Manual operations are now a thing of the past! This much anticipated book helps you discover how to automate process chains in your IT systems and optimize the performance of your most important business applications.

After a comprehensive technical introduction to the origin of rules-based, decentralized job schedulers, readers learn about the requirements and interfaces, which allow external job schedulers to work with SAP applications, including the key advantages and disadvantages of each of these solutions. You'll then be introduced to the powerful new centralized job scheduling functionalities provided by SAP NetWeaver with "SAP Central Job Scheduling by Redwood". With practical advice on the installation and deployment processes, and complete details on the objects, principles, and processes used by this solution, the authors ensure that all of your toughest questions are answered. In addition, readers uncover critical architectural details and exclusive technical/operational insights that cannot be found elsewhere. The authors provide operators, as well as developers, with practical, real-world advice to drastically enhance standard installation and configuration guides. Special attention is paid to both individual CCMS and SAP BI jobs as well as to integration methods for these enterprise-level job chains. Best Practices and lessons learned from real-world case studies ensure that this book leaves no stone unturned.

Highlights

• Technical basics of job scheduling
• Decentralized and centralized job scheduling solutions for SAP environments
• SAP job scheduling interfaces, including the new Java scheduling interface
• Installation aspects, hints and tricks
• Principles and processes of SAP Central Job Scheduling by Redwood and Redwood Cronacle
• Best practices for long-term operation of your job scheduling solution
• Customer case studies

About the Author(s)

Kees Verruijt was one of the co-founders of Redwood Software. Arnoud Roebers is a SAP Technical Team Lead at Deloitte Consultancy. Anjo de Heus is head of Redwood's Business Development group. All three of them have many years of experience in the field of Job Scheduling capabilities.

Table of Contents

Foreword ... 13

Preface ... 15

1. General Job Scheduling ... 19
... 1.1 Organizational Uses of Job Scheduling ... 19
... 1.2 The Origin and Evolution of Job Scheduling ... 27
... 1.3 Job-Scheduling Functionality ... 41

2. Decentralized SAP Job Scheduling ... 61
... 2.1 CCMS Scheduler ... 62
... 2.2 SAP BW ... 85
... 2.3 Mass Activity Scheduling ... 90
... 2.4 Information Lifecycle Management ... 94
... 2.5 SAP NetWeaver Java Scheduling ... 98

3. SAP Job Scheduling Interfaces ... 111
... 3.1 External Batch Processing Interface ... 112
... 3.2 BW-SCH Interface ... 119
... 3.3 BC-XAL and BC-XMW Interfaces ... 120
... 3.4 JXBP Interface ... 121

4. Centralized SAP Job Scheduling ... 125
... 4.1 Systems Setup ... 125
... 4.2 High Availability ... 135
... 4.3 SAP Interface Configuration ... 140
... 4.4 Managing the Scheduling Load ... 153
... 4.5 Monitoring ... 160
... 4.6 Migration ... 161

5. Introduction to SAP Central Job Scheduling by Redwood ... 163
... 5.1 Available Product Solutions ... 164
... 5.2 Components ... 168

6. Installation ... 183
... 6.1 Before the Installation ... 183
... 6.2 SAP Central Job Scheduling by Redwood Installation ... 184
... 6.3 SAP Central Job Scheduling by Redwood Configuration ... 191

7. Principles and Processes ... 199
... 7.1 User Management and Security ... 200
... 7.2 Job Definitions ... 203
... 7.3 Job Allocation ... 211
... 7.4 Job Management ... 214
... 7.5 Job Submission and Monitoring ... 219
... 7.6 Output Management ... 224
... 7.7 Handling of SAP Jobs ... 225

8. Operation ... 237
... 8.1 Operating the Different Components ... 237
... 8.2 Performance ... 249
... 8.3 Debugging and Error Resolving ... 255
... 8.4 Maintenance and Housekeeping ... 263
... 8.5 Exporting and Importing Repository Objects ... 265
... 8.6 Automating Business Processes ... 268

9. Customer Cases ... 281
... 9.1 Customer Case 1: Reducing Complexity ... 281
... 9.2 Customer Case 2: Managing Large Landscapes ... 285
... 9.3 Customer Case 3: SAP and Systems Management Made Easy ... 290

The Authors ... 295

Index ... 297