SAP Profiles

This article answers the following queries:

• What are SAP Profiles? Why are they needed?
• What are the different types of SAP Profiles and their significance?
• What is the path of profile directory in SAP?
• What is the location of profiles in SAP?
• Which SAP profile is used to define system wide settings?
• What are the contents of Default profile ( DEFAULT.PFL), Start Profile and Instance Profiles ?
• What are the naming conventions of various SAP Profiles?
• If instance profile is modified, what needs to be done for the changes to take effect?
• If default profile is modified, what needs to be done for the changes to take effect?
• What is the significance of cdpro command in SAP related to AIX or HPUX Operating systems?
• If an instance profile is modified is it required to restart entire SAP system?
• What is the sequence in which SAP profiles are read by the SAP system?
• If some value is set for a parameter in default profile and in instance profile another value is set for an instance. For that instance which value will take precedence? Is it default profile value or instance profile value?
• What is the sap parameter that is used to set the profiles path in an SAP system? In which profile it would be set?

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SAP R/3 systems uses  Profiles  to define the properties of an SAP R/3 Instance such as the type and number of work processes, the size of main memory reserved for SAP R/3 and various parameters like multiple logon, idle time out value etc

There are 3 types of profiles in SAP.

They are

• DEFAULT.PFL (known as System Profile)
• Start Profile
• Instance Profile

All the profiles mentioned above are stored in the profile directory defined during installation of the SAP system.

This path can be set using DIR_PROFILE profile parameter in the start profile.

Ideally the path of profile directory would be

In Unix Systems :

/usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/profile or /sapmnt/<SID>/profile

In Windows NT :

\\<SAPGLOBALHOST>\sapmnt\<SID>\sys\profile

Tip: Please note in AIX or HP-UX environment, we can go to the above profile directory  

              location using cdpro command at Os level.

All instances of a SAP system can read these profiles with share ( Systems based on Windows ) or mount (Systems based on Unix) technology.

DEFAULT.PFL :  This profile exists uniquely in an SAP R/3 system. It means if there are 5 application servers in an SAP system, even then there will be only one DEFAULT.PFL file.

 It contains system-wide settings which include

• Name of the SAP system
• The database system
• Name of the enqueue server

Each SAP R/3 instance to be started reads this profile first. The information specified in this profile is very vital for the functioning of the SAP system.

START PROFILE :   Unlike default profile, the start profile is specific to an instance. It means if there are 5 application servers each will have one separate start profile with the settings specific to an instance.

The startup process of the SAP system is controlled by the start profile that is read by the start program [sapstart]. Here the services(eg: message, gateway, dialog , batch etc) that are to be started are listed. Hence every instance will have separate start profile.

In other words, the start profile determines how, where and under what name individual SAP R/3 services and processes are to start.

The naming convention of START PROFILE will be as below :

START_<instance><instance_number>_<host_name>

Eg: START_DVEBMGS00_prdserv4

For the start profile default names are assigned during the installation of an instance based on the services that are running on the instance. For example, DVEBMGS in the start profile above confirms that following services are available for that instance.

D – Dialog

V – Update

E – Enqueue

B – Batch

M – Message

G – Gateway

S -  Spool

INSTANCE PROFILE :   Like start profile, Instance profile is specific to an instance. It means if there are 5 application servers each will have one separate start profile with the settings specific to an instance.

 The runtime environment of the instance is configured in the instance profile.  In instance profile parameters specific to an instance can  be set like auto gui logout time(rdisp/gui_auto_logout), number of various workprocesses (rdisp/wp_no_dia),  memory related parameters like abap/buffer_size, em/initial_size_MB, rdisp/PG_SHM, rdisp/ROLL_SHM etc

The naming convention for the instance profile will be as below :

<SID>_<instance><instance_number>_<hostname>

Eg :  SQ1_DVEMBSG00_prdsapk1

During the installation of an SAP R/3 system, the profiles are created with standard values. Later it  is Basis administrator’s responsibility to tune the parameters.

The source code of the SAP Kernel already sets standard default values for most of the system parameters. However, you must specify some specific details like computer name, system name and distribution of resources in the profiles.

The SAP profiles are read during the startup of an instance. The values defined in the system profile (ie. DEFAULT.PFL) overwrite the standard settings in the source code. The values defined in the instance profile overwrites the parameter values of DEFAULT.PFL for the instance.

In case of any changes to System Profile ( DEFAULT.PFL or Default Profile), you must restart all the instances of the SAP system as this is common for all instances.

However in case of any changes to instance profile, it is sufficient to take restart of only that particular instance for the changes to take effect.

Sequence of SAP profiles that are read while starting SAP system :

• First start profiles of various instances are read by the sapstart program
• Secondly Default profile is read
• Finally, instance profiles of various instances are read.

Related Links :

How to change SAP parameters?