SAP Planning: Best Practices in Implementation

SAP Planning: Best Practices in Implementation

by George W. Anderson
Released May 2003
Publisher(s): Sams
ISBN: 0789728753

Read it now on the O’Reilly learning platform with a 10-day free trial.

O’Reilly members get unlimited access to books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.

Start your free trial

Book description

Everything a company needs to know to plan, organize, and perform an SAP implementation in one book!

This is the only book available that shows the reader how to actually plan an SAP Data Center, install mySAP components, and set up the tools and processes necessary to monitor and manage a productive SAP system. It covers how to perform a Total Cost of Ownership analysis to help refine your SAP Solution Vision, and then how to leverage SAP¿s technology partners to work through the SAP system landscape sizing process. Staffing the project, from the SAP Steering Committee all the way down to the primary SAP basis and computer operations teams, is covered as well. It also covers building high availability and disaster recoverability into your solutions, addressing critical training required by the SAP support team as well as end users, and how to use SAP-provided and a host of other 3rd party tools to manage your mySAP landscape. Finally, this is the only book that covers in detail how to address both functional and stress testing of your solution prior to going live.

Throughout the book, knowledge and processes are provided that will help you hit the ground running and help you save money. The book is written by an SAP Technical Certified Consultant with seven years of experience in SAP design and implementation who offers tried and proven approaches, scripts, and tools similar to those used by new and existing SAP customer sites. The accompanying CD of documents, presentations, scripts, checklists, and various tools valued at $50,000 saves time and makes the reader productive fast.

Coverage includes notated screen shots of real productive systems; custom checklists, how-to procedures, organization charts that can be leveraged immediately for staffing teams; PowerPoint presentations that can be used by management to sell, present, and provide status updates on their mySAP projects internally; tools, utilities, and XLS spreadsheets used to design, size, and understand SAP system architectures; actual Microsoft Project plans and implementation schedules to get the customer and 3rd party Project Manager's started quickly; and documentation templates and approaches that may be used at once.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Foreword: Planning an SAP Deployment
  3. About the Author
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. Tell Us What You Think!
  6. Preparing for Your mySAP Business Suite Implementation
    1. Introduction to SAP Implementation Planning
      1. Welcome to SAP Planning!
      2. My Audience and Approach
      3. Addressing the Real Challenges of SAP Implementations
      4. What Exactly Is SAP?
      5. SAP Infrastructure Planning—What It’s All About
      6. Special Materials Provided by the Book
      7. Summary
    2. What an SAP Project Looks Like
      1. In the Beginning
      2. Tactical Reasons for Implementing SAP
      3. Strategic “Big Picture” Goals of Implementing mySAP.com
      4. Beware—When SAP Projects Are Less Than Successful
      5. Setting the Stage for a Successful Implementation
      6. The Structure and Role of the Steering Committee
      7. Moving Beyond the “Napkin” Plan
      8. Tools and Techniques
      9. Summary
    3. Crafting Your mySAP Solution Vision
      1. What Is a Solution Vision?
      2. SAP System Landscape Design and Planning Approaches
      3. Capturing Your mySAP Solution Vision
      4. Outsourcing—Another Method of Achieving Your Solution Vision
      5. Tools and Techniques
      6. Summary
    4. Designing and Initially Staffing the SAP Technical Support Organization (TSO)
      1. Overview—What Is an SAP Infrastructure TSO?
      2. TSO Overview—Roles and Responsibilities
      3. Organizational Chart Approaches in the Real World
      4. Recruiting the Core TSO Leads
      5. Consultants Versus Training Your Own Internal Resources
      6. Revising the SAP Infrastructure Implementation Budget
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
  7. Getting Started—Sizing and Blueprinting
    1. Total Cost of Ownership Analysis in Preparation for Sizing
      1. Purpose of This Chapter
      2. What Is Total Cost of Ownership?
      3. How the SAP Solution Vision Drives TCO
      4. TCO and the SAP Solution Stack
      5. Lowering TCO Through People and Processes
      6. Updating the RFI, RFP, or Internal Knowledge Repository
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
    2. Identifying High Availability and Disaster Recovery Requirements
      1. Introduction to Availability
      2. Addressing Availability Early in the SAP Project
      3. Determining Your Required Level of Disaster Tolerance
      4. Remedying Single Points of Failure in the Stack
      5. SAP Data Center Infrastructure SPOFs
      6. SAP Server SPOFs
      7. Disk Subsystem Single Points of Failure
      8. Single Points of Failure Inherent in the OS
      9. SPOFs and the Database Layer
      10. mySAP.com Single Points of Failure
      11. SAP General Availability and DR Best Practices
      12. A Final Look at the SAP System Landscape
      13. Tools and Techniques
      14. Summary
    3. Sizing: Engaging the SAP Solution Stack Vendors
      1. Overview—The Sizing and Blueprinting Process
      2. General Sizing Best Practices and Approaches
      3. Preparing for the SAP Sizing Process
      4. SAP Hardware, OS, and Database Sizing
      5. Sizing Considerations for mySAP Components
      6. Selecting Your SAP Solution Stack Partners
      7. Executing the SAP Infrastructure Planning Sessions
      8. Tools and Techniques
      9. Summary
    4. Staffing the Technical Support Organization
      1. Best Practices Approach to Staffing the SAP TSO
      2. Staffing the SAP TSO: Rapid Deployment
      3. Bringing in the Best of the Best
      4. How to Retain Your SAP Staff!
      5. Tools and Techniques
      6. Summary
    5. Critical SAP Training Requirements
      1. Introduction to SAP Training
      2. Training and the Role of the SAP System Landscape
      3. Approaches to SAP Training
      4. Feedback Loops—Improving the Value of Training
      5. Tools and Techniques
      6. Summary
    6. Developing the SAP Data Center
      1. Introducing the SAP Data Center
      2. The SAP Data Center “Big Picture”
      3. Data Center Physical Requirements
      4. Rack Planning for Data Center Resources
      5. Network Infrastructure for SAP
      6. Network Server Preparation
      7. General Storage Considerations
      8. On the Road to Implementation
      9. Tools and Techniques
      10. Summary
    7. Performing mySAP.com Component Installations
      1. Implementation Methodologies for SAP Installations
      2. Rounding Out Your SAP System Landscape
      3. Leveraging Installation Documentation, Tools, and Approaches
      4. Installing Your mySAP-Enabling Foundation—NetWeaver
      5. Installation Details for mySAP Components
      6. Addressing General mySAP Post-Installation Tasks
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
    8. Rounding Out Support for SAP
      1. Identifying and Staffing the Remaining TSO Roles
      2. Approaches to “Filling in the Final Holes”
      3. Let’s Give a Big Warm Welcome to the “Specialists”!
      4. The Most Overlooked Critical SAP Support Function
      5. The Role of the SAP Help Desk
      6. Putting It All Together in the Real World
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
  8. Moving into SAP Functional Development
    1. Gaining Control of Change Control
      1. An Overview of Change Management
      2. Change Management Best Practices and Approaches
      3. Change Control Affects Everything
      4. Change Control and the SAP Solution Stack
      5. How to Organize and Plan for Change in the Real World
      6. Change Management Lessons Learned in the Real World
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
    2. SAP Systems and Operations Management
      1. Back to SAP Operations
      2. What Is the SAP Operations Manual?
      3. Systems Management Techniques for SAP
      4. Piloting a Systems Management Application for SAP
      5. Evaluating Enterprise Systems Management Applications
      6. Additional SAP Management Tools and Approaches
      7. Tools and Techniques
      8. Summary
    3. Functional, Integration, and Regression Testing
      1. Testing SAP Business Processes
      2. Three Types of Business Process Testing
      3. How to Approach Business Process Testing
      4. Executing Business-Process–Specific Testing
      5. Tools and Techniques
      6. Summary
  9. Preparing the Production Environment
    1. Systems and Stress Testing
      1. Introduction—Preparing for Production Stress Testing
      2. System-Level Stress Testing and Pre-Tuning
      3. Key SAP Stress-Testing Considerations
      4. How to Test mySAP Components
      5. Script Development and Preparation in the Real World
      6. Stress Test Execution During “Test Week”
      7. Additional Stress-Testing Goals
      8. Extracting the Last Drop of Value out of Testing
      9. Lessons Learned in the Real World
      10. Tools and Techniques
      11. Summary
    2. Preparing for SAP Go-Live
      1. Overview—Preparing for Cutover
      2. Preparing for Technical Go-Live
      3. Final Administrative Technical Details
      4. The Changing Role of the SAP TSO
      5. Preparing SAP Operations and the Help Desk
      6. Addressing Future Service and Support
      7. The First Week of Go-Live
      8. Tools and Techniques
      9. Summary

Product information

  • Title: SAP Planning: Best Practices in Implementation
  • Author(s): George W. Anderson
  • Release date: May 2003
  • Publisher(s): Sams
  • ISBN: 0789728753