This blog contains an updated discussion focusing on Business Objects Planning and Consolidation 10.0, version for Netweaver (BPC10NW) installation considerations.  For information on installation options for BPC75NW, please review the blog at:
There are two main installation paths that can be chosen for your SAP Business Objects Planning and Consolidation 10.0, version for Netweaver (BPC10NW) implementation:   you can install BPC10NW within your current BW system (the "Add On" method) or you can install BPC10NW on a separate BW system (the "Stand Alone" method).  Each installation method has pros/cons that should be considered prior to deciding upon an implementation path.
Prerequisites:
SAP Business Objects Planning and Consolidation 10, version for Netweaver (BPC10NW), must be installed on a suitable Netweaver platform.  For BPC10NW, the Netweaver platform version must be Netweaver 7.3. 
A very common question that is asked is:  “Which is better:  Add-On vs. Stand Alone?”  The answer varies for each customer since it depends on a number of factors that need to be evaluated for each implementation:

• Hardware Investment
• Performance
• Administration Costs
• Integration Development and Maintenance
• Upgrade Considerations
• Support Pack Considerations
• BWA Investment
• Data Movements

Hardware Investment
There is typically some increase in hardware investment when implementing any BPC10NW project.  The Stand Alone scenario will lead to some additional cost for servers required for creating the new instance of BW that will be used to support the BPC10NW application.  However following an “Add-On" implementation scenario will also require additional application servers to accommodate the anticipated incremental BPC10NW user load on the existing BW system.   The net hardware cost differences between "Stand Alone" and "Add-On" may be negligible.
Performance
On initial reflection, the Stand Alone scenario may be presumed to inherently have superior performance; however this is not necessarily the case if the Add-On scenario is properly sized.  In addition, load balancing is also an important consideration to ensure overall system responsiveness (for example, BPC10NW processes can be isolated from BW processes, from a load balancing perspective, if desired).

Administration Costs
System Admin costs may be greater with a Stand Alone implementation since an additional host system will need to be maintained, tuned, monitored, etc.  
However if the administration support is provided using in-house resources, the additional cost may be negligible by being easily absorbed into the existing in-house administration support model.  
If system administration is out-sourced, then additional cost should be anticipated (as most external support contracts charge by system instance). 
Additional consideration should be anticipated to keep your out-sourced system up to date with current support packs and corrections.  Failure to maintain the system can result in increased administration and operational costs through the need to research and implement corrections that have already been developed for more current support pack levels.

Integration Development and Maintenance
There are a variety of ETL tools to pull master and transactional data into BPC10NW, but these tools typically point to BW objects (info cubes and info objects) within the hosting BW for source input.  Following a Stand Alone implementation path, additional processes will need to be developed to load the source data into the BPC10NW supporting NW environment.  This additional configuration will need to be developed and, of course, maintained.

Upgrade Considerations
New BW functionality is continuously being deployed and customers struggle to determine the best timing to upgrade their systems.  In a Stand Alone deployment, it may be easier to upgrade your main BW system while leaving your BPC10NW hosting BW system at an earlier revision.  One of the main benefits to the stand alone path is the elimination of many of the dependencies between BW upgrades and BPC10NW upgrades.   This decoupling may be a significant consideration since currently BPC10NW is currently only supported by Netweaver 7.3.  For example, using the Add On approach, you can leave your EDW environment at an earlier version (i.e.: NW7.0) and still support BPC10NW by implementing an updated version of NW (i.e.: NW 7.3) without forcing an EDW upgrade (and eliminate/postpone any additional costs associated with such an upgrade).
Recognize that system upgrades depend on a number of business environmental factors:  corporate politics, the needs and schedule of the end user work streams (i.e.: Finance, Sales, Marketing, HR, etc.), and the technical capacities to perform the work.  Some companies elect to upgrade their systems on regular basis, others are more conservative and will upgrade infrequently if the system performance is acceptable. 
 
Support Pack Considerations
Certain highly regulated industries require extensive regression testing of all BW processes after implementation of any support packs.   Even companies that are not specifically bound by industry regulations should always consider some planned regression testing after any system change is introduced (i.e.: support pack, individual correction, SAP kernel updates, OS kernel updates, DB patch updates, etc...).  Similar to the discussion surrounding "Upgrade Considerations", a decoupled system approach allows timely support pack implementation for BPC10NW without the need for extensive regression testing of the main BW system.



Akshay Vellanki
Partner & Director EPM Practice
Techincept Consulting Inc.
www.techincept.com
SAP BPC TRAINING
310-956-1113
AkshayVellanki@gmail.com
www.techincept.com/sapbpctraining.html

Financial Reporting Cycle - Local Close

In my last Financial Reporting Cycle Close - SAP's Product Suite, financial reporting cycle close overview, its three cycles and SAP's products for each cycle was discussed.

This one is specific to Local close. Any organization planning to implement fast close project should have implemented ERP across countries. ERP in place is again not sufficient. Following set of business processes and technology relevant questions can be posed to understand where the current ERP stands.

http://www.techincept.com

Assuming all the above requirements are met in ERP, this provides opportunity for seamless data flow from ERP to Consolidation systems via ETL layer without need for manipulations. Another pertinent question during this evaluation process is whether master data for fields / objects other than accounting object master data are similar across countries / Globe?

http://www.techincept.com

There could be more to this list, in my opinion, these play critical role in assessing ERP for fast close project implementation.


Akshay Vellanki
Partner & Director EPM Practice
Techincept Consulting Inc.
www.techincept.com
SAP BPC TRAINING
310-956-1113
AkshayVellanki@gmail.com
www.techincept.com/sapbpctraining.html

BPC And Code - How Many Lines Of Code Will they Force Upon Us?

I am often reminded of a joke about how many people it takes to do this task or that.  My new joke is how many lines of ABAP code in the New BADI for Custom Logic does it take to do the same thing in the older Microsoft version of the product?


Do not get me wrong.  I have been on the Net Weaver stack for some time now.  I know how it works and what it really does.


What perplexes me is why such significant architectural features being pursued in the BPC space can be so obviously misaligned to the existing Microsoft customer base.


Particularly troublesome is the rising cost of migration from Microsoft to the Net Weaver environment.  If I was in charge of marketing and software sales here I would find someone and have a serious heart to heart about architecture and feature design.


Let's take a look at one real world example where someone somewhere has not been on that many customer engagements but sure knows how to write core software code, particularly classes in the BPC space to unlock cool and improved Net Weaver features.


Dear SAP, most customers use properties in dimensions and use those properties in calculations.   Where there is a clear 1 to 1 relationship between a member and some atomic data regarding that member, it is not an irrational choice to use properties in calculations.  Now I know it could be an account fact that I can reference, but that may not always be a practical reality.   I could give you a few examples but will spare you the details on that for now.


What I am referring to is two key outages in the new Net Weaver stack that continue to be a problem for most.  (not a problem for me but the solution is unrealistic relative to the right way to do things)


In BPC for Net Weaver when we want to RECord a new record, we used to be able to use a FACTOR in our statement and directly reference a dimension property with a simple statement like this - MATERIAL.UOP where UOP in this case refers to minimum production quantity.


Now I know someone somewhere will say a property cannot be assured to be a number.  What?   Think about where we source this from.  It is a number.  We know it is a number and we know it will work and yes we are adults.





Akshay Vellanki
Partner & Director EPM Practice
Techincept Consulting Inc.
www.techincept.com
310-956-1113
AkshayVellanki@gmail.com
www.techincept.com/sapbpctraining.html