SAP Basis Tech Supports

Symptom

Import of a transport request with parallel import processes.

Other terms

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Reason and Prerequisites

This is a new feature in the transport program tp and R3trans. To use it the following prerequisites must be fulfilled:
SAP_BASIS Release 700 or higher.Transport program R3trans: The minimal R3trans version is 14.02.08 or later (in kernel release 700, this R3trans version was published with kernel patch no >= 148).
On Windows, the minimal R3trans version is 28.07.08 (kernel patch no >= 172).
In order to handle deadlocks by automatically using an internal autorepeat function, SAP recommends to use R3trans version 20.04.09 or later (700: patch no >= 212).Transport control program tp:kernel releases 700 and 701: tp version 372.04.10 or later (in kernel release 700, this tp version was published with kernel patch no 145).kernel release 710 and higher: tp version 375.30.10 or later.Table TRBAT3 must be available in the system. This table is delivered with support packages 700/15 and 710/6. It is also contained in the currently available SPAM update.

Solution

In the transport tool configuration, a new parameter “parallel = n” can be set. “n” means the maximal number of parallel import processes for one transport requests.
This feature is currently used internally by SAP’s upgrade tools. Any other usage is possible, but not validated. However, SAP will provide support.
The following conditions have an impact on the performance gains:
number of CPUs of the application server where the import is runningcapabilities of the database to handle many parallel processeslocation of the database server (if database and import are running on the same server, they will share their resources, eg. CPU power).I/O performance (because parallel import processes read the same data file and write their logs into the same directory)number of objects in the transport requests (for small transport requests, R3trans will switch off parallelity automatically).

Therefore SAP is not able to suggest the ideal value for ‘n’. Instead, SAP recommend to start importing with “parallel=2″, and to increase this number by and by until the performance gains stagnate.
Please be aware that this parallel import was mainly designed for use in the support package import and enhancement pacakage installation. But it should work for customer transports too. As this is a relatively new feature, please do not hesitate to contact SAP when you observe strange effects with parallel imports.