SAP
Migrating to SAP RISE
– Nov 28, 2022
Introduction
For this migration, we partnered with a company based in the US in the Animal Feed Industry that is part of a larger subsidiary group.
Just like many companies enticed to SAP programs and the current trends and rules SAP is putting in place, our client decided to move to SAP RISE. Internally, our client had a very small team and needed support from a functional level to migrate to SAP RISE.
Part of the migration requirements for many customers is updating their S/4 landscape as well as their HANA database. For this project, the scope of work was a migration and an upgrade from S/4 1509 to 2020.
On top of the usual functional needs, all these migrations require very technical basis expert requirements, which most companies don’t have internally; that is the reason why they partner with companies like oXya to help them in this process.
The scope of work for this project was the following:
- Upgrade of the SAP HANA platform from 1.0 to 2.0
- Upgrade of the SAP S/4HANA landscape from S/4 1509 to 2020
- Migration to SAP RISE on Google Cloud
In order to deploy a successful migration to SAP RISE, oXya splits the work into 4 very distinct phases:
4 Phases for a Successful Migration to SAP RISE
There are four phases when it comes to a successful migration to SAP RISE:
- Planning phase
- Preparation phase
- Execution phase
- Post operation/ Hyper care phase
Phase 1: Planning Phase
Timeline
How does oXya build a timeline, and what information has to be provided to create an efficient timeline?
This project had a very short timeline. The migration had to be accomplished and finalized by the end of 2022. The reason for this short deadline was the necessity to move out all the data from the customer’s current data center. oXya had to adapt and squeeze their portion of the work in between this tight deadline. oXya migrated the development environment, the quality environment, and the production environment within a 6 months timeline.
Resource Allocation
How does oXya determine the resources needed for a project of this size?
oXya needed to determine the resources they would need for a migration project of this size, resulting in a team of 25 members. Within the 25 team members, this project had on the client side a dedicated team of 8 to 10 people that would perform all functional needs as well as project management. oXya had a team of 3 people that included 2 basis experts with 10+ years of experience and a technical PM for the pre-migration process as well as the post-op. With a total of 6 team members for the managed services to maintain their system on a daily basis.
Phase 2: Preparation Phase
Onboarding
How easy is it to onboard a third-party vendor/contractor like oXya to take on the migration of a company’s SAP landscape to SAP RISE?
Onboarding is very easy, the only access requirements oXya needs in order to start the project are the following:
- OS access (Operating System) with the required authorization
- SAP access to perform an assessment of the landscape
- Customer VPN or Site to Site VPN
Tests and Analysis
What kind of assessments oXya performs to prepare for the migration?
The team did a wide range of assessments to ensure that the project was going to be successful.
-
Full System Assessment
The goal of a full system assessment is to understand the customer’s landscape:
- SAP component level
- OS and Kernel release
- Functionality and add-ons
Following the full system assessment, the in-depth documentation of the analysis will measure
the amount of work, the operations, and evaluate the downtime, which helps to understand the migration path.
2. Network Testing
Why is network testing important?
To begin, a bandwidth test of the network between the customer and the target should be performed. It will help to understand how long the migration will take.
For example: If a company is migrating to SAP RISE, oXya will test the bandwidth between source and target. This step is crucial because when the backup is submitted to SAP RISE, the bandwidth will determine the duration of the downtime. oXya wants to minimize the impact on the customer’s production environment as much as possible.
In our context, we made sure right at the beginning of the project we had the proper bandwidth to support such migration project on Google Cloud.
Phase 3: Execution Phase
How do we execute the project?
The main challenge for customers moving to RISE is the communication and coordination between different partners.
oXya will execute the biggest part of the migration, the pre-upgrade, upgrade, and environment isolation and push the database backup to SAP.
Once everything has been transferred to SAP RISE, the SAP RISE team will take care of restoring the backup and bring the SAP system online. It is then oXya’s job to ensure that all the post-operation activities are performed.
How do we do this?
Here are a few examples of challenges oXya could face during the upgrades in the execution phase:
Migration Phase:
- Network: SAP eco-system or interfaces connectivity
- Migration of application server from Windows to Linux (path conversion)
- Failure during the upgrade due to customization
That is why it is important to anticipate any challenges that might be faced.
Successes faced during migration:
A success that oXya is very proud to mention is the quick reactivity and resolution of the crash and failure of a database import during the restore phase. As soon as oXya heard about the issue, our expert team double-checked the backup to measure the damages, if the database was corrupted during the transfer, and any lost backups.
The biggest achievement of this project is the successful completion of the migration. The client expected to go live in summer 2022; however, they had some business freezes unrelated to the project and could not move forward until the freeze was lifted. oXya completed this project later this fall 2022, which resulted in a very successful push to LIVE.
The production migration was completed within a downtime of 4 days doing the HANA upgrade, one minor S/4 upgrade, as well as the migration to a different platform (Google Cloud) for the SAP RISE subscription.
During the phases of migration, our oXya team worked 24/7 to ensure a smooth process. As this project is a USA based partner, our USA SAP expert migration team supported the migration from start to finish.
Other success:
Post operation: oXya teamed up with several other 3rd party vendors like Bartender and PayMetric that SAP does not support. oXya helped install those systems and had them connected to the SAP.
Our team did a fantastic job in helping to set up a new Google Cloud subscription where they had installed several non-SAP servers, which are now managed by oXya.
Phase 4: Post Operation/ Hyper Care Phase
Why is it important for oXya to be involved in this last phase?
Post-migration, oXya always performs a so-called hyper-care period. This process is extra precaution in case something happens to the client’s SAP system
If something happens, SAP will be there to help. If something goes down, it is SAP’s responsibility to bring it back online, but if there is a performance issue, something is not running correctly, then SAP might not be able to help based on the level of services the customer subscribed to.
oXya will provide these additional services, which is our core business. This is the reason why oXya is there to continue supporting after the migration phase. For example, to connect non-SAP systems, and fix RFC connections, during the hyper care period, oXya is monitoring any issues 24/7. The hyper care usually lasts for 2 weeks.
Conclusion
oXya SAP basis experts provide full planning from end to end, making oXya a leading SAP provider and migration partner in the USA.
Our team knows how to migrate systems into SAP RISE. We are also one of the most knowledgeable teams out there that can migrate these systems and can provide expert-level insights on any landscape transformations that may be required.
If you are interested in oXya’s approach to migrating your landscape to SAP RISE, we would love to hear from you — If you are located in the US, reach out to our US-based team here at marketing-usa@oxya.com or sales-usa@oxya.com. If you are located in the EMEA region, reach out to our headquarters team at contact@oxya.com
More information about our SAP RISE services visit our website.
