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A White Paper Analysis from Orasi Software

SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA

The Benefits of a Test-Driven Deployment


Contents

3Executive Summary Graphic: Elements of TestManagement

4SAP HANA Means BusinessGraphic: Benefits of SAPS/4HANA

5S/4HANADifferences and What They Mean for TestingGraphic: SAP HANA SystemComponents and Testing Process

Testing Becomes an Opportunity

6Big Data Means High Performance

Streamlined Workflows Bring Under-the-Covers Challenges Mobility Takes Precedence Security Comes to the ForefrontGraphic: Triggers for System Changes

7Going Mobile

8Ensuring a Successful MigrationGraphic: Test ManagementDuring SAP HANA Migration Project

10 10 Tips for TestingSuccess

11In Summary: A Singular Undertaking with Extraordinary Benefit


Executive Summary When SAP unveiled SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (S/4HANA) in February 2015, the release marked a major leap forward for enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools. With this innovative computing platform, SAP made transformative changes—including the incorporation of big data analytics paired with streamlined, user-friendly workflows—that would dramatically accelerate the availability of business information for enterprise innovation and decision making. With the platform, SAP also introduced SAP Fiori, a mobile-centric interface that would make it easier and faster for enterprise personnel to request, visualize, and consume business data from any device, anywhere, and at any time.

Such revolutionary changes caused Gartner to declare S/4HANA a “transformational shift.” Companies adopting S/4HANA enjoy the benefits of an extremely powerful, unified computing platform, paired with an integrated, in-memory relational database, that over time will cover all mission-critical processes of an enterprise. These benefits, while undeniable, come with a price in terms of deployment complexity.

Whether a platform migration or deployment, S/4HANA implementation will involve many technical and data migration projects. Organizations should plan for significant change management and a rigorous, detailed testing process to limit potential disruption to existing operations. Furthermore, the release of quarterly updates and new application components will involve ongoing testing and test management for many years.

Nevertheless, shrewd business leaders will recognize that their S/4HANA projects present valuable opportunities to undertake infrastructure and process improvement efforts, including adoption of more modern testing approaches, that are a requisite for sharpening competitive edge and future-proofing business operations.

Orasi has identified four core areas where organizations must place intense focus on testing—and should strongly consider adopting best practices such as test automation and data virtualization if they have not already done so:• Performance/Stress Testing• Functional Testing• Security Testing• Mobile and User Experience (UX) Testing for those companies adopting SAP Fiori

Developing a comprehensive plan for asset migration and management, along with updating and executing the test management strategy, is the topic of this white paper.

Test Management

Performance/ Stress Testing

Security TestingMobile and User Experience Testing

FunctionalTesting


S/4HANA Means BusinessAt the S/4HANA launch, SAP CEO Bill McDermott stated, “Today, SAP is redefining the concept of enterprise resource planning for the 21st century. SAP S/4HANA is about uniting software and people to build businesses that run real-time, networked, and simple.” More than a year later, thousands of organizations are discovering its benefits.

Yet, despite the buzz surrounding its debut, technology media and SAP experts have noted that many enterprises remain unconvinced of S/4HANA’s value in comparison to its complexities. These firms may worry whether their infrastructure can handle the loads of big data analytics and mobile usage. They may be uncertain whether their existing customizations will survive the migration. They may even question whether the innovative new features of S/4HANA make it worth the expense and effort.

Admittedly, S/4HANA is a brave new world, but Orasi urges enterprises not to allow these concerns to prevent them from sailing into the future. The changes required to adopt S/4HANA will enable organizations to reduce risk and maintain business continuity while fully experiencing the benefits of the platform, which are considerable:

• Lower cost of ownership (up to 37 percent savings in hardware, software, and labor costs, per SAP)• Dramatic speed improvements and streamlined, near-effortless workflows for business data entry and access keep business information flowing into and out of the system in real time• Complete flexibility in harnessing, visualizing, and consuming data—from simple dashboards to complex “what-if” scenarios and business simulations—enables organizational leaders to make decisions and seize opportunities 24/7

Additionally, SAP has taken great care to assist companies with their core migrations, providing self-service tools and other enablers that help ensure functionality at a fundamental level. Beyond the core migration, many aspects of S/4HANA can be phased in over a period of time, allowing enterprises to move forward at their level of comfort.

• The most in-demand modules (finance, sales, and logistics) are available now.• SAP has announced it will release new application components on a staged basis. The releases are being developed in cooperation with customers and user groups to promote optimal functionality and stability.

Benefits of SAP S/4HANA TRANSFORM THE FIELD

Equip mobile personnel with data and tools to drive business growth

GAIN FLEXIBILITYAddress business needs more readily

BOOST ROIReduce data footprint, enhanceworker productivity

LOWER RISK Reduce business risk throughgreater transparency

DECIDE IN REAL-TIMEGain instant insights to make the right call, quickly

SCALE ON DEMANDIncrease business agility and seize opportunities


• SAP Fiori remains an option, not a requirement, with organizations able to continue using the legacy GUI (graphic user interface) if they prefer.

Admittedly, the sooner companies embrace SAP Fiori and other transformative elements of S/4HANA, the more they will gain from the platform. However, a hybrid migration is fully possible and can continue for a long period of time.

S/4HANA Differences and What They Mean for TestingS/4HANA offers the business advantage of a newly architected, simplified database structure, which works with the SAP HANA data engine to eliminate inefficiencies and drive on-demand computing. These improvements are at the core of S/4HANA’s business benefits, but they are different from how information was processed by SAP HANA in the past.

Other advances introduced in S/4HANA, such as reengineered workflows, will bring additional challenges. Company-specific modifications, extensions and add-ons previously implemented in the SAP HANA environment will likely become outdated or even obsolete. For any migration from an older version of SAP HANA, as well as fresh deployments, organizational leadership should anticipate that adjustments, followed by rigorous testing, will be required. Some considerations for the testing effort are outlined below.

Testing Becomes an Opportunity

For organizations that have not yet adopted testing improvements such as test automation, data masking, and data virtualization, an S/4HANA deployment provides a cost-effective opportunity to do so. Orasi has worked with organizations to deploy test automation, data masking and data virtualization platforms and seen them achieve significant labor and time savings, with 100 percent ROI (or greater). In the case of S/4HANA, the ROI should be even higher.


Big Data Means High Performance

Big data analytics require significant bandwidth and processing power, which will appreciably impact processes. The load will be intensified by the 24/7 availability of on-demand data analysis, visualization, and reporting, which is expected to spur users to request and consume data more frequently and continually. Whether or not firms upgrade their servers and other hardware, extensive, around-the-clock performance testing of application and database servers, networks, services, and software will be a requisite for a successful launch.

Streamlined Workflows Bring Under-the-Covers Challenges

From the user perspective, the simplification of workflows and business processes in S/4HANA is truly revolutionary. Despite this apparent simplicity, achieving this improvement required substantial modifications to the underlying code and structure. Even though a user may now be able to push one button to execute five actions, the system is still performing multiple steps.

If anything, application activity has become even more complex and intensive. Organizations should anticipate more functional testing than ever before. Automation of critical business processes, at a minimum, will be an imperative for most firms. Automation brings the added benefit of equipping organizations to better manage S/4HANA’s frequent application component releases—and potentially, quarterly updates—and the data migration, report updates, and business process modifications they involve.

Mobility Takes Precedence

For organizations deploying SAP Fiori, mobile testing will take on new importance. A wide array of available third-party apps for SAP Fiori will mean expanding testing beyond the device and operating system level to include testing app integrations, as well.

Security Comes to the Forefront

The ease of consuming data, paired with 24/7 availability, will likely result in more public-facing data, so security and compliance testing will become even more crucial. This need will be greatest for organizations adopting the SAP Fiori interface, but it will exist for any firm that allows data consumption outside the confines of a secured, firewalled corporate network connection.


Going MobileTo reap the greatest business and user benefit from the S/4HANA platform, many organizations will initially or eventually want to adopt SAP Fiori, the new UX for SAP software. In developing SAP Fiori, the company applied modern design principles to create a personalized, responsive, and simple user experience across devices and deployment options.

Implementing SAP Fiori requires incorporating mobile and UX testing into the organizations’ test management strategy, with the accompanying development of business requirements, test cases, and other assets. Additionally, SAP Fiori is accompanied by optional, but quite valuable, apps in three categories—transactional, analytical, and factsheet.

These apps work across multiple devices, including smartphones and tablets. They natively integrate with the SAP HANA database but can be powered by other databases, as well. Organizations can deploy one or many apps across user roles and lines of business, including Finance, Human Resources, Sales, Procurement, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, and others.

As part of its SAP Fiori campaign, SAP is doing an excellent job of publicizing the value of these apps to optimize the user experience, simplify and automate day-to-day tasks across any device, and support a wide array of business functions. Consequently, organizations that embark on an SAP Fiori project should anticipate swift, strong user demand for SAP Fiori apps and plan for testing these, as well.

Users will be logging into the system in many different ways and at different times. Increasing the challenge, with fewer clicks for a process, users will be encouraged to generate more requests.

On the infrastructure side, the availability of mobile, on-demand data analysis, visualization, and reporting for users will place extreme and continuous loads on the system. Users will be logging into the system in many different ways and at different times. Increasing the challenge, with fewer clicks for a process, users will be encouraged to generate more requests. Loads on the system will likely exceed expectations and may also be continuous. Organizations must orchestrate comprehensive mobile and performance testing to address these challenges.


To promote categorical success, organizations migrating to S/4HANA from an earlier SAP implementation must anticipate a significant effort. Following are some of the recommendations that Orasi shares with its customers when working on S/4HANA migration projects.

Before beginning the implementation, the existing implementation should be updated, preferably to the latest version of SAP HANA, but at least to a version of SAP that supports SAP HANA. This may require several iterations of the project. During that process, teams will need to identify, document, and test all affected business processes through each iteration.

Ensuring a Successful Migration

S/4HANA presents an unparalleled opportunity for organizations to fully harness the power of information to accelerate positive change and seize new business opportunities. It also offers a cost-effective opportunity to upgrade systems, processes, and testing environments to meet the challenges of the future.

Using automation to document and validate business processes can reduce upgrade project time and costs by 50 percent or more, compared with manual approaches. The resulting automated tests can also be reused across all implementation and maintenance projects that follow.


Firms that have not yet adopted automation should consider doing so during this early phase. Using automation to document and validate business processes can reduce upgrade project time and costs by 50 percent or more, compared with manual approaches. The resulting automated tests can also be reused across all implementation and maintenance projects that follow. After all updates are complete, test and validate former test cases and business processes in the updated platform and then adjust accordingly. This will create a baseline from which teams can more readily identify testing deficiencies, post-deployment.

After deploying S/4HANA, evaluate and test the core system (unit, functional/integration and performance), using masked data generated from the existing production data set. Make any necessary adjustments for tests to pass before proceeding.

Retest test cases and business processes in S/4HANA, adjusting as necessary for testing success, before applying any company-specific modifications and extensions.

Update test plans as necessary. Adjust time and capacity estimates to account for the presence of constant changes and updates. If the organization is deploying SAP Fiori, develop new tests for mobile and user experience next. Then, evaluate and develop tests for new features and automations.

If all testing activities have been completed within the pre-defined parameters for success, move forward with incorporating earlier customizations and add-ons, either as a single project or a phased effort over time.

Adding customizations back into the system may require significant code updates. At the minimum, test cases and business processes may need to change, and robust functional and performance testing will need to take place.


Firms without a mature test management framework may be challenged to migrate to S/4HANA. Evaluating the current state of test and asset management, and the quality of accompanying processes, is fundamental to any implementation.

Ten Tips for Testing Success

The requirement for updating existing—and developing new—test cases, requirements, scripts and other test assets will vary from firm to firm, but all will have some need. Companies will need a clear definition of business requirements and a comprehensive plan for asset migration.

Business processes must be tested across all systems—legacy and custom-developed as well as the core S/4HANA platform. Teams should be prepared to engage in data management across all these systems.

Robust performance testing will ensure the infrastructure is capable of meeting end- user expectations, which will be greater than ever before. Sufficient performance testing will likely take more time and effort than project leads expect.

Automation is a key to success with functional testing in S/4HANA. The more automation, the better.

If current scripts are not reusable for the automation effort, be prepared to modify them or take them out of the scope.

Tests for usability/user experience should be developed early on.

Test approaches should be oriented to ensure that problems are discovered as early as possible in the development life cycle. Deferring problems to user acceptance testing is unacceptable.

Organizations must identify and engage with a solution or provider for security and compliance testing well before launch.

Prioritization of testing efforts should reflect a risk-based approach that will enable teams to concentrate first on key business processes that must be maintained or delivered.

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In Summary: A Singular Undertaking with Extraordinary BenefitSAP S/4HANA and its on-demand, mobile-optimized big data analytics can transform how companies visualize, consume, and act upon their data. Over the long term, we believe it will foster a data-centric culture that drives business innovation and spurs greater productivity.

As with any transformation, work must be done to ensure that the underlying structure is built correctly and that all operations work smoothly. Having a comprehensive strategy for data and asset migration and rigorous functional, performance, and security testing, plus mobile testing where appropriate, is an unconditional imperative for success.

Although the testing complexity of an S/4HANA migration can be daunting, the benefits of a thoroughly tested, fully functional deployment are well worth the effort. Organizations without the in-house manpower or know-how to manage and execute the testing processes should consider hiring outside assistance.

Beyond the appeal of their expertise, qualified third-party experts can evaluate the effort objectively, without any preconceived ideas of how the system is set up. This perspective enables them to ensure all business processes and operations are tested effectively. In many cases, outside experts uncover latent opportunities for improvement as well as operating synergies that drive even greater value for the deploying organization.

Outside resources can also help organizations more effectively spread the effort out across several phases, if necessary. It is far better to have a properly managed and executed partial deployment, and/or to defer adoption and testing of less-important features such as reports, than to attempt to launch without thorough migration/updates of test cases and test assets—and rigorous testing of core elements.

For more information, contact Orasi today.www.orasi.com | 678.819.5300

© 2016 Orasi Software, Inc. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.

Orasi is a trademark of Orasi Software, Inc. All other product and company names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Bonus TipWhen selecting a third-party testing resource to assist with migration or deployment, all companies are not created equal. To avoid missteps that will cause ongoing problems, select a firm with a strong quality focus that has significant experience testing SAP.

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