It's time to give our SAP Basis colleagues their moment in the spotlight, because one thing is clear: "It wouldn't work without us."
THE ROLES OF SAP BASIS
“We’re indispensable,” is the motto of the INFORMATICS SAP Basis team—and rightly so.
“The department ensures the smooth operation of R/3 and subsequent releases, up to and including S/4HANA. This also includes all middleware programs and tools,” explains Bernhard Humer, SAP Technical Consultant. The NetWeaver and HANA platforms, on which SAP programs can run seamlessly, are also part of SAP Basis.
The team's responsibilities include performing upgrades and installing support packages. During upgrades, existing SAP standard objects are overwritten by newly delivered objects. To help customers retain objects that were modified in a previous release, all modified objects are reviewed by the SAP Basis team, among others; depending on their relevance, these objects are adopted, and the individual customizations are preserved.
MONITORING AND OPTIMIZATION
In addition, SAP Basis assists with system monitoring. This includes logging, measuring, and tracking system, error, performance, and business data. This is where SAP Solution Manager comes into play, as it generates the EarlyWatch Alert diagnostic service. The EarlyWatch Alert report provides detailed information on system status, performance, configuration, system operations, database administration, and trend analysis.
“We evaluate and analyze the systems based on this report. Potential issues are identified early, bottlenecks are avoided, and the performance of the ABAP and Java systems is monitored automatically and effectively.”
THE HIGHEST STANDARDS
SAP Basis staff must possess specific qualifications and certifications. Since INFORMATICS has been an official SAP Value Added Reseller (VAR) since 2016 and is therefore certified as a “Partner Center of Expertise,” all employees must have the expertise required by SAP. “The infrastructure must also meet clear requirements.” For example, all support ticket logging and tracking must take place within Solution Manager. In addition, INFORMATICS uses the appropriate test or simulation systems for SAP ECC and Business Warehouse.
“This allows SAP support consultants to test and simulate the exact same issues that a customer is experiencing.” Technical expertise in SAP NetWeaver consulting is, of course, also a prerequisite. “Furthermore, we must ensure that every customer has access to the INFORMATICS Helpdesk 24/7,” concludes Bernhard Humer.
