Algorithms and data structures

At the beginning of the conversation with CEO Thomas Failer, he mentioned the three terms: resilience, flexibility and individuality. Resilience has been a topic of discussion for some time. "This resilience must affect all areas along the entire value chain", says the founder and CEO of Data Migration International, DMI. "It starts with a more resilient IT infrastructure and extends to securing liquidity and making supplier and customer relationships more resilient."

Thomas Failer describes the situation as follows: "Companies that were able to address and retain their customers not only in person but also via virtual channels before the crisis obviously had an easier time in recent months. The same applies to those companies that did not have to start from scratch when switching to working from home, or those that had a diversified supplier network and were therefore able to redirect their supply flows regionally and nationally.

Globalization and resilience

Globalization will continue, but the regions will become more important again. In general, the issue of security of supply will become more important again, says Failer. This will not only have an impact on the structure of supply chains, but also on the distribution of production sites worldwide.

Incidentally, this does not necessarily have anything to do with egoism or nationalism, on the contrary, says Thomas Failer: "It even helps to fill globalization with more content, for example to give less developed countries the same access to medical care as developed countries. And let me add one more point: We will certainly see even more and even more internationally coordinated regulations in the coming years: permanent changes along the entire value chain."

A fundamental characteristic makes you more resilient. "If you have diversified your supply chains in such a way that the loss of even one important supplier or even an entire supply region can be quickly compensated for, you are better equipped to deal with supply shortfalls or interruptions caused by accidents or natural disasters", explains the DMI CEO. The accident in the Suez Canal and the coronavirus pandemic will not be the last and most spectacular of their kind.

Resilient conversion

Even if the term resilience was not yet in vogue when computer science students were programming with Pascal, the principles have remained the same since then. A well thought-out and consistent data structure makes the subsequent algorithm more resilient, which for the computer scientist means: less error-prone programming.
susceptible. As the title of Professor Niklaus Wirth's book correctly suggests, the terms algorithm and data structure are just two sides of the same coin.

No SAP inventory customer could do anything with the data from the Abap tables alone. Naturally, the ERP algorithm is required. But a stringent data structure brings resilience. This resilience in times of transformation and SAP conversion is enormously important for existing SAP customers. DMI delivers this resilience with its platform.

The new focus on adaptability and resilience is remarkable. "The pandemic has reinforced tendencies and convergent technology trends that were already there, in some cases for several years, and in some cases brought them into the spotlight in the first place. This is most easily understood in the area of customer relationships", explains Thomas Failer.

The main connection to the customer has long since ceased to be stationary retail or the postal service alone. Customer communication, purchasing and loyalty have been shifting strongly to the Internet for several years now. Those who had already made this shift came through the crisis best. The success of the e-commerce giants is no coincidence.

So much resilience gives the impression of a rather defensive, defensive attitude. Is this really forward-looking or innovative thinking? "It would be fundamentally wrong and harmful to confuse resilience with rigidity, to hunker down, so to speak, to wall oneself in and stoically accept the blows from outside. Rather, resilience means taking evasive action and, where this is not possible, redirecting the impact energy or even using it to your own advantage in your own movements."

Flexibility and availability

Flexibility is the next milestone after resilience "I am convinced of that. Let's start with the restructuring point." The interest of a buyer goes further than expected and, in the case of spin-offs, even coincides with the interest of the former parent company, for example with the aim of taking a business unit public as an independent company or in the case of management buy-outs.

This broader interest pursues two objectives in particular: "Freedom of choice for the future ERP system and minimization of the operational data to be transformed. Excessive forced investments in oversized systems and projects can severely hinder the launch", DMI CEO Failer knows from many successful customer projects.

The different interests of buyers and sellers can be summarized and aligned under the term governance. In order to hand over all relevant data and documents to the buyer, sometimes immense databases with different structures have to be searched through and then selected in a meaningful way.

These huge volumes and different data formats are typical for SAP landscapes that have grown over time. ERP systems with over twenty or more years of accumulated data in more than 80,000 tables, which have undergone three migrations and therefore have correspondingly different structures, are not uncommon here, as Thomas Failer knows from his professional experience. Selecting and filtering the relevant data and documents using standard methods is correspondingly time-consuming.

"In addition", emphasizes Failer, "Not all information relevant to a sale is in the SAP system's online database. Over the years, many existing SAP customers have repeatedly created archives, so-called ADK files. However, it is not possible to make a selection at the level of the individual data record or document."

However, it probably contains information that belongs to the buyer according to the contract. In order for the buyer to be able to access this information, it must continue to have access to these archives. This leads to extensive Transitional Service Agreements (TSA), which regulate the associated confidentiality and technical security issues down to the smallest detail.

The time horizon of these agreements can even extend to decades, for example 30 years or more for liability-relevant information in mechanical and plant engineering. As the contents of ADK archives can only be read via the associated SAP application, the regulations on external access by the purchaser must also relate to the application level.

TSA and ADK

"The TSA problem can even complicate upcoming transformation projects to S/4", warns CEO Thomas Failer. "From the buyer's perspective, access to the ADK archives must also be guaranteed after the transformation." In such a scenario, the seller's only option is to dissolve the affected ADK archives, transform the data and documents contained therein and filter out the part that concerns the buyer in order to hand it over.

With traditional approaches, this is time-consuming and expensive. But Thomas Failer has the solution: "With our approach of a separate data layer and environment for managing the entire lifecycle of historical information, however, this is much easier, faster and cheaper. What's more, our customers can select the stock of historical information from all legacy systems, not just from archives, according to any criteria, whether by customer, product, supplier, etc., and do so again and again. The possibilities therefore go far beyond the scenario just described of selecting the information relevant to a buyer."

The separation of the data level from the application level therefore appears to be necessary in terms of algorithms and data structures. The success of Pascal in computer science education after the "spaghetti codes" of the programming languages Fortran, Basic and others was therefore not surprising. More flexible makes sense, but also more resilient?

"If we agree that more resilient means being able to respond better to rapid changes, whether foreseeable or not, then separating the data layer from the application layer makes it more resilient. But it also increases flexibility", explains Thomas Failer.

Companies today face many challenges at the same time. They need to reduce costs, support agile business scenarios, prepare strategic transformation projects, for example towards S/4 Hana, lay the foundations for digital business models using high-quality information and put themselves in a position to comply with current and future regulations.

"This means", explains Failer, "that everything IT managers do to master one of these challenges must be designed from the outset to not only achieve the other goals, but to achieve them better, easier, faster and cheaper. Against this background, measures are flexible if they are suitable for supporting a whole range of objectives. Whether these different objectives are then pursued simultaneously or one after the other is of secondary importance."

History and evolution

The IT landscapes of existing SAP customers have grown and are therefore complex - and they don't just consist of SAP systems. Thomas Failer knows that this does not make IT's task of cleaning up and optimizing the database and keeping it at an optimal level in the long term any easier.

For many years, existing SAP customers benefited from end-to-end support for their value chain and processes and, as a result, from a harmonized data layer. This in turn allowed a comprehensive view of business objects such as customers, suppliers, materials, products, etc. "Agile strategies and an increasing number of third-party systems are jeopardizing this lead, a situation that SAP has also recognized", emphasizes DMI CEO Failer in the E-3 interview. "Accordingly, the Walldorf-based company is investing heavily in integration both within its own portfolio and with third-party solutions on-premise and in the cloud."

What SAP has already achieved here in a very short space of time is impressive, praises Thomas Failer, but he explains: "But it is indeed not enough. Not because SAP is not doing enough, but because the world has changed. Information is coming from more and more different sources. Just think of the Internet of Things, which integrates previously separate areas such as production into the sphere of activity of corporate IT. The consequence of this is that it is not only important to have correct databases, but also to harmonize them. Today, master data on customers, suppliers, products, etc. is generally available in a variety of different structures that correspond to the number of applications and systems in which they are maintained. Even if the master data in one of these systems is properly maintained, contains no errors and is complete, companies still do not receive an all-round view of their business objects, but only a partial view, limited by the specific perspective of the respective application. Only a harmonized data structure, maintained and optimized above the level of the individual systems, allows the required 360-degree view. And this is best achieved with a data level that is independent of the application level."

The idea of a classic central data store or data lake presupposes the transformation of information from the original systems. And at least part of the business context in which the data and information originated is lost, as Failer knows from numerous customer projects.

"Incidentally, this approach is also not flexible enough according to my definition because it does not solve the problem of legal certainty at the same time. This is because, for legal reasons, the information flowing into the data store must be stored in an audit-proof manner for many years together with its business context. In this scenario, you therefore still need the legacy systems in any case, which causes effort and costs", warns the DMI CEO. This is why it is so important to differentiate between the classic transformation and the harmonization already mentioned.

By separating the data level from the application level, Data Migration International creates a central platform for historicized information, i.e. for all data and information together with its business context. This information is stored and retained in an audit-proof manner. "Furthermore, and this is very important, our platform allows the entire life cycle of historical information to be managed at the level of the individual data record, right through to targeted deletion", explains Thomas Failer.

This is required in particular by the European General Data Protection Regulation, the EU GDPR. DMI thus achieves two central goals: Legal certainty and massive cost savings, even in the short term.

After transferring the historical information to the platform, existing SAP customers can completely decommission and dispose of their legacy systems - both from SAP and other manufacturers. This usually saves 80 percent of the running costs compared to continuing to operate the legacy systems.

Thomas Failer adds: "Incidentally, our platform not only increases legal security, but also makes an important contribution to greater IT security. Hackers know that companies struggle to update their SAP systems at short intervals, especially after the release of a security patch. This applies all the more to legacy systems, for some of which patches are no longer available."

Rise with SAP

This raises the question in the E-3 conversation: Rise with Data Migration instead of SAP? "No, there is no such contradiction. Rather, our approach is a perfect complement to the initiatives that SAP has launched to support customers and make it easier for them to move to S/4 Hana. Our approach complements both the Movement program and the Rise with SAP theme", Thomas Failer defines the SAP and his position

SAP's Movement Program is a kind of guide that leads through all phases of the transformation project, culminating in a continuous improvement process and covering all aspects, not just the technical ones, but also the strategic and organizational ones. An important point in this context is the distinction between operational and historical data.

This is SAP's advice to its existing customers: Much like the pilot of a racing car, they need to know when data is fuel and when it is ballast. "The answer to this is of a strategic nature, i.e. it is already part of phase 1 of the Movement programme, and determines all further technical and organizational measures", explains the DMI CEO.

Historical data is defined as completed transactional data such as completed and fully paid sales or maintenance orders and purchase orders. It also includes documents such as delivery bills, even if they only relate to partial deliveries, i.e. the order itself has not yet been completed. For legal reasons, this historical data may no longer be changed.

However, if users are only allowed to access them with read-only rights, it no longer makes sense to transfer them to the new software landscape in every case for various reasons. This is because their structure is inevitably changed during the transfer, so that they lose their legally required evidential value. Historical information therefore exhibits a certain inertia that should not spill over to the level of agile live systems.

"By making historical data available in SAP in the standard system, whether as in the original or harmonized, it is transformed from ballast into fuel for operational systems. This further strengthens the basis for the future of SAP customers, as described in phase 4 of the Movement program", says Thomas Failer, describing the consolidated approach.

This consistent separation sounds like a plea for a greenfield approach to the transformation to S/4. "It may sound like it, but it's not", replies CEO Failer. "After all, it is the existing SAP customers themselves who know best whether they want to transfer all, only some or none of the data, customizations and business objects from the past to the new S/4 environment."

However, this knowledge does not automatically mean that existing SAP customers have the technical possibilities to make decisions freely and flexibly according to their knowledge. If they do not have a separate platform for the historical information, they must continue to operate the legacy systems in parallel with the new S/4 system. "And if they want to minimize the costs and maintenance effort for this, they are faced with the difficult question of how much of their old data and adaptations they should transfer to the new environment in order to maintain and make optimum use of their value in the new environment as well", Thomas Failer points out.

With the DMI approach of a separate platform for historical information, however, these conflicting objectives do not exist. Failer explains: "The legacy systems can be completely decommissioned, legal certainty is maintained, existing SAP customers can freely determine the proportion of historical information to be transferred independently of the individual adjustments, the transformation effort can be halved and, in addition, their new SAP landscape can be kept permanently lean, thereby reducing their total cost of ownership by an estimated 25 percent."

So it's not about what color the playing field is. Rather, it is about ensuring that existing SAP customers play the transformation game on the right field. This is why Thomas Failer also speaks of a right field approach in this context. "As I said, we also support Rise with SAP with our platform and complement it. This is because with this thoroughly impressive offer, fundamental strategic questions also need to be clarified in advance: whether and how the legacy systems can be shut down, whether and how legal certainty can be guaranteed, which and how much historical information should be transferred, how the new system in the cloud can also be kept permanently lean and how access to historical information can be organized from the new SAP environment, but also from third-party systems. With the help of our platform, existing SAP customers can provide more comprehensive and flexible answers to all of these questions, especially from a financial perspective. There they are again, the aspects of resilience and flexibility."

Intelligence and automation

First and foremost, intelligent means automated and integrated, especially from the perspective of existing SAP customers. Automation means that the manual steps that are necessary with traditional approaches in order to achieve a meaningful and worthwhile reduction in data volume are eliminated as far as possible. Automation also means that the data can be transferred from the online database to a separate environment at the touch of a button.

The lifecycle of historical data and documents is also managed there, from access to optimization and compliance management through to their final deletion. Thirdly, automation means that this data transfer also includes existing archives at the touch of a button. Finally, integrated means that an environment for intelligent rightsizing uses and extends, not replaces, the standard SAP tools available to existing SAP customers.

"In my view, SAP CEO Christian Klein is doing an excellent job", emphasizes Thomas Failer. "It makes perfect sense from a technical and, especially from the customer's point of view, a business perspective to strongly integrate our own portfolio and to provide it in simple consumption and usage models, which we have all come to appreciate and love in the cloud. The S/4 landscape and ERP in general will continue to form the heart of IT for existing SAP customers. But just like in the body, the arteries and veins to and from the heart must be open so that the heart can beat freely, quickly and powerfully, as appropriate to the situation. Integration and openness are not opposites. Integration does not mean wiring, but coupling and seamless connection. Christian Klein, to stay with the image, trains and strengthens the heart and we make a 100% complementary contribution to this with our platform and the underlying architecture."

It almost sounds as if the old question posed by Professor Niklaus Wirth in the 1970s as to whether data or algorithms play first fiddle is being given new life? "I can understand that. Data is our specialty, so we are naturally closer to it", defines DMI CEO Failer.

"And it is true that the topics of digitalization and data management are assigning a more important role to information. On the other hand, if we look at what I mean by individualization, there is also an upgrading at the level of algorithms. From the customer's point of view, this question may not even arise. Both levels must go hand in hand, because only together can the business potential of digitalization be tapped. However, the interaction must be more resilient, more flexible and more individual than in the past."

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