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FAQs

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Index of Content

1. How will IBM set up network connectivity to my systems and what is the security around this connection?

2. Which versions do these assessments support?

3. I am planning an upgrade /roll-out / system consolidation / carve-out / DB migration / cloud migration – should I do the

assessments now or wait until these are completed?

4. What is unique about these assessments?

5. Do I need down-time to perform these checks?

6. How is incident analysis performed? Which data do I need to provide IBM?

7. Which tools will IBM use and do they have any impact on my systems?

8. What specific authorization will the team need to perform these activities?

9. How will the project be executed? How much effort is required from my IT staff?

10. At the end of these assessments, I will get reports with prioritized recommendations. How do I use these recommendations?

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1. How will IBM set up network connectivity to my systems and what is the security around this connection?

a. Network Connectivity will happen via secured socket tunnel (https) or client VPN (CISCO, Nortel etc).

b. IBM will provide the names of consultants working on the services and named user ID’s will be created by the client for

these consultants.

c. Client will provide access to firewalls installed on their systems for https traffic.

d. VPN client software along with configuration file/ details will be provided by the client. It is expected that 3 licenses will be

required per assessment ordered.

e. There will be calls set up with the client where an IBM networking specialist will be present in order to clarify queries.

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f. IBM consultants will access your network from IBM Offices in India, that have attained ISO 27001 certification. More than

50000 IBM employees work for over 1000 clients from these offices. IBM has rigorous Internal Audits in place to conform

to security requirements.

g. IBM Consultants will be accessing only the technical parts of your system and will analyze system data not business data.

In order to ensure your data security, IBM has implemented Data Leakage Prevention controls, all IBM employees

undergo Data Security & Privacy training and Business Conduct Guidelines apply strictly in case of any deviation.

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2. Which versions do these assessments support?

a. The technical infrastructure assessment supports all SAP ERP releases (ECC, R/3 all versions).

b. The technical assessment for business warehouse supports all SAP BW 3.X & 7.X versions. It does not support the SAP BW

versions on HANA Database currently.

c. The custom code assessment supports all releases (ECC, R/3 all versions). It does not support ABAP on HANA database

currently.

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3. I am planning an upgrade /roll-out / system consolidation / carve-out / DB migration / cloud migration – should I do the

assessments now or wait until these are completed?

These assessments will help in checking your preparedness. This service gives you information on your infrastructure, sizing,

capacity trend and other commonly occurring problems. This will act as a good pre-check in terms of the current health of your

applications. Hence it makes sense to do it before undertaking your planned activities around upgrades, roll-outs, system

consolidation, carve-out, DB/OS migration or cloud migration.

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4. What is unique about these assessments?

a. You can leverage IBM’s patented technology to:

I. Gather workload and utilization statistics at the right granular intervals to provide the level of in-depth insight on

system performance required for taking meaningful action.

II. Identify improvement and simplification opportunities for your custom code portfolio.

III. Correlate findings from your SAP systems with incidents reported by users analyzed through processing of

unstructured data, to identify hidden problems for long-term resolutions.

b. You can get IBM’s proven expertise gained over years of implementing and maintaining some of the world’s most complex

SAP solutions to provide prioritized recommendations based on holistic assessment data and relevant best practices.

c. A lot of similar services focus on product fixes rather than your unique solution, leading to fairly standard recommendations

across landscapes and client-situations. This assessment is a combination of cutting-edge technology and SME experience

to provide recommendations relevant to your unique system and application landscape.

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5. Do I need down-time to perform these checks?

These checks are carried out using efficient customized programs which are read-only, and have no interference with the day-to-

day functioning of your system. Hence no down-time is required to carry out these health checks.

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6. How is incident analysis performed? Which data do I need to provide IBM?

a. Most Incident management tools capture data related to causes or solutions provided, in the form of pre-defined cause or

solution codes. This structured information is not often maintained correctly and can lead to wrong interpretation. But other

data in the incident record, for example the description of the issue, comments or running notes could have a lot of

information, which goes unnoticed and un-analyzed. IBM’s patented tool works with this unstructured data picked up from

incidents. A pattern analysis is performed on this data, which can lead to more accurate identification of recurring issues and

thereby provides better solutions.

b. IBM would require a minimum of around 3 months of incident data to a maximum of 1 year, for carrying out meaningful

analysis and recommend subsequent actions. The records should be filtered to include only those records related to the

assessment being conducted.

c. The required fields will be provided along with the welcome kit at the beginning of the engagement.

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7. Which tools will IBM use and do they have any impact on my systems?

IBM will use proprietary tools for conducting some areas of these assessments. These are mentioned below:

Tool Tool Description Installation Site (within

{Customer} Network or IBM)

Network

To be Installed by

AAP

(AMS Analytics

Platform)

AAP is an investigative tool to help you understand your tickets better. This

should be used to do an analysis of incident records to identify common

reasons why incidents arise and schedule preventive actions to reduce

incident volumes and/or make process improvements.

IBM Network – not required to

be connected with {Customer}

network

IBM

Insight The Insight Collector captures workload and performance statistics generated

by a production SAP system. On one-minute intervals, host utilization statistics

are captured. On fifteen-minute intervals, SAP instance statistics are captured.

Captured statistics are written to the hard drive of the Windows PC dedicated

for the collection process. When the collection process is complete, the Insight

data is sent to an IBM SME for analysis. It is recommended to collect three

days of statistics during a peak period to improve the quality and value of the

report.

Highlights of the Insight Collector:

Designed to have a minimal impact on a production SAP system.

No transports into the SAP system are required.

No third-party software is required.

The software is designed to be easily removed using the Windows

Control Panel.

{Customer} Network or IBM

Network connected to

{Customer} Network

Configurations will

be performed by -

{Customer},

assisted by IBM

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Tool Tool Description Installation Site (within

{Customer} Network or IBM)

Network

To be Installed by

Simplification

Workbench

The tool ‘Simplification Workbench’ is a code comprehension analysis

workbench used to find simplification opportunities the SAP custom

development (ABAP) portfolio. It finds the following:

1. Modifications of standard code that be turned back by utilizing the

new enhancements/switch framework.

2. Clones of standard programs that can possibly be replaced by

standard, by moving the custom changes to enhancement point.

3. Duplicate and nearly duplicate programs that can be combined

This tool is one of its kinds in the industry, as it does fast and scalable

Semantic Comparison of programs (using full canonical representation) on top

of just Syntactic comparison to detect similarity.

IBM System – not required to be

connected with {Customer}

Network, but an Extractor

Program need to be installed

{Customer} SAP Pre-Production

System within Customer

Network

Customer needs to

import the Installer

(i.e. transport data

files and cofiles)

supplied by IBM, for

the Extractor

program. IBM also

supplies Installation

Guide.

SCI+

SCI+ is an enhanced version of SAP Code Inspector and contains 75+ custom

checks on top of SAP standard checks in SCI. The additional checks are

based on IBM’s SAP delivery Best Practices that evolved & continuously

refined over the last 10+ years. (For Version below ECC 5.0 the stand alone

ABAP Tool Code Optimizer will be used instead of SCI+, which works for ECC

5.0 onwards)

{Customer} SAP Development

System within {Customer}

Network

Customer needs to

import the Installers

(i.e. transport data

files and cofiles)

supplied by IBM.

IBM also supplies

Installation Guide.

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Tool Tool Description Installation Site (within

{Customer} Network or IBM)

Network

To be Installed by

SUET

SUET tool is used to gather Program & Transaction related statistics, details of

Standard Object Modifications, Enhancements, Inactive and Active objects etc.

{Customer} SAP Pre-Production

System within {Customer}

Network

Customer needs to

import the Installers

(i.e. transport data

files and cofiles)

supplied by IBM.

IBM also supplies

Installation Guide.

a. For SCI+ the installers will create several custom global classes that will enhance the standard SCI functionality and it would also

create a small custom table & transaction for maintaining the user ids to be authorized to use the enhanced SCI (other users in

the system can continue to use the standard version of SCI, as it is). For SUET, Code Optimizer & Extractor for Simplification

Workbench the installers will create stand-alone custom report programs.

b. The Insight Performance Data Collector software runs on Windows/Intel® PC networked to communicate with a production SAP

system. We prefer to host the data collector over any available standard desktop at your environment. In case of unavailability of

Desktop at your site, IBM team will host desktop at IBM network.

c. All our tools are read-only in nature. They will scan various programs, tables from the relevant SAP instance, select the required

information and will then produce the final result either as a report output or in a file. No existing codes or data-points in the SAP

instances are modified.

d. The tools also have uninstallers. At the end of the assessment, IBM consultants will guide you in un-installing the installed tools.

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8. What specific Authorization will IBM need to perform these activities?

Authorization details for individual offerings are given below. You will also receive these details of them in the welcome kit.

BW Health check Assessment

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ABAP Health check Assessment

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Basis Health Check Assessment

All Authorizations for Admin in client 000

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9. How will the project be executed? How much effort is required from my IT staff?

a. One of the advantages of ordering this assessment online is that it is standardized, and tool-driven, with minimal direct

involvement of your IT staff.

b. The engagement process is simple and quick to execute. The assessment itself should take approximately 3 weeks to

complete, with additional time for initial set up, which is expected to take an average of 3 weeks.

c. Immediately after you order an assessment, you will receive a Welcome Note and Welcome Kit which will detail all the

activities that both you and IBM will perform. The assessment would require a single focal point from your team with

whom IBM teams can work with for the next 6 weeks. We will start with a Kick-off meeting where the project plan,

approach and requirements for set up will be discussed.

d. The first 3 weeks (approximately) of preparation are focused towards the set up of :

I. Network connectivity

II. System access

III. Installation of tools

IV. Incidence Analyses data Provisioning

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e. The next 3 weeks are when IBM consultants will log in to the system, analyze output of the tools and prepare

recommendations. We would strongly recommend a weekly discussion of 1 hour each during these 3 weeks.

f. In the last week, you will receive draft report(s), which can be reviewed by your team. A presentation of these to your IT

team and management would happen towards the end of week 6.

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10. At the end of these assessments, I will get reports with prioritized recommendations. How do I use these

recommendations?

a. Review the list of prioritized recommendations, and based on your priorities, implement remediation actions which could

be in the form of small to medium-sized projects.

b. IBM Global Business Services would be happy to work with you for the next steps.

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To order these assessments and for more information:

US customers :

Visit IBM Technical Healthcheck for SAP Applications

UK customers :

Visit IBM Technical Healthcheck for SAP Applications

Customers outside US and UK can write to us at ebus@ca.ibm.com