Modern architectures and technologies enable SAP S/4HANA Intelligent Enterprise Implementations with SAP Activate:
This second part of the SAP Cloud Activate overview is focused on SAP Cloud Architecture and Technology, based on the introduction SAP S/4HANA Activate Cloud Innovation.
The sections below describe activities which are common for both RISE S/4HANA cloud deployment options and highlights deployment specific tasks separately.
Some common technical and linked functional/project management key activities in the SAP Activate Discovery phase for RISE S/4HANA Cloud editions are:
Provisioning the initial landscape is a technical key activity the SAP Activate Prepare phase for RISE S/4HANA Cloud editions. SAP Cloud systems like SAP Cloud ALM for Operations or SAP BTP have to be made accessible and introduced with documentation to build a cloud mindset.
Technical architectures for implementations of RISE S/4HANA Private Cloud editions (PCE) have to be defined in the Activate Prepare phase based on cloud architecture best practices.
Some technical preparation activities in the S/4HANA Cloud Activate Prepare phase for system conversions to RISE PCE are to perform readiness checks, to establish custom code quality management and to use further preparation tools.
SAP S/4HANA Readiness Check is a self-service to identify technical or functional impacts which have to be considered in conversion or upgrade project planning. The data upload for Readiness Checks has to be prepared in an production like system with the implementation of SAP Notes for analysis collectors. Collected data files need to be reviewed to delete or mask any sensitive data.
The Readiness Check triggers a Simplification Item check which informs about the relevance and consistency of simplification items. Findings get ranked by efforts low (few days effort), medium (few weeks), potentially high (depends on customer-specific setup) or assessment required. Each simplification items get listed with steps needed for the conversion from a business and technical point of view. Running SUM also triggers a Simplification Item check and stops in case of inconsistencies.
Further outcomes of the SAP S/4hana Readiness Check are:
Data Volume Management (DVM) is a important technical preparation step to reduce data size with corresponding migration time and costs. DVM considers the S/4HANA data model and HANA tiering options. Sandbox environments offer best practices for technical or functional exploration and test conversion environments.
Additional resource requirements for migration server or shadow system have to be planned. The shadow system consists of two components, shadow instance ABAP stack on the server where SUM is started and the shadow repository on the target database. Shadow systems are created during uptime to reduce downtime processing and time.
PCE Activate Prepare - New Implementation
Defining the Data Migration Approach and Strategy is an important activity for New Implementations of RISE Private Cloud editions.
Technical SAP Cloud Architecture get designed based on the information collected during the Discovery phase. Cloud architectures have to define strategies for high availability to fulfill SLAs, disaster recovery options, resilient application server landscapes and Defense in Depth security implementations.
System tenancy is implemented deployment specific, multi-tenant for public cloud and a single tetant for private cloud (PCE).
S/4HANA Public cloud edition is a multi-tenant software as a service (SaaS) offering with multiple self-contained and fully isolated tenant databases. These tenant databases share computing resources, memory, server bandwidth, database system software installation and system administration.
RISE S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (PCE) Architecture
RISE S/4HANA Private Cloud editions are provisioned by SAP as three tier environments (except XXS size with 2 systems) with a defined amount of application servers.
The HANA memory scalability is coupled with t-shirt sizes to the system size and application server amount. More application servers can be requested with additional costs.
Conversions or migrations can be performed by partners and need temporary storage for Brownfield scenarios.
Private Cloud Defense in Depth architectures implement three security layers. The operational security layer implements data replication from production for disaster recovery scenarios (additional set of IP range optionally).
Network Security Layers are realized as dedicated single tenant on the hyperscaler platforms. Customers are responsible to establish connectivity with a dedicated private network (preferred) or via VPN. The private CIDR address range (IPv4 subnets: /22 for PCE network and /27 for backup) of this connection has to be non-overlapping with the on-premise network and without IP address 198.18.0.0/15 which is reserved for benchmarking / testing by RFC 6890.
Application Security Layer has to be implemented within a dedicated zone under the customer internal DNS domain. Web application firewalls are defense level to protect against SQL injection and Cross-side-scripting.
Common technical key activities in the SAP Activate Explore phase for RISE S/4HANA Cloud editions are to define the detailed technical strategy. Readiness Checks offer deep-dive analysis of custom code and data consistency for detailed project management.
The Activate realization of RISE S/4HANA Cloud PCE implementations has to implement cloud architecture aspects like Defense in Depth security, scalable workloads, high available and resilient systems, disaster recovery scenarios, performance and data quality aspects.
Cloud architectures, illustrated in the diagram below, enable high availability systems with duplicated ABAP SAP Central Services (ASCS with Message and Enqueue Server), Primary (PAS) and Additional Application Server (AAS), Primary and Secondary databases.
Deployments have to consider the priority and dependency constraints of resources to be and have to move together bundled migration groups of tightly connected applications.
S/4HANA Fiori Setup
S/4HANA Fiori User Experience has to be enabled with the Fiori Launchpad setup. SAP offers tools for rapid content activation and to manage Fiori apps with content.
The Fiori App Manager offers capabilities to maintain technical catalogs and launchpad app descriptor items. App descriptors are defined as target mapping between app resource and one or more tiles.
Cloud Activate Realize - System Conversion
System conversions in S/4HANA Cloud Activate Realize phases shall convert current ERP Systems (Any DB or HANA) with minimized disruption for existing business processes and downtime. The SAP Software Update Manager (SUM) tool supports this realization.
SUM technical conversions are performed with Software Update, DB Migration, Data Conversion steps. These steps require a simplification Item consistency check without serious issues.
The Obsolete Data tool enables clean up of obsolete data, originated from SAP S/4HANA data model simplifications, after conversions. Custom code adjustments can be finalized.
FIN data conversions take place in Customizing (IMG) activities, followed by functional conversion and cut-over.
SUM Database Migration Option (DMO)
The SUM Database Migration Option (DMO) avoids landscape changes (SID, host name) and allows the combination of all relevant steps for the in-place migration to the target database (unicode conversion, update, migration) in one tool. The source database remains consistent to reset the migration procedure.
DMO system conversions to cloud platforms require the installation of a new Primary Application Server (PAS) on the hyperscaler platform.
S/4HANA Downtime Optimization Options
SAP offers various downtime optimization options for conversions or upgrades. Standard processing requires downtimes for table replacements, kernel switch, AIM (After import method), XPRA (automatically ABAP execution after transport), SPAU modification adjustment.
System conversions to cloud target have to be planned with transfer times. Downtime-optimized conversions for HANA or non-HANA DB transfer large tables to target to execute data conversion and migration (if required) in partly uptime.
DMO with system move transfers data with files and offers a parallel mode to run SUM on source and target system with multiple jobs. DMO parallel mode exports source database in parallel with import of target database and performs long-running shadow system activities in uptime. The DMO parallel mode does not support downtime optimization and has to be planned with a temporary migration server for file transfers to the cloud.
One-step plain DMO for Azure (propably available for Hyperscaler in the future) transfers data via r3load pipe mode with downtime optimization options and without the need of additional servers.
Near Zero Downtime (NZDT) is a service to perform upgrades or migration with source HANA DB which performs DMO on a cloned production system, followed by a delta replay.
The Zero Downtime Option (ZDO) is applicable to perform major release upgrades as well as feature or support package updates of SAP S/4HANA 2020 or higher without additional licenses. ZDO cannot be used for migrations.
Cloud Activate Realize - New Implementation
Some main activities in the S/4HANA Cloud Activate Realize phase for New Implementations are the initial migration data loading and new custom code implementations.
Cloud Activate Realize - System Copy
System copies of SAP S/4HANA systems require additional resources for HANA offline backups, the upload of source system backups to cloud storage and tools. In a system copy scenario, the Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM) triggers the restore and run post processing.
S/4HANA Cloud Activate Process Realization
S/4HANA Cloud offers enhanced options to realize business processes.
Responsibility Management maps business processes to team categories to determine responsible agents. Responsibility definitions have to be defined with team attributes and functions need to be assigned with work tasks to team members. Team members are business partners associated with a business user and role Employee, Service Provider or Freelancer.
Situation Handling communicates information about current business situations to end users. Notifications on the SAP Fiori Launchpad, emails or messages in relevant apps enable decisions or automations. The Situation Handling engine evaluates event triggers with context and proposes a solution. Situations require attention like approaching deadline, pending task, surpassed threshold or deviating demand.
Workflows are particularly suitable for processes running repeatedly or involving many agents. Workflow definitions specify the sequence of tasks (work packages). Initiated tasks get assigned as work items to responsible agents.
Ongoing technical key activities in the SAP Activate Deploy and Run phases for RISE S/4HANA Cloud Editions are system extensions and optimizations. Extensibility items get displayed with associations and dependencies in the Extensibility Inventory app.
System optimization and operation has to be implemented with Change Management, Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), Alerting, Knowledge transfer and training. Monitoring on infrastructure and application level can be implemented with SAP Solution Manager or hyperscaler tools.
The SAP Cloud ALM Implementation Portal is a key component of the S/4HANA Public Cloud Deploy and Run phases. SAP Cloud ALM helps to manage automatically generated or adapted implementation tasks for customer's scope and enables monitoring the implementation progress in real time.
S/4HANA Cloud in-app extensions can be with the Export-/Import Software Collection app.
RISE PCE Roles & Responsibilities
The documented roles and responsibilities for activities in the SAP Activate Deploy and Run phases of RISE S/4HANA Cloud editions are part of the contract between SAP and customers.
Technical system operations and update installations are performed by SAP on customer request. One system deployment option is the Cloud Appliance Library (CAL) since SAP S/4HANA 2020 FPS02 with a production-ready deployment option on Microsoft Azure and custom installation plan (non-HA, HA).
SAP Enterprise Support includes collaboration, empowerment, innovation & value realization, mission critical support pillars. Cloud Application Services (CAS) are offered by SAP with a separate contract and include offerings for e.g. business improvements, application or integration management.
Application Management Services (AMS) can be taken over by partners to manage application changes and deployments, integrations of data or cloud solutions, improvements of business processes, IT operations.
RISE PCE Data Management & Extensions
The SAP Data Volume Management (DVM) offers a Solution Manager launchpad and a Dashboard in the ONE Support Launchpad to minimize growth with data avoidance, summarization, deletion and archiving.
In-app extensions can be deployed with the Configure Software Packages and Register Extensions for Transport apps.
S/4HANA Cloud solutions offer continually innovations with new releases of the technology stack (S4CORE, ABAP, NetWeaver).
S/4HANA Public Cloud innovation releases are offered quarterly 2-system landscapes (2SL) and semi-annual for 3-system landscape (3SL) are named YYMM. Enhancements are automatically pushed to customer's scope in 2SL. The Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool provides an personalized overview on changes to customers scope at each release. SAP notes are applied as emergency patch or hotfix.
Private Cloud Edition (PCE) innovation releases are named YYYY and will be deliverered with two-year release cycle. Feature Pack Stacks (FPS) include non-disruptive features. Support package stacks (SPS) are technically similar to FPS, but contain only corrections and no new functionality. SPS numbers are consecutive to FPS and contain features of previous FPS. SPS are delivered for previous release, after new release is available, until the end of mainstream maintenance.
The mainstream maintenance of S/4HANA Private cloud software is limited to 5 (from 2023 release on 7) years. PCE systems have to be upgraded at least every five (seven) year to stay within the mainstream maintenance. Customers could technically skip innovation releases, but this is not a recommended strategy.
S/4HANA Releases with at least 9 months of mainstream maintenance left are supported for PCE conversion. Lower S/4HANA releases have a limited maintenance policy and production systems have to be upgraded to latest S/4HANA within two weeks after migration.
Release related Information is available as SAP Roadmaps and with the What's New Viewer in the SAP Help Portal.
S/4HANA Cloud Sizing in the Activate Discovery phase requires different strategies to translate business requirements to needed hardware resources (RAM, CPU, server, bandwidth, IO).
S/4HANA Cloud system sizes are defined by FUE (full user equivalent) metrics. A single FUE is corresponding to advanced user e.g. sales order management 5 core user (e.g. production control, maintenance management), 30 self service users (e.g. goods movement, physical inventory).
RISE S/4HANA Cloud PCE specific is that 0.5 FUE corresponds to 1 Developer and the sum of FUEs correspond to the hardware provisioning / HANA size. RISE S/4HANA Cloud public contracts include 100 GB HANA memory and additional memory has to be subscribed.
Data sizing shall be prepared with data reduction by archiving no longer needed business data and the deletion of outdated data.
There are different HANA Sizing tools available for the S/4HANA transition paths and deployment scenarios.
The HANA QuickSizer supports greenfield sizing with two sizing models implemented (user or business processes throughput). QuickSizer versions are available HANA-based, HANA-based Cloud and non-HANA based. The HANA-based Cloud version is simplified with only 2 KPIs (HANA RAM, Frontend Network Load). Report /SDF/HDB_SIZING is available for ECC conversions.
HANA-based sizing provides an overview about memory and disk areas to plan Native Storage Extensions (NSE) for warm data.
The peak memory utilization can be checked before rehosting and replatforming of HANA-based systems with tools like:
Fiori sizing has to consider different requirements of transactional and analytical processing. Fiori and network sizing include:
Technical preparation steps for RISE PCE S/4HANA conversions are performed in uptime processing in the source system with tools like Maintenance Planner, Simplification Item Checks (SI-Check), ATC or the Technical Downtime Optimization app.
Simplification Item Checks help to correct simplification item issues based on specific target release version. The corresponding simplification item catalog (SIC) has to be freezed (downloaded) once after DEV system conversion.
The cloud-based Maintenance Planner is part of the Solution Manager and shall be used as central planning tool for updates, upgrades, conversions, migrations and installations. Pre-checks validate industry solutions, add-ons and business functions.
Business functions switched on in the source SAP ERP, but defined as “ALWAYS_OFF” in SAP S/4HANA, will block a system conversion. Few business functions can be deactivated with special procedures in production systems. Not supported add-ons can be deleted or uninstalled with SAP tools (SUM, SAINT) or configuration tool (transaction code conf_uninst). Further Maintenance Planner tasks are to check SAP notes, upload system landscape data from Solution Manager and download stack.xml as basis for technical conversion with Software Update Manager (SUM).
Custom code preparations and clean-up is supported by tools like SAP GUI transactions for analysis (ATC), scoping (SCMON, SUSG, UPL) and with Custom Code Migration Worklists (SCI). The Eclipse ABAP Development Tools (ADT) offer automatic code adaptations with quick fixes.
The Custom Code Migration SAP Fiori app can be setup on the BTP with CIAS. Some features of the Custom Code app are to detect critical performance hot spots, to prioritize opportunities for custom code optimization, Greenfield project support, to identify unused custom code and determine BTP ABAP compatibility. Downloaded results of custom code checks can be uploaded for Readiness Checks.
RISE S/4HANA Cloud X-System Landscapes
SAP landscapes with 3 systems (3SL - Development, Quality, Production) offer better transportation and quality management options than 2-system-landscapes (2SL).
2-system (2SL) RISE Cloud editions offerings are PCE with XXS size and S/4HANA Public Cloud 2SL. RISE PCE XXS can be extended with license costs for additional application servers and limited scalability, because additional systems have to be subscribed with a minimum time period of several months or permanent.
Limitations of 2-systems (2SL) regarding development and configuration are e.g. conflicting client independent implementations in multi client system. Implementation freeze periods have to be planned for transportation and update management without separated quality system.
Within 2-system landscapes (2SL) only one system has production size, which has to be considered for test planning, data migration and system copies. System setups as production system copies require masking of confidential data.
Other PCE and future S/4HANA Public Cloud editions will be contracted and deployed with default 3 systems.
RISE S/4HANA Public Cloud 3-system (3SL)
SAP S/4HANA Cloud 3-system (3SL) will be updated first in the Test system, followed by parallel updates of development and production systems. This approach enables developments and configurations during software upgrades without freeze. Implementation projects can only be transported from development to production with same software version. Furthermore, parallel independent implementation projects with separated transports are supported.
Software upgrades of 3-system S/4HANA public cloud landscape (3SL) are separated from content planned 2 times a year. Content upgrade is fully controlled by customers and can be flexible planned before the next major software release.
S/4HANA Public Cloud 2-System Landscape (2SL)
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public 2011 introduced SAP Central Business Configuration (CBC) as successor of the Manage Your Solution app.
S/4HANA Cloud Public subscriptions include a Starter system (for scoping) with model company (preconfigured with Best Practices and sample data) to enable the project team. Starter systems are not configurable during implementation and will be decommissioned approximately 30 days after production system provisioning.
Quality systems have to be requested at the end of the Explore phase. They are preconfigured with Best Practices without model company sample data.
The productive system provisioning has to be requested immediately after receiving the active quality system, to ensure that both systems are on the same release level.
On the Release to Customer (RTC) date, new enhancements are announced by product management and the latest release content is published. Customers are notified 6 weeks prior to the Quality system upgrade per email.
Upgrades with new innovations are executed by the service center in two waves. Quality systems are upgraded the first weekend after RTC, Starter and Production systems are upgraded the third weekend after RTC.
The impact of changes can be reviewed by using the Release Assessment and Scope Dependency (RASD) tool. SAP notes are applied as part of an emergency patch or hotfix.
S/4HANA Public Cloud 2SL Transport Management
Transports shall be scheduled on Tuesday before Q-System upgrade latest. Imports will be locked latest from Thursday before Q-System upgrade until the end of P-System upgrade.
Changes can only be transported from Quality to Production, after both systems are on the same release level and new scope items are activated in both systems.
Change projects can only be created in the quality system after the previous change has been imported to the productive system. Released configuration get queued for transport into the productive system and get automatically imported approx. at 11pm (SAP Note 2707813). Unlike business configuration, extensibility software collections aren't imported automatically.
CBC configuration changes can also be imported immediately in P system with the Import Collection app.
SAP Cloud ALM (CALM) is a cloud-based operations platform for cloud centric customers. CALM for Operations manages Detect, Analyse, Correct and Automate lifecycle phases on cloud and hybrid landscapes. CALM covers problem management from detection (monitoring), routing (alarms + events) to resolution (automation, root cause analysis).
Public cloud services can be registered to CALM as import from System Landscape Information Service (SLIS), via push-enabled registration or manually. Transaction /SDF/ALM_SETUP enables the registration of on-premise systems.
CALM for operations supports intelligent event management with inbound and outbound unification.
CALM Dashboards provide insights on data collected with pull and push mechanisms with monitoring of the following areas:
CALM Business Service Management receives cloud system notifications about planned and unplanned downtimes (maintenance, degradations, outages) from Cloud Availability Center (CAC).
The CALM Test Management is based on SAP Best Practices content and process-based requirements. CALM tests are lean with simple concepts, agile as soon as possible and targeted scope, process and requirement oriented. CALM offers test traceability (preparation, coverage and execution) and automation e.g. with S/4HANA Cloud automation tool.
SAP offers the Fiori app Migrate your Data as tool to migrate data for S/4HANA public and private cloud editions. Standard business objects are migrated with templates and automated mappings, predelivered by SAP based on customers solution scope. Relevant data migration objects are automatically determined depending on the activated scope items.
Scope items with best practices are available to import standard Migration Objects or custom modelled migration objects. These scope items describe data migration from File (BH5) or Staging Tables (2Q2) (local/remote) and recommend XML file upload for local staging.
S/4HANA public cloud data migrations require the activation of Scope Item 2Q2. Remote database staging integration can be enabled with communication Arrangement Migration Cockpit Integration (SAP_COM_0259) and HANA DBaaS deployment on BTP. Migration users have to own the business role SAP_BR_CONFIG_EXPERT_DATA_MIG and corresponding roles for each migration objects.
RISE S/4HANA PCE data migrations allow direct connections to source database with staging tables to be filled with suitable tools e.g. SAP Data Services. The migration object modeler tool enables to define migration objects and enhance existing objects.
Further RISE S/4HANA PCE data migration tools are:
Some common Data Migration characteristics for both RISE S/4HANA cloud editions are:
- comment end -