SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW v3.1 MR2

Transcription

1 SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW v3.1 MR2 Release Notes 1 Introduction This maintenance release introduces new functionality, changes/improvements to existing functionality, and fixes for known issues. Refer to the Component Release Notes section below for details. 2 Licensing Changes Licensing for SAND CDBMS Nearline has been simplified as of this release. SAND licenses, specific to the intended operating system, will now be included with the installation/upgrade files. In addition, the calculation of the SAND license size usage has changed for the INT4 and Numeric data types. Instead of a flat size (11 bytes for INT4, 21 bytes for Numeric), the field size for those data types is now the number of digits of the longest value in the field. For example, if the largest value in an INT4 field has 8 digits, it will be calculated as an 8-byte field in the context of the SAND license. For Numeric, there is also one additional byte for the sign and another extra byte for the decimal point if the field has decimal digits. Note that the defined scale (decimal digits) of a Numeric field is counted fully against the license, even if the decimal digits are all zeroes. Also, the minimum size for all fields is one byte. If a field is empty, it is still counted as one byte against the SAND license. Therefore, the possible sizes of INT4 and Numeric fields are the following: INT4: 1 11 bytes Numeric: Object length + up to 2 additional bytes (one for sign, one for decimal point) Amount: 1 21 bytes Quantity: 1 21 bytes Number: 1 21 bytes

2 3 Component Release Notes 3.1 SNIC Add-in The MR2 release of the SNIC Add-in is different from previous versions in the following areas: New Features There is a new program (/SAND/0_DELETE_NLS_REQUESTS) that can remove nearlined data without first having to reload the data back into SAP, by unregistering that data from the Metadata Repository. While unregistered, the data will not be available for querying and will not count towards the SAND license. Currently, archive requests for InfoCubes and standard DSOs can be removed at the nearline level. Write-optimized DSOs are not yet supported. Further information can be found in the "Deleting Archive Requests at the Nearline Level" chapter of the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: User's Guide (BW 7). The official SAP BW 7.3 deletion functionality is now supported. ADK-based archiving is now compatible with SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW. When creating or modifying a Data Archiving Process, the ADK option can be enabled or disabled. A system of authorization checking is now available. When authorization checking is enabled, each user must possess required permissions (authorization profiles, set at the SAP system level) to execute certain SNIC functions, or to execute them in non-read-only mode. For more information, refer to the "Setting Up Authorization Checking" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Installation and Setup Guide (BW 7). The SAND License Size Utility (/SAND/0_UTIL_LICENSE_SIZE) is a new utility that administrators can use to analyze and monitor SAND license usage. It reports information related to the SAND license, such as the compressed and uncompressed data size per SAND table, per active SCT file, and for the overall system. For more information, refer to the "The SAND License Size Utility" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7) Changes/Improvements The processing of received data packages between the SNIC Add-in and the SNIC Server has been optimized, resulting in better performance for queries with large result sets. The test connection program will now always return a result even if the SNIC Server is overloaded with queries or archiving. The DELETE TIME option has been changed to help prevent overflow of the tasks directory. Previously, if it was set to "Close", the XML files related to a number of

3 transaction types would never be deleted. Now there is improved automated handling of certain file types. More information can be found in the "Transactional Cleanup" section in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). The /SAND/0_UTIL_ARCHIVE_SIZE and /SAND/0_UTIL_COMPRESSION programs now have separate sections for active data, unregistered data (which is related to the functionality of the new /SAND/0_DELETE_NLS_REQUESTS program), and undefined data. For more information, refer to the "Determining the Current Size of Nearline Data" and "The SAND Compression Rate Utility" sections in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). The Delete All Data function, which deletes all nearline data without having to modify the DAP or related InfoProvider, now works even if one or more SCT file is missing from the system where this function is being applied. In previous releases, attempting the Delete All Data function with missing SCT files would cause it to fail because of the way SAP implemented the function. The new release contains an optimization that changes the SQL used for Delete All Data (enabled by default, but configurable via the SNIC Server parameter sand.optimization.delete_all_nearline), thereby allowing the function to work in spite of missing SCT files. The number threshold warning that used to appear when 60% of the interval was used will now appear only at 95% usage. Refer to the "Resetting the SNIC Number Range" section of the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7) for more information. If per-system configuration is activated, the current System ID configuration will now be displayed when entering the /SAND/0_CONFIG program. The RSDANLCON entries are now included in the transport created by the /SAND/0_CONFIG program. The default values for the "Wait file fini. sec." and "Wait file fini. tick" parameters have changed from 1.0 and 0.001, respectively, to 2.0 and 0.01, respectively. The SNIC Add-in component can now be installed in client 001 (the restriction still applies to clients 000 and 066) Fixes The OLAP cache is now invalidated for Virtual Providers when archives or reloads are executed on the base InfoProvider. The "Wait response sec." timeout is now transmitted to the SNIC Server during interactions, so the SNIC Server can cancel long-running queries that were cancelled on the SAP side. This should prevent "runaway" queries.

4 3.2 SNIC Server The MR2 release of the SNIC Server is different from previous versions in the following areas: New Features SAND CDBMS Nearline can now be set to operate in a distributed environment, allowing it to take advantage of extra processors and other resources to improve performance. This can benefit archiving processes in file-based communication mode (but not HTTP mode currently), as well as queries in any mode. In a distributed environment setup, there is one main host (the Master node) and one or more secondary hosts (Agent nodes). All of SAND/DNA Access is installed on the Master node. On each Agent node the Master NLS directory structure is mounted/mapped, and a system daemon/service is installed. A passwordless SSH system can be used in UNIX as an alternative to specifying the service user password in the ssa.ini file. For more information, refer to the "Nearline in a Distributed Environment" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Installation and Setup Guide (BW 7). There are new options for scheduled housekeeping of the tasks directory to clean out files older than a specified age. This scheduled cleanup is configured via two parameters in the sand_nlic.properties configuration file: o sand.nlic.cleanup_old_files_interval The amount of time (in milliseconds) between automatic cleanup of the tasks directory. Setting this property to 0 disables the automated cleanup. o sand.nlic.cleanup_old_files_retention_period The maximum amount of time (in milliseconds) to retain files in the tasks directory. Certain files older than this value will be deleted during the periodic, automated cleanup of the tasks directory. Refer to the "Scheduled Cleanup" section in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7) for more information. There is now a "snic stop immediate" command that will stop all related process at once, even if those processes are in the middle of performing tasks. For this reason, the stop immediate command should only be used when absolutely necessary. There is a new parameter (sand.optimization.create_sct_at_close_request) that determines when SCT registration and validation is performed. This was implemented to support simultaneous ADK/nearline archiving. When set to TRUE (the default), SCT registration/validation is performed at the close of the entire archive request (required for ADK archiving). When set to FALSE, it is performed at the close of each nearline object in the request. The default option will usually result in a faster archive request job overall. On the other hand, performing registration /validation at the completion of data transfer to each nearline table means that errors (if they occur at all) can be caught much earlier in a job. For more information, refer to the "SCT File Validation and Registration" section in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: User's Guide (BW 7).

5 There is a new parameter (sand.optimization.delete_all_nearline) that sets the type of SQL query used in the initial discovery phase of the Delete All Data from nearline function. If the parameter is set to TRUE, the query has the form 'SELECT MAX( "ARCHREQUID_SID" ) AS "ARCHREQUID_SID" FROM... '. If set to FALSE, the query verifies this information from the SCT files, rather than through the Metadata Repository 'SELECT DISTINCT "ARCHREQUID_SID" as "ARCHREQUID_SID" FROM... '. The default "SELECT MAX()" form is faster and more efficient, but the other form ("SELECT DISTINCT") is available in case there are any problems. For more information, refer to the "Changing the SQL Query Used by the Delete All Data Function" section in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). There is a new parameter (sand.fetch.max_records) that sets the maximum number of rows to fetch, overriding the value received in the Records attribute of FETCH_NEXT_PACKAGE calls. This parameter is disabled if set to a value less than 1 or to a non-numeric value. By default, it is disabled. Note: This parameter is used when results returned to the SNIC Add-in cannot fit into memory. It should be enabled only if requested by SAND support personnel Changes/Improvements A 64-bit version of SAND/DNA Access can now be installed on 64-bit Windows. During SNIC Server installation, the user is now required to enter at least one SAP system ID to the list of systems that are allowed to connect to the SNIC Server. Previously, the default was the wildcard character *, which allowed any system to connect. This setting can be subsequently changed via the sand.sap.systems parameter in the sand_nlic.properties file. There are a number of changes to the way that tasks are queued in MR2: o No longer a distinction between "normal" and "long" running/waiting tasks. All tasks are now either running or waiting to run. o All concurrency is controlled by the CTRL_CONCURRENCY parameter (set in the [SAPBI] section of the ssa.ini file), so the sand.concurrency.max.normal_task parameter has been removed from sand_nlic.properties. o Queue-related messages in the log file have changed to reflect the new queuing system (see below). o While there is no limit on the number of tasks that can go into the waiting queue, there are several factors that affect what can go into the running queue:! the CTRL_CONCURRENCY parameter limits the number of tasks running at the same time to limit the number of concurrent threads! the number of archiving processes is limited by the MAXJOBS parameter! the number of long tasks (OCU, PNO, CWR) cannot be more than CTRL_CONCURRENCY 1

6 ! in HTTP mode, data transfers (FNP) are limited by available memory! one extra running slot is reserved for Connection (CON)! one extra running slot is reserved for Get Service Properties (GSP)! one extra running slot is reserved for priority tasks (priority service calls: READ_PROPERTIES, LICENSE_INFO, and further monitoring calls). A task that cannot go into the running queue due to any of the restrictions above will be placed in the waiting queue. More details can be found in the "Queue Status Messages" section in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). The snic status output now writes enhanced information to the SNIC Server log about tasks in the running and waiting queues, and the current state of the SNIC Server in terms of configuration, memory usage, and open writers. For example: Running Queue information Running queue: 1 [0] ARC_ _8_PNO (sessionid ARC_ ) (long task) (session concurrency limited) Waiting queue: 3 [0] ARC_ _9_PNO (sessionid ARC_ ) (long task) (session concurrency delayed) [1] ARC_ _10_PNO (sessionid ARC_ ) (long task) (session concurrency delayed) (bad sequence delayed) [2] ARC_ _11_PNO (sessionid ARC_ ) (long task) (bad sequence delayed) Server information CTRL_CONCURRENCY: 5 MAX_JOBS: 3 Memory (in bytes) Maximum: Total: Available: Opened writers: 2 session: ARC_ , id: ARC_ _4_OFW session: ARC_ , id: ARC_ _4_OFW UTC date and time: :44:53 The amount of detail returned depends on the sand.log.level setting. A new runtime property (sand.timeout.invalid_sequence) has been added. This parameter sets the maximum time (in milliseconds) to keep an out-of-sequence BI_CALL in the waiting queue before discarding it and returning an error to the client. If the correct in-sequence call(s) arrive before the end of the timeout period, the queued BI_CALL will be executed in its turn. The default value is ms (24 hours). The session pool maintained by SNIC now forces the serialization of sessions to disk when the pool reaches 100% capacity. When a specified percentage of the pool (80% by default) is reached, sessions older than a certain minimum age (15 minutes by default) that do not have active readers/writers are serialized to disk. However, when the pool limit is reached, the oldest sessions without active readers/writers are now serialized,

7 even if the sessions are younger than the minimum age. This forced serialization of the oldest sessions continues until the pool goes down to 95% capacity. More details about this topic can be viewed in the "Session Pool Management" section of the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). The SAND/DNA Access component versions are now displayed in the SNIC Server startup logs. The name of the SNIC Windows service has changed in the current release. For a SNIC "all users installation", the displayed service name is now "SAND Nearline for SAP BW". For specific user installations, the displayed service name is now "SAND Nearline for SAP BW - %user%.%domain%". The SNIC Server installer has been modified to support multi-user installations in case they are required. Under Windows, the system SSA_INI_DIR and NUCLEUS environment variables are backed up to SSA_INI_DIR_SYSTEM and NUCLEUS_SYSTEM, respectively, after the first SNIC installation. Subsequent SNIC installations will use these backup variables as the template for the SSA_INI_DIR and NUCLEUS variables in the user environment. Note that the independent SNIC installations on a Windows system must share the same installed SAND/DNA Access component. While this is not a requirement on a UNIX system, having multiple SAND/DNA Access installations could potentially lead to resource conflicts if there are any duplicate port numbers defined in the various ssa.ini and nucleus.ini files. For more information, refer to the "Multi-user Installations of SNIC" section of the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Installation and Setup Guide (BW 7). Tomcat software is now used instead of Tanuki for the Java Service Wrapper. Consequently, there is no longer a wrapper.conf file, and no more "WrapperManager" warning in the log when the SNIC Server starts. The maximum Java memory allocated to the SNIC Server is now set only via the sand_nlic.properties (sand.java.maxmemory) Fixes The environment variable AIXTHREAD_SCOPE no longer has to be set to "P" (processbased contention scope) manually. It is now added automatically to the env.setup file during installation. The data package sequence issue that caused the loader to fail has been corrected. The timeout issue related to the wrapper on Windows no longer occurs, since the wrapper is not used anymore. When uninstalling a system install on Windows, it is no longer required to use the same user who installed the software. The Windows installer now correctly changes all of the SNIC subfolder locations (tasks, tmp, logs, etc) if the default locations are not used. The documentation was amended to state that the SNIC Server can run the SAP JVM.

8 3.3 Tools The MR2 software tools are different from previous versions in the following areas: New Features The new ssamdupgrade tool is designed to simplify the process of upgrading versions of SAND/DNA Access. For more information, refer to the "Upgrading SAND/DNA Access 2.5 from a Build Prior to 2238 (MR1 to MR2)" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Upgrade Guide (BW 7) Changes/Improvements The SAND/DNA Access Metadata Validation tool (ssavalidate) can now be set to operate on an active system by specifying the -a flag. Administrators can therefore run this program on a regular basis, even while data archiving is being performed, to verify nearline system consistency. For more information, refer to the "Verifying Metadata and SCT File Consistency" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Administration Guide (BW 7). The Backup Restoration (rest_backup) tool now includes a -c option to automatically create and mount a new metadata database prior to the restore, which greatly simplifies the process by eliminating a few manual steps. For more information, view the "Restoring a Standard Online Backup" chapter in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Backup and Restore Guide (BW 7). A MigrateTo task (created with the add_task utility) that uses SQL to select the SCT files for migration now includes automatic optimization to improve the selection criteria. Specifically, both positive and negative filters are used for the SCT file selection to ensure better accuracy. For example, assume the original SQL statement is the following: SELECT * FROM S1.T1 WHERE Tdate BETWEEN ' ' AND ' '; A derived, negative SQL statement will also be executed: SELECT * FROM S1.T1 WHERE NOT (Tdate BETWEEN ' ' AND ' '); Any SCT file that is returned by both of these SELECT statements is removed from the final set of SCT files to migrate. This will ensure that all of the migrated SCT files contain the specified range of values, and do not also contain values outside of this range Fixes The SAND/DNA Access System Monitor utility (sysmon) no longer returns a false error about an incorrect number of ssaagent processes running, due to not taking into account the extra administrative ssaagent(s) (configured via the sand.ssaagent.extra parameter in sand_nlic.properties).

9 As well, sysmon no longer reports certain transaction conflicts and duplicate table/domain names as errors, since these are only a temporary byproduct of startup latencies. The ssavalidate tool no longer reports false inconsistencies. 4 Installation Notes If upgrading from a previous release of SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW, follow the instructions in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Upgrade Guide (BW 7) to ensure a proper upgrade. Otherwise, follow the installation procedures detailed in the SAND CDBMS Nearline for SAP BW: Installation and Setup Guide (BW 7). An upgrade to the latest version involves installing new versions of the following components: SAND/DNA Access SAND Nearline Integration Controller (SNIC) SNIC Add-in 4.1 Summary of Changes to Configuration Settings Note the following changes to configuration settings in MR2: sand_nlic.properties Parameters added: sand.fetch.max_records (this was also added to MR1 hotfix ) sand.nlic.cleanup_old_files_interval sand.nlic.cleanup_old_files_retention_period sand.optimization.create_sct_at_close_request sand.optimization.delete_all_nearline sand.timeout.invalid_sequence Parameters removed: sand.concurrency.max.normal_task sand.request.delete.invalid Changed default: sand.data.chunksize (previous: (64 KB), current: (1 MB))

10