Datasheet
22 ChApter 1
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introduCtion to sAles And distribution
The System Landscape
e system landscape is the arrangement of the various servers. A generic system
landscape consists of a production system (the one in which all the operations of the
organization are carried out) plus other systems such as development and quality
assurance systems. Although our focus is on the conguration of the SD application
in this book, it is very important to understand the system landscape.
Figure 1.19 represents a typical SAP system landscape, consisting of a development
system (DEV), quality assurance system (QAS), and production system (PRD).
When any change is made during customization, it is essential to test it rigorously
before it can be implemented in the production environment. To achieve this, you
rst make changes in the development system. At this stage, there is no impact on
the production system at all. You can test the impact of the change locally and then
choose to move it to the next level of testing in the quality assurance system.
is system usually has a large amount of test data. Oen, it is a recent copy of the
production environment so that the change can be tested in a real-life environ-
ment. It is also important to identify the system users who would be aected by this
change and train them accordingly in this simulated environment.
Once the testing is complete, the change can move into production. Once this hap-
pens, the change is said to have “gone live.”
Many organizations also have another system called a sandbox. It is an isolated sys-
tem where you can carry out preliminary analysis and test new functionality and
solution prototypes. Changes made in the sandbox never move to other systems in
the landscape.
It is very important to record all the details of any change being made in SAP and
transport it in steps through the system landscape. In the next section, we will cover
the concept of transport request, which will help you understand how changes are
recorded and tracked.
Transport Request
To capture the details of the change and manage its migration to production,
SAP uses the concept of a transport request. When you make any changes to the
Customizing menu, you will be required to create or choose a transport request
number (Figure 1.20).
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