Productive with large archive

Until now, ADVA Optical Networks kept all application data in a Online–Database before. Performance problems regularly impaired operations. Client copies could only be performed with long runtimes due to the high data volume. ADVA therefore commissioned cbs Corporate Business Solutions to implement an automated SAP archiving process.

The basis was a customer-specific, global archiving concept that would enable ADVA to reduce its data volume to the effectively necessary level. The automation was achieved with the help of tools from the special software cbs ET Enterprise Transformer. Thus, an archiving solution for storing SAP application data was introduced that complies with legal requirements and internal standards and has a positive impact on the operational running of the system infrastructure in the area of SAP ERP has.

ADVA offers openly programmable hardware and software solutions as the foundation of intelligent high-speed networks. Access solutions enable fixed, mobile and cable operators to easily implement, operate and rapidly expand their service offering with virtualized network functions. The telecommunications service provider has been supplying solutions to 10,000 companies worldwide for almost 20 years, including telecommunications giants such as British Telecom, German Telekom, Telefónica, Time Warner Cable and Vodafone.

ADVA operates a central SAPERP system of version ECC 6.06 with 14 companies. The company kept all application data in an SAP-Online–Database with a size of around two terabytes on a Microsoft SQL Server before. An enormous amount of historical Data stored in the system that went back to 2008.

Central Database with high maintenance requirements

The storage of the application data exclusively in the Database was experiencing difficulties after rapid growth in data volume.

Yvonne Nachreiner, Project Manager and Manager Business Application Services:

"Performance problems regularly impaired operations. Client copies could only be carried out with long runtimes due to the high volume of data"

When copying clients, very large amounts of data are moved with the aim of updating the test system with current Data from the production system. A single client without application data requires in the Database about 500 MB of memory. Copying including application data can therefore take several hours. The test client is not accessible during this period. During this time, several dialog processes are often busy.

In addition, large amounts of data have to be temporarily outsourced. The process thus represented a time-consuming and resource-intensive step within the maintenance work of the system infrastructure in the area of SAP ERP The performance problems mentioned were manifested in the fact that access to important data was not possible. The performance problems mentioned manifested themselves in the fact that access to important Data was very difficult or associated with long loading times. Another shortcoming: A concept for data storage had not been established, binding rules for the storage of critical Data were not fixed.

The aim was now to extract the archivable application data from the Online–Database into archive files and store them in an audit-proof manner. The SAP consultancy cbs was selected as the project partner. In the field of SAPData archiving The Heidelberg-based consulting firm can draw on numerous projects and best-practiceKnow-how from various modules such as Finance/Controlling, Sales & Distribution and Project Management.

Planning expertise in demand

ADVA placed its trust in the Project-realization on the in-house methodology for the implementation of IT-Projects. This is divided into different phases under the heading Business Requirements, Technical Design, Implementation and Business Acceptance.

One of the special technical challenges of the project was the comprehensive system and database analysis during the initial conception phase at the start of the project. The cbs analysis framework was used for this purpose. Based on the customer requirements and the available analysis data, cbs developed a company-wide archiving strategy and an archiving plan for ADVA for both initial and periodic archiving. Data archiving.

In detail, the first step was to identify relevant archiving objects from the mass of application data using database analysis. This was intended to lead to a massive streamlining of the Database lead. Together with the company managers from the Business Application Services area, a large scope, consisting of 48 archiving objects, was defined, across all the SAP ERP-modules. Within the following design phase, it was a matter of determining binding retention periods and retention times for application data in the SAP-ERP system as well as to create an archiving plan taking into account the dependencies between the various application objects.

One of the main requirements was that the archiving steps, consisting of preprocessing, write phase, delete phase and postprocessing, should be automated as far as possible, i.e. with minimal effort for the archive administration for all archiving objects, such as accounting, purchasing or sales documents. Various cbs utility tools were used for this purpose. Among other things, the documentation concept provided for structured storage of log and system information data for acceptance by the specialist department.

Who is allowed to do what?

Finally, there was also the important, security-relevant question: Who is allowed to access which key financial figures, technical internals, sales information, project planning sheets and logistics data and when? To this end, the project team developed a sophisticated authorization concept for controlling access to all archived Data. The access to archived Data was set up for the relevant users and user groups from the various departments and was carried out according to the requirements defined by the department.

Once a company-wide archiving and storage strategy had been established, the project team began to identify the historical Data from the Database into archive files that are stored in an audit-proof manner. Various tools from the transformation software cbs ET Enterprise Transformer were used for this purpose. cbs ET is an innovative solution standard for complex Process- and SAP system landscapes. The tool was developed specifically for complex data migration requirements.

Among other things, a tool for mass upload and download of report variants, a report function for mass download of job log messages and a tool for mass download of spool files were used.

Safe start with new archiving solution

The introduction of a customer-specific archiving strategy enabled the Online-This enabled the volume of data to be reduced efficiently and quietly to the level required by ADVA. At the same time, the legal requirements and internal standards for storing SAP application data were met. The archived application data is now stored securely in archive files for the long term and no longer in a Online–Database.

In addition, the complete range of SAP archiving functionalities including convenient and fast access to archived Data deployed. The core benefits for the company are obvious: "The need for high-availability storage has been significantly reduced, so the system's maintenance effort has also decreased. This reduces ongoing costs," reports project manager Nachreiner. The lower storage requirements have reduced the risk of performance bottlenecks in the ERP-system reduced. Offline times now hardly ever occur. The new archiving solution also ensures compliance with legal requirements for the retention of electronic data. Data according to AO and GDPDU is guaranteed. It therefore guarantees auditability.

In addition, there is also the possibility in the future, due to the more efficient Processes in terms of Data archiving the performance of the SAP ERP-system. In addition, there are significant time savings in the creation of client copies.

After the mass of objects on the SAP-Database The new SAP data archiving solution now only stores application data for the current fiscal year plus three previous fiscal years in the system. This reduced the storage requirement by around 20 percent to 1.5 terabytes.

In addition, after the Database-In addition, the free storage space provided by the database system increased from 35 gigabytes to 146 gigabytes, an increase of more than 400 percent. This means that the telecommunications service provider has sufficient capacity to cope with a possible increase in data volume at a later date.