Validation

Validation provides a reporting to understand how homogeneous the configuration of systems is. Using centrally stored configuration data in SAP Focused Run to perform a validation of many systems using a sub set of the collected configuration data defined by the selected policy (see also the below figure):

1. Validation shows the results of a validation run based on rules of a policy (policies are maintained in policy management including check id and description).
2. In systems the validation results are aggregate on system level.
3. Details for a system shows all items checked by the chosen policy for a system.

Figure: Validation of systems

Policy Management

The validation rules collected in a policy are stored in a XML file. The rules are organized via checks. Each check has an ID and a description. It's possible to define a compliant and a non-compliant rule for a check. Each check is referenced using a check Id and a check description. Finally, the XML document is transferred to a SQL statement which is used for the validation of the items. Thus, validation can apply the policy to many systems in one run.

1. Rules organized via checks. Each check has an ID and a description
2. It's possible to define a compliant and a non-compliant rule for a check.
3. Join-combinations of rules are supported (within one store and between different stores)
4. Defining store hierarchies is supported (e.g. instance to host)
5. Compliant and non-compliant columns correspond to the config store structure available in browser.
6. The compliant and non-compliant rule itself are defined using a sub-set of HANA SQL.

Policies and their validation rules can be manually created and maintained in the Policy Management App, that is accessible via a link from the Configuration and Security Analytics. The easiest way for manual maintenance of policies is to transfer checks via copy & paste from an XML editor of your choice. The editor also allows to create an empty policy with basic XML code that is required in every policy. 

Policy Catalog

The Policy Catalog enhances the Policy Management Application by allowing users an easy deployment of ready-to-use XML policies without having any detail knowledge on syntax or structure of a policy.

It is typically used to consume SAP service content that is basically taken without manual changes. This applies in particular to policies for checking the deployment of SAP Security Notes and for policies reflecting the SAP Security Baseline Template. The idea of the Policy Catalog is to upload policies from an external data source, select the relevant checks and transfer them into active policies that are then used for validations and reporting. SAP publishes XML policies for selected SAP service content on GitHub.

It is possible to manually change a check that had been initially created through a catalog policy. In this case it is necessary to change the check id, so that the Policy Catalog recognizes the change and does not overwrite the rules at next update.

Working with the Policy Catalog comprises the following steps:

1. Upload a tested xml policy from local file or from a remote URL into catalog policies. When uploading from GitHub, make sure that the policy is displayed in “Raw” format.
2. Select an active policy for your validation context. The policy must have been created and generated in Policy Management application before.
3. Manually select check items from catalog. Only complete checks can be selected.
4. Merge selected check items into the active policy.
5. Repeat these steps (if you want) to merge checks from multiple catalog policies into one active policy or if you need the same check be merged into multiple reporting policies.
6. Go to Policy Management and generate the changed reporting policy.

For updating a policy after having changed it in the catalog, the following steps apply:

1. Upload a new version of the policy to the Policy Catalog
2. Select the previously used active policy
3. Merge checks into the active policy. Checks will be updated from the catalog policy based on the check id.

Exemptions for Policies

In Exemption for Policies application the exemptions of the rules defined in the policies can be specified. There are two kinds of exemptions: One exemption re-defines the validation outcome for a check id for assigned systems for a period. During this defined period the combination of system and check is not validated. The other exemption prevents a check id from becoming active at all before a due day is reached which is system independent. The validation application applies the exemptions by default but offers also to run the validation without the exemption.

The application supports a basic manual process. The following Information is stored when defining an exemption:

• Policy - Select a XML policy from drop-down box.
• Check - Select a check Id from drop-down box
• Exemption - Specify name of the exemption (length: 20 characters)
• Description - Provide a free text including all required references for documenting the exemption
• Valid from - Filled when selecting a data range as validity period of the exemption
• Valid to - Filled when selecting a data range as validity period of the exemption
• Due date - Filled when selecting a due date for the validity of the exemption
• Saved by                      Filled automatically when saving
• Saved at day                Filled automatically when saving
• Saved at time               Filled automatically when saving

To add or remove systems to an exemption you can use the same filter criteria as for scope selection.

The field “Description” is recommended for creating the references required from a process perspective (e.g. ticket numbers or URL link to relevant records). Exemptions always refer to a policy. Checks with identical check ID in other policies are not covered. Exemptions are limited to active policies. They cannot be applied to catalog policies.

At this point the exemption feature is implemented to allow a validation reporting that takes into account known and accepted non-compliances. Like the complete CSA application it is not meant to be an audit-proof tool by itself. Moving towards such more advanced use-cases likely requires integration with software products designed for managing compliance.

Policies – Customer – Assignment

In Policies – Customer – Assignment it is possible to restrict the visibility of policies to customers.
If no customer network is assigned, a policy is visible to users of all customers that are authorized for the policy (authorization object SRSM_CV_TS). As soon as one or more customer networks are assigned to a policy the policy is only visible for users that are authorized for an assigned customer network and the policy.
The assignment is done by selecting a policy and then in Edit mode selecting the customer networks followed by pressing ‘Restrict'. Thus, a policy can be blocked e.g. during developing phase for the end users.
If afterwards the policy is supposed to get released for all customers, just press ‘Remove Restriction'.

Configuration Validation Alert Management

The target of Configuration Validation Alert Management is to define settings for alerts based on validation results. The selected policy is defining the rules for the validation. These policies consist of checks describing rules to validate configuration items either as compliant or non-compliant. Alerts for non compliant results on system, config store, check or item level are pushed to ‘Alert Management' of Advanced Event & Alert Management. A setting consists of an ID and description, a policy and an information for which systems an alert should be created. The systems are selected via the standard system scope dialog. For the frequency Hourly, Daily or Weekly is accepted. Finally, an alert definition can be set to active (ON) or not active (OFF).

Notification and Outbound assignment can be done per system in CSA Administration using ‘Configuration' of systems.

In Alert Management the generated alerts are assigned to the Monitoring Use Case ‘Configuration & Security Analytics' which can be selected in the Scope Selection screen.

Changes

Changes provides an overview of the changes that have been applied to the managed systems. It also displays the number of changes per system, store and day. It reports changes of configuration items of a system (for example, OS, DB, ABAP parameters, Java parameters, transport requests, and Support Packages). Changes helps to keep track of the changes in the solution landscape. The development system might behave differently than your production system. Or, J2EE instances of your productive system behave differently and you need to find out the reason. Therefore, regular snapshots of the configuration settings are taken and stored in the configuration and change database (CCDB) of SAP Focused Run. With this information, changes enable to identify the adjusted items. Changes displays the number of detected changes for a technical system in scope (see also the below figure):

1. The overview displays a list of systems sorted by changes and a chart that groups the systems according the number of changes.
2. Drill down into changes for a system
3. Drill down into changes for a config store
4. Drill down into change history of an item
5. Change the time frame selection (date range)

Figure: Changes

Changes are a common starting point for analyzing issues in the solution landscape. Imagine that something worked yesterday, but it is not working anymore today. The first question would be what changed in between?

Changes is the tool to analyze issues like this. The tool starts with an overview of the overall changes which have been applied to the landscape. You can use the timeframe selection, to limit the timeframe to the point when the problem occurred first.

Search

Search finds configuration items by an entered string. The search is done by looking for field contents that fit exactly, except when the wildcard * is added. The wildcard * stands for any characters. If the character * should be found as a character the back slash must be placed in front of it for escaping. E.g. sap* finds all items having the string sap followed by some additional characters stored. Search will find the user SAP*, if sap\* is used as search string.

If just one character is unknown, use the? for it, e.g. sap? finds strings that are four characters long and start with sap.

The result is displayed in a table having a common structure, because items of config stores having different structures (columns) might be found.

ConfigItemKey holds the collected keys and Value the collected data fields of an item. Type of event provides information whether the item is still unchanged which means INITIAL or has got ADDED or UPDATED after the very first snapshot. The History of Item displays the current and the previous value with its time stamp (column Element History).

‘Switch table view' displays the items of the selected config store in a table which creates a column for each key and value fields. It is also possible to display the history of an item by selecting the row of the item.

The search has the following features:

1. Search allows to search for item names and values in CCDB. Search output can be filtered per config. store
2. The search result provides a common view for all items. A column view of a single config store is possible
3. Drill down into change history of an item
4. HANA search supports OR to combine patterns and supports wildcard *
5. \* searches for the character *

Store Browser and the Role of Config Stores

The single configuration details of systems connected to the SAP Focused Run are stored in the containers of a defined type called ‘Config Store‘ in the Configuration and Change Database (CCDB) which is a part of SAP Focused Run system. There are various kinds of Config Stores dependent on the source of the data: Property, Table, File, XML and Event.

In the example below, you can see the content of the Config Store SAP_KERNEL which contains details on both the currently implemented kernel attributes as well as the change history of the kernel. The Store Browser has the following features:

1. Store Browser displays all technical systems having config stores
2. Store Browser displays for a technical system all available config stores
3. It's possible to drill down into the config store content and into the item history
4. Timestamp shows the last extraction date. “Valid since” shows since when item is unchanged
5. A config store is always referenced to a landscape element