SAP OS/DB Migration

SAP OS/DB Migration Check

Complete Support for a Migration of your Operating System and/or Database

If at any stage of the SAP software life cycle you should need to change your operating system and/or database, the SAP OS/DB Migration Check optimally prepares you for a successful migration and supports smooth continued operations on the new platform.

The OS/DB Migration Check is mandatory if you are going to migrate a productive system. The service delivery then includes all the systems in that system landscape.

If you want full support for the migration (be it a production system or not) then you must secure the services of a technical consultant with a special certification for OS/DB migration.

SAP OS/DB Migration Check minimizes technical risk involved in an operating system and/or database migration and avoids unforeseen costs that can occur during the migration.

The benefits of this service are as follows:

  • Efficient, technically robust operation of your new operating system and/or database is achieved with minimum cost
  • Your migration project is accelerated to get a faster return on your investment
  • Expensive system downtimes during the migration are minimized
  • System resource usage is optimized to make the most of your IT investment
  • Infrequently required migration expertise is outsourced

A well laid out, easy to follow plan based on experience with thousands of migrations successfully leads you through a migration. It prepares your SAP solution so it runs with optimal performance, availability and maintainability after the migration.

The SAP OS/DB Migration Check is specially designed to support the customer in successfully migrating an operating system and/or a database. With this check it is possible to migrate all SAP systems for which a migration is technically feasible and for SAP systems that have been registered with an installation number specified in your SAP maintenance agreement. It consists of two remote sessions: the Analysis and Verification Session. It is important to note that problems existing before migration due to incorrect customizing are not taken into account in the realm of this check.

Analysis Session

The Analysis Session checks whether your current hardware is sufficient for the target system. It takes place five weeks before migrating the production system and is performed on the source system. The load distribution is analyzed and recommendations are made for the configuration of the new system. This session checks the following:

  • Migration project related issues
    *  Technical data of the source system environment
    *  Technical data of the target system environment
    *  The migration project schedule
  • Hardware sizing feasibility
  • Load distribution (if necessary, optimization recommendations are given)
  • Configuration of the new system
    *  SAP system parameters
    *  Database parameters
    *  User/load distribution
  • Performance before migration
  • Transaction profiles
  • Number and distribution of users

The result of this session is a report that indicates whether SAP recommends to continue the project or not to continue because of concerns, whether enough hardware resources are available and what parameter configurations need to be performed by you for a successful migration.

Verification Session

The Verification Session occurs six weeks after migration of the production system and is performed on the target system. It is a routine check of the new operating system and/or database to verify the assumptions from the Analysis Session. This session provides corrective measures for avoiding potential bottlenecks. The Verification Session looks at the following:

  • Comparison of response time before and after migration
  • Performance analysis on the new OS/DB combination
  • Verification of whether all the required SAP recommendations were implemented
    *  SAP system parameters
    *  Database parameters
  • User/load distribution
  • Optimization of load distribution and identification of potential bottlenecks

The result of this session is a report similar to that received in the Analysis Session. The difference is that now you have a productive system which contains representative data from daily operations. This final report confirms system configuration and provides additional recommendations for improvements.

A convenient delivery date is scheduled with you and you are asked to complete the “Prepare” step. The “Prepare” step than can be accessed via the SAP Solution Manager “Service Engagement and Service Delivery” workcenter. The Analysis Session takes place five weeks before your migration. The Verification Session is normally performed six weeks after your migration. Each session is a separate unit and results in an extensive report with detailed recommendations. For the checks in subsequent service sessions to be effective, you must implement the recommendations that are provided in each report.

The SAP OS/DB Migration Check is available for migrations of operating systems and databases. To fully benefit from the service, SAP strongly recommends an implemented SAP Solution Manager.Although the SAP OS/DB Migration Check ensures a successful migration with minimized downtime and maximum performance after the migration, a migration of an operating system and/or database is a time and cost intensive project. During the project, you may experience reduced availability and performance of your SAP systems. For this reason, SAP encourages you to check and to make sure that all other possibilities for improving performance of your hardware, operating system, and database have been considered.

The OS/DB migration of each and every SAP system must be performed according to the following rules:

  • The migration will be carried out by a technical consultant who has a special certification for OS/DB migration from SAP. If you are in doubt as to whether your consultant has this certification, contact SAP Customer Care.
  • Customer and consultant will make a project plan that provides sufficient time to react to unforeseen problems.
  • If the system is a production system the OS/DB Migration Check service must be ordered from SAP and applied to this system.
  • It is necessary that during this check, the members of your staff with the required expertise in the areas of operating system, database, SAP Basis components and migration tools be available for consultation.
  • Before the migration, you must ensure that the platform combination (operating system and database system) you have chosen is supported by SAP. See the Product Availability Matrix for details.
  • For the migration of a productive system, it is necessary that a separate target system environment is available to perform the tests and the final migration towards the target system. It can be a separate physical hardware, a hardware partition or any SAP supported virtualization. The new target system environment must have equal or higher performance than the source system.
  • The migrated productive source system is expected to stay available for trouble shooting purposes after the final migration; usually until the OS/DB Migration Check Verification Session was completed.

If an OS/DB migration is carried out in violation of one or more of the above rules, SAP can deny support for any problems arising during the migration process or any later problems in the target system that have their origin in the OS/DB migration. If SAP Active Global Support is involved in solving issues it may be billed according to the current remote consulting price list.

SAP strongly recommends running the SAP EarlyWatch Alert. This service runs automatically in the background and delivers performance data to the SAP Solution Manager. The service continuously measures system performance to identify system bottlenecks early on.

SAP OS/DB Migration Check is available worldwide for all SAP products that use an ABAP stack. All other products may be migrated without involvement of the SAP OS/DB Migration Check