SAP system deployment scenarios
Key solution steps
Quasi tick boxes instead of time-consuming handling of programming lines, so that the use is also possible for less experienced experts who have never or only few SAP system copies created. And this after little system training.
An alternative to this is a refresh using a client copy. The test environment will then be missing audit documents, among other things, but the development objects will remain untouched. The client copy only works from a running SAP system, but it burdens the system with database queries and transfers data more slowly than a system copy. The affected client is not available during the copy process. Since there are no options within the client to select what all should be copied, the runtime is often unacceptable.
Before shutting down the target system
In practice, customers have either built their own tools to make the appropriate configurations, or there are extensive lists of steps to be processed manually. This approach is time-consuming and error-prone.
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.
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.
The tools each offer a more or less generally understandable user guidance and are thus "out-of-the-box" products that do not require external consulting on implementation or application.
The professional handling of test data is also important with regard to applicable data protection and compliance guidelines.