PROLOGUE
Each participant will install their own HANA instance for practice ;
The security of an SAP system requires protection against unauthorised access, e.g. through the secinfo and reginfo files. A cleanly implemented authorisation concept protects against attacks within the SAP system. However, it is also possible to attack your SAP system via the network. Through the RFC Gateway Server, your system communicates with external servers and programmes. One particularly effective way to protect against this are so-called Access Control Lists (ACL). Find out what this is and how you can use it to better protect your SAP system. The SAP Standard offers different approaches for gate protection. All methods combined can provide even greater safety. For example, it is possible to use Access Control Lists (ACL) to monitor exactly which external programmes and which hosts can communicate with the gateway. Another option is to configure the gateway to support Secure Network Communication (SNC). Finally, there are various security parameters for the gateway. This article focuses on the use of ACL files such as secinfo and reginfo files. What is an ACL? Access control lists are files in which permitted or prohibited communication partners can be recorded. For the gateway to use these ACL files, parameters must be set in the default profile of the SAP system and of course the files must be maintained accordingly. With the help of logs and traces, which can be configured for this purpose, a precise investigation can be made in advance of the activation, which connections currently run via the gateway. This allows them to prevent important applications with which your system communicates from being blocked by the ACL files. The rules in the ACL files are read from top to bottom of the gateway to decide whether to allow a communication request. If none of the rules matches the requesting programme, it will be blocked. Network-based ACL The network-based ACL file contains permitted and prohibited subnets or specific clients.
In order to reduce the variety of different system variations and the related variety of routine tasks, it is necessary to reduce the number of customer specifications. In particular, the implementation, set-up and configuration of the systems and security concepts must be harmonised or returned to the SAP standard. To this end, it is necessary to establish, in cooperation with the relevant IT departments, a standard for, for example, operating systems and databases within the limits set by the product.
SolMan - the Solution Manager takes over the monitoring of the system status and enables central application management
Significant changes have also been brought about by SAP's cloud strategy. For example, the latest products such as SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA are available entirely as cloud solutions.
The implementation of a cross-sectional function will promote and safeguard the operation of the SAP systems that form the backbone of the company. By coordinating the SAP basis with other IT departments, the optimisation is always done in the overall context of the company or the IT organisation. Eliminating the separation of SAP and non-SAP topics in areas where it is considered useful will lead to expert groups and synergy effects through centralisation.
Some missing SAP basic functions in the standard are supplied by the PC application "Shortcut for SAP Systems".
This is called mining and we have described it so that the miners put the puzzle pieces together into a puzzle (block).
To store all the information on the subject of SAP - and others - in a knowledge database, Scribble Papers is suitable.
Widely used products in this segment are UC4 and Arvato Streamworks.