SAP Standard Application Benchmarks
ERP
Sales & Distribution (SD & SD-Parallel)
The Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark covers a sell-from-stock scenario, which includes the creation of a customer order with five line items and the corresponding delivery with subsequent goods movement and invoicing.
It consists of the following transactions:
- Create an order with five line items. (VA01)
- Create a delivery for this order. (VL01N)
- Display the customer order. (VA03)
- Change the delivery (VL02N) and post goods issue.
- List 40 orders for one sold-to party. (VA05)
- Create an invoice. (VF01)
Each benchmark user has his or her own master data, such as material, vendor, or customer master data to avoid data-locking situations.
Important note: On January 1, 2009, the SAP SD Benchmark was updated. Alongside the upgrade to SAP Business Suite 7 and the SAP enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0, a number of additional, necessary updates were implemented. Business changes constantly, for example, Unicode and the use of the new general ledger are now common practice for SAP customers across all industries, and the SAP standard application benchmarks need to reflect this change. The updates are transparent; that is, the steps of the benchmark scenario remain unchanged. Please be aware that these changes make the SD benchmark more resource-intensive, which has a direct impact on the benchmark results.
SD Versus SD-Parallel
The SD-Parallel Benchmark consists of the same transactions and user interaction steps as the SD Benchmark. This means that the SD-Parallel Benchmark runs the same business processes as the SD Benchmark. The difference between the benchmarks is the technical data distribution.
An Additional Rule for Parallel and Distributed Databases
It is generally accepted that data distribution can significantly influence the benchmark result in a parallel environment. Therefore, in May 1996, the SAP Benchmark Council redefined data distribution to establish a means to reproduce and compare results within parallel benchmarks. The additional rule is: Equally distribute the benchmark users across all database nodes for the used benchmark clients (round-robin-method).
How to Appraise the Benchmark Results
Parallel benchmarks depend on the additional parameter "data distribution," which, by definition, does not exist in single database benchmarks. All tests show that the scalability of parallel databases significantly depends on the data distribution. When you compare SD Benchmark with SD-Parallel Benchmark results, you have to remember this difference.