Pre- and post-processing
SAP Landscape Copies
Heterogeneous system copy: As the name suggests, the operating system and/or database on the source and target systems are different. One takes thus in the context of the copy a platform change. This procedure is currently gaining in relevance, as it is required for the migration from SAP ERP to S/4HANA. If the current system runs on Windows Server and SQL Server or Oracle, the target system must now run on Linux and SAP Hana.
Typically, the "homogeneous SAP system copy" process involves a large number of manual activities. A certain skill level is required for this, which leads to the fact that usually the employees of the SAP Basis department or external service providers realize the system copy. Depending on the structure and size of the systems, this process can take anywhere from hours to several days. In addition to making the target systems unavailable to operations and project teams, system and landscape copies also block SAP Basis administrators. Other challenges include the varying duration and quality (completeness) of the results depending on the processor, time dependency on the employees performing the work, etc..
Conclusion
In this context, generated jobs adapt to changes, even if, for example, a DB change, a release change or other changes have taken place. Nevertheless, once created copy jobs can be reused, which minimizes the maintenance effort and a certain susceptibility to errors. This is also the case when switching from one Any DB to another or when moving from an Any DB to Hana.
Users do not have to deal with individual tables, but can access a database of business entities. This means that they do not select tables, but business objects such as employees or documents. To do this, however, the tools must contain the object dependencies for SAP's complex data model. Even companies that offer the setup of test systems as a service rarely do this for any SAP dataset. In addition, users can define objects themselves to accommodate customizing and in-house developments.
"Shortcut for SAP Systems" provides an automated solution for many of the tasks involved in copying SAP systems by enabling the backup and restore of any table.
SAP Basis is the foundation of any SAP system. You can find a lot of useful information about it on this page: www.sap-corner.de.
However, it is important to regularly schedule and monitor the creation of system copies to ensure that a working copy of the system is available in the event of an emergency.
As mentioned above, an SAP system copy created for updates is a special use case of homogeneous system copy.