System Refresh Ideas

[Former Member]

Hi Guru's,

We are getting ready to start a new project to roll out SAP to our manufacturing plants and the project team has requested a refresh of DEV with data and config from PROD. What is the best strategy to accomplish this? We have done client copies in the past but they leave a lot to be desired. We want a clean slate pretty much to start with. I can do a system copy but then we lose Z program versions and any local objects and unreleased transports. Is there a recommended procedure for refreshing DEV and QAS without losing program data? Can I just re-transport the programs into DEV in the same order they went into PROD to regain the old versions? Is it even a big deal? How does everyone else do refreshes?

Thank you.

[Former Member]

Wim,

Thanks for the info - I think we will follow your lead. How did you export the version management stuff?

Thanks.

[Former Member]

Hello,

This can be done via the instructions in following SAP Note:

Note 130906 - How can versions be transported?

Success.

Wim

[Former Member]

Hello,

What you ask is not really recommended because of reasons you have already mentioned.

With a full system refresh of DEV based on PRD you will loose a lot (version management of objects, pending customizing, open transport requests, ...).

A remote client copy is also not recommended because of the long elapse time (because of the production data) and the possible inconsistencies in the SAP data dictionary (some tables can be different on PRD and DEV).

We once refreshed the DEV system based on PRD to prepare an upgrade.

Before that we alligned DEV - QA - PRD with the same transports and made sure nothing was pending on DEV.

We also exported the version management of the repository objects.

Afterwards we performed a system refresh from DEV based on PRD and imported the version management again plus the rest of post processing (user upload, RFC truncate, client copies, SCC4 settings, BDLS, etc...).

PS : Why don't you use the QA system or even a second QA second to perform a full system copy ?

I hope this can help you.

Wim

[Former Member]

Hi,

You can use the ROBOCOPY facility provided by windows.

Check the below link to know how to perform a Robocopy, it may help you further.

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=2&ved=0CA0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.math.uiuc...

Regards,

Suneel.