7 best practices for work of SAP 24x7 are found

As the companies got used to rely on the increasing and bigger number of applications from SAP, they should be ready to enter fight against severe reality of need of reduction of time spans for periodic service. First of all, it belongs to the big company conducting transactions in different parts of the world or the firm having clients of SAP services from the public website where such periods can not be, said in the report of Panaya company at all.

In fact, the companies should keep SAP in the working status 24x7, 365 days in a year. It complicates such tasks as installation of the new software or updating of the hardware of infrastructure, operating systems and databases. There are methods of the solution of the majority of problems with practical minimization of idle times. Experts of SAP offer seven best ideas which can help to support more surely work of any environment of an environment of SAP.

1. Virtualization. The technology of virtualization is the benefit for the companies which should support work of SAP round the clock. Virtualization will allow the companies to create several copies of the environment of an environment and to disconnect one of them as required while another is in work,Greg Leiner, the engineer on SAP solutions of Rimini Street company[[Liner Greg|]] says. After maintenance of the main machine, everything can be switched back. Existence of several virtual environments of SAP can also protect the company in case of failure of the main copy of SAP.

You need the tool, for determination of changes of data for that time as the main machine was switched-off. As a part of vendors of such BackOffice Associates and SAP tools with its NetWeaver Master Data Management.

2. Shadow redundancy. The simple solution to avoid problems at unplanned failures of SAP – to use shadow redundancy of the database,Axel Angeli, the founder of network of consultants of Logosworld for SAP products and SOA says. "Each entry in the database includes an event of similar updating in a remote database, - he says. – If the basis for data fails, a system will switch to its shadow, providing buffering of actions till that time until the initial database is available again".

3. Segment. Perhaps, the most difficult aspect of support of SAP round the clock is updating of SAP and use of packets of support (Support Packs). "The solution - in splitting the application into smaller objects and components", - Angeli says. He advises to start separate copies of SAP on divisions: finance, management of material flows and production planning - on different servers - one scope in one box. If during process of updating or correction something went wrong, this process influences only one application.

Moreover, for a middle software and SOA application servers, like SAP PI, it offers start of several servers in parallel. Afterwards it is possible to perform corrections on one server and then to readdress all transactions on this server. If correction is unstable, it is possible to return to a nepropatchenny farm of servers for further transaction processing.

4. Use own website for disaster recovery. TiVo is one of the companies which should hold round-the-clock operation of SAP because it is used for processing of all customer accounts and payment system,Richard Rothschild, the senior director on IT, services and security of the company [[Rothschild Richard|]] says. To cope with the main updates of infrastructure, he uses for this purpose the website of firm. "If we have to be disconnected at several o'clock, we can not manage to start SAP on this website, - he says. - We are going to upgrade to the new version of SAP, and this rather serious downtime therefore, most likely, we will make this work on other website".

5. You monitor changes. "The vast majority of idle times happens because of unexpected problems because the companies do not control processes of changes and maintenance",Frank Powell, the chief operating officer of Symmetry Corp company[[Powell Frank|]] says. Can be so that the service pack which fulfilled on the server of a system of development, caused problems in main system, it is probable because on servers different operating systems or patches of the database. "Maintenance of identical levels of patches and applications will save you from unexpected idle times at all times", he says.

6. Careful monitoring. One more aspect of proper maintenance - a monitoring system. Control of statistics, such as growth rate of the basis for data of SAP, can help to save the head from unexpected problems. "Unexpected problems are those which carry the greatest influence, - Powell says. – If you have a two-hour idle time on Tuesday after a lunch, at the same time the directory of archive is crowded because you did not monitor it, it is very big problem".

7. Test, test, test. If it is necessary to make changes to the set SAP, whether it be the adjusting updating, expansion, updating of the database, etc. – is important to carry out good test procedures. Have the list of what needs check, along with specific divisions and people who should be attracted, Powell offers.

Where there were many updates, since morning of Monday some business functions which were not checked properly, do not work, he says. One of his clients did not manage to test the web interface for the on-line system of the order, for example. From 2 to 3 days left on that to correct everything.