SAP NetWeaver 7 Certified

I am now SAP certified NetWeaver 7.0 Associate consultant. After couple of months of preparation, delays of exam and a few software glitches from SAP, I could take my exam and cleared it.

I was a little bit sceptical about it in like any other person whether to go for certification or not. I have also gone through the eternal debate of SAP certification – does an experienced person in SAP really requires certification or it’s just a waste of money.

Read more about it here: Is SAP Certification Worth the Money? from Jon Reed Vs. SAP certification not worth much from IT Knowledge Exchange.

However, as I have completed 3 years as a SAP Basis consultant few months back, I thought this is the right time to go for certification as it would add value to my resume in recession hit economy.

The course C_TADM51_70 contents 5 books in total (almost 3000+ pages). The course material is very conclusive and demands a lot of persistence in studying. You don’t need any other reference material other than these 5 books because you will get all questions from these books only. You need to go through these books at least thrice to remember the every detail of SAP concepts. Thanks to Rafael OoOshiro, I stumbled upon to the concept of creating Mind Maps for studies. Creating mind map along while studying is a nice idea, it makes studying fun and you can have a lesson/unit in an uncluttered way in one single mind map.

The best part I liked about this SAP certification exam is that you don’t get braindumps for it on Internet like any other certification programs like MCSE, OCP etc (without any offence to these exams). So, you have to study the complete course material and have to understand each and every concept in detail. Although, I do believe there should be some sample questions so a person can get an idea about type of questions asked. Until recently, there were no sample questions. I think SAP has identified this problem and has given some sample questions on it’s website (See here) .

I have observed that there was a lot less information about SAP certification exams as compared to other certification until recently. The fee, course contents, registering and passing score etc but now, SAP education site provides the complete information.

While preparing for this certification, I thought of sharing knowledge and that’s how I register my own SAP website SAPguru.in. This website would be my learning canvas of SAP. On SAPguru, I would be sharing whatever I learn, I am in the process of writing few articles, How-To articles etc. I would also be uploading the Mindmaps which I have prepared as notes for my SAP certification prepration, these come very handy in revising the complete stuff in a nutshell.

Here, I would like to clear that I do not have any dumps or something similar to it which I would give you and you’ll clear the exam. Please don’t ask for it in comments. My only objective of SAPguru.in would be sharing knowledge. So, stay in touch for the update!

How to reset backup status of tablespaces using Brtools

When a backup is terminated abruptly then sometimes the backup status of tablespaces remain active. In oracle 10g, you can reset the backup status of all tablespaces using the query

alter database end backup

However, in Oracle 9i you can not reset the backup status of tablespaces in one go using the above query if database status is open.

You can reset the backup status of tablespace from SQL using the following query.

alter tablespace tablespacename end backup

in this process, you will have to give one tablespace at a time, or, you can reset the backup status in one go by following the below steps in BRTOOLS.

Orasid> brtools

Select 2 – Space management

Select 4 – Alter tablespace

Press c twice to continue

Select 4 – Reset backup status

You will see the list of tablespaces which are in backup mode. Enter the range for e.g. if there are 10 tablespaces listed then input 1-10

Press c to continue.

This would reset the backup state for all tablespaces.

Tip: if you need to kill a running backup for any reason. Always kill the backint process not the brbackup process. It would make sure that tablespaces’ backup status is not active.

How to survive in SAP Netweaver World?

We need to keep ourselves updated to stay ahead in the race as the technical world keeps changing, and SAP is no different. If you are a Basis administrator/consultant, you need to update/upgrade your current skills for the requirements of SAP Netweaver.

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe – Abraham Lincoln

A new article on SearchSAP.com by Kent Sanders talks about transferring your skills from Basis to Netweaver. The article not only tells you the road ahead for Basis consultants but also explains how you can get to that road.

The key points raised by author are:
Java is the way ahead: As more companies are opting for portals and web business, you can not avoid Java.

Go for Solution Manager or Enterprise Service Oriented Architecture ( eSOA)

If you want to stay up with the latest in SAP technology and differentiate yourself from your Basis competition, then mastering the SAP Java Application Server, enterprise SOA technology, and Solution Manager will keep you ahead of the game.

Read complete article on SearchSAP

On a related note do check the tips from Prem Sagar about how to survive an IT slowdown.

How to start saposcol forcefully on Unix

SAPOSCOL ( SAP OS collector ) is program which collects the Operating System information and displays the information in Operating System Monitor ( transaction STo6 ).

The operating system collector SAPOSCOL is a stand-alone program that runs in the operating system background. It runs independently of SAP instances exactly once per monitored host. SAPOSCOL collects data about operating system resources, including:

Usage of virtual and physical memory
CPU utilization
Utilization of physical disks and file systems
Resource usage of running processes

The SAPOSCOL can be stopped/started through either SAP (through Operating System Monitor or transaction code ST06 -> Operating system Collector -> Start) or Operating System. However, sometimes it may happen when you try to start the SAPOSCOL it gives you the message it’s already running. Like in example below.

SIDADM> saposcol -l
***********************************************************************
* This is Saposcol Version COLL XX.XX
* Usage: saposcol -l: Start OS Collector
* saposcol -k: Stop OS Collector
* saposcol -d: OS Collector Dialog Mode
* saposcol -s: OS Collector Status
* The OS Collector (PID XXXXXX) is already running …..
************************************************************************

If you try to see the status of SAPOSCOL through command saposcol -s, you will see the status and if you try to grep the process with command ps -ef|grep -i saposcol, it will not show the process.
So, what do we do now?

There is another parameter of SAPOSCOL which is not documented in it’s menu list and that is force option (-f).

All you need to do is start SAPOSCOL with command saposcol -f, it will start the process forcefully. Once it’s started stop the process through saposcol -k and start it normally through saposcol or with option -l . Now, your SAPOSCOL is running and collecting the OS information for you. I have tried this on Unix and it works not sure about Windows though.

Read more about SAPOSCOL

Update: If your SAPOSCOL still doesn’t start with the above steps then follow the steps below:

Start SAPOSCOL in dialog mode with saposcol -d option. You will get a prompt to type further command, help command can be used to see what all commands are available.

Try to kill the SAPOSCOL with kill command. After it’s killed execute command leave, this will clean shared memory ( Make sure the SAPOSCOL is not running).

Start the SAPOSCOL with command launch and quit from dialog mode.