24/7 availability for SAP DMC - quarterly releases?

[stephan_madlmayr]

Dear SAP Community,

we have the case that we need to implement DMC in a 24/7 production with absolute zero downtimes.

Is DMC Edge a possible solution? How are the quarterly releases handled in DMC Edge, ist there a smooth transition possible so that the operator doensn't even notice the update happened in the background?

Thanks in advance,

Stephan

[Kevin_Hunter · Accepted solution]

Hi Stephan,

No unfortunately thats not the case at the moment. You can only have once edge device per plant, this is a limitation of the hardware and we are working with the manufacturer to allow you to cluster devices in the future.

When the edge is deployed all transactions are processed at the edge and then sync'd back to the cloud, when the upgrade of the cloud is happening you can carry on without noticing any difference as the edge will still be carrying out the transactions. Once the cloud is upgraded the edge will then sync all the transactions again. At this moment in time the edge will be one version behind the cloud (n-1) eg the edge would be 2208 and the cloud 2211, this is fully supported and at a point in time that suits production you would manually tell the edge to carry out the upgrade of the edge. During this time you would lose access until the edge completed the upgrade to 2211 which would be around 1 hour but depends on the upgrade itself.

In the future we are looking at having 2 or more edge devices to improve it further but we are waiting on the hardware capabilities catching up.

Thanks

Kevin

[Kevin_Hunter]

Hi Stephan, yes this is one of the scenarios that Edge was introduced to resolve.

The Edge allows you to still operate when the cloud is not available (ie during the upgrade). You manually decide when the edge is upgraded and we support an n-1 approach therefore you have up to 3 months to upgrade the edge. Please note that even with the edge there will be a small downtime (to upgrade the edge) but you can plan when that occurs.

Please reach out to your account executive and as them to arrange a discussion with the edge team and they can answer all the questions you have.

Thanks

Kevin

[stephan_madlmayr]

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for the fast response!

If I undertstand your answer correctly then it is possible to set up 2 edge devices and switch the production to the second edge device while upgrading the first one?

How long would the switch approximately take?

Thanks, Stephan