Purpose of the SAP system copy
Copying needs to be done skillfully
Administrators and SAP maintainers in the x86 world under Windows and various Unix derivatives can nowadays choose from a wealth of software solutions for system support. In contrast, administrators in the System i world and SAP support staff in this environment are often left to their own devices. Nevertheless, the special system architecture and the peculiarities of the DB2 database integrated in the operating system, as well as the specific applications, also pose challenges for system tool developers.
An alternative to this is a refresh using a client copy. The test environment will then be missing audit documents, among other things, but the development objects will remain untouched. The client copy only works from a running SAP system, but it burdens the system with database queries and transfers data more slowly than a system copy. The affected client is not available during the copy process. Since there are no options within the client to select what all should be copied, the runtime is often unacceptable.
Automation tool reduces time required to create test environments
While homogeneous SAP system copy expects identical combinations of operating/database systems on the source and target systems, there is also a requirement for different combinations of operating/database systems on the source and target systems in the project environment (eg, during migrations). This is referred to as a "heterogeneous SAP system copy". Technically, it is quite possible to build up a degree of automation here as well, but officially certified consultants ("migration consultants") are required to perform the heterogeneous system copy.
For a long time, manual procedures dominated, supported by SAP (guidelines), in particular by predefined procedures and a large number of checklists. In many places, this was supplemented by scripts created in-house, which, however, only automated partial tasks/processes of an SAP system copy.
Powerful and sophisticated automation tools for the creation of SAP system copies provide a remedy here and, in addition to time and cost savings, demonstrably also make it possible, for example, to increase the process quality in system copying or to maintain it at a consistently high level. In effect, they free up SAP Basis. With "Shortcut for SAP Systems", you can sustainably relieve your administrators of the time-consuming routine activities of an SAP system copy.
For example, it is possible to automate quality assurance processes and successfully introduce new business functions without a costly and time-consuming SAP system copy.
Whereby the use of a single point of management and control has also proven its worth.