Prepare for a more efficient SAP implementation: Take data issues off the critical path

Transcription

1 Prepare for a more efficient SAP implementation: Take data issues off the critical path Identify data risks before implementation with the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance

2 Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance from IBM: Driving high-quality, high-margin SAP initiatives For many corporations, SAP implementations offer tremendous benefits: streamlined business operations and consolidated data for strategic, commercial online transaction processing (OLTP) and business intelligence (BI) applications. But there are challenges. Legacy systems that run on mainframe and UNIX environments and third-party application software including enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems from SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and JD Edwards are all configured separately, each supporting unique business processes and rules. For these implementations, one of the biggest sources of expense, risk and effort lies in the challenge of integrating data from different operational applications across the enterprise to an SAP platform. source data and SAP requirements, you can offer your clients a significant value proposition for driving highquality, high-margin SAP initiatives taking data issues off the critical path and instead preparing for a successful SAP deployment. Data issues are frequently not fully understood until late in the blueprint phase or during the realization phase of typical SAP implementation projects. When these issues do arise, the results are most often cost overruns, delays in go-live dates, reduced return on investment (ROI) and reduced consulting profit margins. With no upfront knowledge of potential data issues, a customer implementation engagement can be prolonged, costly and at risk. PDAA for global systems integrators The PDAA is intended for use by IBM Information Integration Solutions global system integrator (GSI) part - ners as a pre -sales tool to identify: Risk associated with the current state of the client s data ROI associated with a business case for large SAP - based migration, consolidation and deployment projects With the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance (PDAA) from IBM, you can prepare before starting the blueprint phase by obtaining valuable information about source data quality, completeness and reliability. The PDAA helps identify business inconsistencies and validate business rules and processes across business entities. With early identification of gaps between client Using the PDAA exposes client data anomalies that pose project risks and may result in decreased margins for GSI partners. The PDAA also creates opportunities for GSIs to increase profit margins and revenue and mitigate risks, while helping customers implement data management strategies for master data harmonization and management projects involving SAP.

3 The PDAA consists of a data analysis approach, a preconfigured data assessment appliance, data assessment accelerators and a library of deliverables that provide critical added value for your clients. During a three- to five-day pre-sales data assessment engagement, a consultant can help the client team address key business and technical questions and appropriately budget for the data management stream. The result? A more efficient and effective SAP implementation in a large, heterogeneous application landscape. PDAA addresses common SAP implementation business and technical questions Using the PDAA, the GSI consultant can help the client team address key business and technical questions, including those indicated below. Business questions How do I rationalize the types of customers, vendors and products across sources? What additional data is needed but not provided by the source systems? Are customers, vendors and products unique? Can I create a single instance of each customer? Is the address data complete or missing? Is there embedded information in free-form text fields within a legacy system? Can we meet the business objectives given the information provided in the source systems? Who else within the organization is required to ensure a successful conversion? What process should be investigated to resolve close matches of customer, vendor and product data? Technical questions What level of effort is required to extract data from source systems? What hardware and software will be needed to support development, testing and production from blueprint to go-live and support? How many developers are required and what skill levels will they need? How do we capture and document business requirements? Which processes are required to support compliance and auditing of information as it is recast and migrated to SAP? What do the logical and physical models look like for a data staging area to support the conversion?

4 Preliminary data assessment phases Executed in a three-phase approach over three to five days, the preliminary data assessment identifies data issues that can cause project risks. The diagram below categorizes the analyses conducted in each phase of the preliminary assessment process. Preliminary data assessment phases Alignment and harmonization Source system analysis SAP target analysis analysis Frequency distribution Attribute gap analysis Standardization analysis Default value analysis Data validation gap analysis Master data linkage (matching) analysis Unused columns Master data structure analysis Matching remediation analysis Constant candidates Field length analysis Attribute alignment analysis Structure analysis Cross-functional requirement analysis Data relevancy analysis Column content analysis Data migration scoping Blueprint validation Embedded business rules Cross-functional completeness If any of the source systems are Business/technical documentation analysis SAP OLTP, then a source-to-target configuration analysis is If one of the sources is an SAP Target configuration analysis conducted OLTP instance, then configuration analysis is conducted Data loading analysis (such as analyzing data load structures) Each phase of the preliminary data assessment reveals valuable information and captures knowledge from business and technical experts for use in developing program proposal bids for all or each phase of the program. In a short time, key project team members will understand: The state of core data in critical source systems Information gaps in the data Strategies required to address several key data issues

5 PDAA components The PDAA includes preconfigured hardware and uses the following IBM Information Server capabilities: IBM Information Server DataStage integrates data across multiple and varied types of data and high volumes of data sources and target applications in the time available. IBM Information Server Information Analyzer automates data source analysis, including column, table and cross-table analysis. It helps reduce time to value and helps minimize overall costs and resources for critical data integration projects. IBM Information Server QualityStage helps ensure that your strategic systems deliver accurate, complete information to business users across the enterprise. Through an easy-to-use GUI and capabilities that can be customized to your organization s business rules, QualityStage provides control over international names and addresses and related data such as phone numbers, birth dates, addresses and other descriptive comment fields. It can help discover relationships among this data in enterprise and Internet environments as well as in batch and real time. From disparate source data to high-quality information about core business entities, QualityStage analyzes data at the character level, revealing anomalies and buried data before transforming it for database loading or transaction processing. Data from disparate sources is standardized into fixed fields using business-driven rules that can assign the correct semantic meaning to input data, which facilitates matching.

6 Other PDAA components include: Master data and core attribute models for key master data objects Prebuilt data assessment accelerators for all phases of the assessment engagement PDAA demonstration Process approach for execution PDAA pre-execution checklist PDAA training Project plans for executing and extending the PDAA to include additional client-specific attributes for technical and cross-regional analysis Template documents for an executive summary, presentation and detailed assessment report PDAA deliverables Template for rapid understanding and quick view of information assets across the enterprise Executive summary of opportunities to increase business value Reports highlighting business rule and data standard issues that can support developing a business case Recommended Baseline Data Assessment Architecture Reusable objects (extract/transform/load [ETL]; standardization; matching; auditing; and others) for use during the project implementation realization phase Roadmap for implementing a master reference data strategy PDAA benefits for systems integrators Provides early value proposition for your clients Helps identify budget and resource requirements for appropriate data management stream Offers increased client knowledge and accuracy for project proposals Facilitates the identification of requirements for the blueprint phase Provides opportunity for master data quality assessment engagement Helps reduce project risk because of poor data understanding Provides opportunities for master data management engagements tied to strategic client initiatives

7 Delivering information you can trust Complete. Flexible. Safe. Extensible. Fast. With the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance from IBM, you can prepare for successful SAP implementations before starting the blueprint phase by obtaining valuable information about source data quality, completeness and reliability. A proven approach to help increase profit margins while decreasing cost overruns and delays in go-live, the PDAA offers a complete data assessment infrastructure including software, repeatable processes, prebuilt accel erators and defined roles and responsibilities that is flexible and based on vertical and regional requirements. With little dependency on software installation and configuration, the appliance is safe. The extensible PDAA design can easily adjust to accommodate additional requirements or serve as a base for the remainder of the data management stream for the SAP engagement, creating room for growth for your services. Embedded analysis content and prebuilt accelerators help you complete assessments quickly a preliminary assessment can be executed effectively in three to five days providing faster return on your efforts. For more information To learn more about the Preliminary Data Assessment Appliance from IBM, please visit ibm.com/software/ data/ips or call or send to: Sunil Soares, IBM Information Server WW Alliances ssoares@us.ibm.com, (201)

8 Copyright IBM Corporation 2007 IBM Software Group Route 100 Somers, NY Produced in the United States of America December 2007 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, DataStage and QualityStage are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. References in this publication to IBM products or services do not imply that IBM intends to make them available in all countries in which IBM operates. All statements regarding IBM s future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only. IMB14003-USEN-00