CCv2 benefits & Approach to move from On-prem to CCv2

CCV2 probably refers to SAP Commerce Cloud v2, a cloud-based total platform that streamlines e-trade operations for corporations. Compared to advanced variations, CCv2 boasts benefits like decreased operational fees, automated infrastructure control, and progressed scalability. This translates to faster time-to-marketplace for companies and simpler adaptation to evolving customer demands. According to trends, over 21,300 websites presently leverage SAP Commerce Cloud, highlighting its reputation inside the e-trade space

Table of Contents

Since 2019, SAP is only licensing CCV2. Evaluate the following 5 reasons when developing your roadmap to migrate to SAP CCV2.

CCv2 benefits & Approach

1. Future-Proof Your Commerce

The digital commerce landscape is rapidly evolving with trends like voice search , Multi-and Omni-channel retail, social commerce, subscription models and personalization are some of the key trends. CCV2 supports these trends with a headless commerce approach, allowing for quick updates to customer-facing features without altering the core platform.

2. Align with SAP’s Roadmap

SAP’s Commerce Cloud architecture is built with the goal to provide SAP Commerce as a Software as a Service (SaaS). SAP is shifting towards a microservices-based, SaaS model. CCV2 supports JavaScript-based storefronts like Spartacus, decoupling the storefront from the commerce platform and enhancing customer experiences.

Catalogue, pricing, inventory, authentication, and other fundamental commerce functionalities are still included in SAP Commerce Cloud features. On the other hand, Microservices are used for essential customer-facing operations including Store, Search, Shopping Cart, Checkout, Content, and Customer Service. Therefore, SaaS is provided for these Domain Services. Your JavaScript stores can be integrated with them to provide a captivating customer experience (CX). Consumers can peruse the JavaScript or Spartacus-built storefront. These Domain Services are what will enable the Customer Experience for JavaScript or Spartacus shops. You can configure the necessary CX by using these Domain Services, which are available in the SAP Commerce Portal as Features or Business Tools.

3. Focus on Customer Experience

CCV2’s architecture allows for independent and frequent updates to storefronts, ensuring a seamless and engaging customer experience across all channels and touchpoints.

4. Simplify Operations and Reduce Costs

If you run SAP Commerce on-premise or CCV1, you have to take care of your own build and deployment process. Customers may build and deploy apps more quickly with CCV2 thanks to a self-service Commerce Portal that is integrated with your git repository. Therefore, SAP must be used even for minor changes if you are using CCV1. You can benefit from automation for environment setup, deployment, backup, and restoration using CCV2. assisting you in drastically lowering the running expenses related to keeping up your web storefront. CCV2 offers a number of important features, including disaster recovery, automated scaling, self-service tools, cloud build platform, automated scaling, Dynatrace application management, cloud-native technology (Kubernetes), and worldwide availability.

5. End of Life Considerations

SAP Commerce is undergoing a shift in the direction of cloud-based deployments. While they retain to aid existing on-premises clients, SAP no longer offers new licenses for on-premises installations. This consciousness at the cloud is contemplated in their replace cadence. Unlike the annual updates for on-premise deployments, SAP Commerce Cloud (CCV2) receives updates every quarter, ensuring clients gain from ordinary upgrades and capabilities.

How to migrate from On-Premise, CCV1 to CCV2

With the aid of a reliable partner, a customer can move their ongoing on-premise and CCV1 projects to CCV2. SAP will also assist in this process in order to ensure the quality of the solution that they will be hosting. The best proven approach for this migration is to divide the project into multiple phases:

1. Duration

Starting with the assessment, which will take a max of 7 to 10 days, then the detailed plan will be presented to the customer. Once the customer agrees to the plan, it would ideally take 2 to 4 months to finish the successful migration to go live with the new cloud solution. The following are the specific stages of the migration that are advised:

2. Discover

This is the first phase, during which the SAP Commerce Cloud will be introduced and workshops involving the customer, partner, and SAP will be held. The next main objective of this phase is the migration assessments for the existing solution and the estimate created based on this assessment.

Migration Assessment

The partner with some assistance from SAP will assess the current solution and will create a detailed plan, effort and cost level estimate for the migration project. Ideally it will take 2 or more months to migrate a project based on the complexity of the customization already done to it. Some of the core assessment topics that are directly proportional to the timeline are:

GIT- The CCV2 only supports GIT versioning at this particular point in time. So if the current project is not in GIT, we need to migrate it to GIT first or use a job to move the changes to GIT every time for a deployment and take it from there, the solution totally depends upon the infrastructure needed by the customer.
SAP Commerce Version- The solution needs to be first migrated to a SAP Commerce version that the CCV2 is compatible with. The recommended version is 2211, but CCV2 is supported from version 6.7 onwards
PCI Compliance- Currently, SAP Commerce Cloud in the Public Cloud is not certified for PCI-DSS 3.2. If this is blocking the project, then it needs to be taken up with SAP.
Solr Customization- One should think about what the CCV2 can provide if the existing solution makes use of a third party or a highly configurable search engine instead of Solr.
SMTP server- As of right now, SAP Commerce Cloud does not come with an SMTP server or service. However, there are remedies available that must be taken into account.
Hot folder- If there is an in-place hot folders/NFS/SFTP based integrations, then it need to be moved to the Cloud Hot Folder which is using the blob storage of Azure.
Integrations / Datahub / DAM- Most solutions will have some integrations with a third party or a middleware. So this need to be treated with respect in case of the migration. SAP Cloud supports these integration with SCPI, Hot-folders, Datahub, etc
Build Customization- If the current solution is highly customized on the build part, then a special treatment is needed to move that solution to a more specific way which is supported by the cloud.

3. Planning

Next comes the planning phase, the partner needs to come up with a strategy that will not affect the live solution. So that we can migrate it in parallel with the current development approach in an effective way so that the customer thinks that’s appropriate for them.

4. Develop

This is the execution phase where the partner will create the environments, and then start with the customization of the code. In this phase SAP will do the data and media migration, which the customer will need to give SAP the access to the current solutions database, SAP will use their predefined connectors to migrate the data into cloud. Once that is successful, the partner will lift and shift the existing environments to the cloud.

Recommendations

It is recommended to migrate the development environment first and then the staging environment. The recommended solution has only 3 environments DEV, STG and PROD. PROD migration will happen in the last segment.
It is recommended to stop pushing major feature releases to the current solution after the start of the develop phase.

At the end of this phase, SAP can do the readiness check Milestone 1

Cloud Readiness Check Milestone 1

This check-up, which is also part of the cloud package, entails SAP reviewing the project setup and going over the code and solution design at a high level.

5. Test

The customer along with the partner will do the performance and user acceptance testing in this phase, along with the bug fixes if needed. Then at the end SAP will do the Cloud Readiness Check Milestone 2 for the go-live.

Cloud Readiness Check Milestone 2

Similar to milestone 1, but with an emphasis on a SAP Commerce Cloud application-level security assessment, fundamental application, and client-side profiling, this evaluation will be more akin to a pre-go-live.

6. Deploy

The last stage involves transferring the assessed and authorized solution to production, utilizing SAP to assist with media and database conversion. Then customer along with the partner need to do a smoke test, then go live and monitoring of the new cloud system will be happening.

Recommendations

Once this phase is started, we need to closely monitor the operations which are happening in the current on-premise production, if possible, minimize them. After the successful migration these changes will need to be synchronized periodically with the cloud production until the go-live of the cloud.

Conclusion

Moving your business to SAP CCV2 from on-premise or CCV1 has several benefits, such as positioning your commerce platform for the future, SAP SaaS vision, optimizing customers’ experience, and optimizing commercial business processes to save money. They are often enhanced through the migration process which involves steps like the assessment phase, planning phase, development, testing phase, and the deployment phase. Specifically today’s trends and automating tools integrated into CCV2, accompanied by SAP support and further development, make it appealing for businesses targeting for future competitiveness of digital commerce.