Comparison
SAP Test Data Migration Server was built for ECC, and SAP hasn't released it for S/4HANA. Teams moving to S/4HANA need another way to build lean, masked test clients. Synthesized covers the TDMS scenarios and adds synthetic data, non-SAP systems and hooks for test automation.
Each scenario you run in TDMS today has a counterpart, so the switch doesn't change how your test clients are shaped.
| TDMS scenario | What it does | With Synthesized |
|---|---|---|
| Time-based reduction | Copies configuration and master data, plus transactions after a cut-off date | Time slicing by any date range, applied across the whole document chain |
| Company code reduction | Limits the copy to chosen company codes | Subsetting by company code, plant, sales organization or other business keys |
| Master data and configuration only | A client without transactional data | Configuration and master data only, with synthetic transactions added where tests need them |
| Client shell creation | An empty client with repository objects and configuration | A target client prepared from configuration plus a masked subset |
| Data scrambling | Rule-based scrambling of chosen fields | AI-assisted discovery of personal data, then masking, scrambling or synthetic replacement, consistent across SAP and non-SAP systems |
Scenario names follow SAP's TDMS documentation; your TDMS release may label them differently.
The three ways SAP teams fill test systems, side by side.
| Full system copy | SAP TDMS | Synthesized | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Runs on S/4HANA | Yes | Not released by SAP | Yes |
| Test system size | Same as production | Reduced | Reduced by business keys or dates |
| Personal data | Copied as is unless masked separately | Scrambling rules you define | Detected and masked, standard and Z-tables |
| Synthetic data | No | No | Yes |
| Non-SAP systems | No | No | Yes, with consistent values |
| Test automation | Not designed for it | Not designed for it | Tricentis Tosca and UiPath integrations |
If you stay on ECC until your S/4HANA project starts and TDMS already does what you need, keep it for now. Plan the switch for your first mock conversion, when the target system is S/4HANA and TDMS can't follow.
SAP hasn't released TDMS for S/4HANA, and S/4HANA customers on SAP Community report that it no longer works after conversion.
The free first step is a 30-minute health check. After that, a fixed-scope, 10-day validation proves it on your S/4HANA sandbox, against pass/fail criteria you set.
You recreate them as masking rules during the validation, and add rules for any personal data the scan finds that TDMS never covered.
Add-on tools are an established way to copy and scramble SAP data, and they install in the SAP system. Synthesized runs outside SAP and also covers non-SAP systems and generated data on the same platform. See the four approaches side by side.
Start with a 30-minute health check. If it's a fit, a 10-day validation runs the scenario that matters most on your own S/4HANA data.
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