Housekeeping, Identity, Design, Transform and Operate

SAP's data concept consists of three statements: SAP has since recommended the complete separation of the data layer from the compute layer and the retention of data outside of Hana's in-memory computing storage, and prioritizes data access over data modification for information that is no longer required in operations.

These principles can show existing SAP customers a faster and more effective way into the S/4 Hana world. They form the basis of the structure and functionalities of JiVS IMP from Swiss provider Data Migration International. The core component of the Information Management Platform (IMP) is the so-called Data Staging Area. Over the years, incorrect, redundant and incomplete data records accumulate in legacy systems. These can be cleaned up, eliminated and enriched using third-party sources such as external address directories before being transferred to S/4. This is all the more important as digitization requires high data quality. After all, highly automated processes based on incorrect data records lead to incorrect or inadequate decisions and missed sales opportunities. They do more harm than good.

In general, JiVS IMP acts as a central collection point and staging area for company information. Here, data and its quality can be analysed and optimized, for example by means of duplicate cleansing, enrichment from other, business-relevant sources and harmonization. Incidentally, this is not only essential for transformation and migration projects, but also for all agile business scenarios such as mergers and acquisitions or the development of digital business models and processes. During the transformation to S/4 and C/4, the Data Staging Area from JiVS IMP unfolds its full benefits and guides existing SAP customers into the software and IT world of tomorrow in five phases:

Housekeeping

JiVS IMP is the solution to the problem of getting rid of legacy data - regardless of whether existing SAP customers choose a greenfield, brownfield or selective data migration approach for transformation and migration. This is because JiVS IMP enables the management of historical data and documents, including their business logic, throughout their entire lifecycle: from their transfer from the production systems to legally compliant storage and final deletion. Thanks to JiVS IMP, existing SAP customers can view information management independently of the question of whether they want to transfer individual developments and configurations from the existing SAP systems in full or in part to the new SAP world or return to the standard.

Over 2000 successful implementations worldwide have shown that this concept works. The costs of operating JiVS IMP are generally 80 percent lower than the costs of continuing to operate the legacy systems. The fact that the information is transferred unchanged from the legacy systems and stored in an audit-proof manner is recognized by auditors, thus ensuring the necessary legal certainty. What's more, as a Java-based platform, JiVS IMP is independent of the systems on which it runs - whether on-premises or in the cloud.

As a result, there is no spare parts problem with the hardware, as is often the case with legacy systems. As a living system, JiVS IMP also allows for regular security updates, which reduces the risk of cyber attacks and espionage. Once the information, including the underlying business logic, has been transferred from the legacy systems to JiVS IMP, they can be completely switched off and disposed of.

This completes the housekeeping, so to speak. However, the most important aspect of this basic preparatory work for the migration to S/4 Hana is that the historicized information always remains accessible. This allows companies to migrate only that part of the data to S/4 or C/4 that they actually continue to work on in their day-to-day business, for example open orders.

Identify

Once the information has been transferred from the legacy systems to JiVS IMP, the analysis of whether and which data and documents existing SAP customers need in S/4 and which they do not can begin. JiVS IMP offers an analysis tool with a wide range of parameterization options for this purpose. For example, the information stored in the legacy system can be selected according to orders that are older than six months and therefore already completed, or according to company codes and plants that no longer exist.

Other selection criteria for a data reduction potential analysis (DRPA) could be org units, various types of master and transaction data, modules that are no longer required such as MM/PP and Basis or certain business objects. The results of this DRPA are reports for management in the form of white or black lists that specify which tables and fields are to be transferred.

Due to the large number of successfully completed SAP projects, JiVS IMP is familiar with the data structures of various SAP releases from R/3 version 3.0 up to SAP ECC 6.0, as well as SAP CRM or industry solutions such as SAP RE. The selection criteria therefore no longer need to be developed, only configured.

Design

Once it has been clarified what is operational and what is historical information, the detailed planning of data selection and migration follows in the design phase. This also takes place in JiVS IMP. The selection criteria from the Identify phase are then refined and tested once again so that the cut in the database can be carried out automatically. However, the design phase also offers other advantages: it allows decisions to be made as to whether the number of business objects in S/4 can be massively reduced, for example through process changes or a return to the SAP standard - from the maximum possible 180 to perhaps 40 or 50.

Transform

At the end of the design phase, JiVS IMP provides precise and tested filter rules as white and blacklists. This gives customers the choice of using SAP's conversion tool or corresponding third-party solutions to transform and migrate the information. Alternatively, JiVS IMP can transfer the complete data package to SAP's Migration Cockpit and to JiVS IMP's own solution for extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) or to third-party ETL tools.

Operate

After the transformation and migration as well as from the commissioning of SAP S/4 or C/4, JiVS IMP plays its strategic role to the full as an integral part of the target architecture in the operating phase (Operate). This is because JiVS IMP enables many problems that are typical of existing SAP environments to be avoided in the S/4 world right from the start. This includes, for example, the continuously increasing resource requirements. Data and documents for completed processes can be regularly transferred to JiVS IMP. This keeps S/4 Hana permanently lean, which can reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) by up to 25 percent.

Integration is the trump card

In addition, the information in JiVS IMP remains highly valuable not only for legal reasons, but also for business reasons. The longer the duration of orders and projects in an industry, the more regularly specialist users need to access information from further back in time. In addition, they can only obtain an all-round view of a customer or process if they know what information exists on it as a whole. For this purpose, however, they do not want to switch back and forth between different environments - after all, media disruptions are taboo in the cloud age. For this reason, Data Migration International has invested heavily in integrations between JiVS IMP and the target systems.

Regardless of the interface, whether SAP Fiori or SAP GUI, SAP users can display the information associated with a business case. They also have the option of navigating to and opening this content directly from the respective SAP interface. This not only increases productivity, but also increases user satisfaction when working with JiVS IMP.

In addition to these front-end integrations, back-end integrations also play an important role. This is because data structures will continue to change with S/4 Hana or C/4. To ensure that data transfer to S/4 or C/4 from less structured non-SAP systems, for example, is automated, the mapping rules in JiVS IMP need to be adapted dynamically. To do this, the changes to the data structures are automatically transferred to the Java-based platform for information management via an interface.

Everything multi: Clouds, databases, interfaces

Multi-cloud is the new standard in IT. Companies are using more and more services from different public cloud providers, in addition to their traditional and private cloud environments in their own data centers or with service providers. A wide variety of technology stacks, including database environments, are used in these hybrid scenarios.

With this in mind, JiVS IMP offers multi-cloud and multi-database support. Supported public cloud environments include the Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. At the same time, customers can choose from a variety of common database management systems (DBMS), from IBM DB2 to Oracle Database and Microsoft SQL Server to SAP IQ (formerly Sybase).

This makes JiVS IMP a perfect fit for SAP's cloud and big data strategies.
Existing customers. In addition to the possibility of implementation in various public cloud environments, the information managed in JiVS IMP is available for big data scenarios at any time. It can be accessed via the platform's application layer or exported as a separate data set and processed in the big data systems.

In addition, JiVS IMP can also serve as a central platform for the management of data generated when using SaaS offerings in the public cloud. If companies decide to switch to another SaaS solution, they can access the legacy information at any time. Of course, existing SAP customers can also obtain the functionalities of JiVS IMP from Data Migration International's cloud environment or implement them in their on-premises environment.

SAP and Non-SAP

Based on the experience gained from over 2000 projects on all continents of the world, JiVS IMP offers the connection via interfaces not only to SAP, but also to all other common company applications such as Baan, Infor, JD Edwards, Microsoft Axapta, Oracle ERP and Peoplesoft etc., and in the most diverse release versions. JiVS IMP currently supports over 3,000 business objects from a wide variety of systems, and a standard integration between JD Edwards and SAP S/4 Hana is currently under development so that historical JDE information can soon be automatically transformed and transferred directly into the new SAP world. In general, the integration of JiVS IMP and SAP S/4 is a key advantage of the platform. This means that historical information can be accessed directly from the new software generation from Walldorf.

With the turbocharger to S/4

In 2022, the wave of migration and transformation to SAP S/4 Hana will really gain momentum. The upcoming migration and transformation actually represent a perfect opportunity to tidy up and cut out old habits. Many existing SAP customers rightly assume that they will be able to dispense with at least 50 percent of their existing company codes and document types. In addition, there is a historical data stock that in many cases is in the double-digit terabyte range and higher in the online databases of SAP environments. Added to this mass of data are the stocks in the ADK archives in a similar order of magnitude, the volume of which increases tenfold after decompression.

For the vast majority of customers, the heart of their IT beats in SAP. But you can't do without third-party systems. This realization also applies to S/4 environments. Third-party systems and their data also play a decisive role in the new S/4 Hana world in order to handle business processes without media disruptions and to obtain a global view of them.

One solution designed for intelligent data migration from SAP and non-SAP systems is JiVS IMP, the Java-based and therefore system-independent platform for information management from Swiss company Data Migration International. Thanks to support for more than 3,000 preconfigured business objects, the platform transfers all data and documents from source systems from a wide range of manufacturers, from SAP to Baan, Infor and JD Edwards to Navision etc., as well as from ADK archives, thereby enabling complete and legally compliant access to historical information in read mode, in particular directly from SAP S/4 Hana.

Thanks to a newly developed turbo process for extracting data and its business context, it is possible to extract even volumes of between ten, 100 and more terabytes of information from legacy systems in a very short time, completely automatically, at the touch of a button, transfer it to the platform and store it there in a legally compliant manner until it is deleted, as certified by auditors.

JiVS IMP consistently decouples the application level from the data level for historical information. This allows users to access historical information from SAP and non-SAP systems such as JDEdwards from the interface of their choice - SAP GUI or web browser - as if the data and documents were still in the original systems. The platform also makes it possible to halve the overall cost of switching to the new S/4 software generation. This is because less data volume means up to 80 percent less need for transformation and migration. At the same time, this approach offers the opportunity to optimize the data and a far less risky changeover to the new software generation with full access to the historical information from S/4.

In addition, JiVS IMP contributes to a permanent reduction in the total cost of ownership of SAP S/4 thanks to seamless integration. This is because the platform allows data and documents from the production system to be continuously historicized on the platform according to fixed criteria - for example, for all transactions older than three months - which keeps the Hana database permanently lean. Savings of 25 percent in the total cost of ownership of the new environment are quite realistic.

Intelligent information management à la JiVS IMP is the right approach to win the battle against resource scarcity and the race against time in SAP transformation.