WHITE PAPER July 2013 Upgrade Your SAP Application Software with Confidence
Table of Contents Executive Summary 3 Introduction: 6 Why upgrade in the first place? 8 Upgrade project process 9 Conclusion 17 Definitions: 19 2
Executive Summary Ever heard the phrase it s not broken so don t fix it? It really means we ve spent so much time getting something just right we re afraid to change it for fear we ll screw it up. This is the case with customer projects to install SAP business software we spend years implementing it, fine tuning it, making it work with backend processes, nurturing it, giving it more resources than anything else. However, there comes a point where we re forced to fix it we re forced to upgrade. Key indicators that an upgrade has become necessary are: Incremental support maintenance costs as dictated by the software vendor and their extended maintenance timelines of which organizations have no control Business pressure for new functionality; outdated solutions prevent development teams from taking advantages of new technologies and business teams to use new business packages that could augment their productivity/ease of use Significant backlog of support packages (code corrections) Architectural changes due to data center migrations, moving to cloud-based, virtualized environments or moving to/from a hosted environment Loss of general product support and updates once extended maintenance ends resulting in ongoing customer specific support at a significant cost if even available (Reference Definitions) Software vendor no longer legally required to provide regulatory updates Upgrades are often delayed because they inevitably involve: Business disruptions Temporary stability issues Extensive project team and consulting activities Re-training for all levels of the organization Expensive hardware and infrastructure updates How are you going to proceed with confidence? How will you keep your systems up to date with minimal risk and costs? At the conclusion of the upgrade, the business must be able to continue on a stable and well-performing business system. 3
In the world of SAP business software installations, what defines an upgrade is often unclear. Upgrades can include the combination of SAP support packages, enhancement packages for applications, enhancement packages for NetWeaver and overall upgrades from pre-sap NetWeaver-based environments. The easiest definition of an upgrade is when a significant change to the overall software or architecture solution is performed. This includes everything from a true software version upgrade to applying support packages. An example of a software version upgrade is a move from a SAP 4.6D environment to SAP ERP on NetWeaver. However, if a company has fallen behind on their support packages, a software update from SP7 to SP25 requires thousands of changes to the software application and is considered a mini upgrade. The following image presents an example timeline for an SAP Business Suite Solution based on general availability dates set by the SAP Product Availability Matrix (PAM): Figure A. Technology/ innovation gap As can be seen from the figure above, there is not only an application functionality gap, but also a technology gap that exists when delaying the upgrade process. Upgrades are necessary to keep up with the latest innovations that business, operations and technical teams can leverage. There are many tools that can be leveraged in conjunction with SAP best practices for this task. The intent of this document explains how CA Technologies solutions can provide IT teams with the information to accurately scale an upgrade and continuously monitor for sustainability and accurate performance measurement. 4
The benefits of what is presented are that the tools and procedures identified in this paper can be used for more than just a one-time upgrade. For instance a CA Capacity Manager analysis could save you approximately 20% of your projected hardware costs. When you are talking about a $10 million hardware deal, wouldn t that additional savings be put to some good use? If the same performance could be achieved with less servers, won t that also reduce the operational cost for each server that is not purchased? Figure B. Customer benefits The figure above presents the benefits of the CA Capacity Manager product. The benefit listed can be applied during your software upgrade process in addition to continually providing you benefits. The framework for supporting the continuous improvement cycle as part of your software lifecycle management strategy is integrated in the upgrade process methodology described in this document. 5
Introduction This paper will review the upgrade process and introduce specific tools to ensure a successful upgrade experience along with setting up monitors and dashboards to support development, testing and production operations. The goal of any upgrade is to perform the necessary activities without impacting the production business processes and provide a sustainable solution for continued business growth. Upgrades can be quite an undertaking depending on the distance between software versions. The further the distance, the more is at risk. An ERP enhancement package upgrade from 1 to 6 is less of a risk than moving from a SAP 4.6C environment to the current version of ERP. Other considerations include whether a Unicode move is planned in conjunction with the upgrade. The standardized project phases are displayed in the following figure: Figure C. Standardized phases for application lifecycle management 6
These phases are consistent with the SAP Application Lifecycle Management strategy, from the ASAP Implementation methodology to the Run SAP (ASAP for Operations) methodology. The ASAP Implementation methodology includes all phases from Requirements to Deploy. The Run SAP methodology covers the Operate and Optimize phases. All processes surround the SAP Solution Manager solution that incorporates diagnostic tools from CA Technologies for monitoring SAP software components. The standard application lifecycle management (ALM) phases are applied to the upgrade project as outlined in the following chart: Figure D. Initial ALM phases for the upgrade project The various ALM phases will be detailed in the subsections below. The timeline for each depends on the distance that is being covered between software versions, what is specifically is being upgraded and any other additional considerations. The following additional considerations will also be discussed: Operating system, database, and/or hardware architecture changes SAP Solution Manager installation or plug-in upgrades Unicode migration Impact on satellite systems 7
This paper is designed to assist in your project and set the stage for a continuous improvement model once the production cutover occurs. This paper will not introduce any one-time-tools, but solutions that, once in place, can be applied for continuous monitoring and sustainability of software solutions along with reuse for future upgrades. Why upgrade in the first place? Costs are incrementally higher for software providers to maintain older code versions, and they will take every possible opportunity to migrate customers to their latest version. These include but are not limited to: Reduced application support services, if any are even offered End of life status releases vendor of legal/regulatory update requirements No further updates to support OS, DB, or hardware updates Reduced training options For instance, after 2013, all SAP customers still on 4.6c solutions will drop off extended maintenance and move into customer-specific maintenance as defined in the current SAP product availability matrix. There will not be a contract change and customers will automatically move into this category. Although the standard support tools are available for existing known problems any further problems that must be resolved are paid by the customer. SAP will also no longer be required to provide support packages and any technology support updates. Remaining on such a system version may also cause unintended upgrade considerations. How will a 4.6c customer migrate over to an ERP Unicode system with a HANA DB? It will be much more of an undertaking than moving from a Unicode ERP EHP6 system on the latest architecture. What if you need to move your older 4.6C system over to a new data center? It won t operate on new architecture so what do you do? You ll have to upgrade SAP on existing architecture and then move it over to the new architecture. That s going to be challenging if the new SAP software doesn t work on your old hardware! It will be difficult to have to explain that your upgrade has now become a data migration project, where you install a new SAP system and move your old SAP data to the new system, just like you did when you installed the first time. From an organization, you may also face a lack of training options. For instance, if you are an SAP customer on SAP Enterprise 4.7, any new employees that get training at SAP will only be trained on the latest version of SAP. There will be many capabilities that are not even available to them. Solutions are available for this, however SAP training won t be an option. Given the above reasons, and possibly many more, software upgrades are required. The tools and processes listed in the subsequent section help describe how CA Technologies can assist by providing an upgrade enablement methodology and supporting tools to enable a successful upgrade experience by the business and IT. 8
Our methodology and tools allow you to proceed with confidence, so that you scale the environment correctly, monitor during all phases of the project and set up a sustainable solution that can be easily handed over to operations. Upgrade Project Process The CA Technologies upgrade process follows a proven methodology based on the ASAP Upgrade project template and the Run SAP guidelines. The tools used along with the methodology include the SAP standard system software tools along with two main CA Technologies software solutions. One clear benefit of this approach is that all tools involved in the upgrade process are used in the continuous improvement cycle. This provides continued benefit to the ongoing operations of the software environment. The CA Technologies tools that provide information to support the upgrade project include: CA Capacity Manager Application capacity provides information on how the current architecture is sustaining the business software Projected business activity can be accurately projected into other architecture models using what-if analysis tools CA Application Performance Management (formerly CA Introscope and CA Customer Experience Manager) Application performance measurement using CA Application Performance Management (CA APM), providing 360-degree measurements for technical and business process operations SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily is an optimized package of the Application Performance Management for SAP customers. CA Technologies licenses Diagnostic Agents and Agent (DAA) bytecode to SAP for application performance metrics data capture that is used extensively in the SAP System Landscape for the Java based solutions. DAA are required for the Java technical monitoring capabilities provided within the SAP Solution manager 7.1 and above. It is necessary to connect the SAP Solution Manager 7.1 to an Enterprise Manager. DAA agents are deployed on all SAP servers and they collect metrics that are either pushed or pulled from the SAP Solution Manager and the Enterprise Manager. SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily extends the base product delivered as part of the SAP Solution Manager installation with a suite of out of the box SAP capabilities including dashboard views and alerts. This can also be extended to your non-sap assets as well. 9
Figure E. SAP extended diagnostics by CA Wily usage during the upgrade lifecycle The following sections cover the phases of the upgrade project from requirements to operations phases. Included within each are the basic considerations and where the CA Technologies solutions can assist in each phase. Requirements Phase The requirements phase is performed by services and includes a discovery workshop along with determining the overall cost and potential business value of the upgrade. The scope of the upgrade project and the project plan milestones for subsequent phases is determined. An upfront estimate is determined for the technical and business impact of the proposed upgrade project based on timeline and hardware sizing. In preparing for a software upgrade or migration, the following considerations come in: Current system scoping (as-is) and target projections Additional system support requirements This may take approximately 1-4 weeks to appropriately discover a customer s landscape. This all depends on how well the current system is architected, monitored and documented. The outcome of the discovery activity is an overall mapping of your business applications to hardware sizing. The following outline questions that are part of this process: Current system scoping and target projections What is in use today and to what extent? Is the environment currently under-utilized or bursting at the seams? Is an OS/DB migration required as part of the plan? What hardware is being re-used, what OS/DB updates are necessary? Is a Unicode conversion planned, and if so is the current system an MDMP based system? What is the planned business growth beyond the current estimates, such as new business units? 10
The following figures present an example workload growth estimate that can be used to identify hardware requirements: Figure F. Application capacity workload growth estimate Figure G. Application capacity what if analysis 11
The CA Capacity Manager evaluation based on a licensed product begins with current production statistics. This is the only true way of finding out what your system is currently doing. Estimates by using SAP SAPS with additional buffers is just a prediction and may result in purchasing too much of the wrong hardware. The measurements after the upgrade can be compared with those of the previous production system. The comparison can identify where the benefits were provided and whether you are still achieving the same or better performance. Additional system support requirements What corresponding software must also be upgraded or installed to support the new environment? What additional satellite systems need to be installed, such as the SAP Solution Manager? What UI is going to be used by the end users? Options include SAP Portal, SAP Business Client, SAPGUI client software or browser. Prior to SAP NetWeaver based environments, the SAP Solution Manager was not required as part of the support contract. This is no longer the case and the SAP Solution Manager will need to be installed as part of the Upgrade based on the current SAP Software Support License Agreement. This can add to the project as follows: Training Additional training necessary for SAP Solution Manager Operations (monitoring) teams, technical (centralized monitoring, transport management) and business teams (project system) Hardware and DB sizing New hardware may need to be acquired and sized accordingly Do not underestimate the usage of a solution manager system, as it has a lot of applications for business and operations, including a service desk. There will be a need to leverage these as part of SAP best practice. If you plan on doing local SAP KPI reporting for business monitoring and Earlywatch reporting as it has a local BI. If not, an existing BI system will need to be sized to store the monitoring data for the SAP Landscape. SAP Solution Manager Configuration - project time Updating and converting any SLDs to the SAP Landscape Management Database (LMDB) DAA deployment additional installations This is for all SAP ABAP and JAVA based NetWeaver environments integrated into SAP Solution Manager 7.1 as defined in the SAP Solution Manager Installation Guide. Solution Manager plug-ins will also need to be deployed to ABAP and JAVA environments 12
The information provided by this phase will define the overall upgrade project requirements and duration. The Quality Gate verifies the following artifacts: Current system statistics CA Capacity Manager performance analysis CA APM measurement of current systems (test/production) Target architecture requirements CA Capacity Manager what-if analysis for production and test environments Satellite system impact Incorporate satellite system changes into overall plan Target software versions Licensing and software costs Business planned growth estimates CA Capacity Manager workload increase analysis Design Phase In this phase the overall upgrade project is designed and the tasks prepared for the build phase. This includes the following: Complete project plan/timeline Hardware procurement Resource assignment Initial testing plans Training plans The information from the discovery (requirements phase) is used to outline the overall requirements that must be met by the upgrade project. Based on the sizing estimates, the target system landscape must be blueprinted. Any new hardware acquisition must be identified and scheduled, along with data center updates to support these changes. To determine the actual upgrade procedure, the SAP Upgrade guides, notes, and forums are referenced for the customer specific details. It is important to know what steps are required, any SAP specific tools to use, and what is the required system down time. Training plans are also defined to train developers on the latest development technologies, businesses on new functionality. Delta team training time must be considered. IT and operations training are the most important training activities, followed by business team training as aligned with the QA system availability. 13
The Quality Gate verifies the following artifacts: A project plan Specific blueprints for the target technical architecture Defined dependencies to external systems Downtime requirements Testing requirements Training requirements Build Phase In this phase the upgrade is to occur, starting from a sandbox environment to confirm the upgrade process, to the quality assurance. The first step in this process is to confirm the upgrade steps. To confirm the upgrade process, a temporary target environment Sandbox is upgraded. This includes a system copy of the production environment following the upgrade steps as directed by SAP upgrade guides and notes. The main steps in the development environment are: Technical installation DB/OS upgrade and SAP kernel upgrade Development reconciliation activities Modification migration to enhancement system Unit /sanity testing Review of business processes During this process, the customer test team assembles the test plans and starts identifying any updated transactions that replace older transactions. The Quality Gate verifies the following artifacts and active sign-off: Sign-off: Business key users (leads) Development (leads) Operations (system stability) Testing (test plan readiness) Artifacts: Test plans for QA Technical blueprint adjustments Upgrade implementation steps Development specifications updated/ enhancements Project plan adjustments as needed 14
Test Phase The test system upgrade is considered a rehearsal for the production system. The importance of this is to identify any possible issues that may occur during the final production upgrade. If necessary, this may have to be repeated if the first attempt is unsatisfactory. Timing information for each upgrade step is essential, as it will provide valuable timeline information for when the production upgrade is to be performed. The essential steps are outlined below: QA system upgrade and preparation System copy from production Technical upgrade of QA system Transports to QA system Reset all interfaces QA system testing /readiness tests Test QA system (business team) Test all interfaces ALE/RFC/flat files/xi system/web services/user interfaces Development corrections Operations/Monitoring/Stabilization Instrument CA APM for metrics gathering CA Capacity Manager against QA system Connections to SAP Solution Manager /LMDB and monitoring templates Preparation for Run SAP methodology after production cut-over Additional Testing: Realistic volume testing including interfaces Monitoring information is to be analyzed during this phase, especially during the volume testing. The Diagnostics Agents (DAA) are deployed during the SAP implementation and collect metrics to supply the Enterprise Manager and the SAP Solution Manager. The right to view license for the CA Technologies products included with the SAP Solution Manager software can be extended to the fully licensed SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily product. This extends these capabilities into allowing for complete monitoring of the SAP and non SAP assets. CA Extended Diagnostics solution. 15
The Quality Gate verifies the following artifacts and signoff: Artifacts: Certified test plan Upgrade implementation steps - adjusted Production cutover plan (including downtime requirements) Signoff: Business key users (leads) Development (leads) Operations Testing (sign-off) Deployment Phase In this phase, the production system is upgraded. This process follows the activities outlined in the production cut over plan. This is the critical phase where system downtime is inevitable. All steps are to be orchestrated flowing a precise timeline to ensure no steps are missed and the milestones met. The CA APM solution is instrumented against the production system as part of the activities in this phase. The final exit gate includes: Signoff : Business key users (leads) Operations Artifacts: Operations/Monitoring preparedness Operate and Optimization Phase At this point, the production SAP system is up and running on the new target environment and software version. The business processes are resumed and new metrics can then be gathered. CA Capacity Manager is used to collect detailed information on the new live environment, and is compared to the previous production system performance. This gives insight into any areas that are performing better or worse that is used to focus resources on any problem areas. The CA Application Performance Management solution metrics gathered are then mapped to KPI s to drive performance reporting. This also will provide current and continued information to focus IT and business key users to any business process or business process steps that require additional attention. 16
SAP delivers a right-to-view license for CA Application Performance Manager and manages all thresholds and alerting through alert templates delivered within the SAP Solution Manager SAP Extended Diagnostics by CA Wily and the CA Application Performance Management solution that includes the Customer Experience Manager functionality may be purchased separately to extend the product capabilities, including custom alerting and dashboards. The operation and optimization phases will be continued activities that will feed into the requirements phase for new projects and/or corrective actions. The phases will then continue based on the ALM steps until they are deployed to production. Conclusion In conclusion, this paper has reviewed the methodology followed by CA Technologies to perform upgrades of an SAP environment. This methodology can be applied to an entire enterprise and is not reserved only to SAP landscapes. In addition, the CA Technologies solutions introduced in this paper in the context of the upgrade process are also leveraged in the sustainability phase, providing on-going benefits to the organization. The following image highlights the areas where the CA Technologies solutions aid customers in this process. Figure H. SAP extended diagnostics by CA Wily 17
Customer experiences are listed here based on live usage of the CA Technologies upgrade methodology for SAP software landscapes and the CA Technologies solutions leveraged in this process. The following figure presents CA Capacity Manager along with the CA APM solution. Figure I. Complete Solution including APM and Capacity Management Capacity and Performance Modeling solution predict response times and application behavior on different platforms, volumes and under varying test scenarios. The solution can model workload, platform, and OS effects. Benefits include: Avoiding application response time issues by mitigating the risk of changes to existing application Making more informed decisions in test and pre-prod on new applications Reduce labor needed for performance analysis of applications Reduce hardware and software required in all environments 18
Definitions SAP ERP (1) Enterprise Resource Planning software containing the software component ECC (Enterprise core components) and any industry specific add-on packages. SAP ECC (1) Enterprise Core Component software suite that includes the core SAP business applications such as Sales and Distribution, Finance, Human Capital Management, Logistics, etc. It is often used interchangeably with ERP. ERP is the actual software brand name. SAP NetWeaver (1) The SAP Platform for business enablement. It contains the technical layer that supports the SAP Runtime environment for both ABAP and JAVA based SAP environments and provides business enablement software, such as SAP Administration and development tools, process integration, etc. SAP 4.7 (Enterprise) and SAP R/3 (1) Pre SAP NetWeaver versions that run on the Web Application Server <= 6.20 and Basis kernel, respectively. These are what is now called Enterprise Core Components (ECC) and is the core of the SAP solution. SAP Support Package (1) A collection of notes (software corrections) that are released on a regular basis, anywhere from quarterly to semi-yearly. The current support package for the SAP ERP environment on NetWeaver 7.00 is SP25. SAP Enhancement Package (1) Software enhancements that include new application software or incremental functionality for existing applications. Applies to either the application software or the NetWeaver version. For example, the application software Enhancement Package has a dependency on the underlying NetWeaver version. ERP Enhancement package 5 (EHP5) has a dependency on the SAP NetWeaver (7.00) Enhancement Package 2. SAP Software Upgrade (1) A full version upgrade that indicates a change in the software version number. For instance, moving from SAP 4.6C to SAP ERP (ECC 6.0, EHP5, NW 7.02). SAP Product Timeline (2) SAP products typically have a seven year maintenance cycle. SAP may or may not decide to offer extended maintenance. A typical software lifecycle includes ramp-up, general availability with mainstream maintenance, extended maintenance and finally Customer- Specific Maintenance. SAP Extended Maintenance (3) The same product maintenance services are available as in Mainstream Maintenance and are offered at an incremental cost based on the customer s licenses. SAP may or may not elect to offer extended maintenance on any product. SAP Customer Specific Maintenance (3) This level of maintenance is entered in by customer request for the following reasons: Mainstream release ends and the customer elects not to pay for extended maintenance Extended maintenance contract ends No extended maintenance is offered by SAP 19
solutions for Facilitating SAP Software Upgrades from CA Technologies Customer specific maintenance allows customer access to the same support services as in the mainstream and extended maintenance for support. The limitations listed below: No more support packages are offered Legal updates are not provided Limited technology updates Any new problems identified are considered customer specific and the customer is charged for the resolution (consulting) (1) SAP Online Help (2) SAP Product Availability Matrix (3) SAP Support License Agreement Connect with CA Technologies at ca.com Agility Made Possible: The CA Technologies Advantage CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services. Organizations leverage CA Technologies software and SaaS solutions to accelerate innovation, transform infrastructure and secure data and identities, from the data center to the cloud. CA Technologies is committed to ensuring our customers achieve their desired outcomes and expected business value through the use of our technology. To learn more about our customer success programs, visit ca.com/customer-success. For more information about CA Technologies go to ca.com. Copyright 2012 CA. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies. This document is for your informational purposes only. CA assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of the information. To the extent permitted by applicable law, CA provides this document as is without warranty of any kind, including, without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement. In no event will CA be liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, from the use of this document, including, without limitation, lost profits, business interruption, goodwill or lost data, even if CA is expressly advised in advance of the possibility of such damages. acs2563_0712