Client is defined as a self-contained business entities or independent accountable business units in commercial, organizational and technical terms.

One Client is normally referring to one user/customer in SAP system. Client is generally used for multiple logins on one instance in the SAP system. Once customer maps to only one client at a time. Multiple/number of clients can be created on single instance.

One user/customer with one client can't able to see the data of another user/customer on the other client which provides isolated and security. There is no need to install separate software’s for each user/customer.

Clients can be created from 000-999 in SAP system. Multiple clients can be created by managing SAP system landscape for DEV, QA and PROD team.

SAP system and resources can share to many users like we can have client for dev team, client for testing team and client for PROD.

Client Contains -

• Application Data- Data that are stored in the database tables.
• Customizing Data- Data created by customers when customizing their systems.
• User Master Record- Defines the authorizations assigned to a user.

Data Classification -

Data in the database are classified as two types.

1. Client Independent Data/Cross client data
2. Client Dependent Data

Based on the below two types, client have differentiation about the data accessing and displaying.

Client independent data / Cross client data -

Data created on any client within the system. Data can be accessible from any client. Data is not specific to any client and it is belonging to all the clients.

Ex: screen data, transaction data, repository data and dictionary data.

Client dependent data / Client specific data -

Data created on the specific client and can be accessible through same client.

Ex: user data, authorization data, application data.

Client Roles -

Default Clients -

SAP System comes up with three standard default clients.

1. 000 - Master Client
2. 001- Copy of the Master Client
3. 066- Early watch client

000 – Master Client -

000 clients are available immediately after installing R/3 System. Client is called as a master client. This client has client independent settings.

This client contains test company’s simple organizational structure and includes all applications parameters, settings, configurations and transactions etc. This client is normally used in business environment.

001 – Copy of Master Client -

Client 001 is called as Copy of Master client including the test company. Client 001 used to create new clients normally. Client 001 settings are client independent if they are customized or configured.

Client 001 can be customized to move it to the PROD environment. In general, users mostly use 001 clients to create a new client. If the client 001 is customized, it won’t behave like master client.

066 – Early Watch Client -

Client 066 is called as early watch client. Client 066 used to perform early watch service for customer systems. Early watch service is diagnosis and monitoring service for solution monitoring of SAP and non-SAP systems.

Early watch service triggers alerts and the alert may contain performance issue, database administration related issues etc.

Client Management Transactions -