SAP S/4 HANA On-Premise implementation
In a previous blog I wrote about the SAP’s Cloud solution implementation strategy where I
mentioned some of the drawbacks of the old ASAP methodology for implementing
SAP.
If I may step back about 20 years or so, SAP had
this great ERP software which everyone wanted but very few knew how to
implement and it soon became an embarrassing mess for SAP’s brand. Remember MySAP.com and SAP’s attempt to offering tools & accelerators to assist with implementing
its software and using the ASAP roadmap?
Fast forward to today and here we are with a new
database, new code line, new technologies, new interfaces and a new
methodology. If anything SAP has not forgotten its past mistakes and although slightly
late off the mark, it does provide a slick new way of doing an On-Premise
implementation.
Welcome SAP Activate Best Practices!
SAP’s main aim with SAP Activate Best
Practices methodology as depicted in the diagram below is for lower total cost
of ownership, faster time to market and involving the business in the design
phases already.
Discover – Experience Trial
Try before you buy? Absolutely!
SAP wants you to jump straight into a trial system
which is already set up with trial data and a model company code, ready for
use. These trial systems (Cloud or On-Premise) cater for different needs. You
have the option of which one to select and for both the software is already
installed, fully configured and includes SAP best practices. Where they differ
are in terms of scope, technical environment and length of trial. Cloud edition
runs in a shared environment and focus on business highlights and user experience
whilst the On-Premise runs in a virtual environment, covers the full scope
(more later) on end-to-end scenarios, allows you to make changes and do a
detailed evaluation. The latter virtual environment is SAP’s Cloud Appliance Library (or CAL as per image)
on an
Amazon Web Services account. Cost is per hour USD 3.45 or $2484.70 if you use
it non-stop for a month, but who is staying awake that amount of time?
There is no need to set up prototype systems from
scratch and also no obligation to buy. It is a 30 day trial with the option to
extend e.g. for demo, Proof of Concept or an evaluation.
The system is configured and in some areas to also
support certain country specific requirements and has broad coverage of basic
settings. At the moment 51 scope items (more on this later) are configured
across the end-to-end solutions as per sample below. For the FI folks, it even
includes design & configuration for parallel accounting and IFRS standards
for local or group reporting. Below is a sample of some of those scope items.
Prepare
So, let’s assume you liked what you saw
and want to proceed with the purchasing decision. It is now time to get you
started.
For an On-Premise implementation a customer will
have to download the S/4 HANA Best Practise documentation (easy to do), set up
the SAP S/4 HANA Appliance development system in the customers system landscape
and engage either SAP Enterprise support or an SI of your choice.
I need to point out here you have 2 options,
either use SAP’s Cloud Appliance Library (CAL) on a virtual
instance or you can use SAP’s Software Provisioning Manager
and a set of Blue Ray disks (pictured)
from SAP to
install on your own hardware. The blue ray appliance comes with 4 clients
(pictured below), each with its own purpose and use which I am not going to
delve into detail here for now. Hint, client 400 is your config client in old
terminology.
I am not going to delve into the implementation
from blue ray, save to say that if you are a Techie with lots of experience,
this can be done in an hour. You need the Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM)
to do this. And make sure that you have an SAP-certified environment. SAP HANA
is certified for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, versions 11 and 12. Also for Red
Hat, I think 6.5 is on the list of supported operating systems. So your HANA
server definitely must run this. That and roughly 175-200Gb of space for all
the bits and pieces. The Appliance consists of S/4 HANA Core 1511, NW750, HANA
Platform edition 1.0, SAP Fiori and SAP Best Practices for S/4 HANA on-prem
1511.
Explore – Fit Gap based on model company
Let’s start with an analogy first.
Your smart phone or Tablet. When you got it new, it was already configured, had
some pre-installed apps and once you switched it on, ask a few basic questions
and you are ready to use it. And as time goes on you install more apps and
personalize it for your convenience.
So, here the SAP S/4 HANA Appliance is your phone
and has the software installed and configured. All you need to do now is to
analyse what is NOT required and what need to be changed to set up the system
to suit your needs by adapting the delivered SAP Best Practices instead of
starting from scratch. Much like you wouldn’t buy a blank phone and struggle with installing operating systems, right?
This process above is referred to as scoping in
SAP Activate. I believe you can also do your scoping exercise on a virtual
instance (i.e. not the blue ray delivered one) and then only activate the items
scoped in your On-Premise DEV system.
You will also notice the use of Solution Manager
(7.2 if you must know). This version uses a new and different design and
the purpose is not only to support the implementation but also manage the
complete life cycle of the solution. You must import from SAP Activate Best
Practices content into Solution Manager to support your Project and Processes
(image below).
Good news for us Project Managers, there is
content for all 3 scenarios (new installation, system conversion, landscape
transformation).
The Process best practise is all about fit-gap
analyses and use what is already there. The templates are all modifiable and
also fall in line with change management that is managed in Solution Manager.
Realize – scope and configuration
Now it is time to activate the SAP Best Practice
from the prior scoping exercise for your solution. Here you use SAP Best
Practices Solution Builder provided in S/4 HANA to do the activation. Note, you
can also use this for activation of PoC, Sandbox, Training or Exploration
systems.
Activation is the last step pictured below after
aligning from the delivered best practises for what you need and what you don’t need.
A little more about scope items included in S/4
HANA. Remember earlier I mentioned currently S/4 HANA offers 51 scope items?
Scope items may have dependencies and every scope item is assigned to building
blocks. Building blocks are the methodology for SAP Best Practices development
and delivery.
Building blocks are reusable units of content
including Business content (solutions, processes, or combinations), Technical
procedures (connectivity, technical setup of a system) or Common standards
(organizational structures, basic logistics) and can be part of more than one
scope item. Examples of items that a building block can contain:
eCATTs
Business Configuration Sets (BC Sets)
Sample master data
Configuration documentation
Print forms or reports
To activate a scope item, you have to install a
number of building blocks in a predefined sequence. This happens with Solution
Builder. And the beauty of this is that SAP also supplies the sequence in which
these building blocks and their activities are applied. Now, correct me if I am
wrong, but how many times on a project has this sequence issue not become a
bone of contention?
Once all the scope items are activated, you can
now start adjusting the design and configuration processes to meet your needs
as identified during fit-gap exercise.
Realize – migrate, integrate, extend, test.
Now this is probably the section that I got most
excited about and I’m not making any excuses for it
either. Despite being the biggest LSMW fan by a mile on any project and once
earning bragging rights for leaving conversion tools and ABAPers eating dust
whilst still coming to terms with what they need to do, I must sadly say, LSMW
is no more. So out with old and in with the new.
SAP Activate included in S/4 HANA Best Practices
the Rapid Deployment Migration methodology. The steps as seen below are
capabilities and all covered by SAP! Just add the word “capability” to each step below and I’m more excited than a fox terrier that discovered the neighbours cat in a
tree.
Shown in the above drawing is a summary of
the process I witnessed. The legacy information on the left and target system
on the right. Now connect the left to SAP’s (new) Data Services tool via ODBC. This ETL tool can do the
extract, transform and loading of the legacy data. In the extraction it also
supports cleansing, parsing of records and validation of data via profiling.
During transformation the tool also support mapping of fields and values. After
transformation it can also validate against S/4 HANA structures before loading.
Because the S/4 HANA instance is linked to this tool, it extracts the config
information from S/4HANA. Think of all the ISO codes and org structures from
your instance and you get the idea. Loading then happens back into S/4 HANA and
finally the reconciliation process at the end. The beauty of this tool is that
it has on top a dashboard and reporting tools with performance analyses, all
thanks to the BI platform it sits on.
The BI Launchpad for Business Objects also
provides access to business users to see what is going on and if corrections
are required they can log into the migration services sections to fix and are
as easy as drag and drop.
Deploy
On-boarding of users is also included as part of
SAP Activate as well as access to SAP learning hub.
Conclusion
So, if you are a SAP Project Manager, Solution
Architect, functional/technical consultant, maybe this will give you some
insight into where SAP is heading and I only just scratched the surface here.
If your company is one of the big end SI’s and got accustomed to milking
the customer for the most money provide the most value-add to the
customer, you might have to pay attention to this and rethink your strategy. Or
maybe not. What I can say there are in excess of 35 000 pairs of very eager
eyes (mostly from a certain outsourcing country) that has already witnessed
this in even more detail and I bet money on them working frantically on how
they are going to adopt this to provide implementations cheaper and faster than
the historical bloated delivery model.
Still not convinced? Thanks to the internet, access
to SAP information is now easier than ever. Wait till your customer gets wind
of how SAP Activate methodology can save them hundreds and thousands of dollars
to get S/4 HANA up and running faster, cheaper and with more input from within.
In the words of Lord Snow: “Winter is coming” - for you.
That's it. Hope you enjoyed this and feel free to
comment, good or bad. I appreciate the diverse views and it helps to keep me
honest. If any of the above resonates with you, by all means get in touch, I’m as eager to sink my teeth in and be part of this
exciting new journey SAP is taking us on.