Technical system copy for the upgrade
SAP SYSTEM COPY - in a nutshell
There are various ways to tame this time robber and reduce run times. For example, through parallelization or the automatic generation of secondary indices.
"The creation of SAP system copies used to represent an enormous effort," says Martin Schulz from SAP Basis Administration. Almost 4,000 employees worldwide access our SAP systems directly. If the SAP systems are down, then nothing works in many departments - and that certainly happened in the past. Although the actual copying process is completed in just a few hours, the manual post-processing - which includes, for example, adjusting parameters, users and rights, profiles, system settings and interfaces - can take up to a week. This keeps the entire seven-person SAP Basis team busy.
Automation tool reduces time required to create test environments
SAP offers its own solution for this: With the Test Data Migration Server (TDMS), individual tables can be selected and written indirectly, via a third SAP system, from the source to the target system via Remote Function Call (RFC). However, the selection of business objects is not possible in the standard system. The tables to be copied can only be determined on the basis of the date. The content restriction applies from a certain point in time. At least the SAP tool can be used to reduce the runtime of an extraction of test data compared to the system copy or client copy.
What is the purpose of copying a complete SAP system? - Well, there are several reasons. Test and development system: After a new productive system has been set up, at least one identical development system or even one test system is still needed. To avoid having to repeat the customizing (settings and configurations of the SAP modules and business processes) on these systems, it makes sense to make a copy. This is clearly the faster way to achieve the goal!
Tools such as "Shortcut for SAP Systems" are extremely useful in SAP system copy.
Procedure: - Identify the largest or longest running tables in the system that determine the total system copy time - Perform an initial copy of these tables at source system production time - Record the changes to these tables - Copy the delta using RFC, at source system production time - Use the standard procedure to copy all non-IMIG tables (downtime).
Understanding the structure and functioning of the system is especially important for IT administration. It is not for nothing that "SAP Basis Administrator" is a separate professional field. On the page www.sap-corner.de you will find useful information on this topic.
In this way, virtual copies of a logical volume, so-called snapshots, can be created.