Archiving with S/4 Readiness

With S/4 Hana, all established SAP ERP landscapes are due for a functional and technical overhaul. New core functionalities, mobile applications and alternative cloud operating models are fundamentally changing the IT architecture of many companies.

Thanks to the new Business Suite and the integration options it offers, organizations can consistently automate and digitalize their processes. The SAP Hana in-memory database in S/4 Core will become the de facto standard.

The switch to S/4 has long since become a reality for companies. Many companies are in the middle of the change process, while for others the switch to S/4 is on the IT roadmap for the medium term.

However, what is often pushed into the background during planning is the issue of data archiving, i.e. the retention of data for legal and operational reasons, in combination with data cleansing, i.e. the cleansing of unnecessary data.

Although the now exponentially growing volumes of data have become a respectable cost factor in many companies and are increasingly causing performance problems in productive systems, these "silent pains" are often ignored.

The supposed hurdles of data archiving are too high - they range from the feared loss of access to the data history to capacity bottlenecks in the IT department to not knowing which document types are relevant for storage and which are not.

Hana cannot be expanded at will

Instead, many companies simply increase their hardware budget, purchase new physical storage and try to cope with the growing amount of data in this way. However, this approach no longer works with the new Business Suite on Hana.

There are mainly technical reasons for this, but they have a considerable cost effect: Despite falling prices, main memory is still significantly more expensive than hard disk storage.

This is why the hardware costs for in-memory databases such as Hana are three to five times higher than for conventional databases. In this case, it is definitely worth downsizing your own systems, which are often several terabytes in size, in good time.

What's more, as things stand today, SAP Hana cannot be scaled at will. This means that there are physical limits to the size of the database, and capacities can only be expanded with a great deal of administrative effort - if at all. And the new system should not be bursting at the seams right from the start.

The switch to S/4 brings with it new, simplified data models (Simple Finance, Simple Logistics); in addition, existing components become obsolete and are replaced by successor functionalities.

The data transformation to S/4 is essential for a smooth transition and is a key factor in the risk assessment of the transition - regardless of the chosen approach (greenfield/brownfield).

In general, the smaller the amount of data stored in the database and therefore to be transformed, the easier the changeover and the lower the effort and risk.

Archiving strategy for the digital future

It also makes sense to address the topic of data archiving independently of S/4 Hana - for several reasons: Firstly, the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force in May 2018.

It applies in all EU member states and, in addition to familiar obligations, also imposes new requirements on companies in the area of personal data protection and audit-proof archiving. Companies should therefore address the issue anyway, regardless of whether they are planning to switch to the new SAP world now or later.

On the other hand, digitalization is changing the framework conditions. Globally positioned SMEs are already generating several million application documents every year, particularly in financial accounting, logistics and production.

The volumes of data that will be generated in the digital future through IoT data and its analysis for business purposes will further increase the need for storage. Companies that do not implement a holistic archiving strategy that takes all document types into account will find it difficult to manage their flood of data in the digitalized business world. But what could such a strategy look like?

An archiving policy that is geared towards future digital end-to-end processes must be planned company-wide and be transparent for all areas. The policy contains all identified archiving objects, i.e. application data, as well as document types that are relevant to retention.

It contains binding retention periods that meet legal requirements and internal standards, specifies the retention period of application data in the production systems and defines where the archived data is physically stored.

Other core components of the strategy and guidelines include the development of an authorization and access concept for the display of archived data, which takes into account the requirements of the specialist departments, as well as the creation of a documentation concept for the efficient handling of the archiving process.

Once the archiving policy has been set up, the archiving process consisting of cutover, implementation, monitoring and acceptance by the specialist department must be established within the IT organization. The dependencies between the various archiving objects must be taken into account.

The archiving process should always take place periodically. Experience has shown that there is a desire to schedule and run the individual archiving steps (pre-run, write phase, delete phase and post-run) as automatically as possible in order to minimize the effort required for archive administration.

Data cleansing as a benefit

In the course of developing an archiving strategy and identifying data relevant to retention, companies gain transparency during an analysis phase as to which data is no longer required and therefore unnecessarily ties up system resources.

The irrelevant data can usually be removed using standard measures. These can be planned as a supplement to the housekeeping activities already underway. In addition, superfluous data resulting from the spin-off or sale of companies is uncovered.

This can be remedied by a technical carve-out, in which the data can be removed with minimal risk. These measures are in any case indispensable with regard to an S/4 migration. The analysis phase as a preliminary study for a possible archiving project includes not only technical but also functional optimization aspects.

The focus is on validating and evaluating master data and maintenance processes. This allows master data quality to be improved in the long term. In addition, the cost analysis of master data makes the effects of poor data quality visible. (See box on the topic of MDV.)

Transparent rules

As a process consultant and SAP specialist, CBS Corporate Business Solutions supports industrial companies in all phases of the transition to S/4, taking into account the aspects mentioned above.

The "CBS S/4 Hana Transition Program" combines the core requirements in the One Corporation, Globalization and Landscape Transformation environment methodically and professionally with SAP's innovations. With "CBS ET for SAP S/4 Hana", the world's first standard software for the transition to the new SAP world is also available.

One thing is certain: drawing up a company-wide and transparent archiving guideline is a feat of strength and can only succeed if the various departments and divisions pull together.

This requires a certain amount of preparation. You need to think about it at an early stage, create transparency through suitable analyses and talk to all departments in order to define archiving objects and document types that are relevant for storage.

It is also necessary to model and establish archiving processes, select an archiving solution and possibly find a suitable project partner.

This project cannot simply be carried out on the side during an S/4 transition. It must be understood and implemented as a separate project - typically a separate preliminary project on the way to S/4.

Including SAP NW & ILM

Important: When it comes to implementing the archiving strategy, the SAP NetWeaver platform including SAP ILM offers a wide range of archiving functionalities, including convenient and fast access to archived files, implementation of legal locks and support for data destruction once the retention period has been reached. The implementation of a largely automated SAP archiving process then represents the first step in the transition to S/4, so to speak.

Advantage: The archived application data is stored securely in archive files in the long term and no longer in the production system. This massively reduces data growth on the database. At the same time, the legal requirements and internal standards for storing SAP application data are met.

A well thought-out archiving strategy not only brings companies cost and efficiency benefits that are reflected in the key financial figures, but also aims to optimally prepare industrial companies for compliance with legal requirements and for the digital future associated with the switch to S/4 Hana.

MDV optimizes master data quality

Global solutions, digital transformation, S/4 Hana: these are key drivers for taking a fresh look at master data management in the SAP environment.

Master data as a digital copy of real business objects is playing an increasingly important role. High master data quality is the basis for efficient business processes.

CBS Master Data Validation for SAP ERP and S/4 Hana is a comprehensive standard software for evaluating, monitoring and optimizing master data. Industrial companies can use it to improve their master data quality in the long term. The cost analysis of master data also makes the effects of poor data quality visible.