In today’s article we discuss what happens to data on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) in the event of a disaster. This is a critical question for any organisation using the platform, which is why it is worth understanding the security and data recovery mechanisms involved. SAP BTP is a modern cloud platform that integrates a range of services, including SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Integration Suite and SAP HANA Cloud. Thanks to its flexibility and scalability, SAP BTP enables organisations to adapt quickly to changing market and technological conditions. However, like any cloud platform, SAP BTP must be prepared for a range of failure scenarios, from single-component outages to large-scale data loss events such as severe solar storms or cyberattacks.
Understanding how SAP BTP handles such threats is essential to ensuring business continuity and data security. This article covers how SAP manages automatic backups, what data recovery procedures look like, and what additional steps platform users can take to further protect their data and configurations. We also examine various failure scenarios and their impact on data stored in SAP BTP, and present best practices for preparing for such situations. By the end of this article, you will have a comprehensive understanding of data protection on SAP BTP, enabling you to better prepare for potential crises and minimise the risk of data loss.
Introduction to SAP BTP and Cloud Foundry
SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is a modern platform offered by SAP that supports a range of services including SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Integration Suite and SAP HANA Cloud. BTP enables organisations to integrate and manage applications and data in the cloud, increasing flexibility and operational efficiency. The platform forms a foundation for innovation, allowing organisations to adapt quickly to changing market and technological conditions. Thanks to advanced analytics, integration and database tools, SAP BTP enables organisations to better understand and leverage their data to make more informed business decisions.
One of the key components of SAP BTP is Cloud Foundry, an open-source platform based on a containerised architecture. Cloud Foundry is deployed on hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, ensuring high availability and resilience. This architecture enables efficient resource management and automatic application scaling in response to changing workloads. Through data and service replication across multiple availability zones within a given region, Cloud Foundry minimises the risk of downtime and ensures business continuity.
Thanks to its flexibility and scalability, Cloud Foundry enables organisations to deploy, manage and update applications quickly without having to worry about the underlying infrastructure. This, in turn, allows development teams to focus on building valuable business solutions rather than managing IT infrastructure. Within SAP BTP, Cloud Foundry is a key component that enables advanced integration and analytics scenarios, translating into greater efficiency and innovation for organisations using the platform.
Backups and Disaster Recovery
SAP manages standard disaster recovery through automatic data replication across all availability zones within a given region. Automatic backups are a key element of the data protection strategy in SAP BTP, as described in detail in SAP Note 3081375. The data replication process ensures that backups are stored in different locations within a single region, increasing the system’s resilience to failures and minimising the risk of data loss. This gives organisations confidence that their data remains secure even in the event of serious disruption.
The disaster recovery plan is an integral part of SAP’s overall business continuity plan. This plan is activated once SAP officially declares a disaster. The term “declaration” is important here, as it means SAP must formally recognise an event as a disaster before any data recovery actions are taken. Only after such a formal declaration do recovery procedures begin, including the restoration of data and services from backups.
The data loss recovery plan includes a series of actions designed to minimise the impact of disruption and quickly restore normal system and application operation. As part of this plan, SAP employs advanced data replication and restoration technologies that enable rapid service recovery even in the most critical situations. Thanks to replication across multiple availability zones, the risk of total data loss is significantly reduced, and organisations can expect a swift return to full system functionality.
In addition to the automatic backups managed by SAP, organisations using SAP BTP are also encouraged to create their own backups of key configurations and data. Manual backups, particularly for specific configuration settings and cryptographic keys, are an important element in ensuring full protection against data loss. Regularly updating and storing these backups in secure locations, independent of the main SAP infrastructure, provides an additional layer of protection and enables faster recovery in crisis situations.
Overall, planning and managing backups and disaster recovery procedures in SAP BTP are key aspects of a data protection strategy that ensures business continuity and minimises the risk of operational downtime.
Understanding Disaster Scenarios
A catastrophic failure, although extremely unlikely, could include events such as powerful solar storms or asteroid impacts, which could potentially disrupt all availability zones in a region, leading to total data loss. Disasters of this kind require significant, global-scale events capable of simultaneously damaging all data storage locations within a given region. Although such scenarios are rare, they are factored into data recovery planning to ensure maximum protection even under the most extreme conditions.
In the much more likely scenario of a zone failure, one of the multiple availability zones in a region is damaged. In such a case, thanks to previously configured data replication, it is possible to restore lost data from other zones. Data replication involves regularly creating backups and storing them in different locations within a single region, minimising the risk of data loss resulting from a single zone failure.
If data replication has not been configured, data will need to be manually restored to another zone. This process is more time-consuming and requires additional action from system administrators. Manual data restoration may involve recovering backups from independent storage locations, configuring new environments, and restoring services to their pre-failure state. It is therefore important for organisations using SAP BTP to carefully plan their data recovery strategies and regularly test restoration procedures to ensure they can respond quickly and effectively to any failure.
Understanding these scenarios is key to effective risk management and ensuring business continuity. Organisations should be aware of both the possibility of catastrophic failures and more typical zone failures, and prepare their systems and data recovery procedures accordingly. Regularly creating and testing backups, and investing in data replication technologies, are fundamental elements of any solid data recovery strategy.
Details on Backing Up SAP BTP Services
In the context of SAP BTP service backups, it is important to understand which services are managed automatically by SAP and which require manual action from customers. Some services, including those based on SAP HANA Cloud, may have automatic backups if the replication feature is enabled. Data replication within these services ensures that data is automatically copied and stored across different availability zones, minimising the risk of data loss in the event of a zone failure. However, if replication is not enabled, in the event of a failure a manual request will be needed to restore data to another zone. This process may involve restoring data from backups stored in secure locations and reconfiguring environments to restore full service functionality.
Customer-managed backups require greater attention and involvement. Customers must manually create backups of configurations and keys for services such as Cloud Connector, SAP Integration and key stores, to ensure this data can be recovered in the event of a failure. For example, the Cloud Connector configuration, which enables a secure connection between the SAP BTP environment and on-premise systems, should be regularly saved and stored in a secure location. Similarly, SAP Integration configurations, which manage integrations between various systems and applications, must be regularly archived.
The key store, which holds the cryptographic keys necessary for securing communication and data, also requires regular backups. Without these keys, restoring security and communication functions can be very difficult and time-consuming. Customers must ensure that all key configuration elements are regularly saved and stored in locations that are secure, yet accessible when rapid data recovery is required.
In addition, it is important that all backups are stored in a way that enables quick and easy recovery in the event of a failure. This means not only regularly creating backups, but also testing them to ensure the restoration process runs smoothly and without disruption. Such preventive measures are key to minimising downtime and data loss, ensuring business continuity for organisations using SAP BTP.
Best Practices for Backups
Creating configuration backups is extremely important for ensuring business continuity and rapid data recovery in the event of loss. It is important to regularly back up configurations for elements such as Cloud Connector, BTP destinations, X.509 certificates and integration key stores. Cloud Connector enables a secure connection between the SAP BTP environment and on-premise systems, so its configuration should be saved and stored in a secure location. Similarly, BTP destination configurations, which manage connections to various systems, and X.509 certificates, used to secure communication, must be regularly archived. Integration key stores holding cryptographic keys also require regular backups so that, in the event of a failure, their functionality can be quickly restored.
In addition to backing up configurations, it is equally important to maintain detailed documentation of all services and their configurations. Such documentation should include precise descriptions of settings, configuration processes and restoration procedures. Storing this documentation in a secure location, independent of the main SAP BTP infrastructure, ensures the ability to recover data and configurations even in the event of loss of the primary data. This documentation is crucial in emergency situations, as it allows the necessary information to be found quickly, without unnecessary delays in the restoration process.
Regularly updating and verifying documentation is essential to ensure it contains the latest information and reflects the current state of system configurations. Well-prepared documentation should also be easily accessible to all team members responsible for managing SAP BTP systems, so that anyone can quickly find the information they need when necessary. Storing documentation in encrypted, secure locations, such as specialised IT documentation management tools, can further increase the security and accessibility of this information.
In summary, creating configuration backups and maintaining detailed documentation are key elements of a data protection strategy. Thanks to regular backups and well-maintained documentation, organisations can respond quickly and effectively to any failure, minimising the risk of downtime and data loss.
SNOK’s Role in SAP BTP Data Protection
SNOK, as a leader in IT infrastructure management and data protection, plays a key role in ensuring the security and continuity of systems based on SAP BTP. Thanks to years of experience and specialist expertise, SNOK offers comprehensive solutions that help organisations effectively manage backups and documentation, as well as implement disaster recovery strategies. Our services include security audits, advisory on backup best practices, and support in configuring and managing key elements of SAP BTP infrastructure. SNOK also provides tools and technologies that enable secure data storage and ensure availability in emergency situations, minimising the risk of downtime and data loss. Working with SNOK gives organisations confidence that their systems are properly secured and prepared for any unforeseen events.
Key Takeaways
It is essential that customers understand which services require manual backups and how to manage them effectively. Within SAP BTP, not all services have automatic backups managed by SAP. Customers must therefore be aware of which elements of their configuration and data require regular, manual backups. Services such as Cloud Connector, BTP destinations, X.509 certificates and integration key stores often require manual backup management. Understanding these needs is essential to effectively planning and implementing a data protection strategy that minimises the risk of data loss in the event of a failure.
Secure storage of backups and documentation is just as important as creating them in the first place. Backups and detailed configuration documentation should be stored in a secure location, preferably outside the main SAP BTP infrastructure. Storing data in independent locations ensures that, in the event of a serious failure of the main infrastructure, this data remains accessible. It is recommended to use encrypted data stores, cloud backup services or physical media stored in secure locations. Additionally, regularly testing data recovery procedures from these backups is essential to ensure that restoration proceeds smoothly and without disruption in emergency situations.
Storing documentation in a way that provides quick and easy access for teams responsible for managing systems is key to effective response to failures. Documentation should be regularly updated and include detailed descriptions of configurations, restoration procedures, and contact details for key individuals responsible for specific system elements. This allows the team to quickly find the information needed and take appropriate remedial action in the event of a failure.
In summary, understanding which services require manual backups, managing them effectively, and securely storing backups and documentation in independent locations are fundamental elements of an effective data protection strategy. This enables organisations to minimise the risk of downtime and data loss, ensuring the continuity of their systems even in the most critical situations.