What is the SLD used for?

• Repository used for storing landscape information. Its does not provide any landscape administration tools
• SLD manages software components and platform dependencies
• It acts as a central information provider for NetWeaver systems and other administration tools
• Facilitates Installations, upgrades and transports

What are the SAP Recommendations on the use of SLD?

• SAP recommends that you use a single System Landscape Directory (SLD). The cost of running the SLD infrastructure increases with the number of SLD instances. In particular, adding a second SLD involves additional costs for synchronizing data between these two instances. From a cost perspective, it is preferable to configure a single SLD.
• The following factors can make a multiple-SLD architecture necessary:
  • Legal constraints
  • Company Rules
  • Network Constraints (e.g. firewalls, availability of resources) 

What does SLD use to communicate with client applications?

• By using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)

What are the 2 main areas of the SLD?

• The Software Catalog describes the installed products and their constituent components.
• The Systems Catalog describes the systems in the data center from two perspectives

The information from the software catalog is used by which component of the Integration Builder?

• Integration Repository to organize development efforts.  All design work in the Integration Repository is organized by Software Component Version. This makes sense, as interfaces logically belong to a software component and to a particular version.

The information from the systems catalog is used which component of the Integration Builder?

• Integration Directory to drive the specific configuration of Integration scenarios. Routing Relations in the Integration Directory point to the Business Systems that are maintained in the System Catalog of the SLD, and through the appropriate association, to the technical systems.

What information is defined in the Software Catalog?

• Product: Represents a collection of all versions of a product. In an SAP environment, a product corresponds to an SAP technical component, e.g. 4.6c, 4.6d, 4.7
• Software Component: Represents a collection of all versions of a software component. Examples of Software Components are SAP_APPL, SAP_ABA, SAP_HR, etc. 

What information is defined in the System Catalog?

• Technical System correlates the software to the physical host on which it is installed. Each technical System can have multiple business system associated with it.
• Business systems are Logical systems that function as senders and receivers in XI

How to Defining Business System?

       For defining Business Systems, the four important pieces of data are:
       1.Business System Name (must be unique in the landscape).
       2.Associated Technical System, and if the Business System will be used with IDOC interfaces, a Logical System Name. Note that multiple Business Systems can be defined off of a single technical system (for instance, each numbered client of an SAP system is a unique Business System).  The logical system name is mandatory in case the Business system will act as a sender or receiver of IDocs. In this case it should match exactly the logical system name as defined in the SAP client (if the Business system is of type WebAS-ABAP). The IDoc adapter will make use of this entry to resolve a Business system name into an ALE logical system name and vice-versa.
      3.The Software Products (and associated SWCV's) that are used by the Business System.  The products are brought through from the Technical System definition;  but for a particular Technical System, not all products will necessarily be associated with a particular Business System.  For instance, you may install mySAP SRM and mySAP CRM solutions as separate clients on a single (technical) system; but the Business System definition for each would only include the appropriate product (SAP SRM or SAP CRM).
The Related Integration Server.  Application systems are associated with particular Integration Servers, which makes change management in the XI landscape easier.
    4.All of these settings can be defined in the Business System wizard.