What is System Copy as a Service?
Downtime
An SAP system copy is an important part of a company's IT operations, as it helps reduce the risk of data loss. However, it is important to regularly schedule and monitor the creation of system copies to ensure that a working copy of the system is available in the event of an emergency.
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.
Critical factor: Availability
Packages that have not been explicitly assigned a special DDLORA file receive the DDL file specified via the "ddlFile=" parameter. The default is DDLORA.TPL.
The maturity and performance of automation tools for SAP system copying have evolved over a period of more than 15 years. The first tools for SAP system copy creation came from the mainframe environment.
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.
SAPinst/R3load - SAP standard method for ABAP systems - as of SAP Web AS Release 6.10 - OS and DB independent - for homogeneous and heterogeneous copies - for Unicode conversions.
To ensure that SAP solutions are nevertheless used optimally, decision-makers are well advised to regularly subject IT landscapes and applications to intensive testing.