). Please also
Bookmark and check on Eursap’s latest SAP vacancies to keep up to date with the latest SAP S/4HANA
work opportunities.
Author: Rishab Bucha – SAP S/4HANA & FICO Consultant
Need to hire SAP S/4HANA resources?
 Looking for SAP S/4HANA work?
Get in touch with Eursap today!

Database Innovations in SAP HANA

 June 19, 2017
Database Innovations in SAP HANA Technology
SAP HANA technology makes reference to “rationalized” data structures. As well as “eliminating redundant
fields” and “using any attribute as an index within tables.”

Today’s article will examine in some greater detail exactly what these database table handling and structural
enhancements mean for the SAP user. After all, it is this technology that lies at the heart of the new S/4HANA
system. At the same time, it is essential to distinguish between the terms “HANA technology” and “S/4HANA,”
as they are not the same thing. The former is a set of technological enhancements, the latter the new upgrade
to R/3 ECC software application or system.

This article is directed to business users who desire greater background on database table handling and to
deliver some insight as to why this is large news for anyone working in and around big data.

1. COLUMNAR DATABASE
The first point is to explain the inherent advantage of the new columnar orientation of the HANA database
table as compared to traditional ones organized in the more familiar rows of records.
It’s easiest to see this with some clear examples.

Consider, for example, the following “EMPLOYEE” database table consisting of four records organized in
rows:
A simple table consisting of four records, broken down into three data fields each (not including the record
number or ID).

In a row oriented database, that data is stored like this:

But in a column oriented database, the data is stored as follows:

This may strike readers as appearing like transposed data in an MS Excel spreadsheet. They would be correct.

The columnar database offers a faster way to aggregate – or add up values. Suppose you want to run a
common database query to answer the question, “How much are we paying the employees?”

In a row based database, all four records must be read to compute the sum as follows:

In a columnar database, only one read is necessary!

As illustrated in this example of a database comprising four records, the improved efficiency and performance
of the faster aggregation will not be noticeable. But in a database with billions of records, the impact should
be very clear. The improved read will be blazingly fast!

So query completion will be greatly enhanced – otherwise known as output data. But what about input? In
this case, it’s the row oriented database that will be faster since the new record inserts as a new row in one
fell swoop. Consider the following input example in the two systems, adding new employee Clint:

The columnar database will need to update four separate rows, which is more time consuming. However data
input or write speed is not typically an issue in data management. It’s the output, or the read speed, when
running queries that matters! Data is assembled for the purpose of retrieval. I am sure that most readers here
will agree that a lot of time is wasted watching spinners on screens while your custom query is ripping
through 4,000,000 rows of data.

2. ALL ATTRIBUTES AS INDEXES

What is meant by the expression to “use any attribute as an index within tables?” This is where it gets really
interesting. Suppose you have the above table of employees except, instead of four records, you have 200,000.
Let’s add a new fourth field “Gender,” where the possible values are “M” or “F.”

In a row oriented database, the gender attribute “F,” for example, is stored redundantly roughly 100,001
times. That’s a lot of deadweight in terms of storage. Running a query to pull all records where gender is F
means that 200,000 rows must be interrogated for value “F” in the gender field. This is extremely inefficient
to say the least.

In a columnar database, you can simply go to column E and select for all records where the value is “F.”

It’s as if the database – in columnar form – is pre-selected for the convenience of running queries! By design,
it’s much more efficient for fetching data. And this is where most time is consumed around Big Data. The time
and efficiency savings are very real.

On top of this, add some proprietary data compression where table and data size is reduced by a factor of five.
This means that data hosting costs can be minimized. And because of the smaller size, the whole database can
be kept in memory instead of disk storage. Thus the efficiencies and retrieval speed improvements
compound.
 This is what is meant when SAP uses expressions like “Going Digital,” or “Real-Time Enterprise.” This kind of
data organization, processing, and compression allows for running complex simulations on an immediate
basis as opposed to overnight. Imagine cost allocation and payroll simulations, legendary for reading massive
amounts of records, flying along with nearly immediate results – as opposed to watching a spinner on your
screen.

These are but two examples of the innovations inherent within HANA technology which form the technical
basis for SAP’s new S/4HANA application to replace yesterday’s R/3 ECC.

Author: James Olcott, SAP SD Lead Consultant (with thanks to Shyam Jajodia of LSI Consulting and Shyam
Reganti of 3Core Systems, for their time and assistance)
Looking for SAP HANA Technology resources? Looking for SAP HANA Technology work? – Please get in touch
with Eursap today!

SAP and the Internet of Things (IoT) – SAP Leonardo

 March 9, 2017
SAP and the Internet of Things (IoT) – SAP Leonardo
The promise of the Internet of Things is that when all manner of gadgetry is connected and sending stacks of
status and use data into the cloud, information will therefore be more plentiful and granular.

Therefore, it’s only a matter of time before some clever software vendor promises a way to gather all of that
swirling cloud information and produce sharper marketing insight, better decision making, greater efficiency,
higher productivity, and just plain more good vibes in general. That vendor, of course, is SAP!

First, a word is in order about gadget population and growth trends driving this “internet of things.” These
are big numbers, as you can imagine. Eight years ago, according to Gartner, we already had something like
900 million connected things worldwide. By 2020? They estimate 26 billion!
That’s quite a lot of things, with accompanying data. But data without analysis is analogous to a computer
without a power cord.
For example, Harry Blunt has written on the SAP blog:
While having 50 billion connected devices is newsworthy, until that level of enhanced connectivity leads to
tangible business value, hyper-device connectivity by itself is meaningless.
And Tanja Reickart wrote glowingly:
I have no doubt, that with 50 billion+ devices connected to the internet by 2020, IoT will change our personal
lives in the way we, as humans, interact with machines, from smart homes, to smart cars, to smart food and
helping our environment with better utilization of natural resource – making the world run better!

So, how to make the world run better and add business value to all those connected things? SAP, by way of
their line extensions into Big Data, began promoting a new product line last year called “SAP IoT Solutions.”
Given the advantages inherent within HANA technology, their offerings are, as usual, compelling.
Essentially, the SAP IoT Solution started off by offering integration among the three following services:
1. Device Management
2. Message Management
3. Analytics

Assuming successful functional device and message management, it is easy to appreciate that Analytics –
gathering all that data and crunching it – is at the real heart of the matter. After all, HANA technology is
nothing if not a number of key enhancements in data handling and management. Billions and billions of
things leads inexorably to Big Data. And HANA technology has custom enzymes to break Big Data into
smaller, more quickly digestible pieces suitable for analysis.

At the start of this year SAP doubled down on the Internet of Things. The entire “SAP IoT Solutions” suite was
rebranded as the “SAP Leonardo” portfolio.

Consider, for example, Hans Thalbauer’s recent blog post:

The SAP Leonardo portfolio empowers Live Business by connecting the emerging world of intelligent devices
with people and processes to achieve tangible business outcomes.
The solutions which are part of this portfolio, connect things with people and processes to enable companies to
innovate their business models, business processes and the way how people work.
This caused leading SAP user and commentator Jelena Perfiljeva to retort:
Not sure if I’m reading a different text than the other commentators or maybe I’m just stupid. But to me this just
looks like a load of marketing jargon yet I still have no idea what (who?) that SAP Leonardo actually is and what
/ how it does.
But I think I have decoded it.

SAP Leonardo is simply the newly named product line to succeed “SAP IoT Solutions.” Call it a suite or
portfolio or whatever, it makes no difference. The main concept of Leonardo is to leverage (they use the term
“bridge”) the use and analysis of Big Data throughout a company’s units and operation.

“Connected things” used to be novelties like the second floor coke machine. Geeks could log on to the machine
via the internet to see if there is any Tab in stock.

No longer.

In our new SAP context, then, a connected “thing” is not only a Product, but can also be a(n):

1. Asset, like manufacturing robots

2. Fleet, like delivery trucks
3. Infrastructure, like energy grids
4. Market, like retailers and wholesalers who hold and sell your products
5. People, in your manufacturing plant or sales offices.
 IoT – Fleet Management. Today a truck can have multiple devices connected to the internet.
This goes way beyond your internet connected air conditioner! The idea therefore is to link intelligent devices
together with people and processes. Each category of “things” above has a specific “solution” or application
specifically tailored to link, collect data, and then present analytics for management in real-time. Call it a suite
or call it a portfolio, as SAP does.

Current SAP marketing literature on the Internet of Things is full of references to “contextual information on
weather, traffic, social media trends, and demand signals.” But, to be sure, such data was always invaluable to
operations managers. SAP Leonardo, through its bridge or integration, is a system designed out of the box to
pull it all together for management’s benefit.

SAP have taken it up a notch, by combining with predictive analytics. Seeing around corners is admittedly a
most impressive skill. And logically speaking, good analysis takes into account present trends and makes
reasoned assumptions about where they are going. This should lead to better results.

If this is for you and your company, kindly note that promotional pricing for SAP Leonardo is currently
available. But don’t delay! Act now to take advantage of this offer! SAP is going big into this; they’ve
committed €2 billion to their Leonardo Initiative over the next 5 years.

We will be keeping an eye on how SAP Leonardo and the Internet of Things have progressed later this year, so
please bookmark Eursap’s Blog page and check back for more soon!
Author: James Olcott, SAP SD Lead Consultant
 A look at SAP BW/4HANA and SAP BW 7.5 Edition for HANA
 June 19, 2017
SAP BW/4HANA and SAP BW 7.5 for HANA
SAP BW/4HANA is an evolution of SAP BW that is wholly optimized and custom-made for SAP HANA. The
BW/4HANA code can only run on SAP HANA as it is interlinked with SAP HANA engines and libraries. The
ABAP element is several million lines of code smaller when contrasted with BW on HANA. This is an
extension into the world of big data through SAP HANA VORA, an asset that will be heavily utilized by
BW/4HANA.

The unique selling points of BW/4HANA are:

1. Simplicity
BW typically offers 10 to 15 varying object types such as building blocks like InfoCubes, MultiProviders etc. to
construct a data warehouse. In BW/4HANA, there will be only four which are at least as expressive and
powerful as the previous 15. BW/4HANA’s building blocks are more versatile. Data models can now be
constructed with fewer buildings blocks without the compromise of expressiveness. They will, hence, be
easier to maintain, thus more flexible and less error-prone. Existing models can be improved, adjusted and,
therefore be kept alive for a longer period that goes beyond the initial scope of things.
 (Source: news.sap.com)
An important feature of BW/4HANA is that data allocation in tables is made highly efficient. Using this
information, one can automatically derive the kind of data that needs to be placed in the hot store or memory,
and what data can be placed in the warm store which is non-volatile RAM to harness a highly economic use of
underlying hardware. This is highly unique to BW/4HANA when contrasted with custom made data
warehouses that need custom made implementation of data lifecycle management.

2. Openness
BW/4HANA as BW provides a managed approach to data warehousing. This means that prebuilt templates or
building blocks are provided for building a data warehouse in a standardized manner. The latter offers
massive opportunities to optimize the resulting models for SAP HANA considering footprint, performance,
data life-cycle. Compared to conventional BW, it is possible to deviate from this standard approach wherever
needed and applicable. On one hand, BW/4HANA models and data can be exposed as SAP HANA views that
can be accessed via standard SQL. BW/4HANA’s security is therefore not compromised by sections of those
SAP HANA views. On the other hand, any type of SAP HANA table or view can be easily and directly
implemented into BW/4HANA. It is therefore not needed to replicate data. Both capabilities mean that
BW/4HANA integrates with and augments any native SQL data warehousing approach. It can be considered
as a powerful collection of tools for designing a data warehouse on SAP HANA with all the options to integrate
with other SQL-based tools.
 Source: blogs.sap.com
3. Modern UIs
BW/4HANA will provide modern UIs for data modeling, admin, monitoring that run in SAP HANA Studio or a
browser. In the midterm, SAP GUI will become obsolete in that respect. Similarly, SAP’s Digital Boardroom,
SAP BusinessObjects Cloud, Lumira, Analysis for Office and Design Studio will be the perfect match as analytic
clients on top of BW/4HANA.

4. High Performance
Excellent performance powers the core of BW since the inception of SAP HANA. As detailed above,
BW/4HANA will be free of any burdens and will leverage any optimal access to SAP HANA which will be
especially interesting with regards to big data scenarios as SAP HANA VORA provides a highly optimized
bridge between the worlds of SAP HANA (RDBMS) and Hadoop/SPARK which refers to distributed processing
on a file system. Most consumers require to improve and augment existing data warehouses with cases that
deal with categories of data that go beyond traditional business process triggered such as (OLTP) data,
namely machine generated data (IoT) and human sourced information (social networks).
SAP BW on HANA, a whole new approach – SAP BW 7.5 Edition for HANA
It is a known fact SAP is experiencing a paradigm shift from BW modelling within the traditional or
conventional GUI, and is instead adopting Eclipse as the development environment for the foreseeable future.
For existing SAP BW environments, this means a considerable shift to adapt to this new approach to data
modelling for new developments, whilst supporting existing classic BW objects. This is no small feat by any
means. But one which is completely essential to be undertaken to leverage the benefits and power that SAP
BW on HANA can offer. Fortunately, this is becoming easier with tools that support the automated conversion
of conventional models into new SAP BW on HANA optimized objects.
 (Source: media.licdn.com)
It is said that the mix of old and new no longer needs to be an issue with the introduction of SAP BW 7.5,
edition for SAP HANA. Organizations that adopt this latest release will be wholly aligned with the future
direction of SAP BW and be empowered to hit the ground running with the newest set of tools and best
practices without the overhead costs involved in migrating or supporting legacy objects.

In case you’re already utilising SAP BW on AnyDB or BW on HANA, You’re not excluded and there is a clearly
defined process to harness the benefits of SAP BW 7.5, edition for SAP HANA. This includes first executing an
upgrade to SAP BW 7.5 on HANA, then using ‘prepare mode’ to change to SAP BW 7.5, edition for SAP HANA
which will permit you to convert your existing objects, check for any necessary prerequisites and, ultimately,
constrain the use of classic BW objects. Post this you’ll ready to progress on to future steps for your
organization.

What are the benefits of SAP BW 7.5?

The theme since the inception of BW modelling in HANA Studio has been, and still is simplicity which is a core
theme of the elements in SAP BW 7.5. The functionalities of the data modelling objects, Advanced DataStore
Objects (ADSO) and CompositeProviders have been improved to facilitate accelerated implementation and
modelling agility. This is accomplished with the simplification of the creation process of these objects, or the
conversion of existing legacy objects to the best.

With 7.5 (SP1), we can now say goodbye to BEx Query Designer and hello to the next generation BW Query
Designer, also embedded into the Eclipse UI. This new technique for query design is compatible with BEx
Queries, without the need for migration effort. This also comes packed with new features such as HANA View
Generation and an Integrated Query Previewer.

Data modellers and business users will have even more power creating ad-hoc reporting scenarios with
advanced SAP BW Workspaces which now has additional hierarchy features and also support for uploaded
local data.
Importing data into SAP BW is now simpler with enhanced Smart Data Integration (SDI) capabilities
facilitating real-time streaming from various sources, direct access to any SDI remote source via OpenODS
Views and CompositeProviders and the ability to replicate source data in its original format in BW.

The trending topic in IT circles: multi-temperature data management, has also been addressed in this release
with additional capabilities being added for both Dynamic Tiering (DT) and Near-Line Storage (NLS). The
main additions here are both in relation to the ADSO with automatic data movement to DT being added as a
remodelling task, and straggler management taken care of for NLS scenarios to name just two of many
examples. With Big Data being a focal point for SAP, expect the enrichments in this space to keep coming thick
and fast, with the consumption of SAP HANA VORA models and support of HADOOP as NLS as launched in
2016.

To wind up the major enhancements included in this release, planning functionality has been added to the
mix. The SAP BPC 10.1 Add-On, and BPC Embedded model components, are now made available for use, just
like BW-IP (PAK), and also ADSOs which has been made planning enabled.

Why would a customer choose BW 7.50 Edition for HANA?

In the race to develop highly flexible and agile Data Warehousing SAP has come up with next generation
analytics through BW 7.50 powered by HANA called BW Edition for HANA. Customers should consider going
for SAP BW 7.50 Edition for HANA NW 7.50 as it has enhanced integration with S4/HANA and for Cloud
Technologies as well.

The objects modelled in BW Edition For HANA wholly leverages HANA capabilities to the maximum possible
extent unlike in BW on HANA where BW objects just sit on top of the HANA Database.

The SAP BW 7.5, edition for SAP HANA supports modelling with HANA optimized BW objects which leads to a
highly simplified governance of new implementation projects and future proof architecture for Data
warehouse implementation.

Below is the list of features offered in BW 7.50 (BW Edition For HANA)

• BW runs simpler with new agile and flexible lean data modelling
• Highly Simplified governance and Faster time to Market
• Renewed intuitive UIs in Eclipse and SAP UI5. All the modeling including Query development can be done in
eclipse , as an Add-on to HANA Studio
• Matured ADSO replacing all the data persisting objects. This satisfies all agile data warehousing staging
requirements
• Tools provided to convert existing Data Provider objects to ADSO
• Composite Provider replacing all the virtual providers
• HANA views can be produced for all the data providers including Queries. The HANA views can be
consumed in native SQL
• New HANA Exit Variable to process in HANA DB
• Support for More than one Billion Master data records for an info object and Disable Display attributes to
Reference characteristics
• Highly enhanced SAP BW Workspaces. Local hierarchies can be generated from scratch and ADSO can be
utilized as central provider. Workspace queries can be generated
• SDI to consume the Local HANA data or remote data through OpenODS view into persistence layer
• SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering : Automatic data movements to dynamic tiering
• Enhancements to NLS to access the archived data for F4 help. Statistics update for NLS access
• Flexible ODP based data distribution via OData
• BW-IP/PAK enhancements to generate planning query in Workspace designer and to generate local
dimensions and hierarchies
Author: Shruthi Agasimani, Sr. Instructional Designer/Technical Content Writer @ ZaranTech LLC
Looking for SAP BW/4HANA or SAP BW 7.5 Resources / Jobs? – Please get in touch with Eursap today!