ITC Server

Last Friday I was interviewed on the phone by a recruiter for an SAP Developer position. It was actually not a real interview, it is just a preinterview before submitting the resume to the customer. They just try to understand how your knowledge about SAP is.

As far as I remember I was asked these SAP questions:

1. What are three levels in a SAP System?

   I can’t remember this question exactly, but it is something like that above. If the question is like above, as you know that the answer is simple. But the question was something different. Whatever the question was, I gave this answer: There are three levels in a SAP System. 1-) Presentation Server (Client, PC, SAPgui), 2-) Application Server (serves SAP programs) 3-) Database Server (serves database services)

   R/3 applications are written in the ABAP language, and run within the application layer of the R/3 System. ABAP programs communicate with the database management system of the central relational database (RDBMS), and with the graphical user interface (SAPgui) at presentation level.

   

2. Which table does store SAP System?

   Do you understand this question? There are a lot of tables in the SAP System. What does SAP System mean? I gave the TADIR table as the answer. TADIR stores all repository objects.

3. What is the dispatcher?
   
   Each application server contains a dispatcher. The dispatcher is the link between the work processes and user logged onto application server. Its task is to receive requests for dialog steps from the SAPgui and direct them to a free work process. In the same way, it directs screen output resulting from the dialog step back to the appropriate user. The dispatcher is the central process of the application server. After it has been started, it generates the work processes.

   

4. What is the Roll Area?

   The R/3 Roll Area is one of the memory types of SAP memory management system. The Roll Area is used for initial memory assigned to a user context, and (if available) for additional memory if the expended memory is full.

   

   Whenever a dialog step is executed, a roll action occurs between the roll buffer in the shared memory and the memory area, which is allocated according to ztta/roll_first in a dialog process. Then the area in the shared memory is accessed that belongs to this user context.

5. What is local development class?
   $TMP

6. Which attributes do you give when you create a program and which ones are required?

   The program attributes tell the ABAP runtime analysis how to execute an ABAP program. The most important program attribute in this process is the type, which you can use to determine how an ABAP program is executed. Required attributes are title, maintenance language, type.

   Title: In the required entry field Title enter a program description that describes the functional of the program. The system automatically includes the title into the text elements of the program. Thus, you can edit the title when maintaining the text elements.

   Maintenance Language: The maintenance language is the logon language of the user who creates the program. The system fills this field automatically. You can change the maintenance language, if you maintain the program or its components in another logon language.

   Type: In the field Type you must specify the program type.

   By selecting Executable Program you declare your program as executable. This means that the program can run its own, and that you can start it in the R/3 System without a transaction code. You can also run executable programs in the background.

   By selecting Module Pool you declare you program as a pool for dialog program. This means that your program cannot run on its own, but serves as a frame for program modules used for dialog programming. These program contain the application logic of a transaction and are called by separately programmed screen flow logic (programming screens using the Screen Painter tool). The screen flow logic itself can be called via a transaction code only.

   As well as executable programs and module pools, there are also include programs. An include program is an independent program with two main functions. On the one hand, it contains the program code that can be used by the other programs. On the other hand, it modularizes source code, which consists of several different, logically related parts. Each of these parts is stored in a different include program. Include programs make your source code easier to read and maintain.

   Status: This optional entry describes the status of the program development; for example, Test Program or Productive Customer Program.

   Application: This optional field contains the name of the application that is required in the program, for example Financial Accounting.

   Authorization Group: In this field, you can enter the name of the program group. This allows you to group different programs together for authorization checks. The program name is a field of the two authorization objects S_DEVELOP (program development and program execution) and S_PROGRAM (program maintenance). Thus, you can assign authorizations to users according to program groups.

   Package: The package is important for transport between systems. You combine all Workbench objects assigned to one package in one transportation request.

   If you are working in a team, you may have to assign your program to an existing package, or you may be free to create a new package. All program assigned to the package $TMP are private objects and cannot be transported into other systems. You can enter the package directly into this field. Otherwise, the system prompts for it when you save the attributes.

   Choosing Local Object is equivalent to entering $TMP in the field Package. You can change the package of a program afterwards.

   Logical Database: Only for executable programs. This attribute determines the logical database used by the executable program (report) to read data.

   Selection Screen Version: Only for executable programs. If you do not specify a selection screen version, the system automatically creates a selection screen based on the selection criteria of the logical database and the parameters and select-options statements in the program.
   If you want to use a different selection screen of the logical database, enter a number in this field. The number must be smaller than 1000 and correspond to an additional selection screen of the logical database. The possible values help displays a list of available selection screens. You can also look in the selection screen include of the logical database (program DBxxxSEL, where xxx is the name of the logical database).

   Editor Lock: If you set this attribute, other user cannot change, rename, or delete your program. Only you will able to change the program, its attributes, text elements, and documentation, or release lock.

   Fixed Point Arithmetic: If you attribute Fixed Point Attribute is set for a program, the system rounds type P fields according to the number of decimal places or pads them with zeros. The decimal sign in this case is always the period (.), regardless of the user’s personal settings. Recommendation is that you always set the fixed point arithmetic attribute.

   Start Using Variant: Only for executable programs. If you set this attribute, other users can only start your program using a variant. You must then create at least one variant before the report can be started.

7. What is the entity?

   The Data Modeler is a development tool from the ABAP/4 Development Workbench, which you can use to create data models according to the SAP SERM method (SERM = Structured Entity Relationship Model). In addition to supporting modeling functions, the Data Modeler allows you to map the models you have created to the ABAP/4 Dictionary.

   An entity is a physical or abstract object that can be distinguished from other objects and for which information is to be stored. Entities are divided into entity types according to their properties.

And then I was asked three classical questions:

1. What are your weaknesses?
2. What are your strengths?
3. Describe yourself.

So the recruiter told me that I did well and she would submit my resume to the client. Wish good luck!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 24th, 2006 at 10:52 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.