SAP has released an ABAP based tool that generates a report significantly better for sizing than using just the SAP QuickSizer. This program takes into consideration existing database compression, different table types, and also includes the effects of non-active data in the SAP HANA system. In this blog we take a quick look at this valuable tool.
- By Dr. Berg
Sizing Tool Background and Settings
This program is attached to SAP Note 1736976 and can be downloaded from SAP Marketplace and run on a production system to get very accurate sizing information.
This includes sizing for RAM and dynamic runtime memory, log space and disk space. It even provides details on items such as data sizes with corresponding dynamic runtime memory for row store and column stores, as well as the calculated size and the estimated size in HANA memory for each table in your BW system. Technically, the program uses sampling of the database for sizing, so you should refresh the database statistics before running the program.
Figure 1: HANA Sizing Program for SAP NetWeaver BW
The higher precision you run the estimate at (selected by radio buttons in Figure 1), the longer the program is going to run. With 14 parallel processors and 8Tb data warehouse, it is not unusual to see 45-75 minutes run time. To increase speed, you can also suppress analysis tables with less than 1 MB size.
In addition, since timeouts are common when running this sizing program, you should temporarily change the parameter in rdisp/max_wprun_time to 0. You can do this in BW Transaction RZ11. Finally, you estimate the growth for the system over a time period. This can be done as a percentage, or as absolute growth in GB.
After all this is done, you have downloaded and installed the program, and selected the parameters above, you can go to Transaction SE38 and run SDF/HANA_BW_SIZING as a background job.
Figure 2: SAP HANA Sizing Results
The output is stored in the file you specified and the file can now be emailed to to hardware vendors for sizing input and hardware selection.
Need more Information?
If you have any questions, just stop by my sessions at SAP BI 2013 Conference in Las Vaegs next week (March 19-22); Amsterdam (June 11-13) or inSingapore in September where I will cover more on these timely topics and also do a HANA book signining event with SAP Press...
Look forward to see you there..
Dr. Berg