Data in an SAP quality system can be several months old. Obsolescent information can hinder the work of developers testing a new business process or functional consultants exploring an issue. They might not be able to recreate the situation that users are going through in the production environment.
A solution is to refresh the quality system: to use a copy of the production system. This is referred to as an SAP System Refresh.
While it might seem to be a copying process from one system to another, there’s a lot more work done. Prior to users having access to the environment, the BASIS team is responsible for setting up the environment, organizing the refresh, confirming systems connectivity, and verifying key technical settings.
When learning SAP BASIS Training in Pune it will give students a hands-on experience of what it is like to be an administrator for the various systems in an organization.
Why Companies require an SAP System Refresh?
For most organizations, there are separate SAP systems for development, QA, and production.
The different environments have different purposes:
Development system: The system used by the developers and consultants during the construction of the application or its modification.
Quality system: For testing changes and for validating the business processes.
Production system: Application used by workers to actually run business operations.
The information in the quality system may change over time and become different than production. It can cause problems in testing business scenarios that rely on current customer data, purchase documents, financial transactions or material data.
A system refresh will help get the target system closer to the selected system at a given time.
For instance, a company wishes to test the use of a new purchase order process but the purchase order are newly developed purchase orders. The quality system has legacy procurement information, which means the testing team can’t recreate the desired scenario. The company could consider a refresh to represent the quality environment more towards production.
But, a refresh does not have to happen with every testing activity. When to perform it is a decision left to the organisations, depending on project needs, data policies, availability of the systems, and maintenance plans.
What Does the BASIS Team Check Before a Refresh?
Preparation is an important component of this activity. Unplanned refresh can cause a disruption to current work or unforeseen technical issues.
In general, the BASIS administrator will coordinate with the project team and review a few items before starting.
1. determine the source and target systems.
The administrator agrees on the data system to provide and receive data.
For instance, production could be the source and quality could be the target. IDs for the system, information about the database, information from the client and the technical environment must be verified.
2. Plan system downtime
The refresh might need to leave the target system unavailable while the activity is in progress.
The BASIS team works with functional consultants, developers, testers and business users to determine which time is best to conduct maintenance.
3. Review backup and recovery plans.
The team ensures backups and recovery procedures are in place. This is especially relevant since the refresh can update the information in the target environment.
4. Review the present activities of the target system.
The administrator probes to see if there is critical testing work or scheduled jobs or other activities running on the target system.
Prior to the refresh, the appropriate teams should be notified so as their efforts may not be lost.
What is involved in the SAP System Refresh?
Technical execution is based on the SAP landscape, database platform, hosting environment and refresh approach of the organisation.
In many environments, the process includes, but is not limited to, restoring or copying the source system’s database to the target environment by following an approved system-copy procedure.
The admin processes the documented steps in the specific SAP system instead of the same commands in each landscape.
As part of the process, the team checks to ensure that the source data is being copied to the correct target.
The refresh activity can be for SAP application configuration, database operations, and system-specific post copy procedures.
One important fact for students is that a system refresh isn’t just a copy of the individual tables in the database. It is a controlled technical activity, which should maintain the integrity of the target SAP environment.
What Should Be Done After Refresh?
This is where the BASIS administration is paramount. For instance, even if the database copy is successful, the target system might not be ready for normal testing right away.
Multiple checks might be necessary.
1. System identity and client settings
The administrator checks to see if the target system has the desired system identity and client configuration.
The team needs to ensure that they are not manufacturing, but in the quality environment.
2. RFC destinations
With Remote Function Call (RFC) destinations, SAP systems can communicate with other systems.
Once refreshed, existing RFC settings may need to be reviewed. It is important to avoid accidentally linking a quality system to production destinations when it is intended to link it to development or testing destinations.
The administrator assesses the appropriate placements and connections as per the landscape design.
3. Background jobs
Background jobs scheduled may be copied from source environment.
The BASIS team reviews the Job Schedule, and identifies jobs that should continue to run in the target system. Jobs that are related to production should not be running unintentionally in a refreshed quality environment.
4. Printers and external connection
The administrator verifies output devices, email connections, interfaces, and other external communications, if applicable.
For instance, a quality system should not include real customer invoices or business notifications, just because they were copied in to the system.
5. Users and authorisations
The team checks the user access and authorisation necessary in the target environment.
Testing users should not have unnecessary production level access to be able to perform their assigned activities.
6. Application and interface test is the test.
Lastly, technical and functional teams determine the usability of the system.
They might perform tests on login access, critical transactions, system connections, and certain business processes before allowing the environment to be used for normal processing.
This is a practical example for the SAP BASIS students.
For a company which is about to update its quality system with a production copy before a big project-testing cycle, there are many considerations to take into account.
The BASIS team is approved for the activity and a list of checkpoints is created.
The sequence below allows students to study this scenario:
- Determine the source and quality goal of the production.
- Discuss maintenance window and backup procedures.
- Know how to use the system-copy or database-refresh process.
- Investigate the target system following the database operation.
- Check on rfc destinations/external connections.
- Check scheduled background jobs.
- Check users, access and output devices.
- Coordinate functional testing prior to releasing system.
It can be helpful to have a discussion with students about what might be problems if the team is not checking background jobs or RFC destinations after the refresh.
For example, an incorrectly configured destination could cause the quality system to communicate with production. This is an example of why a post-refresh check is no routine chore.
What should students be learning during SAP BASIS Training?
Students who are interested in SAP system administration should gain knowledge on the technical activities that help to make SAP environments reliable.
Of course, in addition to system refresh concepts, the following learning areas are useful:
- System architecture and landscape management for the SAP system.
- The monitoring and administration of the system.
- User and authorisation management.
- Background job monitoring.
- RFC configuration and connectivity.
- Transport management.
- Basic principles of databases and backups.
- Copy and post copy activities in system.
- Troubleshooting and technical documentation.
Practical demonstrations are helpful, since they enable learners to gain insight on the interconnections of different administrative activities in an SAP landscape.
Get your SAP Admin knowledge up to scratch with Version IT
Refreshing an SAP system is much more than a data transfer from one system to another. In order to keep a usable system, proper preparation, technical execution, connectivity and post-refresh validation are all important.
If learners are thinking of taking SAP BASIS Training in Pune, they can get a better idea of what kind of tasks an SAP BASIS administrator is responsible for by knowing these activities.
Version IT offers students and professionals who are interested in enterprise technology, SAP related training. Learners can ask about the existing course syllabus, demonstrations of the practical application, the experience of the trainers and the opportunity to gain an understanding of real-world scenarios for SAP administration before attending the course.
It is important that students have some background understanding of an SAP landscape and how the activities of an administrator are performed, such as system refreshes, to give them a better understanding of SAP BASIS.
