Understanding SAP Versions

[Jochinnabathini]

SAP continues to update their offerings to further improve the user experience. While this is great to ensure our ERP systems have the greatest capabilities possible, it can be hard to keep track that our own systems are up to date. That’s why we put together a list of the SAP versions and how your business can learn more about which version you are operating.

ECC vs. S/4HANA

At the highest level, we can differentiate SAP systems as either ECC or S/4HANA. The main difference between the two is the type of database they use.

• 
  

  ECC stands for ERP Central Component. It is SAP’s legacy system, with roots stretching back to their very first ERP solution in the 1970s. It can operate on any database, including third-party and, more recently, HANA. New versions of ECC are not being released and it is expected that customers will transfer their systems over to S/4HANA.

  
  


• 
  

  S/4HANA is short for SAP Business Suite 4 HANA. As the fourth version of the SAP Business Suite, it is the latest offering from SAP.  It runs only on the HANA database, which is an in-memory database developed and tuned by SAP for faster performance and real-time reporting.

  
  

Let’s dive into more details.

S/4HANA Versions

S/4 HANA is offered on two different platforms: On-Premise or Cloud. Both products are very similar in terms of lines of business, coverage, and functionality.

• 
  

  On-Premise is located on your organization’s own servers and managed in-house. It has an annual innovation cycle with several smaller updates each year.

  
  


• 
  

  Cloud is hosted externally on SAP’s servers and maintained by SAP. It has a quarterly innovation cycle.

  
  

Until 2020, all S/4HANA versions were named after the year and month that they were released (YYMM). For example, S/4HANA 1909 was released in September 2019.

SAP revised the naming convention in 2020. Going forward, On-Premise releases will be named for the year only (YYYY), starting with S/4HANA 2020 in October 2020. Cloud releases will continue with the YYMM naming convention.

To look up the version of your system, go to: More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Product Versions. This will tell you the product name.

Technical folks may be more interested in the S4CORE Component version, which can be found nearby:
More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Software Component Versions.

S/4HANA On-Premise Versions 

S/4HANA On-Premise also has several updates for each version per year. These updates will either be Feature Pack Stacks (FPS) for new features or Support Pack Stacks (SPS) for bug fixes.

The versions are outlined as follows:

SAP HANA Database Versions 

S/4HANA operates on the HANA (High performance ANalytic Appliance) database.

• 
  

  For reference the two versions referred to are HANA DB 1.00.122 (HANA 1.0 SP12 Rev 122) and HANA DB 2.00.052.0 (HANA 2.0 SPS05 Rev 52).

  
  


• 
  

  The HANA 1.0 database will reach end-of-maintenance in June 2021.

  
  


• 
  

  SAP will provide Maintenance Revisions for SAP HANA 2.0 SPS05 for a period of five years after RTC. These Revisions after SPS05 are not scheduled but delivered on demand. Bug fixes and security patches are released for every Support Package Stack (SPS) for two years after RTC.

  
  


• 
  

  SAP will introduce new capabilities once a year, every time a new SAP HANA Support Package Stack (SPS) is released. An overview can be found in SAP HANA 2.0 Revision Strategy.

  
  

SAP HANA 1.0

SAP HANA 2.0

ECC Versions 

SAP ECC (SAP ERP Central Component) This is the predecessor for SAP S/4HANA. As a result, ECC 6.0 EHP 618 is the final release since SAP expects customers will transfer their systems to S/4HANA. The “1” in the version number states that it is enabled for the HANA database.

To identify the version, check SAP_APPL component version in the system stack information.

The updates can be viewed in this diagram:

To look up the version of your system, go to: More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Product Versions. This will tell you the product name.

Technical folks may be more interested in the SAP_APPL component version, which can be found nearby:
More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Software Component Versions.

NetWeaver Versions 

SAP NetWeaver (NW) is the underlying technology layer or software stack that ECC is built on. SAP NW can be used for custom development and integration with other applications and systems and is most commonly build using the ABAP programming language. As of 2019, the most up to date version of NetWeaver is AS ABAP 7.54.

• 
  

  EHP Stands for EnHncement Package.

  
  


• 
  

  AS stands for Application Server.

  
  

To identify the version that your business is operating, check the SAP_BASIS component version in the system stack info (More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Software Component Versions).

The version releases are as follows:

Fiori Versions 

SAP Fiori is the new SAP interface, which appears as a set of apps addressing the most frequently used SAP functions. Previously known SAP GUI transactions are now composed into Fiori apps that users can personalize using Launchpad to further improve the user experience.

• SAP Fiori Introduction was released in 2013, followed by SAP Fiori 1.0.


• SAP BlueCrystal theme came out the following year in 2015.


• In 2016 SAP Belize/Belize Deep themes was released in Fiori 2.0.


• The current version is Fiori 3 (not Fiori 3.0!) with the SAP Quartz Light/Dark theme. It is a totally new theme with a fresh, modern look and revised homepage design.

UI5 Versions 

On the development side, SAP user interface for HTML 5 (SAPUI5) is the collection of libraries that are used to build desktop and mobile applications. UI5 versions must be considered for Cloud only & On-Premise deployments.

To identify the UI5 version, type sap.ui.version in browser developer tools. From there navigate to the console tab for more information.

For more up-to-date information, go to the official SAPUI5 Version Overview.

SAPUI5 VERSIONS AVAILABLE ON SAP BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

SAPUI5 is switching from a quarterly to a monthly cloud delivery via SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This means every four weeks a new version is provided for productive usage and version numbers will increase by one instead of by two. Additionally, every 12th version will become a long-term maintenance version.

It is important to note that only versions with long-term support receive patches for the duration of the maintenance.

Bug fixes will also be released in the next version.

For more up-to-date information, go to the official SAPUI5 Version Overview.

For help optimizing your SAP system or migrating to S/4HANA we encourage you to contact us today!

[sumitjais]

Hi Joseph,

Thanks for the article.

You wrote " As of 2019, the most up to date version of NetWeaver is AS ABAP 7.54"

However, there is no NW AS ABAP 7.53 or 7.54 released till date and I got to know that SAP is not planning to release NW AS ABAP >7.52 currently.

Could you please share the source of this information?

[former_member693847]

Dear Team.

 

l am new on the platform. My focus is on trying to learn SAP as  much as possible. l know it has its a huge ERP  and my dream is to eventually do SAP consulting. Where should l start from

[Jochinnabathini]

Hi,

You posted in to wrong group. However, you can still get a overall idea of what we have now in SAP today.

Thanks,

Joseph

[DavidLees]

Thanks Joseph.

One thought - you might want to mention that as of this year, SAP is changing the version numbering for S/4 on premise from YYMM to YYYY (ie it was 1511, 1610, 1709, 1809, 1909) but moving forward will be 2020, 2021, 2022, .... - which might get confusing with the S/4 Cloud editions remaining as YYMM (2005, 2008, 2011, ...).

[Jochinnabathini]

That’s right David. I am aware of it but don’t want to mention until it is released. I will update once 2020 got released with updated version of this blog. 

[Jochinnabathini]

Hi Sumit,

Idea is to show all the NW versioning in the same diagram. However, It has different flavours, like before NetWeaver, during NetWeaver (integration of all components like BW, Portal, KM, MDM, PI, Collaboration) and after NetWeaver.

SAP NetWeaver AS for ABAP 7.52 offers the foundation for SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1709,

SAP NetWeaver AS for ABAP 7.53 offers the foundation for SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1809,

SAP NetWeaver AS for ABAP 7.54 offers the foundation for SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition 1909.

But now, in the system stack information you won't see specifically as SAP NW but you will see the core components SAP_BASIS, SAP_ABA, SAPUI, SAP_BW carrying NetWeaver Versions to it like 7.50, 7.51,....7.54.

Hope I have clarified your doubt.

Thanks,

Joseph

[sumitjais]

Not really,

This topic is like a déjà vu to me.

In this article, juan.tena  has mentioned :

“SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP 7.52 is the last version of SAP Netweaver,”

“Starting S/4HANA 1809 the S/4HANA is build on top of ABAP Platform 1809”  i.e. foundation is no more Netweaver AS 7.53 for 1809.

The two statements contradict your statements above.

[Jochinnabathini]

Thanks Sumit for your comment. I have updated it.

[mynynachau]

Hi there,

You have a question and need help by the community? Instead of posting here, it is more helpful for you, if you post your own question. Here is how to get started:

1. Learn about asking and answering questions in SAP Community with this tutorial: https://developers.sap.com/tutorials/community-qa.html
2. Ask your detailed question here: https://answers.sap.com/questions/ask.html
3. Wait for a response.

That’s it. Thank you!

Best regards

Your SAP Community moderator

[neha_mahanty]

Hi Joseph,

Nice blog!! Thank you.

[MRobalinho]

Excellent

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Neha.

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Manuel.

[former_member672399]

This is great stuff!! need to share lots of articles for the reader who like your blog and thanks for sharing your ideas and tips

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you eronita.

[former_member283567]

Very nice.
Very difficult to find this explained anywhere else.
Thanks for sharing.

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you B.Struijk

[libai334]

outstanding! very intuitive

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Bai.

[RaminS]

Very useful. Thanks Joseph very much, indeed!

One question, if we are on 7.40 on premise system and want to upgrade to 7.5x, should we go to 7.52 or 7.54? Can we go to 7.54 without having S4?

Thanks

[Jochinnabathini]

Yes Ramin. Check the blog Fiori FES server strategy from below link

https://blogs.sap.com/2020/04/01/sap-fiori-deployment-options-and-sap-fiori-front-end-server-strateg...

 

Thanks,

Joseph

[former_member646210]

Very helpful

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you, Vivek.

[wongkl]

Good job. Very comprehensive. Will reference this blog often. Cheers

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Kee for your comments.

 

[former_member739159]

Good job Joseph. very nice and helpful

Hope you will continu to update it.

Regards

Abdo

[Jochinnabathini]

Thanks, Abdo, It's now updated

[ThomasStumpp]

Are there ways to lookup S/4 HANA on prem release schedules online (on demand)? Like 2020 is not yet features in this blog (July 2020) and I like to see anything after 1909.

[Jochinnabathini]

It's now updated

[former_member762471]

Thanks jchinnabathini

Very much explained in details ,the same i  am  looking for, as new to SAP

 

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Manish. Hope it is helpful.

[RaminS]

Hi Joseph. That blog only talks about front-end server. We are looking to upgrade the backend ECC to NW 7.52 at least. My question is can it be done, or any version after 7.50 is for S4 only?

 

Thanks

[RaminS]

Got my answer: No.

ERP users cannot go beyond 7.50, the bus stops there for them (at around 2015). If you want more functions (like CDS functions, Draft handling, etc.) that are only available in 7.52, you have to upgrade to S4.

 

Here.

 

Thanks.

[former_member770217]

Very helpful and detailed.  Thanks for sharing!

[knaveensit]

It was informative and Helpful. Thank you

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Chris.

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Naveen.

[leticial_locatelli]

Very clear and insightful. Thank you for sharing!

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Leticia.

[former_member226695]

Joseph - Very helpful. Thanks for sharing!

 

Just a thought -

Adding a compatibility matrix of ECC-versions vs NetWeaver-versions might be helpful.

[former_member805195]

Thank you for sharing very useful info...

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Sai.

[Jochinnabathini]

Thank you Sunit.

[former_member248049]

When is the final maintenance date for S4HANA versions?

[dnl_basis]

Very useful information. Can you please update this page with the new information from the last 2 years?

[jdemes]

Looks like 2040 - see https://support.sap.com/en/release-upgrade-maintenance/maintenance-information/maintenance-strategy/s4hana-business-suite7.html

[Jelena_Perfiljeva]

Thank you for this post from 2023! I'm so used to looking at the components and interpreting the weird numbers that I haven't even realized there is Installed Products tab that simply shows what S/4 version this is. TIL 🙂

[shafik_sk]

The knowledge you provided was very beneficial. Please share or add the most recent information if you have the chances for advancement.