From the CEO

A number of us here at RSC have just returned from exhibiting at the ASUG and SAPPHIRE® 2008 Orlando conference, held a couple of weeks ago. Whilst exhibiting and meeting with many of you, we noticed three key differences to past years.

First, the large numbers of Rev-Trac users and customers who called by to tell me how much they loved the product. Second, a greater number of those evaluating Rev-Trac who had a range of questions to be answered. Lastly, a surprising number of visitors telling me there will be an evaluation of SAP change control technology this year.

Clearly the pain experienced by those of you managing SAP system changes is increasing and so the need for us to keep developing Rev-Trac as the premier SAP change control technology is as important as ever.

It's not all about business, we like to have some fun too. RSC gave away an iTouch to a random Rev-Trac blinky wearer during the SAPPHIRE concert. So congratulations go to Carmen Kahle of the Monsanto Company (pictured), who was in the right place at the right time and was a very excited recipient when approached by our Rick Porter, VP of Business Development.

SAP change control is getting harder and so I trust you find the articles below of value and of interest. Please take particular notice of the Impact Analysis article – the one area that if not completed adequately can result in serious production events.

David Drake, CEO and Founder

Impact Analysis

Serious production events can be traced back to around seven main root causes.

1. Out of sequence transport delivery
2. Collisions between same objects/configuration of different versions
3. Overwriting of later object/configuration versions by earlier versions
4. Inadequate testing of changes
5. Poor testing data
6. Poor code (should be picked up through testing)
7. Inadequate understanding of the impact of a change

Some of these (1 -3) can be eliminated through change control technology features such as the Rev-Trac overtake and overwrite prevention feature (OOPS), others (4-6) through a robust change control and approval process, but one of them (7) based on a lack of understanding of potential impact is a little more difficult to resolve.

A key SAP change control challenge is to fully understand the impact on related modules and objects of changes and how this impact might best be tested. Rigorous regression testing is one means of capturing the impact of changes but is time consuming and certainly not fool proof.

Up until recently, the only way Rev-Trac could assist was through enforcing a procedure that called for rigorous testing of changes and only allowing promotion of the change once testing had been signed off. However, in many cases it is not fully known what should be tested and under what circumstances.

It was announced at SAPPHIRE that integration between Rev-Trac and Panaya SAP Impact Analysis was now available, enabling the enforcement and automation of Impact Analysis as a standard part of any SAP change control process. The exciting result is the significant improvement in the Impact Analysis phase of the process, decrease in testing time and reduction of risk to production.

[ Read more here >> ]
[ Press Release >> ]

Why Your Organisation Should Be Using An SAP Change Control Technology

SAP environments are increasing in complexity, frequently including ERP, BI, Portal, APO, CRM, and/or XI landscapes. Along with the growing need to comply with Sarbanes Oxley, CFR Part 11 and other internal regulatory requirements, the costs and risks associated with managing and delivering system changes using traditional manual methods, rises beyond justification.

By leveraging a technology that will automate and enforce any combination of change request, approval and migration process, the likelihood of accidentally causing serious production events is significantly reduced.

[ More Reasons >> ]

Rev-Trac Tips and Tricks

Transport Dependencies

As of Rev-Trac Support Package Stack 16 (SPS16) it is now possible to configure a direct dependency between one or more transports attached to the same or different Rev-Trac requests related to the same or different landscapes. The ability to configure a dependency between one or more transports could be useful in situations where for example:

• Different but related changes in the same landscape (for example, DDIC data elements & program changes that reference the data elements) need to be migrated in a specific sequence.
• Different but related changes in two different types of landscapes (for example, R/3 and BW) need to be synchronized.

For more detail on this topic, see the section "Transport dependencies" in the current version of the Rev-Trac Administrator guide available for download from the support area of the
RSC website.

Rev-Trac Q and A

Is it possible to tell who made a change to a Rev-Trac configuration table?

To enable the auditing of changes to the Rev-Trac configuration tables, the "Log data changes" technical settings has been set for all of the main Rev-Trac configuration tables.

As of Rev-Trac Support Package Stack 15 (SPS15), anyone wishing to enable auditing of Rev-Trac configuration changes can now do so by activate SAP table auditing in their Rev-Trac master system. A full list of which tables will be logged can be viewed via SAP transaction SCU3.

Table change logging is controlled by the rec/client parameter in the SAP system profile RZ10. The parameter can take the following values:

• rec/client = off    (default)
• rec/client = all
• rec/client = ...

Setting the REC/CLIENT parameter to All can seriously impair SAP system performance. SAP recommends you do not use the value All. You should limit automatic logging to one client.

Be aware that by turning on SAP table auditing you will be activating table auditing for other SAP tables as well as for the Rev-Trac tables where we have activated the "Log data changes" technical setting.

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