EPM front-end performance, SAP recommended configuration

[Dave_S]

• EPM Add-in for Microsoft Office; version 10, SP 16, build 8602
• SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation 10 for SAP NetWeaver; CPMBPC 801, SP 8
• NetWeaver 7.31, SP 9

Front-end machines meeting or exceeding the supported configurations described in the EPM Add-in for Microsoft Office Installation Guide exhibit noticeably different levels of performance. Specifically, the EPM add-in runs noticeably slower on machine configuration “A” than configuration “B” (see configurations below).

What is the recommended front-end configuration for the EPM add-in?

Both configurations A & B include:

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, SP 1, 32-bit

Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

Microsoft Office Professional 2010, 32-bit

EPM Add-In version 10, SP 16, build 8602

Adobe Flash Player 12

Internet Explorer 8

100 Mbps LAN

Configuration A:

Laptop

Intel Core i3-3110M @2.40 GHz

4 GB RAM (2.88 GB usable)

263 GB free disk space

Screen resolution 1920 x 1080

Configuration B:

Desktop

Intel Core i3-3220 @ 3.30 GHz

4 GB RAM (3.39 GB usable)

192 GB free disk space

Screen resolution 1680 x 1050

[Former Member]

Hi David,

I know this thread is old and not sure if will get a reply back, but wanted to you guys managed to solve the performance issue you mentioned.

We are facing the same intermittent issues and unable to resolve them.We have asked SAP of recommendations of system and the have quoted the same from Reference guide. Backed seems to be fine as the BW traces do not show any traces of issue and we suspect front end / EPM  side to be the issue.

We are on the below Systems and EPM details.

• SAP NetWeaver 7.31, SP 14.
• SAP BPC 10.0 , CPMBPC 801, SP 9
• EPM Add-in for Microsoft Office , SP 24 / .Net 4 frame.

Below are the Laptop Configurations we use and tested with.

Configuration A: Laptop

Intel Core i5-4200U CPU @1.60 GHz 2.30GHz

4 GB RAM (2.88 GB usable)

64 BIT Operating Sys

Excel :2013 (32 Bit)

Configuration B:Laptop

Intel Core i5-4200U CPU @1.60 GHz 2.30GHz

8 GB RAM (2.88 GB usable)

64 BIT Operating Sys

Excel :2013 (32 Bit)

User keep complaining of the performance sometimes being quick 1 minute and next they say it is take ages 5 minutes, 10 minutes. We are unable to find what is causing this intermittent performance.

As our issue seems to be the same as your I was hoping I could get some tips and knowledge share for your end.

Regards

S.

[former_member221145]

Hi David,

Please go through this blog, this might be helpful

Regards,
Rohit

[Dave_S]

SAP proposed the following solution:

2014.04.02 - 12:14:07 EST - Reply by SAP
Hello, The only recommended configuration on SAP products are the minimum requirements as stated in the installation guides.   Please review my last update for more details. SAP cannot provide any recommendation on the operating system or hardware for optimal performance because it is impossible to have a final recommendation and it is outside the scope of SAP product testing.However, if would like to have more specific statistics I recommend posting this issue on SAP community network.   Please review note 1054121 for how you may find more specific information about this issue.
2014.04.02 - 11:59:16 EST - Reply by SAP
Hello, We do not provide recommendations for configuration other than the minimum requirement.    Understandably we cannot test performance of EPM Add-in against all possible hardware and OS configurations.  Furthermore, many of our customers are not concerned with having such information because ultimately what defines optimal performance is entirely dependent on the business requirements. The statistics you have provided for configuration A and B can probably be applied to all the applications installed on the two client machines.     Typically the recommendation of how much faster an application will run with each configuration is not part of release document for any software product.   However, if you are curios and would like to have more specific feedback I recommend that utilizing our SAP community network.   Please review note 1054121 for how you may find more specific information about this issue.

[Dave_S]

To which I replied:

While I appreciate the challenge posed when supporting so many possible

combinations, SAP has made recommendations for other components, see,

for example, Note 26417.

Further, even the poorer performing configuration A substantially

exceeds the recommended configuration listed in the EPM installation

guide. The 1 GB of RAM recommended in the installation guide seems

inadequate. Can SAP make a better recommendation?

[Dave_S]

SAP’s reply:

• “… that aside from the recommendation provided in EPM Add-in installation guide we do not have any other published recommendation …”
• “… this issue is considered consulting and you can use other SAP resources for the recommendations. I am aware that many of our customers with specific requirements for performance utilize SAP/BPC consultants.”

Any advice from the community?

[ben_w]

This is an interesting issue for which I don't have a solution but just wanted to add some points with which I have had experience.

When you say the EPM add-in is running slowly, I am assuming you are saying that the execution time for schedule refresh etc are differing.  Is that correct?

If you are talking about front-end performance, we have had the experience that if you are using lots of volatile Excel formulas (such as INDEX, OFFSET) then these are calculated in the excel instance itself and so have a client sizing dependency. This was in BPC 7.5 but the effect would be the same with the EPM add-in.

We had many of these formulas in some input schedules and we had refresh times in Citrix (so it is difficult to equivocate this to a processor and RAM desktop/laptop confirmation) which were twice as long as with a Laptop with a reasonable spec (Core i5-2520M@2.50 GHz with 8GB RAM and SSD).

These formulas try to update themselves during the refresh process which adds a lot of time.  We fixed this partially by refreshing via a macro and switching off the autocalculate before calling the refresh and then switching it back on again after the refresh.  This helped, but still there was a big difference in refresh times.

We never fixed the issue, we just found that with the new EPM client with BPC 10 we could use lots of the standard functionality (e.g. calculate parent in hierachies) and a couple of workarounds to avoid the volatlie funcitons.

[Dave_S]

Thanks for the hints.

The project team tells me they are not uisng Excel functions like VLOOKUP, INDEX, and OFFSET; and that they already are refreshing via a macro, switching autocalculate off before the refresh, and back on afterward.

[JohnL]

Hi all,

I also recommend turning off Excel Multi-threaded calculation option to see if that makes a difference.

I've seen many instances where this causes extra overhead and the performance gain is minimal.

HTH,

John

[JohnL]

Hi all,

I would also add:

Use Office 64-bit in tandem with the .Net 4.0 EPM Add-In version (Big volume edition / SBOP EPM ADD-IN BIG VOL. 10.0) to take advantage of increased client-side performance (no RAM limitation).

Thanks,