cast for sap applications

SAP Customizations Increase Risk, Cost, and Complexity

As a core component of the information

system for many organizations, SAP eventu-

ally finds its way into detailed company-

specific processes supporting the very

heart of the business. Despite the desire

to minimize customizations of SAP imple-

mentations, ultimately the unique aspects

of the business win out and the software is

customized to support the “as is” business

processes. The result is most SAP custom-

ers have to manage significant volumes of

SAP customization - a trend that seems to

increase exponentially as time goes by and

the business continues to grow. An effective

solution for managing SAP customization

size, quality, and complexity is critical to har-

ness the maintenance cost, improve system

performance, and reduce the risks that lead

to outages.

Improve SAP Performance, Reduce Maintenance Costs, and Increase Delivery Transparency

When SAP suffers performance and stability

issues, the business becomes frustrated,

there is a potential for lost business, and

support costs are increased. The mainte-

nance costs of customizations can represent

up to half of the overall SAP maintenance

expenditure. It is thus critical to improve the

governance of SAP customization develop-

ment and the quality of delivery from internal

teams and outsourcers alike. Likewise, the

upgrade to ECC 6.0 creates another incen-

tive to immediately assess SAP customiza-

tion, to measure upgrade risks and impact

mitigation costs, and to ultimately optimize

the upgrade process itself.

CAST Application Intelligence Platform Helps Control and Improve the Quantity and Quality of SAP Delivery

The CAST Application Intelligence Platform

automatically analyzes the source code

of SAP customizations and provides the

metrics and technical information that IT

management needs to control, monitor and

improve SAP development activities and

production performance and stability.

Using the CAST Dashboard, IT Managers

can assess and monitor key Application

Health Factors, SAP Application owners can

determine the root cause of quality drifts,

verify compliance of application delivery

against development rules and best prac-

tices, and provide teams with prioritized lists

of corrective actions. Through the Discovery

Portal, development teams have access to

automatically-generated technical documen-

tation representing the customizations and

their interaction with the SAP Core-System.

CAST Application Intelligence Platformfor SAP

CAST application intelligence is based on

automated analysis of SAP custom ap-

plications and core system’s source code -

whether that be ABAP, ABAP Objects, Java

or any other major development language

used to customize or extend the baseline

SAP functionality.

CAST solution benefits for SAP include:

• Immediate improvements in stability

• Improved transaction performance

• Maintenance cost reduction

• Significantly improved outsourcing

transparency

• Reduce upgrade risk

Lower your costs and reduce time to market by getting control of your SAP customizations.

www.castsoftware.com

Europe 3 rue Marcel Allégot 92190 Meudon - France Phone: +33 1 46 90 21 00

North America 373 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Phone:+1 212-871-8330Copyright © 2013 CAST All Rights Reserved

Questions?

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CAST Application Intelligence Platform for SAP

With Application Intelligence generated by

CAST, managers can:

• Preserve and enhance the quality of their

application assets for immediate gains in

stability and performance with reduced

maintenance cost over time.

• Better manage the delivery of internal

and outsourced development teams by

measuring the quality of their output,

benchmarking the quantity of work deliv-

ered and by verifying the justification for

workloads and costs.

• Benefit from the enhanced productivity

and security resulting from the empower-

ment of internal and external teams with

technical documentation and application

structure exploration capabilities.

Key Functions of the CAST Applica-tion Intelligence Platform

Monitor Key Application Health Factors

and Compliance with Development and

Architecture Rules

Using the CAST Dashboard, IT managers can

assess the application portfolio with high-level

metrics. They can monitor key Application

Health Factors as well as ensure compliance

with development and architecture best prac-

tices. When the scorecard-based interface

highlights a metric that does not meet expec-

tations, technical managers can drill down to

more detailed analysis that helps identify the

root cause of the deviation. In doing so AIP

will produce lists of application objects deviat-

ing from a development or architecture rule.

Key metrics in the AD Governance Dashboard

include:

• Application size, technical and functional.

(Functional size being measured by the

Number of Functions Points automati-

cally estimated several ways including an

IFPUG compliant method.)

• Maintainability and changeability

• Robustness

• Performance (through the identification of

programming practices that are known to

put performance at risk)

• Security

Compliance with development rules and best

practices encompassing:

• Programming practices

• Architectural Design

• Documentation

Measure the technical quality of ap-

plication delivery

Beyond the measurement of key Applica-

tion Health Factors, SAP customers can

use the Dashboard upon delivery of a new

customizations for in-depth technical accep-

tance reviews. These reviews can assess the

technical quality of the customizations and

their compliance with predefined development

and architecture rules. CAST provides over

1000 of these predefined rules and validates

based on a combination of ISO 9126, CMM,

and Carnegie-Mellon’s SEI recommendations.

Some of these validations are generic while

others are language specific. This library of

validations and controls is constantly enriched

and customers can easily define their own

rules to be automatically checked by CAST.

Verify if the costs of SAP deliverables

are justified

SAP customers can use CAST to verify if the

workload and costs associated with the set

of changes in a given version is fully justified.

This helps benchmark the performance of de-

velopment and maintenance teams while also

creating objective evidence for discussions

about maintenance costs or change requests

between customers and outsourcers.

How does this work? CAST detects changes

between two versions of an application and

generates a multi-criteria measure of com-

plexity and maintainability for each object.

This measure is compared to those of

elemental objects in each language for which

the maintenance workload is well-known,

and from there automatically estimates the

workload and costs the changes should have

represented.

Figure 1





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Enable development teams with tech-

nical documentation of SAP custom-

izations.

CAST Application Intelligence Platform em-

powers and accelerates onboarding of new

resources and team knowledge transfer for

both internal and outsourced development

teams. The detailed documentation produced

in online reports allows developers to acquire

low-level insight of SAP customizations, and

as a result make changes that result in fewer

defects and better debugging.

CAST generated technical documentation

provides clear insight into the technical struc-

ture of SAP customizations. The documen-

tation is displayed in a web portal for easy

access and information sharing by the entire

development team. Beyond this, power users

can use the CAST AIP application discovery

tools to generate graphical structure views of

specific application domains or transactions in

just minutes. They can identify the interactions

between customization objects and SAP core-

system objects. They can also run impact

analyses that better facilitate code changes or

upgrade activities.

In Figure 2, the structure of a multi-tier web

application is shown. It comprises JSP, Java,

and ABAP tiers interacting with a core-system

object.

Immediately Improve Custom Appli-cations’ Performance and Stability

Performance and stability issues are usually

the result of poor programming practices

and inexperienced ABAP and SQL develop-

ers - often the case in outsourced environ-

ments where there is a significant turnover of

staff. Custom applications in ABAP tend to

be heavily data-oriented and make extensive

use of SQL, which when poorly written may

have significant effects on performance due to

high-volume tables.

CAST performs a number of developer-

independent performance and stability checks

on ABAP and SQL. With CAST, managers

can rate delivery for performance and stability

risks and provide teams with an extensive list

of application objects at risk. Commonly used

SAP IDE code checking tools, while of value,

are not enough. They are always optional, only

address coding errors at a unit/program level,

and only perform a limited number of checks

that are insufficient in modern and complex

architectures. CAST goes beyond these,

providing a deeper analysis and the impact of

the new or changed code on the rest of the

application.

An example of CAST performance check

is: “Avoid nested SELECT ... ENDSELECT

statements”. These ABAP statements are

not considered bad in nature by SAP as they

are routinely used to query parameter tables.

Unfortunately, developers also use them

extensively on high volume data tables; these

statements are automatically converted in

searches with SQL cursors that can signifi-

cantly slow down database queries and satu-

rate the memory. CAST analyses regularly

find several inappropriate uses of this syntax

per custom program.

An example of a CAST stability check is:

“Avoid using BREAK or BREAK-POINT state-

ment”. This is an example of fairly simple cod-

ing implementation that can bring a produc-

tion program to a halt. Despite the fact that

SAP provides tools to help developers not

forget these after they have debugged, CAST

finds as many as one to two break points for

each 100 programs running in production.

Needless to say that the more complex pro-

gramming associated with new ABAP Objects

and Java programs more common in ECC 6.0

are likely to make the performance and stabil-

ity issue an even greater one in the future.

Reducing Maintenance Costs

Maintenance costs of custom applications

tend increase over time. There are many

reasons for this, some of the more prevalent

being:

• Increased volume of custom code

• Maintainability drifts resulting from

changes that are added to the queue

• Growing complexity that is not adequate-

ly commented in-line or through other

Figure 2





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technical documentation methods

• Widespread use of Copy/Paste to create

new custom code

CAST performs multiple automated checks

on custom ABAP, ABAP Objects or Java code

to ensure and improve transferability, change-

ability and maintainability.

Examples or transferability checks are: “Avoid

Undocumented Functions” and “Avoid

Unreferenced Functions”. To demonstrate

the potential significance of this latter rule,

at a large energy customer who was about

to upgrade to ECC6.0, CAST found close to

70% of a 6,000 program portfolio not being

used anymore.

Specific checks on factors affecting the

timely and efficient maintenance of SAP

customizations are critical to maintaining

costs. Examples of maintainability checks

are: “Copy Paste Ratio”, “Avoid Artifacts with

High Fan-Out” and “Avoid Artifacts with High

Cyclomatic Complexity”. CAST often finds

copy paste ratios of 15% to 35%, making

applications hard to maintain. Customers also

often have no control on the consequences of

Note OSS applications correcting the original

programs on these copy pasted programs.

Good monitoring of object complexity helps

avoid drifts and helps identify candidates for

refactoring.

Improving Transparency of Outsourc-er and Internal Team Delivery

Managers of SAP applications faced with

rising maintenance costs and sub-optimal

performance often have very little transparen-

cy and control over the quantity and quality of

delivery from their teams. Without an automat-

ed solution for assessing delivery, the amount

of SAP custom code clients need to manage

makes systematic assessments impossible.

CAST addresses this challenge by:

• Verifying the technical quality of SAP

customizations

• Monitoring quality trends across builds

• Identifying changes between versions al-

lowing more focused test campaigns

• Assessing how much these changes

should have cost; an effective way to

challenge baseline maintenance and

change request costs

• Benchmarking team performance

Usage of CAST by the owner of applications

facilitates rapid improvements in the techni-

cal quality of delivery and team productivity.

It consequently makes discussions on the

cost of maintenance or changes much easier

and fact-based, usually resulting in significant

maintenance cost savings.

In addition, the CAST Discovery Portal can

help improve application knowledge transfer

making both outsourcing and insourcing more

efficient while reducing client’s dependency

with existing outsourcers or key individuals.

Improving Management of SAP Cus-tomization Branches in International Deployments

When deploying SAP in multiple locations

Corporate IT usually delivers customizations

together with core system versions. Local IT

groups often have to modify these customiza-

tions due to specific business needs or local

regulations thus creating new code branches.

It is important to facilitate the transferability of

custom applications to these groups. When

Corporate IT in turn delivers new versions

of the custom applications, reconciliation of

branches with new corporate applications

becomes an issue. Furthermore, the efforts on

the part of some SAP clients to create single

instance implementations of SAP may result in

the need to facilitate modifications and refac-

toring of the custom applications to reconcile

branches into a common trunk.

CAST helps keep transferability of custom ap-

plications optimized, automatically documents

custom code versions and identifies changes

between these custom code versions and

Figure 3

Figure 4





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corporate versions in order to facilitate

branch management. It also helps identify

change impact of new custom versions from

corporate on local existing branches. Lastly,

when consolidation of multiple custom appli-

cation branches is the goal, CAST’s docu-

mentation helps corporate groups document

each local branch and assess the quality and

complexity of the programs covering similar

functions in the different branches in order to

facilitate choice of programs to retain, refac-

tor or consolidate.

Reducing Risk and Augmenting ROI on Upgrades to ECC6.0SAP clients need to mitigate the risk as-

sociated with the impacts of the upgrade to

ECC6.0 on their many customizations; not

just in terms of raw impacts on stability, but

also in terms of impact on performance as

ECC6.0’s more complex architecture is likely

to have detrimental effects on performance.

IT groups want to minimize disruption to

the business and the duration of the freeze

period during the upgrade. Furthermore,

the cost justification of the upgrade to the

business is often problematic as the techni-

cal upgrade is often perceived as a pure

IT operation cost with no direct business

benefits. Thus it is important to first minimize

upgrade efforts on the custom code. If the

upgrade becomes an opportunity to clean

up custom code, suppress some in favor of

new core system functions and reduce future

maintenance costs, IT can then demonstrate

an ROI on the upgrade that translates to

business value.

CAST enables all these activities. First during

the upgrade scoping phase that is focused

on assessing upgrade workload and cost,

and then during the upgrade to clean up

the custom portfolio, facilitate testing and

mitigate impact. Finally after the upgrade to

carry out quality improvement and return to

core system programs.

During the preparation of the upgrade for

the scoping study, CAST first identifies the

custom code inventory and assesses it along

multiple factors, among them:

• Identification of unused and dead code

• Measurement of custom code coupling

with the core system

• Measurement of performance risk

• Identification of user exits embedded

in custom code, BAPI lists with calling

objects, programs affected by an OSS

Note

• Identification of high complexity

programs and programs presenting a

stability or performance risk

CAST helps measure and identify key im-

pacts of the upgrade on the custom applica-

tions by analyzing the differences between

client’s version of core system tables and

those of ECC6.0, then the links between

custom code and the modified tables.

• At the time of the upgrade CAST

provides lists of custom objects to take

action upon and based on the findings

from the scoping study, together with

technical documentation of custom ap-

plications and their interaction with core

system tables. This combination firstly

helps minimize upgrade efforts due to

the pre-migration clean-up of unneces-

sary or overly complex programs and

secondly, makes upgrade efforts much

more productive and secure.

• After the upgrade CAST helps define

additional custom applications optimiza-

tion programs to further improve main-

tainability and may in some instance

also help identify some of the custom

programs that may be candidate for

suppression in favor of core system

functions.

Supported languages:

ABAP 4, 4.6, 4.7, ECC5, ECC6

Objects Retrieved:

ABAP File

ABAP Project

ABAP Program

ABAP Include

ABAP Function Pool

ABAP Type Pool

ABAP Form

ABAP Function

ABAP Event Block

ABAP Processing Screen

ABAP Macro

ABAP Module

ABAP Unresolved Object

ABAP Dynpro

ABAP Objects





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The CAST Technology

CAST Application Intelligence Platform relies

on unrivaled source code analysis technol-

ogy developed over more than 15 years.

CAST combines unique depth of analysis,

allowing a fine-grained representation of

application object structure and relations,

with coverage of all major development

languages. This is all combined into a unified

description of entire applications and sys-

tems across multiple tiers and technologies.

CAST supports most major programming

languages with dedicated analyzers:

• Server and client tiers: ABAP, Java,

.NET, C/Pro C, C++, Power Builder,

Visual Basic, Delphi, Oracle Forms,

COBOL/JCL

• Database platforms: SQL from Oracle,

Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, IBM

UDB DB2

• Specific environments: TIBCO, Business

Objects, CICS, IMS

• Major Enterprise Software: SAP, Oracle

E Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel

CAST also features Universal Analyzer, a

programmable analyzer that allows rapid

coverage of other languages and environ-

ments: It has been used by customers on

environments like: WebMethods, Uniface, or

JDEdwards.

About CAST

CAST is the pioneer and leader of Software

Measurement & Analytics. With more than

15 years of experience in advanced source

code analysis and delivery of application

intelligence, CAST offers a unique portfolio

of comprehensive products and solutions.

CAST is listed on Compartment C - Eurolist

by Euronext Paris. It serves Fortune 500

customers with a network of 11 fully-staffed

offices in the US, Europe, and India. CAST is

a recognized as a market leader by major IT

analysts and SIs.
