One thing we’ve noticed in almost every SAP project we’ve worked on, is the sheer volume of unnecessary or under-performing ABAP code haunting clients’ SAP systems. To help exorcise that code, we built the Gekkobrain Code Optimizer. 

Few people think about the transformation their ABAP code goes through over the life cycle of their SAP systems. Many people think it’s purely a case of continuous improvement but that’s not the full story.

Years pass. Developers come and go. Programs become obsolete and are replaced. Code that was once neat, tidy, and written-for-purpose, soon becomes a sprawling mess of workarounds, cut corners and palliative fixes.  

To the untrained eye, these systems are perfectly capable, but ineffective and inefficient ABAP code bloats them beyond belief and makes it impossible for the program to perform optimally. 

Not only does this code present a significant challenge when migrating to SAP, the resulting sub-optimal performance leaves many organisations struggling to achieve to their full potential.

Watch our free webinar to learn how to clean up ABAP code for SAP HANA

The Problem with Performance Optimization

Any organization using SAP systems can discover substantial performance increases by optimizing their ABAP code. However, there’s are two obvious barriers to actually doing this – time and effort.

With SAP data showing that the average SAP system contains nearly 2,000,000 lines of code, it’s no surprise that businesses are often tempted to put off projects to optimize their ABAP code.   

Simply looking through that many lines of code could take months. So imagine the time-frame when you include performing fixes and testing the new code. Not to mention all the time required for project management. And then, just when you think you’re done, there’s a pile of freshly-written code to go through.

We’ve literally seen these kinds of projects take years and require thousands of labour-hours.   

Maximum Performance, Minimum Effort

We wanted to design a tool that delivered significant performance increases without the long, arduous manual projects. So we combined our in-depth knowledge of SAP systems, ABAP code and performance management to develop a solution.

The result was our Gekkobrain Code Optimizer and it delivers exactly what we set out to provide, in 5 steps.

Step 1. Analyze the performance of your ABAP code

Firstly, Gekkobrain Code Optimizer automatically measures the quality and performance of your codebase, taking into account:

• Whether code is developed according to best practice
• Whether database calls are made as efficiently as possible
• Whether programs are difficult to maintain

Step 2. Identify inefficient and unnecessary code issues

On your dashboard you’ll be shown an overview of what the analysis discovered, broken down into three categories:

• The number of frequently used code items that can be adapted to increase performance
• The number of rarely used code items that can be adapted to increase performance
• The number of code items that are candidates for decommissioning

Step 3. Automatically delete ABAP code that can be safely decommissioned

It’s a little-known fact that around 60% of a system’s ABAP code is no longer used in the productive environment.

The Gekkobrain Performance Optimizer identifies this obsolete code and lets you know if it can be safely deleted, with no negative effect on your systems. You can then delete it all with the click of a mouse, or, if you’d rather, go through the obsolete code and delete it line by line.  

Step 4. Automatically adapt the ABAP code that can be optimized for better performance

While scanning your database, the Gekkobrain Performance Optimizer will have discovered any issues based on SAP standard syntax checks, as well as most SELECT * statements in your ABAP code.

You’ll be provided with a list of ABAP code items which can safely be adapted to ensure higher-levels of performance in your SAP systems.

In addition, you’ll find detailed information on every code item identified as requiring optimization, including:

• The fix required
• How it can be fixed
• The time required for the fix
• Usage data
• Priority level

With the click of a button, all these issues are automatically adapted thanks to a Gekkobrain’s combination of clever algorithms. Once fixed, they are sent to your DEV system using the standard SAP Transport – where they can be reviewed, rejected or approved.

This all happens extremely quickly and efficiently, with Gekkobrain even generating a list of transactions to run in order to test the refactored code.

Step 5. Monitor newly written code to ensure continuous improvement

Once you’ve got the Gekkobrain Code Optimizer up and running, it tracks any new instances of inefficient or redundant code and notifies you immediately — so any newly-written code doesn’t slip through the cracks. This ensures your SAP systems are continuously improving and you’ll always be getting the most from them.

Cleaning up your ABAP code is a surefire way to dramatically improve the performance of your SAP systems and the Gekkobrain Code Optimizer solves the significant problem of lengthy projects to adapt inefficient code. To find out more about cleaning up ABAP code watch our free webinar.