SAP Certified Technology Consultant(BASIS/HANA), TOGAF9

SaskPower – Government of Saskatchewan (Crown Corporation)
SAP Netweaver Consultant Jan 2013 – Present

Part of SAP Netweaver Administration team maintaining 7 tier SAP systems landscape. The overall scopes of my services includes managing and monitoring all SAP environments for availability, capacity and performance, and proactively manage the environments as appropriate to minimize the risk of service disruption. Provide support for projects that require SAP environments or expertise in management of SAP environments. Manage the application change control process within SAP.

Activities:

• Daily Support and Maintenance
• Project Management Support
• Change Management Support
• Configuration Management Support
• Capacity Management Support
• Performance Management Support
• Availability Management

Current Role: Project Management Support

Current Project: SAP SCM WHM 9.4 on EHP4 SCM 7.0 on HANA SUSE, IBM Power Hardware

SaskPower is in the implementation phase of the new product Warehouse Management on SAP SCM with LiveCache to cater SaskPower Warehoue. Currently SaskPower is using localised solution for the Warehouse management, which is outdated and lot of manual work for the business, the reason for this is all the Warehouses not integrated to one another. I have done the technical implementation of EHP4 SAP SCM 7.0 and Auto-ID Infrastructure on NW750 on HANA, SUSE with IBM Power hardware architecture with 2TB capacity in Sandbox and Development Environment and Pre-Prod Environment.

• Working closely with the Solution Architect team to give continuous feedback and consultation on SAP HANA technical capabilities.
• Integration to LVM/LaMa for operation support and backup of HANA database.
• HANA Administration activities using HANA Cockpit and HANA studio
• Integration with ChaRM for ABAP changes across the landscape.

Current Project: SAP CRM 7.0 Ehp3 upgrade and Premise Overview functionality activation (2016-2017)

This is a high visibility project as with this new functionality premise overview was delivered to the WEB IC application for the CSR agents. Keeping the performance of all the existing business processes within the acceptable threshold and may be improving the same was the key deliverables. The business function activation after the EHP3 upgrade on CRM system included our existing ERP 6.0 EHP7 system. This added the complexity to make sure the performance is not affected on ERP system as well. The following are the activities that was performed to achieve the mandatory requirements from the performance front,

• Performance analysis of all the business scenarios of CSR agents in current production system
• Creation and deployment of EEM scripts for all the business scenarios captured against Sandbox CRM and ERP system integrated to production solution manager
• EHP3 upgrade of CRM system and all the relevant technical activities in Sandbox
• After development and functional configuration activities identifying the new business process including the new Premise Overview functionality and creating and deploying EEM Scripts against the upgraded systems with production solution manager
• Performance analysis by means of old scripts executions and post upgrade script executions statistics comparison
• Manual performance analysis by capturing each business process step in an excel.
• Worked closely with SAP development team for the analysis and implementation of performance improvements solutions
• Web-dispatcher upgrade in Pre-Prod and Production systems for the load balancing of WEB IC application
• I did the complete upgrade activity on all 7 CRM systems within SaskPower landscape.
• Currently working on implementation of premise overview related custom requirements from business

Project: Expert Analysis of Suite on HANA, BW on HANA and S/4 HANA for SaskPower

This was collaborative effort with IBM and SAP's expertise, in depth technical analysis was done by me for SaskPower's ERP, BW, CRM, Gateway, ERP Portal and BI-Java Portal product systems migration from existing Oracle/AIX to different HANA scenarios.

SaskPower architecture team was closely involved in this effort to lay down the HANA road map for SaskPower. The following technical scenarios for HANA migration was researched,

• Sizing exercise for scale out scenario
• Technical migration path of Business Suite systems
• Impact analysis on non-sap integration systems to ERP
• Migration path to existing add-ons
• Migration path to existing Fiori solution
• HANA Backup and Recovery solution

Project: Quality Control Application Replacement (SAP Management of Change)

This was a critical project that I was part of and I lead as a technical lead in this to implement Management of Change (MOC) on ERP system. The scope expanded to work on Enterprise Asset Management System (EAMS) in SAP ERP portal side; I designed and developed the SAP Portal roles for MOC and EAMS with object base navigation concepts. I was part of design of this solution from the blue printing phase and collaborated with SAP and SaskPower architecture team to bring in my NetWeaver, ERP Portal and ERP expertise for the final solution.

The integration of portal with ERP as per the current business process was crucial for the business and I was instrumental in the design and implementation of integration solution.

Project: SAP LVM 2.1 or LaMa Implementation and Configuration

SAP LVM 2.1 enterprise edition was implemented as 2 tier landscape, I was a technical lead for this project and designed the landscape and operating procedures for the use of LVM within SaskPower for the following use cases.

• Integration to HANA Database in Multi Tenant Scenario
• Snapshot, Backup and Recovery
• Mass Stop and Start of SAP Systems
• Scheduling of Operations on SAP Systems
• Integration to SAP Solution Manager IT calendar
• Standalone PCA
• System Copy with PCA
• Application Server Installation

Project: SAP BW Unicode Conversion as a preparation for HANA migration (2016)

As a preparation to future HANA migration activity, the existing BW non-unicode 7 tier landscape was converted to Unicode system by using export/import OR system copy method. I was involved from Design phase working closely with Architect within the BW group for the technical consultation for the migration path and hardware requirement analysis.

One more colleague was involved during the implementation phase for the conversion activity because of 7-tier landscape. I worked in Sandbox system to build complete unicode conversion technical path with documentation capturing all the activities. This helped for us to work in parallel to do the conbversion activity 2 systems at a time in Project and Operational landscape.

Following are the activities that I performed as part of this project,

• Technical consultation with Solution Architect during design phase of the new unicode landscape
• Unicode conversion activity in Sandbox BW system to capture the technical path and activities
• Preparation of BW system for the unicode conversion activity
• Unicode pre-conversion phase
• Final preparation and unicode conversion with export/import OR system copy method.
• complete validation of BW system
• Performance testing and analysis
• I performed unicode conversion activity for 3 BW systems.

Project: SAP Fiori HCM Applications Implementation (12 + months)

SaskPower was a ramp-up customer with SAP for Fiori HCM applications implementation. From the beginning (Aug 2013) of this project I have provided my Netweaver technical expertise to solution architecture team in the design phase. I have contributed in providing end-to-end solution for the implementation of SAP Fiori Mobile Applications in SaskPower’s 7 tier landscape.

Since SaskPower has a complex 7 tier landscapes, I have done Fiori application installations 8 times since the project got initiated. This is due to the fact that our blueprinting landscape will be refreshed every 7 weeks to that of production copy, hence more number of installations.

SAP Fiori role design within SAP ERP portal to expose Firoi Launchpad for desktop users and SSO configuration using X.509 client certificate, this was achieved by collaborating with Infrastructure and Network team for the successful roll out. This was a high visible solution just because this was visible to all SaskPower employees.

Fiori HCM Apps: My Timesheet, Approve Timesheet, My Paystub, My Leave request, Approve Leave request, My Benefit.

SAP Netweaver Technologies involved: SAP Gateway on NW740(Hub deployment scenario), SAP ERP 6.0 Ehp06, Citrix NetScale Gateway(Reverse Proxy for URL re-direct), AnyConnect VPN client on IOS devices, SSO configuration between mobile device, Gateway and ERP system using client certificate exchange, SAP Afaria for client application and certificate push.

Project: SAP SuccessFactors HCM Integration 3.0

SaskPower has implemented SAP SuccessFactors 1.0 for the Learning and Performance Appraisal and On-boarding solutions. This project is for the upgrade of the Technology SAP SuccessFactors HCM Integration 3.0.

I have lead technical installation and configuration of PI adapter framework and AXIS adapter framework for on-boarding integration and making sure the project is following all the release management and ChaRM related processes.

Project: SAP Support Pack Upgrade 2015

I was single point of contact from SaskPower for the third party vendor, who was responsible for the SP Upgrade. Vendor did the SP upgrade of ERP, CRM, BW, PI, CPS, GateWay 740, ERP Portal and BI-Java Portal product systems in 5 tiers. I was responsible to upgrade BOBJ or BI 4.1 (7 tiers), ERP and Gateway in the remaining 3 tiers ( Dev, Pre-Prod, Sandbox and Training). This was a major project within SaskPower because of the complexity of the project with respect to major version upgrade of AIX from 6.1 to 7.1, Oracle Upgrade, SAP NetWeaver stack upgrade from 731 to 740 and ERP Ehp6 to Ehp7.

Activities:

• Stack XML creation using MOPZ within Solution Manager for all the product systems
• Point of contact for the third party vendor for the technical issues management, SaskPower process management and documentation review
• BI 4.1 Upgrade in all the landscapes.
• ERP and Gateway Product System upgrade in 3 tiers
• TDMS Product System Upgrade to NW 740.

Project: SAP CPS System Copy Automation by Redwood(4 Months)

SaskPower has implemented CPS System Copy module for SAP system copy procedure.

Activities:

• Assisted Redwood development team to implement SaskPower specific flavor for the ERP, BW and CRM product specific system copy procedure based on the master refresh procedure document which involved operations procedures.
• By end of this project I made sure that the CPS can take care of ERP(1.5 TB), BW(1 TB) and CRM product system copy procedure in 60 Hours with one SAP Basis Consultant Administering the jobs with minimal manual interventions.
• This was a major achievement from the SAP Technical Team as now we can cater Project Management teams in terms of providing them the Sandbox Systems with production data.
• I have done so far 4 times the system copy procedure from production to pre-prod, sandboxes(3 tier sandbox landscape) and quality systems which will come to 12 SAP System Copy procedures within 8 months timeframe.
• Because of the deliverables and the requirement from the PMO so far, we have prepared a 1 year calendar plan for the refresh activity of Quality, Pre-Prod and Sandbox A, B and C (Each having 3 product systems).

Project: SAP ERP Performance Tuning (3 months)

I was part of 3 member team for the ERP system performance tuning. I have involved in conducting performance analysis through Solution Manager.

Performance Measurement:

• For performance measurement I configured Solution Manager End User Experience Monitoring for 21 small, medium and very large customer power accounts.
• Installed Solution Manager Diagnostic agents at 4 different locations across Saskatchewan, this was identified by the business.
• 21 scripts were created each one having 7 major business transactions and script was scheduled to run every 10 minutes.
• This gave us a large number of data sets for us to analyze over a period of 3 months.
• AIX Administration team was involved in collecting measurements through the tool nmon on OS level for CPU, RAM , LAN, I/O and paging utilisation.

Performance Tuning Activities:

• WPs tuning involved heap memory tuning after RAM and CPU upgrade.
• Web dispatcher implementation for proper load balancing across 4 application servers.
• VIO hardware upgrade and moving of LPAR to separate underlying hardware from AIX team.
• SQL tuning of top activities within the product system using OEM tool for Oracle.

Project: SAP BI 4.1 Implementation in 7 tier landscape (3 months)

• BI 4.1 implementation on AIX platform.
• Integration of BI 4.1 with existing BW system.
• Initial configuration of the system.
• SSO configuration between BI 4.1 and ERP Java Portal.
• BI 4.1 Mobile Server configuration to expose reports over mobile devices.
• Integration of BI 4.1 mobile service with SUP/SMP.

Project: SAP BW and BI 4.1 Sizing and Performance Tuning (3 months)

• BI 4.1 sizing involved APS splitting with the reference of 3 very large finance reports.
• BI 4.1 Server Standalone server was split into Oracle Database server, BI 4.1 Platform with tomcat server and APS servers.
• Conversion of Universe type to BICS and concerning performance related activities on BW and BI 4.1 server side.
• BW system hardware sizing, additional application server installation.
• ODS table space re-organization.
• Optimal heap allocation and WPs distribution after CPU and RAM upgrade.
• Identified very large DSO table and scheduled online-re-org on a regular basis to claim free space from fragmented chunk.
• Optimization of scheduler connection on ERP and BW side for LUWs/transactional RFC processes.
• Monitoring of process chains and expert guidance on process chain optimization.

Project: SAP DS 4.2 Implementation, distributed environment in 4 tier landscape (3 months)

• Data Services 4.2 implementation on AIX platform.
• Database server, IPS server and DS server were installed on their own LPARs
• Post installation configuration.
• Support activities for Developers, creating repositories, troubleshooting job servers, etc.,

Project: SAP BPC 10 NW implementation for blueprinting phase (1 month)

• Implemented SAP BPC 10 NW version on NW 731 unicode BW system.
• Initial basic configuration as per SAPs configuration guide.
• Prepared a cook book for future use.
• This project has been scrapped and never kicked off as a project due to business reasons.

Project: SAP SPM 2.1 Implementation on 7 tier landscape RDS, approach (4 months)

• Implemented SPM 2.1 on BI-Java Portal.
• Security setup on Java portal side and BW system side.
• BW extractor setup on BW ABAP server.
• SPM 2.1 initial configuration as per SAPs configuration guide.
• Integration of BI-Java portal and BW system.

Project: SAP Landscape Upgrade Projects(Last 4 Years)

• BW 731 to 740 Upgrade
• ERP 6.0 EHP7 Upgrade
• SAP ERP 6.0 Portal Upgrade
• SAP BI Java Portal Upgrade
• SAP BI 4.2 Upgrade
• SCM 7.0 EHP4 Upgrade
• SAP HANA Upgrade
• SAP HR Support Pack Upgrade (Yearend scenarios)
• SAP CPS by Redwood upgrade
• SAP PI Upgrade
• SAP BW Unicode Migration

SAP LABS INDIA Pvt. Ltd
SAP Netweaver Consultant July 2008 – August 2011
Part of Development System Services (DSS) which offers all Development Units within SAP, extensive Planning Support at all stages of the SAP standard product lifecycle (development, test phase, transfer to final assembly and maintenance). I was responsible to set up all systems in ERP landscapes in a given configuration and ensure operation of these landscapes at highest quality. This covered equipment planning and administration services, installation, maintenance of the server and the software components. I have provided additional assistance for administration services.

Role Play: Product Landscape Expert (PLE) for ERP and Business Suite landscape.

Operations: Run time system monitoring, Scheduled Deployment Monitoring, Customer Message Handling, System Order and Setup, SAP NW Enterprise Portal Administration, SAP NW BASIS Administration, NW Upgrade coordination to new SP releases of ERP and Business Suite systems running on NW 640 to NW 730. NWDI - Development and Support Package (SP) track administration including Customer message handling.

Knowledge Management/ Documentation: Preparing Technical Documentation , Knowledge Transfer to new colleagues (Expertise topics: NWA, Portal Administration, Administrative tools-VA, Config Tool, Telnet, JSPM, SDM , UME Concept, BASIS Administration).

Project: Development System Services AP and Europe

Brief Description: SAP Netweaver/Basis production support and maintenance for Asia Pacific and Europe in ERP and Business Suite Landscape of all product releases. Responsible for attending to the complaint calls, Preventive Maintenance, other software utilities, trouble shooting and problem solving, completing maximum no. of assigned calls etc. Implementation of SAP NW ERP and Business suite systems and installation of software components in ERP and Business Suite system landscape, NW upgrade (Both ABAP and JAVA Environment]. Responsible for evaluating Internal tools for optimum administration work.

Roles & Responsibilities: As the Product Landscape Expert I was a Single point of contact for Asia Pacific Region for ERP and Business Suite Landscape.

Implementation Project: Handled implementation projects for landscapes Business Suite and ERP on various levels ranging from Netweaver version 640 to CE. Implementation included:

• Technical consulting and execution.
• Coordination with various other Service team involved in implementation.
• Quality Checks after the installation.
• Product specific configurations.

NetWeaver Support Pack Validation: Handled many support package validations such as SAP GRC Risk Management, ERP (2004, 2005, All EHPs till EHP6) validations. Support package validation involves patching the kernel and other SAP components as per the RIN (Release information note) of the support package and providing Basis/Netweaver support to the developers during various stages of development life cycle.

SAP Solution Manager Evaluation: SAP Solution Manager 7.0 Ehp1 features such as Business Process Operations, System Administration and Root Cause Analysis were evaluated by connecting Business Suite 10 ABAP/JAVA systems and ADS server.


HP Global Soft India Limited
SAP Consultant July 2006 – July 2008

Project: SAP Operations TSG HP AP, Europe & NA.

Brief Description: SAP Basis/Production Support and maintenance for Asia Pacific, Americas and Europe Financial Application for SCIT SAP ECC 5.0 as the front end. The landscape had 30 SAP Instances. Responsible attending the complaint calls, Preventive Maintenance, other software utilities, trouble shooting and problem solving, completing maximum no. of assigned calls etc. SAP Basis Support and maintenance for Asia pacific, Americas and Europe Financial Application for HP UK Labs as SAP ECC 5.0 as front end.