VAL4 - Automated testing tool for BW to BW/4HANA migrations

VAL4 has been specifically designed in analysis for office (SAP AO) to automate the testing for any in-place conversion of a BW dataflow using SAP’s conversion toolbox (RSB4HTRF). It reduces in-place conversion testing by 40% to 60%.

The migration to a HANA database or an upgrade of a BW system to a newer version is a complex task. An in-place conversion from BW to BW/4HANA is a number times more complex than these activities. This is due to a high number of objects being converted along with the transfer of transactional data from the existing to the new data targets (for example DSO -> ADSO).

SAP have developed a SAP standard in-place conversion toolbox (transaction RSB4HTRF) to migrate the existing dataflows on a BW system to a BW/4HANA compatible dataflow. You potentially have the opinion that the conversion toolbox is standard SAP functionality, and nothing could go wrong in the conversion of an existing dataflow to a BW/4HANA compatible dataflow. You might be right, although if a problem does occur after the conversion of the dataflow, then the conversion process will be questioned, even if this issue is not linked to the actual conversion.

Based off the potential of issues arising after the conversion of a BW dataflow, it’s important that a snapshot of the impacted dataflow (metadata & transactional data) is documented and stored for future reference. It’s important to note, these scenarios performed by the conversion toolbox (RSB4HTRF) are very different from a standard upgrade and must be performed manually in each system on the landscape and potentially a separate conversion task for each BW dataflow.

Let’s take an example of a SAP customer with 100 data flows within a BW system and has 4 systems on the landscape with a conversion strategy of deploying each dataflow individually. This will require 400 individual conversion tasks (100 flows * 4 BW systems – the conversion needs to be executed manually in each system) which involve 400 test scripts (one for each flow being converted per system).

The validation of a pre and post snapshot of both transactional and meta data is a simple, but due to the amount of information, is a time-consuming exercise. The conversion of a BW data flow using the conversion toolbox impacts many areas (process chains, process chain variants, data target structure’s, BI queries etc) and each area needs to be tested to ensure no negative impact. The complete manual testing of these areas would require unacceptable costs and efforts. The only choice out of this problem is to automate the transactional and meta data validation.

Most automated testing tools require a time-consuming setup. This is not the case with VAL4 – the only setup required is the list of objects impacted which is generated by the conversion toolbox for each conversion task. Once this is provided, VAL4 can then take the pre-snapshot of all impacted objects and provide guidance on what data targets and tables are required for the data validation. Once the conversion of a BW dataflow is completed the post and validation steps can be automated and any variances will be highlighted. The pre, post and validation information are all stored in VAL4 AO document for future reference (if required).

Finally, you also need to consider the speed of testing in production. As mentioned, a BW dataflow must be converted manually in a production system using the conversion toolbox, so you want to validate the metadata and transactional data and identify any potential issues as quickly as possible. This is achieved by using VAL4 automated testing tool.

The following are the benefits of VAL4 automated testing tool:

Specifically built for BW In-place conversion (RSB4HTRF).
Reduces in-place conversion testing by 40% to 60%.
Reduces the overall testing cost of an in-place system conversion.
Requires minimum setup.
Reusable in-place conversion testing template.
Applicable for all BW dataflow in-place conversions.
Quickly identifies conversion issues (especially applicable for production system).
Automates the retrieval, data storage and validation of an in-place BW conversion.