SAP Data Management for S/4HANA and Beyond

Wednesday, March 13th, 2019

Proceed team

Whether you are planning your S/4 HANA migration or have decided to not take this route yet and are simply looking to migrate your SAP ECC system to SAP HANA, it is still considered best practice from SAP themselves, to evaluate your SAP data and associated documents to understand what really needs to be migrated, what can be archived onto less costly hardware for occasional access when required and what can be deleted. Reducing your SAP data footprint across your Landscape can make achieving a digital transformation at a significantly lower cost,  as it reduces project costs.

Benefits of streamlining your data prior to a SAP HANA migration

  • Includes only business relevant data (archived data can still be accessed for analytics, reporting etc.)
  • Migration ‘go live’ window is reduced
  • Reduce costs spent on SAP HANA appliances, less data, smaller the size
  • Data compliance increased, with data retention periods & deletions set
  • With ongoing data growth control, appliance refresh times are lengthened thus reducing TCO
  • With a document management strategy in place, unstructured data growth is controlled through retention management linked to transactional data (structured)

Solutions to help you prepare your SAP data for your journey and manage once there

Preparing your data

  • Streamlining in Readiness for SAP HANA or S/4 HANA Assessment
    A complimentary assessment which will give a report on what can go with you, what can be archived and what can be deleted, guided on common data retention best practice guidelines
  • SAP Information Life-cycle Management (ILM)
    SAP ILM manages SAP Data, meeting with data privacy obligations by automating data retention management. Auditing and reporting functions provide centralised management with rules-based retention policies to help minimise business risk and reduce resources impact usually associated with SAP Data Management.  SAP ILM also has the ability to archive data in accessible and searchable formats and has e-Discovery and legal hold functionality.  A key requirement of GDPR is the ‘right to be forgotten’ and ‘data portability’ involving the identification, blocking, deletion and archival of sensitive data.
    SAP ILM enables data to be archived from SAP ERP or SAP S/4 HANA and supports blocking and deletion.
  • Document Management
    Don’t forget your Documents, using an SAP Certified Document management system will link documents to your transactional data (structured) and if using SAP ILM will use the same retention periods set, so data growth and compliance are managed for all your data types, keeping your TCO at a minimum throughout your data’s life-cycle.
  • SAP Legacy System Decommissioning
    Many SAP customers are taking the Greenfield approach to their migration to S/4 HANA.  There are many reasons why this is a preferable choice, however, once the migration is complete there is still the SAP ECC system running away in the background with data that isn’t ready for deletion, but is only required occasionally.  But there are still  incurred expenses for this (Legacy) system i.e; Licencing, Maintenance, Hardware, Power, Resources. Also the data is sat with no retention rules which can impact your data compliance.  Decommissioning this legacy system as part of your SAP data management strategy within your migration project will solve all these issues with the right strategy.

How Proceed can help

Complimentary SAP Data Assessment
Take advantage of our complimentary SAP Data Assessment, we simply ask you download non-confidential data, which takes only around 10-15 mins. Once we receive this we will prepare a report which will assist with planning your strategy and budget when migrating to SAP HANA or S/4 HANA, we will show what you can achieve and by how much you can reduce your HANA appliance requirements if our Data Management strategy is followed.

SAP ILM Implementation
Proceed have been implementing SAP ILM since its original release. With the greater data legislation required on data held by SAP customers, this tool now comes into its own, offering great value for the benefits it offers for SAP Data Management when implemented to its full potential.

SAP Document Management
Proceed Content Solutions (part of the Proceed Group) area of expertise is within Solutions to optimise business processes, whilst controlling growth. With expertise in the majority of SAP Certified Document Management Solutions, we assist SAP customers from concept to implementation. Here are some of our PCS services by way of example;

  • OpenText xECM
    Improve process productivity by bridging silos and enhancing information flows between solutions, including SAP®, Microsoft® Office®365, Salesforce®, SuccessFactors® and Oracle® Government and Engineering.
  • OpenText Content Suite
    Manage the flow of information from capture through archiving and disposition
  • OpenText ECM in the Cloud
    Employ a wide variety of adaptable ECM options from managed services (available for virtually all Content Suite products and solutions) to cloud packaged managed services solutions to SaaS based solutions that seamlessly grow and progress with the organisation.
  • OpenText Archiving Solution
    Deploy a defensible, long-term archiving strategy to comply with information governance requirements, meet legal obligations and reduce the overall costs associated with archiving content.
  • OpenText Vendor Invoice Management
    OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions (VIM) optimises and simplifies the process of receiving, managing, routing and monitoring invoices and related documentation. Stakeholders involved in any invoice problem quickly and efficiently access invoice information, such as relevant PO number, status of the invoice payment, and more.

For further information about Proceed visit our website or contact us