SAP Basis


SAP Basis — The Air Traffic Control for SAP Landscapes

Like the air traffic control tower that efficiently and safely manages the air traffic into the airport, SAP Basis teams manage the diverse set of various SAP modules and the associated databases and operating systems so that large enterprises can run their day-to-day business on SAP reliably. Just as airplane travelers do not pay any thought to the air traffic control tower, business users are generally unaware of what happens behind the scenes to keep their processes running, their orders fulfilled, or their books closed.

However, the SAP Basis teams are a crucial factor in achieving business continuity, performance, security, and compliance. Hence, SAP Basis needs to be viewed as a strategic part of the business. Not doing so poses significant risks in terms of revenue and reputation loss.

SAP Basis — The Air Traffic Control for SAP Landscapes

Like the air traffic control tower that efficiently and safely manages the air traffic into the airport, SAP Basis teams manage the diverse set of various SAP modules and the associated databases and operating systems so that large enterprises can run their day-to-day business on SAP reliably. Just as airplane travelers do not pay any thought to the air traffic control tower, business users are generally unaware of what happens behind the scenes to keep their processes running, their orders fulfilled, or their books closed.

However, the SAP Basis teams are a crucial factor in achieving business continuity, performance, security, and compliance. Hence, SAP Basis needs to be viewed as a strategic part of the business. Not doing so poses significant risks in terms of revenue and reputation loss.

The SAP product suite is expanding much more rapidly than in the past through both on-premise and cloud offerings. Patches and updates to meet changing country and industry regulatory requirements, and to tackle cybercrime are more frequent than before. Further, SAP is providing increasing amounts of customizations with respect to security, compliance, performance, and compatibility.

A well-staffed and well-trained SAP Basis team can manage this complexity and impact uptime, performance, security, and costs of operations positively. Their primary tasks, which are critical for business, include:

  1. System availability — With 365x24x7 availability almost a requirement in most businesses, SAP Basis helps with monitoring by providing logs.
  2. Disaster recovery — SAP Basis can run daily backups as well as help the company transition to back up in the case of a disaster.
  3. System performance — To meet increasing customer expectations on performance, SAP Basis provides ways to tune the landscape to perform at peak efficiency. Administrators can also set up load balancing to scale up servers, which may be done in conjunction with cloud hyperscalers.
  4. Running background jobs — SAP Basis helps in scheduling the resource-intensive background batch jobs during periods of low system usage and monitoring them for completion.

With the increasing frequency of updates and patches from SAP, the SAP Basis team also needs to plan for the right time to apply updates, ensure adequate infrastructure resources, manage transports with proper testing, and monitor the completion.

Vendors like managecore bring substantial strategic expertise in automating and finetuning the tasks through SAP Basis so that all operations goals are met. LRS Output Management enables management of output, print, and scanner systems.

Further, artificial intelligence can have a large impact on uptime. Hence, solutions in the form of AIOps enable a shift to more proactive maintenance that can predicts and prevent incidents. Watch this video by Avantra on how AIOps helps in SAP operations.

13 results

  1. Infrastructure for SAP Infographic

    Reading time: 1 min

    View this infographic summarizing information from a recent whitepaper about IT infrastructure for SAP solutions.

  2. SAP Basis Learning: Work processes

    Some time ago I decided to recommend a video on useful Linux commands for any Basis administrator. At the time, I was replied by @David_Chaviano, who is an SAP expert and is actively involved in topics related to introducing beginners to the world of SAP. Meanwhile, David was explaining what SAP Basis is. Discussion with…

  3. Automated SystemCopy: The next generation of SAP Basis Operation

    March 23, 2021

    It has never been easier to automate SAP system copies to production support systems than today. Refreshes can appear to be a very complex process with over 150 manual steps per refresh per system. Today, refreshes can easily be automated from beginning to end, and doing that automation provides an immediate return on investment within…

  4. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: Iron fist in a velvet glove — IaaS service-level enforcement at the U.S. Department of the Interior

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Get practical tips from the U.S. Department of the Interior’s (DOI) experience working collaboratively with its cloud service provider to craft workable incentive and disincentive structures for service-level agreement (SLA) enforcement. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Knight_Casestudyironfistinavelvetglove. Heather Knight If you have comments about this article or publication, or...…

  5. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: Migrating a large U.S. federal enterprise system to the cloud: Benefits, pitfalls, and lessons learned

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Review the migration of the U.S. Department of the Interior’s agency-wide ERP from government data centers to commercial cloud-based hosting. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Campbell_Casestudymigratingalarge.   Bill Campbell If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the...…

  6. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: Practical lessons from thyssenkrupp’s implementation and rollout of SAP Fiori transactional apps

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Gain valuable strategic and technical insight from thyssenkrupp’s recent SAP Fiori implementation. Learn how the company determined desired functionalities to cover business needs. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Woo_Casestudypracticallessons.   Paul Woo If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea,...…

  7. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: Tools and strategies Microsoft uses to significantly reduce planned downtime

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Find out how Microsoft leverages the SAP zero downtime option (ZDO) to reduce the downtime for SAP deployments substantially. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Ghorpade_Casestudytoolsandstrategies.   Sachin Ghorpade If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor....…

  8. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: An inside look at the evolution of UX at Newell Brands

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Learn how Newell Brands took the steps necessary to meet the trends of today’s UX and evolve the employee user experience. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Siddiqui_Casestudyaninsidelook. Mohammed Siddiqui If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the...…

  9. Basis & SAP Administration: Case study: How Newcastle University developed an annual, all-SAP system patching program to optimize and gain maximum value from its SAP investments

    Reading time: 1 min

    Learn lessons from Newcastle University’s experience developing a system of annual patching. Click this link to view the slides from this session — Admin2017_Burns_Casestudyhownewcastleuniversitydeveloped. Chris Burns If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.... This content is for SAPinsider Monthly Subscription, SAPinsider…

  10. Basis and SAP Administration: Case study: Learning from multiple cloud deployments of SAP including Microsoft

    Reading time: 1 mins

    Learn from Microsoft’s experience working with the SAP team on a migration of more than 400 servers to public and private cloud environments. here Siddhartha Rabindran If you have comments about this article or publication, or would like to submit an article idea, please contact the editor.... This content is for SAPinsider Monthly Subscription, SAPinsider…