Relevant for all SAP S/4HANA On-Premise releases
During my work as technical architect and product expert within the S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group, I have come across several customers experiencing issues with performance of client copies during an SAP S/4HANA project.
Client copies are typically required for new implementation projects for leveraging SAP Best Practices content (see this blog about SAP Best Practices content activation for more details). In some specific cases it can also be useful for specific configuration and testing scenarios for upgrades and system conversion projects.
We are often asked to advise what could be done to improve and shorten the client copy duration. There are several SAP Notes and aspects to take into consideration, also often recommended by our SAP Support teams. You will find a summary about them in this blog.
Make use of the new Client Copy Tool (transactions SCCLN and SCC9N), which is up to ten times faster than the old tool (see this blog and the help.sap.com documentation for further details).
Furthermore, we recommend that you review and/or apply the following SAP Notes. While some of these SAP Notes would be applicable for SAP ERP systems as well, I will outline the relevant SAP_BASIS releases for SAP S/4HANA systems only.
Additionally, be aware that if you cancel an already running client copy and subsequently run into issues with locking the source client, make sure you follow the instructions in SAP Note 2705038.
I know it’s quite some preparation work but should be very much complete as of status end of year 2020 and help you reduce the client copy time as much as possible.
Once you start your copy, you should also monitor it to further avoid issues or perform further tuning.
The following monitoring tools are available:
Let us know in your comments by which factor you were able to reduce the client copy duration by following these recommendations or if even another parameter tuning helped you in the past.
Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group
During my work as technical architect and product expert within the S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group, I have come across several customers experiencing issues with performance of client copies during an SAP S/4HANA project.
Client copies are typically required for new implementation projects for leveraging SAP Best Practices content (see this blog about SAP Best Practices content activation for more details). In some specific cases it can also be useful for specific configuration and testing scenarios for upgrades and system conversion projects.
We are often asked to advise what could be done to improve and shorten the client copy duration. There are several SAP Notes and aspects to take into consideration, also often recommended by our SAP Support teams. You will find a summary about them in this blog.
Generally Recommended Procedure
Make use of the new Client Copy Tool (transactions SCCLN and SCC9N), which is up to ten times faster than the old tool (see this blog and the help.sap.com documentation for further details).
- Do not start a client copy in an already existing client with the intention to overwrite old data. We recommend that you create a new client and start a fresh client copy in this client. By starting a fresh client copy in a new client it will greatly reduce the time taken by the client copy tool as there will be no entries in the tables to delete.
- Increase the number of work processes. This is configured via the parameter for parallel work processes in the Client Copy Tool.
- Use the option SINGLECOPY in expert settings, which will copy tables with ‘S’ exclusion mode in advance.
- Set the value of the profile parameter ‘maxwp_run_time’ to 9999 seconds in the source system, which will ensure that the maximum runtime of a program can be longer and still running SQL statements are not cancelled
Furthermore, we recommend that you review and/or apply the following SAP Notes. While some of these SAP Notes would be applicable for SAP ERP systems as well, I will outline the relevant SAP_BASIS releases for SAP S/4HANA systems only.
List of SAP Notes
- SAP Note 2163425 is the central note providing a list of recommendations for improving client copy performances
- SAP Note 489690 provides several recommendations for copying large production clients
- SAP Note 2555451 lists recommended settings for performing a client copy of a system running on an SAP HANA database
- SAP Note 2953662 provides recommendations for remote client copy performance improvements
- SAP Note 2761821 corrects issues with open cursor and fetch statements on SAP HANA databases (valid for SAP_BASIS 750 to 754)
- SAP Note 2759161 ensures a clean full table deletion before executing the copy (valid for SAP_BASIS 750 to 753). This SAP Note is not required if you create a new client and start a fresh client copy in it. However, if for whatever reason this is not possible, then it is crucial to implement this SAP Note.
- SAP Note 2868569 provides a correction, which improves performance when running a high number of parallel processes (valid for SAP_BASIS 750 to 754)
- SAP Note 2550545 provides several performance related Client Copy Tool corrections (valid for SAP_BASIS 750 to 754)
- SAP Note 2907850 ensures correct copying of individual tables in separate parallel processes(valid for SAP_BASIS 750, 751 and 753)
Additionally, be aware that if you cancel an already running client copy and subsequently run into issues with locking the source client, make sure you follow the instructions in SAP Note 2705038.
I know it’s quite some preparation work but should be very much complete as of status end of year 2020 and help you reduce the client copy time as much as possible.
Monitoring Tools
Once you start your copy, you should also monitor it to further avoid issues or perform further tuning.
The following monitoring tools are available:
- Transaction SCC3 (Client Copy monitor)
- Transaction SM50 (for checking client copy work processes to see which job has been running for how long and what kind of task is being executed)
- Transaction DB02 or SAP HANA Studio/Cockpit to check on database level, which SQL statement executions are taking long
New Client Copy monitor (transaction SCC3)
Let us know in your comments by which factor you were able to reduce the client copy duration by following these recommendations or if even another parameter tuning helped you in the past.
Brought to you by the SAP S/4HANA Regional Implementation Group
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