OK, we have the concept of a SAP instance, and that instance has a database which contains thousands of tables which contain a whole bunch of rows. After SAP is installed, these tables need to have some base data in order for customization and configuration to begin. Like state abbreviations, country codes, HR titles, etc.
SAP provides a subset of this data so that the Basis team can get in the new instance, add themselves a user ID in client 000 – “our” client - and start the real work. We don’t want to mess this subset of data up so we need to populate it to a “work” place for the Functional Team to do their work. Or several work places.
The base SAP instance comes with two clients: 000 and 066. Forget client 066, it is used by SAP when you get close to GoLive and you want an EarlyWatch report. This is optional and I believe a fee is involved for this service.
All the base or subset data is contained in client 000. Also, client 000 is where the Basis Team does a lot of its maintenance like patching. The Basis Team people are the only implementation members who will ever have access to client 000. You can think of client 000 as the owner of all the client independent data in the SAP instance. Explanation in a minute.
So, in order to let the Functional Team do their own thing without screwing anything up, we create a new client for them. Think of a client as a view of the database. If you log into client 000, you can see all client independent data – like the ABAP programs – and all the data that is dependent on client 000 only. If you log into client 100, you see all client independent data – like the ABAP programs – and all the data that is dependent on client 100. You can’t see the data that is dependent on client 110 while you are logged on to client 100.
Thus the concept of client dependent and client independent data. All rows in some tables are accessible from any client like T000, the Data Dictionary tables, tables that contain the ABAP programs, printers, etc. These are said to be client independent. Data like users, companies, vendors, customers, etc. are client dependent. You have to go into a specific client in order to see this data.
1 comment:
Very interesting explanation of SAP client role. SAP is very complicated system and it is not easy to explain it for beginners. You succeeded to do it. sap upgrade evaluation.
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