6 SAP Enterprise Server Tools That Will Make You Rethink Your IT Infrastructure

Enterprise applications are considered the backbones of today’s companies as they allow the firm to deal with important business processes and information. 

SAP is one of the largest companies for delivering enterprise software, with solutions in finance, supply chain, manufacturing, human capital management and more. Nevertheless, one cannot get the optimum benefit out of a system unless he has the appropriate tools and structures to support it.

In this blog post, I will outline 6 great SAP enterprise server tools that could compel you to reconsider your existing IT infrastructure. 

1. Monitoring and Diagnostics Tools

A key component in any superior SAP environment is effective vigilance and analysis. Considering the fact that this software encompasses large volumes of transactions and data, such a system requires constant monitoring. 

Two tools that provide enhanced visibility include:

• EarlyWatch Alert: This is a remote support and monitoring tool that gives a health check and suggestions for SAP on a routine basis. It taps the knowledge base of best practices contained in this system to fine-tune its setup. EarlyWatch Alert, adopted to avoid problems, identifies any existing active issues that need to be addressed.

• Solution Manager: This central facility provides full life-cycle management of applications as well as monitoring, reporting and even alerting of technical faults likely to occur in the systems. Dashboards, KPIs, and analytics are also actionable in defining business intelligence. Also, it integrates with different applications within the IT management consoles to make it easy to troubleshoot.

There is much emphasis on planning and speed in detecting problems in this infrastructure for them to be able to operate in a stable and continuous manner. EarlyWatch Alert and Solution Manager are equipped with features that would allow only a controlled environment.

2. Performance and Scalability Tools

The larger the SAP Anwendungen system contains, the more transactions, users, and interfaces it has. Then, the utilization of the system increases, hence the need for peak performance.  

• The HANA Dynamic Tiering tool, for example, enables partitioning and the automated reallocation of warm data from the in-memory HANA database to less expensive disks. 

• The end-user is willing to pay higher price than commodity workloads while keeping the cost lower for production-critical workloads, hence enabling the distinction. 

• By moving warm data to disk, organizations can significantly reduce the amount of expensive in-memory storage they need. 

• This lowers costs while maintaining performance for critical workloads.

As much as the demand varies on systems, these tools offer the flexibility of economically scaling up and down infrastructure. It means that all resources are optimally used in both the current and replicated environment of an active landscape.

3. Backup and Recovery Solutions

To maintain business operations in case of failures, business-critical SAP solutions need to be online as much as possible and recover quickly in case of failure. 

• System Replication: This solution offers data replication in real time for the purpose of RPO and RTO of the SAP system, measured in minutes. Sustaining replication at the rate of zero data loss is beneficial for reconstructing production within the shortest time possible.

• HANA System Replication: For the HANA in-memory databases, this tool provides synchronous and asynchronous replication across a site. Regular updates of production and standby HANA servers guarantee a fast switch-over operation. Integrative monitoring ensures replication health status up to the individual table level in the database.

These tools collectively enable enterprises to sustain the RPO and RTO objectives so that business-critical disruptions remain at the minimum level even in worst-case scenarios.

4. Administration and Security Tools

As with the rising threat levels of cybercrime and stiff compliance measures, the protection and management of the SAP Losungen framework are more important than before. 

Two tools that strengthen the administration and defense include

• Access Control: This security tool gives a single window to manage access policies, roles, privileges, passwords and authorizations in the ERP realm. Small-scale controls and automated schema assurance are more protective and effective. Another area of compliance reporting is the confirmation of compliance with policies that require separation of duties.

• NetWeaver Gateway: This tool makes the ERP software accessible to be integrated through the basic HTTP Web services standard. Reuse services are essentially simplified processes encapsulated in safe and functional APIs. Gateway is basically an application that acts as middleware and can be used to connect SAP with web, mobile, cloud, and third-party applications.

These tools extend access control and system protection. At the same time, they provide a limited openness of key ERP data and processes that can be shared with new integration touchpoints.

5. Cloud Tools

There is a need to adopt cloud and agile methods for the management of SAP structures as a way of adapting to new business problems. 

ERP applications can be migrated and run faster, safer, and more flexibly if they are hosted on the Azure cloud of Microsoft. Azure IaaS templates are provided, along with ready-made infrastructures to deploy new ERP environments. 

The availability, backup, and monitoring services are already integrated, and this saves on resource utilization. Integration with on-premise environments is also simplified. The hybrid connectivity to on-premises landscapes is also well facilitated.

6. Specialized Infrastructure Tools

ERP workloads are optimized when infrastructure is perfect, hence benefiting from massive savings and high performance.

Cisco UCS Servers for HANA offer close integration of computing, storage, and networking into efficient HANA appliances. Up to multi-terabyte memory capacity increases the in-memory performance and all-flash storage allows up to 12 times higher data access rate. Optimized for HANA workloads, these enterprise servers received some of the best analytic processing speeds on today’s market.

Final Words

SAP today requires an organisation to have a flexible and dynamic environment that will help cope with the current global challenges. The tools discussed above are some of the newer trends in SAP Enterprise IT infrastructure monitoring and security, integration and optimization, and innovation tools. It is therefore advisable to evaluate if and where the use of these tools can enhance your current SAP landscape. Proper structural backup makes the company not only develop long-term SAP plans but also get the best outcomes from such huge investments.