Introduction
This document describes how to create and use the stores filled with the security SAP Notes from System Recommendations source for Configuration Validation.
The Configuration and Change database (setup via RCA setup) collects for each technical system of type ABAP the SAP Notes implemented for this system via the transaction SNOTE. The config store named ABAP_NOTES contains the recorded SAP Notes. In the example below it would be considered how to validate which security SAP Notes are missing in the compared systems.
Use Cases:
The QM team needs the information about which security SAP Notes need to be implemented at the customer system for ABAP and JAVA stack. With the help of Stores filled from the System and Online recommendations source the information is provided quickly.
The security team has created a target system for security related items. For the Security notes an ABAP_NOTES config store is filled. After the patch day SAP has provided additional security notes. An update of the content of the config store ABAP_NOTES of the target system has to be done. This document describes how to use the current SAP security notes without changing the before created target system.
Where can I find Configuration Validation?
Configuration Validation can be found in the Change Management Work Center > Related Links
Where can I find the used config stores and have a look at the data?
Workcenter Root Cause Analysis (RCA) > System Analysis > Change Reporting
The extraction of the data is scheduled as soon as a “Root Cause Analysis Set Up” has been performed for a system.
System Recommendations: The source of security relevant Notes for Configuration Validation
System Recommendations is a new functionality in SAP Solution Manager, focusing on SAP Notes. It provides a tailored recommendation of notes which should be applied to a selected managed system, and this recommendation is calculated based on the actual “notes status” of this system. Questions like “Is a specific note already implemented in the system?” or “Which version do the implemented notes have? Are there newer versions available?” are taken into account when calculating the recommendation for a system.
System Recommendations collects needed information from the managed systems via a background job that should be scheduled on a regular basis (a direct refresh of the already calculated information for a specific system can also be started directly). The calculation itself is done in SAP’s Global Support Backbone, which means that there is no load being generated on the SAP Solution Manager system or on the managed system.
The recommendation is divided into the following categories:
- Security-relevant notes
- Performance notes
- HotNews
- Legal change notes
- Correction notes (for ABAP and Java)
After the recommendation has been calculated, the user can set various statuses for the recommended notes, like “to be implemented”, “not relevant” or “postponed”. This, in combination with a filter displaying only notes with a certain status, helps to keep an overview of all the recommendations and helps keeping track of tasks which are assigned to those recommendations. Please refer to the System Recommendation SDN Blog: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/24227 
System Recommendations can be used as a source of SAP Notes relevant for Configuration Validation.
Since System Recommendations provides only those SAP Notes which are missing in the compared system it imposes some limitations on usage System Recommendations application for a status reporting. The SAP Notes which were missing at the first day of calculating System Recommndations (Q1) could be different to the SAP Notes calculated at an later day (Q2) since some of the SAP Notes will be implemented in the system and some new SAP Notes could be released. during this interval. In order to use System Recommendations for Notes validation we need to "freeze" the calculated list of SAP Notes and save it as a Target System (Q1). Then by validation at another day we will get the compliance results showing us how is a compared system comliant with the status of the day Q1 
Preparation
To demonstrate the functionality of the using the System- and Online recommendations we will generate empty stores for ABAP and JAVA Notes and then fill them with the data from System- and Online recommendations. This operation can be done in two ways: either generate a Target System containing only these two stores and then fill
Create Target System with empty ABAP_NOTES and JAVA_NOTES Stores and fill the content
- Choose tab ‘Target System Maintenance’ (on the very top of the page)
Close the ‘Create’ option from the top menu:
- Find the system for which the system recommendation data are available (to see these systems you can execute the function module AGSNO_API_GET_CHKED_SYSTEMS via the transaction se37).
In our example the system data are available for the system SD7 both for the ABAP and JAVA stack
- In the tab ‘Target System Maintenance’ > “Create” type the SID of this system in the field System ID and click the button “Display Selection”
- In the Table below select the system and click the button “Create empty”
- In the pop-up window provide System ID and Description for the Target System. Click the button “Save”
- The empty stores ABAP_NOTES and JAVA_NOTES will be created:
- Close the window and navigate to the menu “Edit”. Type the System ID of the created Target System in the field “Long SID” and click the button Display Selection. The Target System will be displayed at the left side. Select the system and the contained Stores will be displayed at the right side
- From the store list at the right side select Store JAVA_NOTES. At the bottom part the content with one line will be displayed. Click the button
in the menu to fill the store with the content.
- In the displayed popup select the option to collect SAP Notes from the system recommendations and mark the options for the “Security” and “Hotnews”.
- Click the button “Collect Notes”. The SAP Notes from system recommendations relevant for the source system (SD7) will be added to the store. Click the button “Save” to save the content.
Perform the steps 8-10 for the store “ABAP_NOTES”. At the step 9 please restrict the data range for around one month.
Create Target System and add ABAP_NOTES and JAVA_NOTES Stores
- In the tab ‘Target System Maintenance’ à “Create” type the SID of an existing system in the field System ID and click the button “Display Selection”. Alternatively you can click the bitton “Display all” to display all the available systems relevant for the Configuration Validation.
- Select the displayed system at the left side and from the list of stores displayed at the right side select one or several stores. In our example we have used the filter field to filter stores by name and selected store ABAP_INSTANCE_PAHI. Click the button Create from selected Stores
- Provide the System ID and the description for the Target System and click the button “Save”.
- The Target System will be creates. Close the button and navigate to the editing view via the top-menu option “Edit”. Click the button “Clear Selection” and type the System ID of the created Target System in the field “System ID”. Click the button “Display Selection” or Enter to display the system.
- Click the button
to generate an empty store for ABAP_NOTES. The popup with the content variants will be displayed. Please select the option to “Collect from System Recommendations” (the second option) and select the option to restrict the content as per source system at the bottom part.
- Click the button “Collect Notes” to add the content to the edited store. After the content will be added save the store using the button “Save”.
Perform the steps 5 and 6 for the JAVA_NOTES. For that at the step 5 click the button
.
At the end you can see two new Stores ABAP_NOTES and JAVA_NOTES added to the original Target System
This page is part of the Application Operations Wiki. Notice that Application Operations itself is a use-case of SAP Solution Manager
