Installing and Configuring SAP BW Servers | Business Information Warehouse for SAP (Prima Techs SAP Book Series)

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SAP BW supports several platforms: hardware, operating systems, and database management systems (DBMS). In this section, I describe how to install and configure SAP BW database and application servers on a Digital Alpha server, UNIX operating system, and Oracle DBMS.

First install and configure the UNIX base system. This includes hardware components, storage devices, networking gears, the operating system (UNIX), and the file system, as listed here:

Set UNIX Kernel Parameters (/etc/sysconfigtab)
Partition the System Disks
Configure the Swap Space
Install Licenses
Configure the Network Interface
Configure the Network Time Protocol (NTP)
Install Patches
Install the Advanced File System (AdvFS) Software
Label External Disks and Configure the File System

Note

Before starting SAP BW, read the following documents:

Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database Release 1.2B
Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX-OS Dependencies
Installation of 32-bit SAP BW Frontend Software under Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 95/98

Make a copy of all OSS notes relevant to your BW platform.

Chapter 4 of SAP's Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX lists individual operating systems' specific parameters. In this case, edit /etc/sysconfigtab to adjust UNIX kernel parameters.

Configuring the file systems on external storage devices consists of determining a database layout, labeling the external storage disks, and using AdvFS to physically set up domains, file sets, and mount points. Before you physically configure an SAP BW file system, examine and determine the data layout for your data sets. This helps in determining the amount of disk storage required for each mount point.

Note

SAP BW enables customers to define individual tablespaces for specific fact tables. This capability gives SAP BW the flexibility to distribute data evenly across available storage devices. If you are using Oracle8, you must also become familiar with the SAP BW/Oracle8 tablespaces and projecting placement within the file systems.

Review file system requirements in Chapters 1 and 2 of Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX- OS Dependencies.

The next step is installing the SAP R/3 kernel, the BASIS layer, and the SAP BW database (Oracle8). This requires the following steps:

Review Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database.
Review all OSS notes specific to SAP BW installation on your platform of choice (for example, UNIX/Oracle8).
Check kernel parameters and swap space (as described in Chapter 3 of Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database Release 1.2B Guide).
Select a system name (using SAP R/3 naming conventions).
Create the Mount and Transport directory (needed for CTS).
Set up the Installation directory.
Create the Oracle Staging directory.
Create the Central Instance database (run shell script CEDBBW.SH).
Launch R3SETUP script to install SAP BW software.

Install the Oracle database. Verify that all OS level parameters set in /etc/sysconfigtab, as described in OSS notes and Chapter 4 of Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database, are correct (for example, shared pool size).

Caution

Default values for several database parameters have been changed for SAP BW/Oracle8. There are new database parameters that you must define in the Oracle initialization file (init<sid>.ora where sid is your oracle system ID). New parameters related to Oracle Star Query optimization, bitmap indices, and so on need to be defined to improve SAP BW data access performance. Such parameters are needed only in SAP BW and not in SAP R/3 OLTP instances. Check OSS notes for the latest list of Oracle8 parameter settings.

Set the password for operating system users (see Chapter 5 of the Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database Release 1.2B).
Restart INSTGUI and R3SETUP.
Run ORAINST to install base Oracle DBMS.
Run ROOT.SH shell script. You must run this script after Oracle DBMS installation. This establishes environment variables needed for the SAP BW instance.
Install DBMS specific patches.
Adjust tablespaces.
Create and load the database. This is the longest part of the SAP BW base installation. Depending on the size of the database to create, it might take several hours.
Perform post-installation tasks. Read OSS notes and apply appropriate OSS notes (see Chapter 6 of Installation of the SAP Business Information Warehouse on UNIX/Oracle Database Release 1.2B).
Install the license. Initially, you have a 30-day temporary license for SAP BW. Follow the standard process to get a permanent license from SAP and activate the key using the saplicense command.
Set Transport Permissions to be used by CTO.

This completes the first step of SAP BW installation. The next step is installing SAPGUI on the SAP BW administrator workstation.

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