What is system Copy

[Former Member]

Hello all,

I need to know what system copy is.I am in development area so will not be able to understand some of the terminology if jargons are used.I need to know,

What happens when a new system is set up by sytem copy.Is the only repository replicated or even the client independant and client dependant data is copied.

What happens with regards to the transactional data.Is it important for the new system or a test system to have equally good hardware requirements?

Is client copy also required after system copy? if so, why?

Please also indicate how i will be able to self learn about the concept.i do not need the installation guides or procedure to do a system copy.

I will surely reward points for a good explanation.

Regards,

Rahul

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Rahul,

a system copy is a copy of a hole SAP system. You get the hole thing a second time. This means you get the repository, all clients and all transactional data, client independent and dependent data, simply everything. A client copy is not necessary because you already get all of them. May be you want to delete some of them you copied, to reduce the size of your database.

The hardware requirements are not necessarily the same. You need in the first place a more or less equally sized I/O subsystem (Disks could be slower/cheaper - RAID10 in Source RAID5 in Target), because you copy the system. I wrote more or less equally sized, because system copies could be done with database change (Oracle -> MAXDB, Oracle -> DB6, ...) which may result in different database sizes (heterogeneous system copy). There are exceptions if you use these new snapshot technologies with writeable snapshots. But this is advanced stuff and I understand your question as a question regarding the concept. The Server itself (CPU and Memory) could be smaller depending for which purpose you need the copy. If you try to do functional tests, you may use much smaller hardware, for runtime estimation tests you may need a comparable hardware (CPU, Memory and I/O subsystem).

If you want to do a system copy, please go to SAP Service Marketplace and download one of the system copy guides. There is an alias SYSTEMCOPY.

Best regards

Ralph

[Former Member]

Thanks everyone..i have rewarded points

[Former Member]

Hello Rahul,

There are two different types of System Copy, a Homogeneous System Copy and a Heterogeneous System Copy.

In a homogeneous system the database and operating system stay the same. By stay the same i mean you do not move from Oracle to MSSQL or Windows to AIX. This does not mean you cant move between versions, Oracle 9 to Oracle 10 or Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 is still a Homogeneous system copy.

There are two ways to perform a homogeneous system copy, an import and export method via sapinst and R3load, or a copy using a DB Specific method which will depend on the type of system you are trying to copy.

A heterogeneous system copy is the opposite, here either your Operating System and or Database are changed. You can only perform this sort of system copy using the import and export method as sapisnt must perform conversions on your data.

At its most basic level a system copy is a way to take a complete copy of an existing system, and move it to new hardware. It is also a useful way of creating a Test system which will accurately reflect a production system.

Your best source of information for a system copy can be found at http:
service.sap.com\systemcopy

Hopefully this answers your question,

Regards,

David

[sourabhshah]

Hello Rahul,

As far as i know system copy replicates the Repository into the other system.In my opinion it also replicates the cross client data.i am not too sure about the client data. With the help of client copy the specified client data is replicated.If you need to do a system copy you will need equally good system requirements..

Hope this info helps...

Regards,

Sourabh