xMII 12.0 or 12.1 Distributed Deployments & Support

[Former Member]

My question centers around xMII (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/bpx/index?rid=/webcontent/uuid/7097005c-a9be-2910-988a-bfb15e6f40ea [original link is broken]) 12.0 or 12.1 distributed deployments and support.

The scenario would be xMII deployed at remote sites with connections back to the Central ECC 6.0 system.

My questions are:

1) What Platform (O.S. & DB) did you choose for the NetWeaver stack and why? The reason I ask is that NetWeaver requires SQL Server EE -- did you choose a different Platform?

2) Internally how does your company support xMII? Is there an xMII support team? Is there a separate DBA team? Is there a separate NetWeaver Admin team?

3) Lastly, (this will vary for many companies) did you see an FTE increase with your xMII deployments? If so, how many?

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, experiences and learnings!

[Former Member]

Hi Somckit,

These are all excellent questions. There are many factors that play into these decisions. At my current customer, they are evaluating rework of existing apps to move to AIX/DB2 vs. the increased license cost of SQL EE at 14 plants. This wasn't even a question at a previous client because they were deploying servers to 75 plants, making the SQL option cost prohibitive. They went with AIX/DB2. I pushed back on SAP to see if they would grant some special 'dispensation' for the SQL EE requirement if the Netweaver box in question was only using MII on the Java Stack. They were not comfortable that the customer would not expand the Netweaver usage and would not relax that requirement. I understand both sides, but makes for a difficult decision.

From the support perspective, MII is a web based application so it can easily be supported centrally. If a need does arise that would require the support to be done locally, I recommend to my clients that a member of the central support location travel to the plant if it can't be achieved over the phone or through remote desktop. For Netweaver support, that is typically done by the Basis group and is separate from the MII development/support group.

The major increase in FTE's for MII implementations was from 11.5 to 12.0 when the underlying web server was changed from IIS to Netweaver. IIS skills are common and can be found anywhere where Netweaver skills are more difficult to find.

I hope this helps!

Mari Santangelo

[Former Member]

Thank much Mari!

You've confirmed what we were thinking with the SQL Server option (i.e. that SAP requires SQL Server EE for NetWeaver).

Do you know if any xMII deployments are choosing MAXDB (to workaround the SQL Server cost constraints)? We are kicking around that option to see if it makes sense.

For your customers with 14 and 75 plants -- do you have an FTE increase average (I know, I know it will depend

Thanks again Mari!