The target system
Planning Guide for the Connector for SAP Landscape Management
The term "system copy" describes the process of creating a copy of an SAP system on a new server. There are two types to be distinguished: homogeneous and heterogeneous system copy and one can get to the system copy in different ways.
Partial copies from SAP systems with the help of tools open up potential savings and in many cases make system copies and complete client copies superfluous. The ability to anonymize data reduces the effort required to comply with data protection regulations in training systems, for example. In addition, up-to-date, consistent test data improves the flexibility and quality of development and test environments. Users save money through reduced resource requirements.
Food for thought for another productive system: until when must the system be identical, keyword: transaction log
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.
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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.
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.
As mentioned above, an SAP system copy created for updates is a special use case of homogeneous system copy.
On www.sap-corner.de you will also find useful information about SAP basis.
A test environment that is as identical as possible to the production system is suitable for testing patches and release upgrades.