|
From the CEO
Welcome to our third SAP Change Control eNewsletter for 2009.
In our last newsletter we mentioned the devastation caused in Victoria by the recent bushfires, so I am sure many of you will be pleased to hear that recent cooler weather and steady rain has doused the remaining fires and all is now under control. Although it will be quite some time before many family's lives return to normal, at least the immediate threat is over.
As for this month's newsletter, be sure to read the overview of the recent RSC webinar on SAP change control process design. I am sure you will find this article helpful whether you already have well defined processes or if you are only in the beginning phases of process design.
Rev-Trac SPS18 has been released and in it is a great new feature that extends the already powerful extended locking capabilities, so you will find this overview article particularly interesting if you have a significant quantity of changes constantly being created and moving to your production system.
RSC will be at the SAP Administration and Infrastructure conference in Orlando next week and so if you are going to be there, be sure to drop by. Booth details are below.
As always, we continue to lead innovation in SAP change control, developing software technology to help you reduce the risks and lower the costs of introducing changes into your SAP systems.
David Drake, CEO and Founder
SAP Administration and Infrastructure 2009
RSC Booth #705
RSC will be exhibiting at SAP Administration & Infrastructure 2009, which will be held for the 5th year in Orlando, Florida. This event is designed for those seeking strategies, best practices, and third-party solutions to help secure, maintain, monitor, and optimize their SAP systems.
SAP Administration & Infrastructure will be co-located with the 7th annual SAP NetWeaver/BI event.
If you are attending this event next week, please feel free to drop by booth #705 for a chat.
SAP Administration and Infrastructure 2009
March 24-27, 2009
Walt Disney World® Swan and Dolphin
1500 Epcot Resorts Blvd
Orlando, FL 32830
[ Event Details >> ]
Process Design
Whilst it is true that the promotion of any change into a productive SAP system brings with it a risk to stability, it is not true that each change carries the same level of risk. One of the keys to change risk management is to design change control processes that can manage the various levels of risk effectively.
For example a change that comes with significant consequences, should a problem with its implementation occur, needs to be controlled more tightly than one that carries with it a lesser consequence.
RSC recently ran a webinar on the topic of SAP change control process design. The key points are reiterated here.
Step 1: Decide the high-level strategic process considerations.
The first step is to decide your high-level process strategy, the types of change to be managed, the number of processes, and what approvers and authorizations are to be included.
The kinds of things to be considered in the decision making process include to what degree the processes will be ITIL compliant, and whether or not an internal control process consistent with the needs of Sarbanes Oxley requirements is required.
Step 2: Define one process in detail
The second step is to define the detail for the process or processes for the process types decided, the high-level process strategy employed and the organizational team involved.
- Types of change to be processed
- Set of unique processes
- Status steps for each process
- Approvals required at each status for each process
- Workflow for each process
Step 3: Replicate step 2 for each decided process
If you would like to drill down a little further into the details of SAP change control process design, please ask us for access to the slides from the recent RSC webinar on this topic.
[ Request Presentation >> ]
Key level locking introduced in SPS18
RSC's most recent Support Package Stack for Rev-Trac, SPS18, contains an extended locking feature that has been requested by various customers.
SPS18 now makes it possible to fine-tune Rev-Trac's locking behavior for specific users or systems or for selected objects or particular tables, so parallel development permissions are not extended where they are not needed. Rev-Trac automatically logs details of locking system operations, making the history of user authorizations and actions, such as granting parallel development permissions, available in system logs that can be retrieved later for audit and review.
For those with high volumes of developments or with a significant configuration load this extension simplifies the already powerful
Rev-Trac extended locking feature that protects against inadvertent parallel development right at the beginning of the process.
Shaun Wimpory, SAP Basis Consultant at PaperlinX Australia, and a long time Rev-Trac user, comments:
"We can be very specific about where and why we use parallel development, and not accidentally permit the practice where it is not needed. It enhances our ability to respond quickly to business needs."
To learn more about the extended locking features in SPS18, please download the Press Release or contact us.
[ Download Press Release >> ]
Rev-Trac Tips and Tricks
Managing the sequence of dependant transport migrations
Rev-Trac has two optional mechanisms to help control the sequence in which these related transports are migrated.
The first is "Dependency Checking Smart References" (DCSR) which is activated through an over-ride by referencing one Rev-Trac request from another.
The effect of DCSR is that Rev-Trac will not allow a defined status to be signed until a defined status of the referenced request has been signed. For some purposes, this can be a very effective way of determining when items can be added to the migrations queue.
However, for some customers, the DCSR is not enough as this is only managed at a request level and will not be considered when migrating transports.
For a more accurate sequencing of transports which is also honored at the time of transport migration, Rev-Trac has a feature known as 'Transport Dependencies'.
This is a perfect means to, for example, manage R/3 and BW transports while ensuring that the R/3 transports are migrated before the BW cube transports.
The transport dependency is easily assigned to a transport from the Rev-Trac workbench, and will be honored when the transports are migrated.
For further information on transport dependencies or dependency checking smart references, please consult the Rev-Trac Administrator Guide. The latest copy of the guide can be downloaded from the support area of the RSC website.
[ More tips >> ]
Rev-Trac Q & A
How does Rev-Trac determine the dynamic sequence?
The recommended and most common way our customers perform migrations is using the "Frozen sequence then dynamic" option on the migration variant.
The frozen sequence is used to manually sequence transports, and will be given priority if there are transports in the queue that have been frozen.
The dynamic sequence however does warrant some explanation. The steps taken by Rev-Trac in order to determine the dynamic sequence are as follows:
- Sequence transports in order of release;
- Adjust sequence to honor the Rev-Trac request order; then
- Adjust sequence to honor transport dependencies
This is a very powerful method of determining sequences, as it firstly minimizes the risk of an overtake or overwrite by sequencing in release order.The second adjustment will reorder the queue items to honor the order in which they appear on their respective
Rev-Trac requests, in relation to other queue items that are also attached to the same request.The third adjustment ensures that the migration queue sequence will honor any dependencies between queue items.
For further information on dynamic sequencing, please consult the Rev-Trac Administrator Guide, which can be downloaded from the support area of the RSC website.
|
