Efficiency Lever

NTT Data Business Solutions uses Empirius

In a realignment of the SAP Basis topic and task area "Management of SAP system copies", the top priority at the established SAP service provider NTT Data Business Solutions with more than 12,000 employees and several thousand customers in 30 countries was: automation and standardization efforts and the associated achievement of sustainable efficiency benefits. SAP system copies are provided and managed by various units of the Cloud Managed Services business unit with several data centers in Germany and abroad. This is responsible for the technical operation of SAP customer systems worldwide. In addition to "classic" managed services, public cloud services (Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure) have also been offered for some years. 

Clarity through PoC

As Ulrich Meine, Head of Hyperscaler Engagement Global Managed Services at NTT Data Business Solutions, explains, "we wanted to optimize the management of SAP system copies, which in the past was based on partially automated processes across several teams, in line with requirements and fit. One of the primary objectives was to cover the topic as comprehensively and sustainably as possible and to benefit significantly from the change to a software solution in terms of automation of SAP system copies. We aimed for the end-to-end deployment of a focused, smart, powerful and professional SAP system copy environment." 

“One of the primary objectives was to cover the topic as comprehensively and sustainably as possible and to benefit significantly from the switch to a software solution.“

Ulrich Meine, Head of Hyperscaler Engagement Global Managed Services, NTT Data Business Solutions

Another goal was for all business units to work with a consistent, usable environment, with configuration and management from a central location.

Furthermore, the degree of automation should be significantly increased in order to minimize resources and capacities in system copying and use them for other SAP infrastructure tasks. At the same time, the time required to create SAP system copies was to be significantly reduced. The company also wanted to improve the process quality when creating these copies. Another objective was to provide a customer self-service within the managed cloud services for system copying with an appropriate solution environment. 

Following a market evaluation and a PoC (proof of concept/feasibility study), NTT Data Business Solutions opted for SAP system copying solutions from SAP Basis and automation specialist Empirius last fall. Namely, for BlueCopy (system refreshes) and for BlueClone (sandbox creation) in combination. After a short and smooth system implementation (without extensive customizing) and training, both solutions went live as planned and as shown in the PoC.

To date, Empirius standard solutions have been used to smoothly and profitably implement a triple-digit number of SAP system copies by NTT Data Business Solutions' Managed Services business unit, according to the company.

"In the foreseeable future, we will certainly increase the number of SAP system copies to a four-digit number with the standard SAP Basis automation environment in use. As a result of the optimized process flows and automation, we see significantly reduced run and turnaround times for these system copies. In addition to the increased service quality for our customers, we are of course also pleased about the associated resource or capacity savings.", says Meine. 

New self-services

SAP system copies are generated by cloud managed services for very different reasons: for example, because of a QA system refresh request or to have the latest P data ready in other systems.

There is another aspect that is firmly in focus with the use of the standard SAP Basis automation environment: namely, that customers will in future be provided with the "SAP system copies" service partly as self-services and via portal, insofar as the system landscapes permit this. The plan is for them to be able to both commission SAP system copies and generate them themselves simply via the NTT Data Business Solutions customer portal. This addresses "classic" managed services and public cloud services customers. 

The two companies also work together closely and in a problem-solving manner on other topics related to the creation of SAP system copies. For example, in the area of data reduction in connection with Hana solutions or in the anonymization or alienation of data.