Part 6: Tips and Tools for the MDM Administrator

If your MDM scenario has a significant number of data-entry capable end users, then take some time to integrate MDM with your corporate LDAP. This will greatly simplify the process of maintaining MDM users and defining their roles and capabilities. At a minimum, your users will thank you for not having to remember yet another application-specific password!

You will need to modify mds.ini for each MDS instance to include this section. Example:

[MDM LDAP]
LDAP in Use=false
Server=Your.LDAP.Server       (e.g. ad.yourcompany.com)
Server Port=xxx
Base DN=OU=Portal,DC=ad,DC=yourcompany,DC=com
Admin Name=PickAName                                             
Admin Password=PickAPassword
Admin Identifier=cn                                                
User Identifier=sAMAccountName
MDM Roles Algorithm=GroupMapping
MDM Roles Attribute=MemberOf
Fallback in Use=True      (Falls back to MDM Password for non-LDAP Users)
Fallback Roles=
Fallback User=
Fallback Password=
Allow Referrals=False
Trace Level=1
MDM Email Attribute=Mail

Software Version Management

Use your existing Version Control software (CVS, PVCS, ClearCase, etc.,) to keep a library of your selected mix of MDM components. MDM releases are frequent (twice a year), and 3 to 4 patches should be expected between releases. Components are almost always not compatible across MDM builds, patches or releases!

Use this library as the baseline for building your MDM environments in Development, QA and Production. Use it to apply MDM upgrades in a controlled fashion across environments.

Change Auditing

Need an audit trail for changes to specific MDM tables?

If Change Tracking has been enabled from the console for a table, MDM will start to keep a log of all operations on records in that table (Adds/Changes/Deletes). This log is only visible as a table in the DBMS (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2).

Every MDM repository has two dedicated schemas created in the database:

YourRepositoryName_M000 = The schema used for data and metadata
YourRepositoryName_Z000 = The schema used for change tracking (DBMS table A2i_CM_History)

A simple data audit report can be generated using something like this query:

SELECT  
  rtrim(tablename) "Table Name"
 ,rtrim(fieldname) "Field Name"
 ,rtrim( decode(entrytype, 'I', 'Created', 
'M', 'Modified', 
'D', 'Deleted', 
         entrytype)) "Type of Change"
 ,rtrim(username) "User Name"  
 ,rtrim(recordname) "Record Identifier"
 ,rtrim(oldvalue) "Old Value" 
 ,rtrim(newvalue) "New Value"  
 ,to_char(eventtime,'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS PM') "Date and Time"  
 FROM YourRepositoryName_Z000.A2i_CM_HISTORY  
WHERE eventtime >= SYSDATE - &vDaysToAudit 
  AND rtrim(tablename) = '&YourTableName' 
ORDER BY eventtime

Backups

Easy Point-in-time backups of MDM Repostiories are possible in several ways. Each of these operations is available as a CLIX command, to be scripted for your favorite OS command line:

• Master Slaving: Create a Slave Repository mounted on a separate MDS instance. Synchronize (refresh) it at your desired interval. This provides a live read-only mirror of your original repository. Normalize the slave to get a writeable copy.
• Archiving: Create periodic archives of your repository. This generates ".a2a" files in the "/Archives" folder of your MDS installation. Note that the filenames are datestamped, but not timestamped. Rename or relocate the files if you need to generate archives more than once a day.
• Duplication: Create a duplicate of the repository to make a writeable clone available e.g., for training use.

DBMS Performance

MDM's change tracking generates large numbers of records in the A2i_CM_History DBMS table. Set up a periodic purge and/or analyze process to keep this table from affecting MDM (and SQL Query) performance.

A QuickStart Guide to SAP MDM 5.5

  Introduction
 Part 1: Select and Install MDM Components
 Part 2: MDM Components and Modules
 Part 3: MDM architecture: How components fit into the MDM eco-system
 Part 4: The OS/DB Product Availability Matrix for MDM 5.5 SP4
 Part 5: MDM for the Java Developer
  Part 6: Tips and Tools for the MDM Administrator
 Part 7: Migrating MDM Configuration
  Conclusion