System copies - preferred methods

[Former Member]

Hello all,

I'm about to start a project to migrate some existing Production systems (BW, ECC, SRM) which are all based on NW04. DB is Oracle 9.2.0.4. The proposed method is to use system copies.

The systems are to be moved from a couple of existing SUN Solaris machines to one new SUN Solaris machine with the latest O/S, so even though the O/S version is changing, these copies will still be homogeneous as opposed to heterogeneous, correct? There is no change of DB.

My other question is really asking for the benefit of your experiences....

Because these are NW04 systems, I am proposing to use the R3load process (ie export source system / install new system using export from source).

Have people found this method the best way of achieving this, or do some of you have another preferred method (backup/restore) and why? What are the advantages/disadvantages that you see with either method?

Also the proposed order of migration is BW, then ECC, then SRM. Do you see any issues with doing them in this order?

TIA.

Regards....John.

[Former Member]

Hi John,

1. For your first question yes you are correct - if you are using R3load/Jload for your migrations even if your source & the target O/S versions are different it is possible to migrate them & it is known as homogeneous system copy. You wont be able to do it if you are using database specific methods such as backup/restore.

2. The answer to your second question is that using R3load (for ABAP based components) and Jload (for JAVA based components) the migration process is slower compared to DB-based methods. However, it has the added advantage of having different source & target versions of O/S or database. Added to that if you have a JAVA-Stack Jload is the suggested method by SAP - as it not only takes care of the db-components of the JAVA-Stack but also the O/S components (file-based) such as SDM, etc (depending on the SAP version).

- Regards, Dibya