Sap Dsm/Brfplus System Architecture Considerations: Applies To

SAP DSM/BRFPlus System
Architecture Considerations
Applies to:
SAP DSM and BRFPlus all releases. For more information, visit the SAP NetWeaver Decision Service
Management
Summary
This document throws some light on SAP BRFPlus and Decision Service Management system architecture
considerations. Decision services are part of and integrated into business applications and thereby impact
the overall application performance. The best performance can be achieved when executing pre-compiled
coding locally, which is achieved by SAP DSM/BRFplus and a major difference to other rules engines, which
must interpret coding (e.g. java based products) or require calls into different stacks and to different servers.
Author(s): Srini Sandaka, Matthias Kucharska
Company: MOURI Tech LLC
Created on: 15 December 2012
Author Bio
Srini Sandaka is working as an Enterprise Solution Architect at MOURI Tech LLC. He has extensive SAP
Implementations & Support experience in diverse industries (Public Sector, Oil & Gas, Retail, Utility Sector,
Environmental ..etc) . He works in various SAP modules: Logistics, CRM, SRM, HCM, Solution Manager.
His expert knowledge includes DSM, BRFPlus, EP, PI, TREX, Mobile, WebDynpro, BSP, ABAP Objects.
Matthias Kucharska is working as a DSM/BRFPlus Architect at MOURI Tech LLC. He gained extensive
experience in different customers projects. His SAP moudule experiences includes: CRM, SRM, TRM, HCM,
HCM.
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SAP DSM/BRFPlus System Architecture Considerations
Table of Contents
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Deep Dive ....................................................................................................................................................... 3
Decentralized Modeling and Execution ........................................................................................................... 4
Centralized Modeling and Execution .............................................................................................................. 5
Hybrid Model Central Modeling and Local Execution .................................................................................. 6
(Decision Service Management) ..................................................................................................................... 6
Related Content .................................................................................................................................................. 7
Copyright............................................................................................................................................................. 8

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Introduction
SAP NetWeaver (NW) Decision Service Management (DSM)/BRFplus makes enterprises more agile by
adapting to the dynamic business environment. Every business has rules and business users want complete
control and visibility over these rules executed by the IT systems. BRFplus empowers business users to do
so by decoupling business rules from the core application logic, which enables business users to maintain
and test these rules without assistance from an IT team. With Business Rule services loosely coupled and
exposed business functions can be facilitated, integrated and reused within different applications.
To achieve this, the system architecture plays a vital role for a successful BRFplus implementation. The main
driver for the system landscape are the organizations IT governance and the customer requirements.
BRFplus is a SAP NW component and runs on an ABAP stack which means that any NW AS ABAP stack
has BRFplus (i.e. ECC, CRM, SRM etc.) embedded. BRFplus can be implemented in different
(centralized, decentralized and hybrid modeling and execution) models, each of these models have their own
pros and cos. This Article will walk you through these models to make an appropriate choice for your
landscape requirements.
Deep Dive
It is very important to have a deep understanding on the technical internal structure of this product to design
sustainable system architecture. DSM will be introduced in the hybrid model section only as it is an add-on
component to BRFplus. BRFplus itself is a model driven tool where the rules are being composed on a
special workbench and stored in the rules repository. During runtime, ABAP coding will be generated when
the rules are executed for the first time. Any subsequent processing will directly execute the pre-generated
coding, which is one of the reasons of its very high performance. BRFplus has different building blocks to
compose rules. Expressions & Actions are lowest granular building blocks which contain specific operations
like loops, boolean expressions, cases, table operations etc.). Each of them will be assigned to rules and
the rules will be grouped in rulesets, which are assigned to a function. A function is the executable block,
which will trigger the execution of the assigned rulesets. For each BRFplus function an ABAP class will be. If
the rules have different versions, separate ABAP classes will be maintained for each version. The generated
ABAP class can be found in the BRFplus function section.

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Decentralized Modeling and Execution

The best performance for executing BRFplus can be reached when executing the rules locally. As every NW
Application Server (AS) ABAP stack has BRFplus built-in, business rules can be modeled in each of these
SAP systems (e.g. CRM rules in a CRM system and ERP rules in an ERP system). Both, the BRFplus
design time and run time components are tightly integrated into SAP NetWeaver. In some scenarios
BRFplus applications require data from others systems (i.e. in order to process CRM business rules for
evaluating a lead it may require data from an ERP system to read business partner information as this is the
leading master data system). For this purpose, procedure calls can be used to execute any available or
newly developed functionality to retrieve data from any SAP system. RFCs, BAPIs or web service calls
cannot be directly executed but can be realized via wrapper functionality in ABAP (i.e. custom function
module or methods.
System upgrades have potentially more impact on decentralized than on centralized models if, for example,
business rules are shared between an ERP and CRM team. After the release of a new NW version the ERP
system shall be upgraded, but not the CRM system. In this scenario the BRFplus version would vary
between the systems, which can cause unexpected behavior.

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Centralized Modeling and Execution

The centralized modeling and execution approach is more suitable for customers who want to maintain one
SAP system as a master system hosting all business rules for and across several systems. Thereby, entire
organizations rules can be developed, tested and executed centrally. Upgrades of satellite systems should
not have impact on the central modeling/execution NW AS ABAP system, which respectively could always
be upgraded to the latest version without impacting any other system. To realize this approach a separate
NW ABAP stack (without any modules) can be installed to make it a centralized BRFplus system or any
existing SAP NetWeaver 702 or higher system (recommendation: Use highest EHP) can be determined for
this purpose.
The challenge with this central modeling approach (without DSM, following below) is to replicate data from
satellite systems into the central modeling/execution system so it can be used for building rules.
Furthermore, down times and delays due to replication and upgrades and performance issues due to
Remote Function or Service Calls from the satellite systems into the central modeling/execution system for
the rules execution will be significant issues. Even if the above issues are handled, certain functionality like
data base lookups or calling standard functionality from satellite systems can only be realized via additional
ABAP wrappers and procedure calls.

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Hybrid Model Central Modeling and Local Execution

(Decision Service Management)
The Hybrid Model is a mix of two powerful features: A central modeling but local execution.
On NetWeaver 7 Enhancement Pack 3 SAP introduced a new add-on called SAP NetWeaver Decision
Service Management, which bridges the gap of centrally modeling while reducing dependencies.
How it works: The rules are composed in a central BRFplus system with DSM installed. At any point in time
the rules can be compiled and deployed via the DSM workbench into any connected managed (satellite)
system. There, the compiled coding will be executed locally with no need to connect back to the central
modeling system.
The benefits of this approach are Zero down time as user sessions will not need to be terminated but any
new user session will use the latest deployed version, reversion to previously deployed rules, deploying
directly into test and productive systems, simulating rules behavior based on productive data before
activating these and others. One central place for all rules in a customer landscape make it easy to manage
and to find business rules
SAP also plans to deliver test case functionality for DSM with which test cases can be configured for rules
and executed automatically. If changes to rules have been made all relevant test cases can be executed by
one click and results can be verified. This can be combined with a security concept, which allows you to
control that rules can only be deployed if all test cases have been passed successfully.
Due to all the advantages explained above the best solution for most scenarios implementing SAP decision
and rules services is using BRFplus with the DSM add-on. If this is no option (yet), the recommendation
depends on the customers architecture, policies use cases and ability.

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Related Content
SAP NetWeaver Decision Service Management
Business Rules Framework Plus
SAP DSM Help

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Copyright
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