SAP CC Guidance on Dual landscape

[justin_trzcinski]

Dear Support

We have a customer wanting guidance on what their transport landscape for Convergent Charging should look like. They indicated they have larger projects that move through the project landscape every 6 months and then monthly releases and BAU fixes moving through the maintenance landscape.

The challenge they have is they do want to keep their Pre-prod system for both Project and BAU release testing and I was wondering if there was any guides I could reference to get a better understanding of the options.

Their challenge is they do not want to have two fully integrated pre-prod environments but at the same time also do not want to not have a route to live without the Pre-prod which is used for their final testing.

Many thanks

Justin

[francois_thimon · Accepted solution]

Hi Justin,

We understand that you'd like to install an unique Convergent Charging system that you would populate with business data sometimes for pre-production, and sometimes for BAU tests (which means you'd keep the same system installed, but just switch between two different sets of business data).

There is no standard recommendation for this use case, but you may at least try to set up a system (using the standard installation procedure), populate it with the data you want to preserve, and then create a backup of that data using your database's tools.
To determine which database tables need to be backed up, please see our "System copy" procedure (it replicates all the business data, you may want to choose only a part of that):
https://help.sap.com/docs/Convergent_Charging/d1d04c0d65964a9b91589ae7afc1bd45/2b32e184c4ce49ae99031...

You may also find help in our Database schema reference:
https://help.sap.com/doc/d847860d561a47568a936d5f3cbeb9da/2021.2/en-US/core_dbref/index.html

Of course, any export or import operation must be performed only when the system is completely turned off, in order to guarantee that the data won't be altered while you're replicating it.
Also, since one of the datasets will be stored outside the database, upgrading that system is unsafe: the compatibility of the application would then be guaranteed only for the currently loaded dataset.

These are just generic guidelines, but you may open a support ticket if you need more specific advice.

Best regards.

François
SAP Convergent Charging Support

[justin_trzcinski · Accepted solution]

Many thanks for the guidance

[chetan_099]

Its always better to have separate CC instances if you have different landscapes for your project path and maintenance path in S/4. I believe CC can connect to two different S/4 instances but then you will have problem with duplicate master data, tech IDs, contract activation etc.

[justin_trzcinski]

Thanks for the response Chetan, do you have any reference links that might show how a potential customer setup could look like if they have a major project with additional frequent releases that have to be managed through the landscape?

[francois_thimon]

Hi Justin and Chetan,

Thanks for your inputs, Chetan.

Justin, as mentioned above, this use case is not at all standard so there's no specific procedure but, depending upon upon the amount and nature of the data that must be moved (charge plans, mapping tables, subscriber data), you may also consider using the various transport features offered by Convergent Charging.
These features all rely on HTTP (either using SOAP or our HCI proprietary protocol):
- [SOAP WS] customer data export/import, this service replicates one whole subscriber account, with all its data (tables, contracts, allowances, counter values, etc.); you may use that if you're willing to list and export accounts in a third-party application:
https://help.sap.com/doc/d847860d561a47568a936d5f3cbeb9da/2021.2/en-US/core_wsdoc/customerData/proce...
- [Core tool] Export/Import actions, from the File menu: this works for catalog objects (charge plans, tables, etc.): you may use that if you're willing to back up a few objects manually into XML files, and restore these backup files later
- [change lists] this also relies on XML backup files, but it lets you group several objects together, so that you can reimport them all in one go:
https://help.sap.com/docs/Convergent_Charging/c7120011d1c244168dc1f945a06f1350/a6a202782ea5412d9cec4...
- [Java SDK] our SDK offers classes to export and import objects, and also to create them from scratch or modify them, using our HCI/HTTP protocol; this can work for you if you're willing to develop a custom application to help you retrieve or reset specific objects:
https://help.sap.com/doc/d847860d561a47568a936d5f3cbeb9da/2021.2/en-US/core_javadoc/index.html

Additional features exist (based on transport requests or the CTS+ plugin for Solution Manager), but they may not be appropriate for what you're trying to achieve.
So, once again, there's not one recommended solution, but you may want to consider the different available options and use a combination of them, based on your actual expectations.

Best regards.

François
SAP Convergent Charging Support