Automation of homogeneous SAP system copies
What is System Copy as a Service?
Different DDLORA* files can be assigned to the R3load packages. The assignment is done by a text file, which is given to the MigrationMonitor as parameter 'ddlMap = mapDDL.txt' and evaluated by it.
Until now, it has been common practice to create test systems as a client or system copy of the production system on a specific date. In these cases, a single client or the entire SAP system is duplicated. The corresponding instances of the SAP system have to be reinstalled. In addition, a copy of the source database must be created. These are standard procedures, but they can be disproportionately expensive for productive data sets of several terabytes. SAP and third-party tools for selective data extraction can significantly reduce the cost of deploying non-production SAP systems.
Applicability of Systemcopy as a Service
To build a target system that can be used for testing, development and training purposes, there are two different approaches: Users can reinstall an SAP system and import all transports and support packages that have also made it into the production system to date. However, when their number reaches the hundreds and thousands, the effort becomes disproportionately high. In addition, the data still has to be imported from the production system, for example via a client copy.
With "Shortcut for SAP Systems", a mature and yet very cost-effective product is available that offers useful functions for system copies. For example, SAP system users can be backed up and restored. Likewise, system-specific tables can be backed up before the system copy and restored after the system copy. And all this can also be automated.
Usually, three to four days have to be planned for this, during which the QA system - which in two-tier SAP environments is also the development system - is not available for the actual work.