Well, with any operation, making sure your data is properly backed is pretty important. Since I love to learn things the hard way, I originally gave no thought at all this. So in my last post I explained about some of the pain it took to install a simple SAP system. Well, now envision that I spent the next 6 months beginning my development of my great idea (it would be Rapier, eventually). One day, I was in between projects, so I was sitting in the living room, catching up on episodes of Lost, coding my BSP masterpiece. I can’t really remember exactly how it happened, but my portable HDD suddenly started making a clicking sound, my system locked up, and suddenly, all of my work was gone. The last 6 months of installing SAP, and design of my product gone. I didn’t have another HDD, I didn’t have backups. In my naive mind, I didn’t think a HDD would fail (keep in mind, I used to build computers for myself in college, so I should know better). So… I went back to square one (happily, I did take some notes on the installation, so instead of months, it took me 2 weeks.) I redesigned a better BSP app, and learned a lot along the way. That’s how i learned the first time.
Now… how did I remedy my mistakes? I implemented a couple of things. First, I got myself a great big HDD and kept copies of my SAP systems and various other virtual systems, so I could quickly rebuild if I needed to (I still have those systems to this day, just in case). The other thing I started to do was to save my SAP transports. For those of you unfamiliar, as long as your STMS configuration is set up (and this can be a pain), every time you release a transport SAP saves 2 files. The Data & Cofile can then be backed up somewhere else (I use dropbox so I can quickly get to them, and it keeps them in the cloud). Then at anypoint, I can upload those transports into a clean system, giving me periodic code and configuration backups. It doesn’t help if I have to recreate master data, but I have a different method to help me with that.
As a side note, I recently had another HDD fail. This one less costly, but still painful because I realized I wasn’t backup up often enough, and I wasn’t saving the right things. So what did I do? I got myself another HDD, and I now backup my progress weekly (I also do this for all my files and pictures etc too). In addition, I think I might also get Carbonite to give me everything at a remote location. I need to figure out how I can have all of my SAP systems on Carbonite. When I figure it out, I’ll let you know…
In the meantime, learn from me, not with me… back your stuff up
Mike
As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,Mike