Many companies are faced with the challenge of continuously adapting their SAP landscapes to new requirements. Whether legal changes, new technologies or the growing use of cloud solutions – the complexity of IT systems is constantly increasing.
However, adapting complex SAP landscapes to these requirements is often a balancing act: how can companies ensure the stability of productive operations and drive innovation at the same time?
The limits of the classic 3-system landscape
Traditionally, companies rely on a 3-system landscape consisting of development, quality assurance and production systems. This model works well – as long as there are no parallel projects or urgent changes. But reality often looks different:
- Emergency corrections and long-term development projects run simultaneously.
- Incorrect transports to the production system lead to overwrites and impair stability.
- Tests in the quality assurance system are often not based on production-related data, which increases risks.
A typical scenario: While a developer is adapting a program in the development system, a colleague fixes a bug in the same program that urgently needs to be transported to the production system. The error-corrected version is ultimately overwritten as soon as the development project is completed – a serious setback for productive operations.
Stability and flexibility with a 5-system landscape
The SAP 5-system landscape provides a remedy by supplementing the classic 3-system structure with a parallel release landscape. This consists of an additional development and quality assurance system. How does it work?
- Separation of maintenance and development: urgent corrections are made via the maintenance landscape, while new developments are implemented in the release landscape.
- No mixing of projects: short-term changes and long-term developments do not influence each other.
- Production-related tests: quality assurance systems in both landscapes ensure stable and secure transportation.
Advantages at a glance
- Reduction of risks: the strict separation of changes and projects minimizes the risk of overwrites and overtakes in productive operation.
- Greater stability: the production system remains free of developments until the go-live of a new release, which increases system stability.
- Accelerated processes: emergency corrections can be carried out more quickly thanks to clear structures.
- Flexibility in development: the release landscape can be upgraded to new enhancement packages or releases independently of the maintenance landscape.
- Quality improvement: production-related tests in the quality assurance system reduce the error rate.
Synchronization made easy
A 5-system landscape also brings with it new requirements, in particular the synchronization of changes between the maintenance and release landscape. This is where intelligent tools such as SmartChange come into play. This solution enables automated retrofitting of parallel development systems. This ensures that corrected errors in the maintenance landscape are also transferred to the release landscape – without manual effort or additional risks.
Conclusion: quality and innovation in harmony
The SAP 5-system landscape is far more than just a technical extension. It is a strategic lever to promote stability and agility in equal measure. Companies that rely on this model benefit from a significant increase in quality, reduced risks and faster time-to-market. With the right synchronization solution such as SmartChange, the 5-system landscape becomes a real success factor for digital transformation.
Automated retrofitting of your SAP systems