SAP IDES Installation – Import ABAP Phase taking too long issue

So far I lost the count on how many SAP IDES installations I made on different environments. Every installation is a new challenge and comes with own unique problems if there exists any.

Recently I tried SAP IDES ECC 6.0 Installation on Hyper-V environment with a host of 8GB Ram. This time I allocated 6GB Ram to WinServer 2003 R2 Standard Edition client, and took some screenshots to share with you all. I read lots of people out there especially complaining about import ABAP taking too long. Of course there are several factors to that like number of parallel import jobs running or memory allocated for client machine and SQL Server … etc.

Here I’m not going to make any conclusions on that. Simply I want to show you my experience of SAP IDES ECC 6.0 Installation on Hyper-V. Yes, import ABAP phase is going to take a long time, and yes it’ll take a lot longer than you expect. Since this is the case, just be patient and let it run smoothly. During this phase, make sure that your client is not going to run out of disk space. Also, set your power options to ‘always on’ so that your host doesn’t go into sleep mode during installation.

Here is the first minutes of Import ABAP Phase.. Note SQL Server memory consumption. 2.7 GB, not too bad for a 6GB client.

As you can see, below screen clearly shows that my IMPORT ABAP Phase almost took 1 day to complete.

(Yes, I was doing SAP Installation on Valentine’s Day Well, technically I was only monitoring it, so no harm done to family life..)

Also, another thing to check is that, make sure all 105 import jobs completed successfully as seen below. You can check this from installer log screen.

Following Import ABAP Phase, sometimes first time start of central instance can take some time, but nothing more than 10-20 minutes. There is a time-out limit for that. Once the central instance is up and running, you’ll see disp+work processes like this.

And finally once the installation is complete, here is what you get.

Now you can go ahead and if you haven’t done already, install your SAP GUI and connect to your SAP System for the first time.You can use your DDIC user and password you provided during installation to log on.

Enjoy.

P.S. Note that your temp license will expire in 1 month.

zieglers

SAP IDES ERP 6.0 EHP4 / NetWeaver 7.01 Installation Guide on Windows 2003 64-bit – Part 2

In this 2nd part of the article, I’ll mention installation environment details. Although SAP doesn’t recommend installation on laptops, I did my test installation on a virtual machine. As host machine I used Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and VMware Workstation. Here are guest 64bit operation system details:

=========================================================================================

Installation Guest Machine details

* Windows Server 2003 R2 – Standard x64 Edition

* MS SQL Server 2008 x64 with collation CP850_BIN2 (this is very important. you can only install SAP with this collation)

* Java JDK 1.4.2_17 windows-amd 64bit. If you have problems finding a 64bit version for Java 1.4.2_? SDK, here is the link: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/SAPsite/download.html

Java SDK versions provided in above link are specific builds for SAP customers. For my installation, I used following version.

Also, you should download Java Cryptography Extension 1.4.2 since SAP Installer will ask for it during installation.

==========================================================================================

Starting Installation Process

If you have downloaded all necessary installation media as described in part 1(http://zieglers.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/sap-ides-erp-6-0-ehp4-netweaver-7-01-installation-guide/) and prepared your installation guest machine as described above, now we can start installing SAP IDES ERP 6.0.

There are also couple of important details to mention:

1. Your machine name CAN NOT be more than 13 characters. Otherwise you’ll get an error during installation during prerequisite check. As for this demo, i renamed my machine to ECC6.

2. Increase your virtual memory. Make it at least 20480 MB. Otherwise you’ll get a warning during installation prerequisite check. If you wish, you can continue installation like that, however it’s highly recommended that you increase your min virtual memory. This will increase both installation and SAP runtime performance.

3. Make sure you install correct version of JDK (link given above). If not, you may get some java runtime related errors during installation.

4. Although in this demo, i install using an external drive, if you have a chance, copy installation media to your hard drive and start installing SAP from your hard drive. (i’d suggest using min 7200rpm drive!!!) It’s better to keep installation media and installation path (where you install your SAP instance) on different partitions. Also, make sure that you have enough space on your drive for this installation. Just to give you an idea, once installation is complete, just the size of database files will be 160GB!

5. Important!!! If you’ll follow this demo, make sure you name your SAP instance (SID) as ECC. The reason is, once we start installation, as first step, installer will ask you to enter SAP Solution Manager Key for your installation. At this point, make sure you have your installation details as follows:

• SID: ECC
• Client: 00
• Host: ECC6

Before starting, it’s always a good practice to organize installation media in logical folders so that it’s easier to find once sap installer asks for them.

Since we are installing on a 64bit windows environment, we need to start the installer for that one specifically.

Go to installer folder > 51037622 > IM_WINDOWS_X86_64 > sapinst.exe.

Now, installer starts loading…

Select EhP4 for ERP 6.0 > MS SQL Server > Central System installation option, as seen below.

Provide System ID. For this demo, it’ll be ECC.

Then, enter master password for your system. This password will be used for all SAP accounts created during installation. You’ll also use this password after installation to log in with DDIC and SAP* users.

Provide export package paths. Installer will ask you in the order of 1, 4, 2, 3.

Once you are done with entering all necessary parameters, parameter summary will be displayed. Here if you want you can make some changes.

Here i strongly recommend increasing number of database abap import jobs. By default it’s 3. For this demo, i chose 10 import jobs to be executed in parallel.

Once you are done revising input parameters, you can click next.. At this point installer has got all required input from you.. Installer will start executing 23 phases.

Here 1st phase is ‘Check Solution Manager Key.’ You need to have a unique key for your installation that you need to obtain from SAP Solution Manager. If you’d like to follow this article and use same names i used here, drop me a personal note, i’ll try to pass it over…

Longest phase will definitely be ‘Import ABAP‘ phase. Depending on your machine, this phase can take from hours to couple of days. Be patient!!! Make sure you turn off Windows Automatic Updates. Last thing you wanna see is to wake up in the morning, run to your machine and see it`s been restarted by Automatic Updates!

If everything goes ok, once installation is complete, you`ll see a screen as follows.

Finally, we completed SAP IDES ECC 6.0 installation. Now, you can go ahead, install SAP GUI and start using your system.

Let me know if you have any questions.. Hope this post helps some folks out there..

Found this post helpful? Please donate, so that i can donate you back

zieglers

SAP IDES ERP 6.0 EHP4 / NetWeaver 7.01 Installation Guide on Windows 2003 64-bit – Part 1

Recently i was checking the posts I wrote about SAP IDES installation, and realized it’s been a while since I wrote the last one: http://zieglers.wordpress.com/2007/08/26/sap-r3-ides-47200-sr1-installation-on-windows-2003-r3-and-sql-server-2005/

Well, I think a brand new one is almost necessary: Here I give u, SAP IDES ECC 6.0 Installation on Windows 2003 with SQL Server 2008. I’ll try to explain the process with screenshots and try to keep it really simple. Hope it works!

=========================================================================================================

Step – 1: Download installation DVDs / files from SAP Service Marketplace:

Navigate to installation media

https://websmp101.sap-ag.de/~SAPIDP/002006825000000234912001E

Once you are at SAP Service Marketplace homepage, first click ‘Downloads‘ in first line navigation and then ‘SAP Installations & Upgrades‘.

1-)   2-)   

On the left navigation, select ‘Installations and Upgrades‘, then ‘SAP Application Components‘.

3-)    4-)

Then, select ‘SAP ERP‘, ‘SAP ERP Enhance Package‘ and ‘EHP for SAP ERP 6.0 / NW 7.01‘ respectively, as shown below. 

5-)  6-)  7-)

Since we’ll be installing IDES version, select ‘IDES-Version‘, and then ‘Windows Server – SQL Server‘.

 9-)

Download media for Export, SAP Installer, Java Component, UC Kernel and SAP GUI

Installation media necessary for SAP ERP 6.0 can be categorized in 5 main titles. This means once you start installing SAP ERP 6.0, SAP installer will ask you installation DVDs for 3 parts. Those are 1. Export DVDs, 2. Java Component, 3.Kernel. Additionally, you’ll need SAP Installer media itself and also SAP GUI. Now, let’s take a look which ones to download.

Export DVDs: You need to download 27 export parts named ‘IDES ERP 6.04/NW 7.01 Inst. Export‘. Once you extract those, there will be 4 DVDs, as shown below. Normal SAP ERP 6.0 installer comes with 2 export DVDs. Extra 2 DVDs result from the fact that IDES version includes many sample companies and related data to be installed.

  

Note from installation experience: Once installer finishes import jobs, you’ll have almost 160 GB sized database files and 10GB log file in total. No kiddin’! (See below)

    

Java Component: You need to download 4 parts for ‘NW 7.0 EHP1 SR1 Java based SW Components‘ as shown below. This will be only 1 DVD. Depending on your installation choice – ABAP vs. JAVA based – you might not need those during installation.

Also you need 3 parts BS Java components, ‘Java Comp. 7.0 SR1: ERP,CRM,SRM,SCM‘, as shown below.

SAP GUI 7.10: You need to download 2 parts for ‘NW 7.0 Presentation – 7.10 Compilation 4 Present.‘, as shown below.

UC Kernel: You need to download 1 part for ‘BS 7 SR1 UC-Kernel 7.01 Windows Server on x64 64bit‘, as shown below.

SAP Installation Master: You need to download 3 parts for ‘IDES Inst. Mst. 7.01: ERP, CRM, SCM‘, as shown below. This is basically our SAP NetWeaver Software Installer.

=========================================================================================================

This completes 1st part of this article – SAP IDES ERP 6.0 Installation – Gathering Installation Media. We’ll continue with installation environment in 2nd part of the article and start the installation.

If you didn’t recieve your installation media as DVDs, above mentioned approach was an alternate way to get your installation media. Hope this helps and let me know if you have questions.

Found this post helpful? Please donate, so that i can write more of those

zieglers (runs SAP)

SAP – .NET Interoperability and DUET

When it comes to SAP – .NET Interoperability projects out in the market, I realized that there are many confusions in decision makers’ minds. One of the biggest confusions are which tools to use and what their capabilities are.

Here I want to mention specifically DUET. Many managers I met at pre-sales activities seemed to me like they heard about DUET being the ultimate SAP – .NET Interop tool. This is very misleading.

The first reason this being misleading actually results from the fact that managers tend to not define their specific interoperability goals. What is the desired functionality once the project is done? Is it business process interoperability? Is it document management interoperability? Is it archiving, full-text searching, … etc?

Here is a little comparison for DUET. What it is and what it is NOT… What you can do and what you CAN’T do with DUET.

Fact 1: DUET is for business process integration tool for SAP and Microsoft environments.

Fact 2: Fact 1 is very promising Let’s be more specific. Fact 2 says, DUET is for business process integration which can be used through MS Outlook. So, this means that you can reach SAP info from Outlook and read, modify, delete some SAP business objects.

Fact 3: Fact 2 implicitly states that DUET is all to do with SAP Business Objects. It has nothing to do with documents and Document Management capabilities of SAP.

Fact 4: UI for DUET is MS Outlook.

Fact 5: DUET is NOT a middle-ware. It is a business integrator.

Here is also a list showing what you can do with DUET:

• Manage Time
    calendar integration with SAP ERP
• Monitor & Manage Budget (mission critical)
    alert created by SAP ERP
• Implement Management Process
    giving bonus to an employee
    auto entry of approval request
• Manage vacation and other leave requests
    leave request
• Request and Plan Travel
    trip request and workflow for approval
• View Analytics and Reports
    sales performance dashboard
• Manage Sales Activities
• Manage Purchase Approvals
    approve laptop purchase
   

For a quick DUET demo, please visit: http://www.duet.com/Portals/0/Flash/demo/v2/index.html

Here is also a list showing what you can NOT do with DUET:

• Can’t manage documents residing in SAP.
• Can’t manage SAP content repositories.
• Can’t communicate with ArchiveLink and KPro.
• Can’t integrate MOSS and SAP for fulltext searching.
• Can’t be used as an archiving solution.
• Can’t be used as an workflow solution.
• Can’t be used for managing nearline storage devices.
• Can’t be used as an HSM.

… conclusion comes here …

zieglers

Book Review: Next Generation ABAP Development (SAP Press)

 

I realized that it’s been couple of months I didn’t post anything, so I wanted to break this silence with a short book review. I’ve recently bought an SAP book named ‘Next Generation ABAP Development’. As the name of the book states, it mentions the new features coming with ABAP release 7.0.

 What I really liked about this book is that it uses a single real-world example throughout the book. While reading the book, you never get lost in the details, since the development of the example can be followed along with a lead ABAP developer as he develops this custom course booking system for a university upgrading from SAP R/3 4.6C to SAP NetWeaver 7.0.

It definitely worths buying. Also all code examples come within CD enclosed.

I’ll start implementing the example project soon. If you want to discuss about issues and share experiences through implementation process, you are more than welcome!

zieglers

Calling an SAP BAPI method using VB Script

 

If you are in need of calling a BAPI method using VB Script, it may mean that probably you already searched for this, tried several VB Script samples that you found from the web, tried to modify them and couldn’t manage to work. That’s why you are reading this post now

There are a number of things to be done before you attemp to call a BAPI using vb script. First of all, you should have ‘SAP.BAPI.1′ in your registry already. This means that you’d better have latest SAP GUI installed on the machine you are gonna run your script.

Secondly, just having your method being RFC-Enabled if not enough. There should be a corresponding SAP Business Object for it, and you should be able to browse this object in BAPI Explorer (Transaction: BAPI). I won’t give the details of creating an SAP Business Object in this post now. I just wanna warn you that you shouldn’t try to create an instance of your RFC-Enabled method, instead you should get an instance of the related business object!

Here is the sample code

====================

Option Explicit
Dim oBAPICtrl        ‘BAPI Control
Dim oConnection      ‘Connection object
Dim Logon            ‘Logon help variable
Dim oLoadPDF

Dim oArcid
Dim oIndir
Dim oGTDATA
Dim oReturn

oArcid = “XY”
oIndir = “C:\test”
‘Creating BAPI object
Set oBAPICtrl = CreateObject(“SAP.BAPI.1″)

‘Creating Connection object
Set oConnection = oBAPICtrl.Connection
oConnection.Client = “010″
oConnection.User = “YOURUSERNAME”
oConnection.Language = “EN”
oConnection.ApplicationServer = “yourserveraddress”
oConnection.Password = “YOURPASSWORD”
oConnection.SystemNumber = “00″
‘Performing a remote logon to the R/3 System
If oConnection.Logon(0, True) <> True Then    ‘Logon with dialog
      Set oConnection = Nothing
      Logon = False
      MsgBox “No access to R/3 System”, vbOKOnly, APPID
Else
     Logon = True
End If
If Logon Then
 MsgBox “Logged on successfully…”
End If
Set oLoadPDF = oBAPICtrl.GetSAPObject(“ZZ_YOUR_BUSINESS_OBJECT_NAME”)

If Err.Number <> 0 Then
      MsgBox “failed on oBAPICtrl.GetSAPObject(“ZZ_YOUR_BUSINESS_OBJECT_NAME”)…”
Else
      MsgBox “SAP Object created successfully…”
End If
If oLoadPDF.Loadpdf(oArcid, oIndir, oGTDATA, oReturn) <> True Then    ‘Call LOADPDF function
 MsgBox “LOADPDF Function called successfully…”
Else
 MsgBox “LOADPDF Function call failed”
End If

Set oLoadPDF = Nothing
Set oConnection = Nothing
Set oBAPICtrl = Nothing

====================

In this LoadPdf function, i was just calling some frontend upload functions to upload pdf files to sap server and start some workflow. I left the signature of the method intentionally so that you can see that return variable is also included while calling the method.

Also, note that this code is logging on SAP system in silent mode –> oConnection.Logon(0, True)

Here is the link of a VB sample from SAP Help site: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_46c/helpdata/en/76/4a42f7f16d11d1ad15080009b0fb56/content.htm

Hope, this helps…

zieglers

SAP vs. ERP

 

Most of the time you hear the word ‘ERP’ along with SAP. So what is ERP and what is SAP?

Here is a small description for them.

*** What is ERP? ***
*ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning.
Enterprise Resource Planning systems integrate all data and processes of an organization into unified system.
The key feature of an ERP system is it uses a single or unified database to store data for the various system modules.
Various Modules which comes under ERP are listed below:

a.            Manufacturing

b.           Supply Chain

c.            Financials

d.           CRM

e.           Human Resources

f.             Warehouse management

*** What is SAP? ***
*SAP stands for Systems Applications and Products in data processing.
SAP is the 4th largest software company in the world. It ranks after Microsoft, IBM and Oracle.
SAP Head quarters are in Walldorf, Germany. SAP was founded in 1972 by five former IBM engineers.

SAP released SAP R/2 version initially. The architecture of R/2 system is Mainframe architecture.
Later SAP R/3 is released which is different from R/2 architecture. R stands for Real time. 3 stands for 3 tier architecture.
There are over 100,800 installations at more than 28,000 companies.

SAP products are used by 12 million people in more than 120 countries.

zieglers

SAP R/3 IDES 4.7*200 SR1 Installation on Windows 2003 R3 and SQL Server 2005

Intro 

 In this post, I’d like to share my experience on installing SAP R/3 IDES 4.7*200 SR1. IDES stands for ‘International Demonstration and Education System’. That means SAP R/3 IDES comes with many example scenarios, best practices and preconfigured environment for demonstration and education purposes. 

To have a clean and more manageable installation environment, I decided to do the installation on a virtual hard drive (.vhd). Basically, I installed SAP R/3 to a virtual machine. It took quite a long time but eventually I managed to complete the installation after 3 days J

 

 

 

 Installation Environment 

I got a 250 GB usb external hard drive and formatted it to NTFS (This also takes at least 2 hours.). Then I copied necessary installation DVDs/CDs to that drive and extracted them there. If you do just opposite, it can also take a couple of more hours as well. I’ll mention installation CDs in the following section in detail. I created an additional 130 GB virtual hdd just to host SAP installation and attached it to VPC as drive E:. I recommend you to install and keep all SAP related files in another partition for the ease of manageability and monitoring. System Details are as follows:      

 

 

• OS: Windows Server 2003 R2
• RAM: 1280 MB
• HDD:  C: 20 GB, E: 130 GB
• DB: MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition
  • Collation: Binary order, for use with the 850 (Multilingual) Character Set.

 Prerequisites 

 All installation media mentioned below can be downloaded from SAP Market Place. https://websmp207.sap-ag.de/swdc (logon required) 

 SAP GUI: Installations and Upgrades à SAP Frontend Components à SAP GUI FOR WINDOWS à 6.20 / 6.40 / 7.10 (In the context of this post, I used SAP GUI for Windows 6.20) 

 Installation Guide: (IWNSQL_A110.pdf)SAP® R/3 Enterprise ABAP on Windows:MS SQL Server Using SAP R/3 Enterprise Core 4.70,SAP R/3 Enterprise Extension Set 2.00, Service Release 1Document Version 1.10 – August 24, 2004  

 Installation Type: SAP R/3 Enterprise as a central systemCentral instance and database instance of the SAP R/3 Enterprise system are installed on one host 

Installation DVDs/CDs:

 

Installations and Upgrades à SAP Application Components à SAP R/3 ENTERPRISE à SAP R/3 ENTERPRISE 47X200 à IDES-Version à Windows Server à MS SQL Server

 

 

 

I did a local installation, which means central instance and database instance are on the same host machine. Firstly you need to complete a central installation and then proceed with the database installation. 

SAP Instance Installation Required CD or DVDs Central instance:

·        Database DVD (MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Installation DVD)

·        SAP Installation Master CD (51032936_13)

·        SAP Kernel CD (51030499)

·        SAP Web AS Java DVD (includes CD IGS folder IGS_SOFT for the installation of IGS) (51030724_1) 

Database instance for a non-MCOD installation:

·        Database DVD (MS SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Installation DVD)

·        SAP Installation Master CD (51032936_13)

·        SAP Kernel CD (51030499)

·        All Export CDs (51030584_1 … 51030584_16)

 

Installation 

Once everything is ready and all the installation files are extracted, then you are ready to go. At the installation phase you need to choose a unique SAP System ID (for 3 letters). After choosing this ID, make sure that you are not changing it anywhere in the installation. Also you need to come up with 3 system ids: SAP Admin, SQL DB Admin, and SAP Service Admin. 

Make sure that you made the collation with SQL_Latin1_850_CP_Binary, otherwise your installation won’t proceed.  

First you need to make the central installation and then the database installation. For central installation you don’t need all export files. It takes relatively shorter than database installation.  For the database installation, Database Load part takes time. It can take from couple of hours to 1-2 days depending on the host system. Also SAP* and DDIC user passwords should be changed during the installation. 

Post-Installation

 

Once the installation has been completed successfully, you can start your SAP system. To do this, open SAP Management Console and right click to your recently installed SAP system and click ‘Start’. In a minute or two, all three processes should turn to green. If everything goes ok, the result should be as follows:

 

 

Now you can login to SAP using your SAP GUI. Make sure that you install your SAP GUI before central installation. You can also get SAP GUI from SAP Market Place.

 

 

 

 

If you have any troubles or questions about the installations, let’s discuss them here. 

Cheers, J 

zieglers

Found this post helpful? Please donate..

 

Installing SAP NetWeaver04s using Rapid Installer

In this post, I’d like to share my experience on Installing SAP NetWeaver04s.

To begin with, I want to state that I’ve been trying to install it since last week and just managed to

complete this morning. Did have any troubles? Oh, yeah, a bunch..

First I started with downloading the installation materials. You can get the CDs/DVDs from Sap Market

Place – Software Distribution Center: https://websmp209.sap-ag.de/swdc

(In the treeview) Go to Download -> Installations and Upgrades ->Entry by Application Group. Then from

the page content, select SAP NetWeaver. Here on this page you have several choices as shown below:

Select SAP NetWeaver -> SAP NetWeaver 2004s -> Rapid Installer. Depending on your platform, you can

choose platform dependent installation options. I installed on Windows Server 2003 R2 – Standard Edition

and SQL Server 2005. Not to mess up my own environment, I used VPC with 1280 MB Ram and 80 GB harddisk

space.

You have to install SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition with a default instance. Don’t use named

instance. I tried it and wasted my 2 days. I had an error on pahse 19 ‘Import Java Dump’, couldn’t solve

it, then I uninstalled and re-installed with default instance, and it worked.. Also there is a very

very important detail while installing SQL Server 2005. You have to install it with server collation

SQL_Latin1_General_CP850_BIN2…!!! One more thing, I used JDK version 1.4.2_09.

Before starting the installation, ensure that you logged on with a domain account and this account is a

member of Domain Administrators.

You need to download 7 files from SAP Market Place: 51032614_1, … , 51032614_7. Namely, you need to

download SAP Rapid Installer NW 2004s SPS11. (as of 27.04.2007) I recommend you to use SAP Download

Manager. It is much faster..

After downloading and extracting the files, copy the installation folders to your hard drive. I don’t

recommend burning them to disc. Then, start the installation by executing sapinst.exe in the folder

{Your_Installation_Folder}\51032614_1\IM_WINDOWS_I386\.

There are 34 phases for this installation and everything is preconfigured for you. You only need to

provide a few necessary details such as SAP System ID, master password, … etc.

After starting the installation, YOU NEED TO BE PATIENT!!! I took 6 hours for me to come to Phase 34 and

7 more hours just to start the services on Pahse 34. Actually, I even got an error at phase 34 saying

that the instance couldn’t be started. Then I started it manually using sapstartsrv.exe under

\usr\sap\{SAP_System_ID}\JC00\exe\ folder. Check the situation of the services from sapmmc. You can find

it on your desktop after the installation. You need to see something as follows. All process should be

running for jlaunch.exe.

If you are sure that everything is installed properly and all processes are running. Then you can logon

to the system. Default port is 50000. Simply go to http://{hostname}:50000/. You should see SAP J2EE

Start Page as follows.

You can also logon to Enterprise Portal from the URL: http://{hostname}:50000/irj/portal. For the first

time you have to use user: administrator and enter the master password you provided at the installation.
Then, what you’ll see is this:

Well, that’s all about it. Little bit patience + technical knowledge + dedicated time = SAP NetWeaver

2004s (on a single machine, even a virtual one ). If you have questions related to installation

problems or details, please feel free to comment here. I’ll be more than happy to answer.

zieglers

Stovepipe Systems and GIF (Government Information Factory)

 

I heard the term ‘Stovepipe Systems’ first time when I was getting a course called “IS 536: Information Systems Infrastructure for Contemporary Organizations” lectured by Nusret Guclu (http://www.tns.com.tr/tnsweb.xvs?solmenu=KimKimdir&Kim=ANG) in 2005.

From that time on I came across with that term in several places, technical discussions and books. Also I had chance to observe that sort of systems since I was living in Ankara. The correlation between Ankara and stovepipe systems is such that in Ankara, being the capital city of Turkey, reside many old implementations of government systems which are all stovepipe being still under influence of presumable wrong politics involved.

I’ll be giving the definition of ‘stovepipe systems’ shortly. But, once again I’ve seen the inevitable needs for getting rid of stovepipe architectures in government systems after reading the following in a book called “Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse”.

Here is a short analysis about Stovepipe Systems and GIF (Government Information Factory):

   On September 11, 2001, the world changed. One of the many changes occured that day was the awareness that government information systems needed to be altered. Prior to September 11, government information systems were typified by what can be called stovepipe systems. Stovepipe systems are individual and do not share data. One agency gets one piece of data, and yet another agency gets another piece of data. And there is no way to piece all this data together to form a useful and meaningful picture.

   The events of September 11 proved to the government and the public in general the weakness of stovepipe information systems.

   Unfortunately, correcting the difficulties of stovepipe systems is a hard task. Correcting stovepipe systems requires not a new technology, not a new methodology, and not a rebuilding of systems. To solve the problem of stovepipe systems, there must be a change in architecture and a change in basic attitudes of agencies collecting and using data. Without both of these changes, there can be no victory over the tyranny of stovepipe systems.

   From an architectural standpoint, the CIF evolved into the government information factory (GIF) as a result of the events of September 11.

   The GIF in many ways is similar to the CIF. Indeed, about 60 percent of the architecture is the same. But there are some interesting and significant differences between the GIF and CIF.

… to be continued!

zieglers