Is your organization transitioning to SAP S/4HANA or already operating on it? As you progress with SAP S/4HANA, the HANA database will inevitably expand over time. This growth can lead to unanticipated operational expenses, system slowdowns, performance issues, and potential delays in executing your SAP S/4HANA transformation projects.
OpenText provides Archiving Solutions that integrate seamlessly with SAP, enabling you to store current and future SAP data and documents while keeping them accessible directly from your SAP system.
Disclaimer: Both charts are provided for information and visualization purposes.
Left Chart: SAP DB size without OpenText Archiving Solutions
The chart shows a steady and significant increase in the size of the SAP HANA database over five years. By the third year, if no action is taken, the database size increases significantly, causing the customer to be moved to a higher license tier.
Right Chart: SAP DB size with OpenText Archiving Solutions
This chart highlights the HANA database size when OpenText Archiving Solutions are used. Over the same five-year period, the HANA database size stays within the licensed limits, as data is offloaded to the OpenText Archive and retention policies are applied.
SAP & OpenText: Our Recommendations
We recommend taking the following actions as part of your SAP S/4HANA journey:
Pre SAP S/4HANA go-live:
- Configure OpenText as your default backend storage solution for SAP
- Migrate SAP ECC data and DMS/GOS attachments to OpenText Extended ECM for SAP and your HCM documents into OpenText Extended ECM for SuccessFactors, to reduce SAP S/4HANA project duration, costs, and risks.
Post SAP S/4HANA go-live:
- Optimize in-memory performance long-term
- Avoid being moved to a higher license tier unexpectedly
- Enable information sharing across your enterprise
- Apply records retention rules to avoid accumulation
- Decommission legacy ECC systems to eliminate related support and maintenance cost
Already Owning OpenText Information Management Solutions?
On-prem, Cloud Native, or Core?
If you are already using OpenText Information Management solutions, such as OpenText Archiving and Document Access for SAP (ADA) or Extended ECM for SAP (xECM), it’s essential to review and update your license SKUs.
For on-premises solutions, this may be an excellent opportunity to consider upgrading to a Cloud Native/Cloud Edition or Core release. Please note that transitioning from an on-premises solution to a different release will require updating your license coverage.
It’s important to understand that SAP and OpenText, depending on the product type, may sometimes offer different licensing packages. OpenText, as the software vendor, can provide its direct customers with the latest deals, updates, and releases. SAP, on the other hand, acts like a reseller and requires around six months to incorporate these offerings into its price list. As a result, you may notice discrepancies where certain products marketed by OpenText are not yet supported by SAP.
If purchasing licenses “on SAP paper” is essential for your organization, a bit of patience may be required. Rest assured, the offerings will eventually become available through SAP.
Anyways, If you decide to stay with the on-prem release, you will need to upgrade your software the old-fashioned way, by downloading the needed files and information from the OpenText support portal and engaging your in-house team, or, if you are staffed for break/fix only, by hiring a trusted OpenText service provider.
The Core release is a public cloud SaaS product offering with regular software update release cycles that are applied at predetermined schedules.
The Cloud Native / Cloud Edition release is a containerized version that can run anywhere, whether in your data center, private cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), or the OpenText Cloud with managed services. This release also provides regular software updates, however since it is a private cloud offering, if hosted/managed by OpenText, the updates are requested by customer and applied by OpenText on demand and not automatically. If hosted/managed by the customer, the updates are downloaded and applied by the customer.
In all releases (on-prem, Core, and Cloud Native/Cloud Edition), regardless of who applied the update (OpenText or customer), the customer is still responsible for making sure that the updated version is functioning correctly.
On-Premise, Core, or Cloud Native – which release is the best fit for your needs? We suggest starting by selecting the SAP S/4HANA version you plan to transition to and determining the type of migration journey that suits your organization—brownfield, bluefield, or greenfield. Once these decisions are made, choose the OpenText release that aligns best with your chosen path.
SAP Data Migration and Software Consolidation
From our experience, simply owning an OpenText solution doesn’t always mean all your SAP data and documents are stored there. Many organizations overlook the need to configure OpenText as the storage location for each SAP business object (e.g., Customer, Plant, Material, Vendor) and document type (e.g., invoices, sales orders, maintenance orders).
If this setup hasn’t been completed, unstructured content, such as GOS attachments (Generic Object Services), DMS attachments (Document Management System), and BDS attachments (Business Document Services), may have accumulated in the SAP database over time, contributing to increased storage volume. Ideally, as part of your S/4HANA upgrade, you want to do a database cleanup and migrate only the needed data/documents to your OpenText solution.
Also, your SAP S/4HANA project is the perfect opportunity for process standardization and system consolidation. If you’re running home-grown, legacy, or third-party document management, CRM, or ERP systems and planning to phase them out, it’s a great time to migrate their content into OpenText.
Records Retention Management
Many organizations often overlook the significance of setting up document retention rules in OpenText for each document type. Doing so enables the automation of records retention management, ensures records are retained for the necessary duration, including legal holds, and facilitates their disposal or redirection, thereby minimizing unnecessary accumulation over time. Customer bills, for instance, typically need to be retained for only two years (though this duration may vary by country or state). Storing 20 years of customer bills in the cloud is unnecessary unless specifically required by law.
SAP S/4HANA Integration Opportunities
As part of your Rise with SAP journey, even if you already own OpenText archiving solutions, you will still want to configure OpenText as backend storage for all your document archiving needs in SAP S/4HANA, SAP C4C. Those documents will be still easily accessible via SAP GUI (the old desktop-based generic user interface), Fiori (the new web-based and mobile-friendly user interface, which comes in the form of many applications). OpenText Information Management solutions can also be integrated with SAP Datasphere (the new platform for data management, analysis, and visualization).
The integration between SAP S/4HANA and OpenText is seamless, but it doesn’t mean that all your documents will automatically be archived in OpenText with the press of a button. Configuration is still required. This work will have to be done by a certified OpenText professional.