Conclusion
Food for thought for another productive system: until when must the system be identical, keyword: transaction log
A non-production SAP system should also have the same repository status as the source system, regardless of the data transfer method chosen for the refresh. All the data that makes up an SAP system is stored in the repository. This includes, among other things, the definitions for the database fields and tables for master and transaction data.
Suitable tools make it possible to automate and accelerate the necessary creation of true-to-original SAP system copies, for example. This means that you have all production data available on your test system in a short time.
Planning Guide for the Connector for SAP Landscape Management
Of course, time savings also mean money savings. In addition, these processes for system copying using such automation tools can be planned, standardized and always run at a high level of process quality. Especially the latter is of great importance in SAP Basis departments (and of course also for service providers).
The freeware Scribble Papers is a "note box" in which all kinds of data can be stored. It takes in typed texts as well as graphics and entire documents. The data is then organised in folders and pages.
The process of creating system copies for updates can be broken down into different activities, as shown in Table 1. For each group, the software used for automation is shown, where "UC4" stands for UC4 Automated System Copy and "HP" stands for HP System Copy. All these activity groups are described individually below.
If you have used "Shortcut for SAP Systems" to save system-specific tables before the system refresh, several manual steps can be omitted - the data can be restored by restoring the data saved before the system copy.
For transport, the tool uses Idocs, which, however, can only be used to transfer small amounts of test data.
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.
A system copy can be created either with SAP transactions (R3trans, from R4.6C SAPinst) or at file and database level.