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Time and again, we have seen customers & partners implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud struggling around basic IT questions or infrastructural activities like stress tests, load tests, performance tests, penetration tests etc. When it comes to SAP S/4HANA Cloud which is SAP’s flagship public cloud solution emerging out of the core principles of cloud qualities and a blend of the subscription based offering (RISE with SAP), SAP is tenaciously committed to provide our customers with the best in class solutions to realize and run their businesses on. Using the core principles of the Activate methodology and tools behind service center operations, SAP ensures optimum performance and adds value to our customers by reducing the time and efforts which once would have been devoted to various infrastructural and security testing activities. In this blog we will see how the SAP nurtures the promise of delivering a safe, tested and secure environment to our customers to maximize the benefits of agile digital transformation and reduce the overall cost of operation for various IT testing activities.
Customers and partners implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud often have questions during their implementations on how and when they should perform various IT tests like stress test/load test, performance test, penetration test etc. to ensure that the implemented solution works as expected for their secure and seamless business operations. Though such questions arising are totally expected from our customers and partners from their rich experience and deep expertise from on premise implementations, this is exactly where the Cloud mindset comes in and needs to be inevitably adopted by our customers and partners. The Cloud mindset adoption stream helps us understand the basic difference in SAP S/4HANA Cloud deployment and other on premise deployments and what one should expect in the overall digital transformation journey.
Lets see some factors about SAP S/4HANA Cloud in Q&A narrative fashion:
Q1: What types of testing can be included in the scope of a SAP S/4HANA Cloud Project?
Q2: How can customers/partners perform stress tests in the quality environments?
Answer – SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering and unlike the earlier on premise times where customers owned, maintained and tested almost every aspect of the solution, here in the Cloud scenario customers/partners are only required to perform functional tests namely - Unit Test, string test, Business Process Test, System integration Test, User Acceptance test, Data Migration test and Business acceptance tests etc. all of which are encompassed into functional aspects of the solution. More information can be found here - Test Strategy Template.
Also is it key factor to understand that SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems are exposed to the front end users and other project members only via the system URL. This means that customers/partners cannot have access to the backend system or the SAP GUI traditional screen where they can perform their own level of free flow testing as in on premise implementations.
It is SAP's responsibility to maintain the upright performance of the system as the infrastructure as well as the system setup is taken care by SAP. Hence customers do not need to perform any stress/load test. In any case, if the customers face any issues in terms of performances/access/loads etc. then the customers can immediately log a ticket to SAP Support (component -> XX-S4C-OPR-INC). SAP should be able to assist you right away depending on the severity and impact of the issue. SAP internally has tools and automation technologies in place to continuously check the load testing on the multi-tenant cluster system and assures that the network, bandwidth, load, latency and other factors are up to the mark and are maintained as per Cloud standards.
Q3: How much load can the customer/partners generate?
Answer - As mentioned above, customers need not worry about the load they can generate. The Quality and Production systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud can be used and consumed by the front end users without any issues. During the Sales/Presales evaluation and inputs, the customer systems will be adequately setup depending on the inputs they have given in the Quick Sizer tools. Hence the memory sizing etc. will be aptly performed as per the parameters provided by the customers/partners during the initial Discovery phase. Find more information here – SAP Quick Sizer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud . In case the customer experiences any problems with the performance/sizing/business object limitations, DB sizing etc. in their provisioned Q and P systems, they can reach out to SAP support on XX-S4C-OPR-INC to get assistance on it and further reach out to their CEE/CSMs to get it qualified and assessed for any extensions if required.
Q4: Does SAP offer any tools to the customers/partners that can be used to execute performance tests and monitor system performance?
Answer – As per the answer to Question 3, it is clear that customers/partners are not required to perform any tests for performance or system monitoring. However, if customers/partners are facing issues with respect to performance, there is a series of blogs from our expert which helps you with the analysis of performance depending on your browser to evaluate the issue initially.
Blog series:
Q5: What about penetration tests? Can I ask SAP to carry out a penetration test/vulnerability test on my system?
Answer - Yes, customers and partners can request SAP for an annual penetration test on systems based on Cloud data centers – SAP cloud services. More details can be found here in the SAP KBA - https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3080379 - Customer Vulnerability Assessment/ Penetration Test request.
Conclusion:-
From the above Q&A, you can see that the customers/partners are relieved from most of non-functional testing responsibilities and SAP maintains the IT setup and the activities for you. This benefits the customers and partners by allowing them to move their focus on other activities such as functional testing and optimizing their solutions with intelligent technologies. Last but not the least, if you need more information about cloud compliance, data center, certifications, reports, attestations etc. you can get it from the SAP Trust Center - https://www.sap.com/about/trust-center/certification-compliance.html
Thanks,
Saumi
LinkedIn
Customers and partners implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud often have questions during their implementations on how and when they should perform various IT tests like stress test/load test, performance test, penetration test etc. to ensure that the implemented solution works as expected for their secure and seamless business operations. Though such questions arising are totally expected from our customers and partners from their rich experience and deep expertise from on premise implementations, this is exactly where the Cloud mindset comes in and needs to be inevitably adopted by our customers and partners. The Cloud mindset adoption stream helps us understand the basic difference in SAP S/4HANA Cloud deployment and other on premise deployments and what one should expect in the overall digital transformation journey.
Lets see some factors about SAP S/4HANA Cloud in Q&A narrative fashion:
Q1: What types of testing can be included in the scope of a SAP S/4HANA Cloud Project?
Q2: How can customers/partners perform stress tests in the quality environments?
Answer – SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering and unlike the earlier on premise times where customers owned, maintained and tested almost every aspect of the solution, here in the Cloud scenario customers/partners are only required to perform functional tests namely - Unit Test, string test, Business Process Test, System integration Test, User Acceptance test, Data Migration test and Business acceptance tests etc. all of which are encompassed into functional aspects of the solution. More information can be found here - Test Strategy Template.
Also is it key factor to understand that SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems are exposed to the front end users and other project members only via the system URL. This means that customers/partners cannot have access to the backend system or the SAP GUI traditional screen where they can perform their own level of free flow testing as in on premise implementations.
It is SAP's responsibility to maintain the upright performance of the system as the infrastructure as well as the system setup is taken care by SAP. Hence customers do not need to perform any stress/load test. In any case, if the customers face any issues in terms of performances/access/loads etc. then the customers can immediately log a ticket to SAP Support (component -> XX-S4C-OPR-INC). SAP should be able to assist you right away depending on the severity and impact of the issue. SAP internally has tools and automation technologies in place to continuously check the load testing on the multi-tenant cluster system and assures that the network, bandwidth, load, latency and other factors are up to the mark and are maintained as per Cloud standards.
Q3: How much load can the customer/partners generate?
Answer - As mentioned above, customers need not worry about the load they can generate. The Quality and Production systems in SAP S/4HANA Cloud can be used and consumed by the front end users without any issues. During the Sales/Presales evaluation and inputs, the customer systems will be adequately setup depending on the inputs they have given in the Quick Sizer tools. Hence the memory sizing etc. will be aptly performed as per the parameters provided by the customers/partners during the initial Discovery phase. Find more information here – SAP Quick Sizer for SAP S/4HANA Cloud . In case the customer experiences any problems with the performance/sizing/business object limitations, DB sizing etc. in their provisioned Q and P systems, they can reach out to SAP support on XX-S4C-OPR-INC to get assistance on it and further reach out to their CEE/CSMs to get it qualified and assessed for any extensions if required.
Q4: Does SAP offer any tools to the customers/partners that can be used to execute performance tests and monitor system performance?
Answer – As per the answer to Question 3, it is clear that customers/partners are not required to perform any tests for performance or system monitoring. However, if customers/partners are facing issues with respect to performance, there is a series of blogs from our expert which helps you with the analysis of performance depending on your browser to evaluate the issue initially.
Blog series:
- Part 1: Optimal Browser Settings for Performance In Your S/4HC System
- Part 2: Best Practice for Performance: Setting up your S/4HC Homepage and Role Groupings – Updated 2...
- Part 3: Capturing System Performance using HTTP Watch and Chrome Developer Tools
Q5: What about penetration tests? Can I ask SAP to carry out a penetration test/vulnerability test on my system?
Answer - Yes, customers and partners can request SAP for an annual penetration test on systems based on Cloud data centers – SAP cloud services. More details can be found here in the SAP KBA - https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/3080379 - Customer Vulnerability Assessment/ Penetration Test request.
Conclusion:-
From the above Q&A, you can see that the customers/partners are relieved from most of non-functional testing responsibilities and SAP maintains the IT setup and the activities for you. This benefits the customers and partners by allowing them to move their focus on other activities such as functional testing and optimizing their solutions with intelligent technologies. Last but not the least, if you need more information about cloud compliance, data center, certifications, reports, attestations etc. you can get it from the SAP Trust Center - https://www.sap.com/about/trust-center/certification-compliance.html
Thanks,
Saumi
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Expertise Services Community (Partners & SAP internals only) here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud Community here
- SAP Activate Community here
- Best practices for SAP S/4HANA Cloud here
- Help Portal Product Page here
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud release info: http://www.sap.com/s4-cloudrelease
- Latest SAP S/4HANA Cloud Release Blogs here
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