TDMS uses beyond just Non-Production

[Former Member]

TDMS documentation specifically notes that the purpose of this functionality is for the creation of reduced "NON-PRODUCTION" systems. It seems that the features of this product would be useful in carving out data for divestitures to another PRODUCTION SAP system. Can you explain the technical constraints that would prevent this to be used for the purposes of creating a carved-out PRODUCTION system for a divested organizational unit? Your thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Thanks, Mike Lattanzi

[Former Member]

I received valuable feedback on this question, however I was not able to get a concrete answer as to the technical constraints associated with using TDMS in the scenario that I had indicated. I do understand the issues with sychronization and timing, but assuming I could overcome those softer issues, I still saw no technical barrier to using TDMS for a divestiture carve-out exercise.

[Former Member]

Raghuram,

Thanks for your recommendations. If TDMS is not an option for this kind of divestiture carve-out, what is the best method that SAP recommends to do such activities? Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Thanks, Mike

[Former Member]

Raghuram,

When creating the target system via TDMS, couldn't the target system be configured as a non-productive system and unlocked?... and then once the transfers are complete, we could re-configure the target system as productive and lock it for modificatoins. Does this sound technically feasible to you? Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks a lot, Mike

[Former Member]

Hi,

I am not sure of this but I will really not recommend this.

Regards

Raghuram

[Former Member]

Raghuram and Asis ... thanks for your responses. It has been helpful. I have just one more question for clarification. Based on this thread so far, it sounds as though there is no technical hurdle that precludes using TDMS for creating a carved out production system. There will likely be non-technical issues such as licensing and downtime data synchronization. Can you confirm that I understand this correctly?

Thanks very much, Mike

[Former Member]

Yes there are technical hurdles. There is an activity "Check Sender and Receiver clients" which issues an error message when the target client is classified as a production client.

Regards

Raghuram

[Former Member]

The license issue identified by Raghuram is clearly an issue that would be a potential blocker for utilizing TDMS in this scenario, however, if I don't have issues with data loss during downtime period for target production system, it is not clear to me that there are any technical barriers that prevent me from using this tool for this purpose. I think we would probably consider the following scenario if using TDMS was doable ...

1. Prior to creating a carved-out production SAP system for divested company, we have already isolated the divested company within our current SAP system with a separate company code.

2. Use TDMS Shell Creation process to create another SAP environment identical to the current design in the production system but without the data.

3. Use TDMS to port Master Data and Configuration from current production system to the target SAP system

4. Use TDMS to bring over very limited set of transactional data based upon company code selection criteria. Delivery of historical data would not be part of the carve-out with the exception of historical data for just a 6 month period within the identified company code.

What technical barriers do you see with TDMS that would preclude me from executing such a scenario? Is it true that ALL of the master data will be imported as part of the TDMS process, or is there a way to limit the master data based on the organizational structure ... such as by company code, sales org, etc....

Thanks in advance for your feedback, Mike

[Former Member]

Hi,

Yes all master data is transferred from sender to receiver. However currently the master data can be reduced based on company code only. We have a scenario called Time based + Company Code. You can choose to have only some company codes and data related only to these company codes are transferred.

Regards

Raghuram

[asis_pattnaik]

Hello Mike,

The production systems are unique in many aspects:

1. Any down time during working hours will result in direct loss of business

2. Any incosistency may have serius implication from business, legal requirements perspective

3. Once the production has gone live, there is little chance of reverting

As there are so many possibilities of scenarios, customer specific situations, country specific requirements, and variations in implementation makes it almost impossible for a product like TDMS to remain slim and cater all requirements... Well we can still achive a great degree of consistency for most customer scenarios, but, production enviroenment, considering the above challenges needs many other consideration before going live...

for example, When a Company is sold out, one would need to copy its data to a new system. one may consider using TDMS with TDTCC scenario.This can create a good enough system for a Non Production environment. However, to prepare a Producotion system, considering the downtime, consistency, customer specific developments, country specific requirements, with other add-ons, it is recommended to use other SLO Consuting services....

You can get more details on SLO Consulting services in the webpage: http://service.sap.com/slo . To know how can you delete company codes from a production system, and prepare a new system with data only for certain number of company codes, refer the page on 'Buy Shell and Restructure scenarios' in the above link.

Regards,

Asis

[asis_pattnaik]

Hello Mike,

The production systems are unique in many aspects:

1. Any down time during working hours will result in direct loss of business

2. Any incosistency may have serius implication from business, legal requirements perspective

3. Once the production has gone live, there is little chance of reverting

As there are so many possibilities of scenarios, customer specific situations, country specific requirements, and variations in implementation makes it almost impossible for a product like TDMS to remain slim and cater all requirements... Well we can still achive a great degree of consistency for most customer scenarios, but, production enviroenment, considering the above challenges needs many other consideration before going live...

for example, When a Company is sold out, one would need to copy its data to a new system. one may consider using TDMS with TDTCC scenario.This can create a good enough system for a Non Production environment. However, to prepare a Producotion system, considering the downtime, consistency, customer specific developments, country specific requirements, with other add-ons, it is recommended to use other SLO Consuting services....

You can get more details on SLO Consulting services in the webpage: http://service.sap.com/slo . To know how can you delete company codes from a production system, and prepare a new system with data only for certain number of company codes, refer the page on 'Buy Shell and Restructure scenarios' in the above link.

Regards,

Asis

[Former Member]

Hi Michael,

This is actually against the licensing policies of TDMS. TDMS is mainly to create a test system. There are checks in TDMS activities which end in error and will not allow you to continue in case the receiver client is a production client.

Regards

Raghuram