EhP for ERP 6 and connected Netweaver EP

[martin_juen2]

Hi all.

I have a question about EhP...

We run an ERP 6 system on one side. On the other side we have a Netweaver Enterprise Portal 7. Now we want to enhance some business functions (ESS, MSS, Learning Solution, ...)

How to handle this?

Possibility 1

SolMan customization - SMSY / main instances ERP systems; I added all the "things" we run on the portal and marked them as "relevant".

- SAP ECC Server (Standard)

- Portal Content

- SAP NW - Adobe Docu. Service

- SAP NW - Applic. Server Java

- SAP NW - EP Core

- SAP NW - Enterprise Portal

- SAP XSS (Self Services)

- XI Content

I also entered the "extended assignment of system components";

Possibility 2

SolMan customization - SMSY - no additional main instances for ERP; that means two additional - completely separated enhancements. One for ERP and one for EP.

How would you treat this issue? Do i have to use them as "one" system or is it better to separate the systems completely?

At the moment i think easiest and best way is to implement the current Stack + EhP for ERP and the current stack for JAVA. No more.

Thanks for your help!

Martin

[former_member194360 · Accepted solution]

Hi Martin

The Business Function (BF), which you intend to implement, defines the Technical Usage. The Technical Usage groups all product instances, and software components, which need to be installed for that BF. The Product Instances/ software components are installed in systems, which need to be on a defined SP Level (these systems represent general product instances, such as SAP NW - EP Core).

For Role-Based Work Centers, the techncial usages normally include SAP ECC Software Components, but Java components as well (like new business packages). They typically affect SAP ECC Server, but also the SAP NW - EP Core system (for example)

In the Scenario and Process Component List (service.sap.com/scl) will you find information about the assignment of software components.

I.e. for End-User Service Delivery -> Manager Self-Service (in EHP3) "BP ERP05 MSS 1.31" is needed on EP-Core (installed is the complete Portal Content), and "Central Applications" on SAP ECC Server (to name few).

regards,

Andreas

[Matt_Fraser · Accepted solution]

Hi Andreas and Martin and others,

I have essentially the same question Martin does, and I don't think it's been answered. The basic issue is probably one of not really understanding how to set up solution landscapes in Solution Manager, but there it is. So, I am setting out to apply EnhPk3 and associated support packs to my ERP 6.0 landscape, specifically for MSS/ESS scenarios. So, I understand my Business Function to be "HCM, ESS for Concurrent Employment", for example, or HCM_ESS_CE, and the Technical Usage to be HCM Self Services. Herein lies the problem! My "ECC" solution (and yes, I went through all that mess about reassigning the logical component, etc, to be "ERP 6.0" instead of "ECC 6.0") includes only my ABAP systems, which need to be updated for the HCM technical usage/ABAP product. My Portal (XSS and Content) is in another system, another set of servers, another installation number, and of course another "solution" in Solution Manager.

So, when I go into Maintenance Optimizer and select my ERP 6.0 system and "Enhancement Packages", I get the list of all the usages/products that are possible to download. "Human Capital Management" is there just fine, but "Portal Content" and "SAP XSS" and "HCM Self Services" are greyed out, because they require the Java components on my Portal server, which of course are not in this solution. I can't seem to figure out how to redefine my Portal solution, either, to have it be an XSS/Content server instead of an Enterprise Portal or Portal Core server (or just "Netweaver 7.0"), so if I start a separate "maintenance transaction" for the Portal, Enhancement Packages aren't an option, only standard "Maintenance."

So it seems at the moment that I'll be able to use the MOPZ to auto-select the EnhPk3 files for the ABAP components only, and I'll have to go in and manually figure out (i.e., error-prone?) the files for the Portal components. It's maddening, as I can see the option in the list in the MOPZ selection for my ERP system, but I can't select it.

I thought perhaps I needed to move my Portal servers into my "ECC" solution as a second logical component, but it's not going to let me have more than one production system in the solution, and of course this way there will be two: the ECC production system and the Portal production system.

The EnhPk3 Installation Guide and "Must Know" guide both imply, but don't directly state, that you should be able to download all your ABAP, XSS, and Content pieces in one go and then apply them via SAINT, JSPM, etc as appropriate to the different systems, but nowhere have I found any documentation to help me set up a landscape that actually allows this in any automated fashion.

How have others resolved this? Or is not really something that's working at this time, and I have to do it all manually?

Thanks,

--Matt

[martin_juen2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Matt.

I know how to tell the ERP-system, that there are JAVA-components too...

Goto TA SMSY and choose one of your ERP-systems. After that you have main-data (description, installation number, product version) on the first tab-strip. Go to the next one. In german it's called "Auswahl der Hauptinstanzen" - i think it's somethng like "main instances". On this screen you find the available main instances - choose the relevant ones (e.g. SAP NW - EP Core") and mark it as relevant. Then you can link it to the JAVA system.

Do that for all the relevant main instances (you have to try). After that you can goto mopz and retry the process.

If you want to i can send you screenshots of my system to check. Think this will help us both to successfully deploy the packages 🐵

regards,

martin

[Matt_Fraser · Accepted solution]

Martin,

That worked! Thank for you leading me in the right direction. Ok, it's not perfect, as I'm having a hard time associating the correst systems with the new Java-based main instances -- Solution Manager wants to associate them all with the ECC installation number and the ECC SID -- and this will probably cause problems when trying to get solution monitoring and earlywatch alerts working properly for those java systems (they never really did before), but as far as Maintenance Optimizer is concerned, it's now working beautifully! I'm downloading all the ABAP and Java patches for EnhPk3 as I write this, and this will at least get me through this project of get EnhPk3 implemented. I can come back after to figure out the solution monitoring bit.

I'd give you points if I could, but since this is actually your thread and not mine, I can't.

[martin_juen2 · Accepted solution]

it makes me feel good that i was able to help you. it's better than just a few points!

Martin

[Matt_Fraser · Accepted solution]

Ok, progress has been made, but we aren't done yet. Now my problem is with the stack definition file. I have successfully downloaded all the various patches for both ECC and EP, and I've staged the ones relevant to EP in my NWDI's EPS inbox (the JSPM inbox). However, since I never actually managed to get Solution Manager to understand which actual system represented EP in my ERP solution, the Maintenance Optimizer only created a stack definition file for the ECC system, and not one for the EP system. Furthermore, the one for ECC only includes the components relevant to ECC, so I can't just edit it and change the SID and hostname and expect it to work. In the past it was possible to just go to the Service Marketplace and create a download page for a support stack and then create the stack definition file from there, but with enhancement packs, or at least EhP3, that is no longer possible. You can't even get a listing of what's in a given support stack of an enhancement pack! The website just refers you back to Solution Manager and Maintenance Optimizer, but that isn't working for me.

So, now I'm stuck with either spending (WASTING) a lot of time trying to reconfigure my solution in SolMan yet again, or somehow manually creating a stack definition XML file for my EP system, which doesn't seem like a lot of fun, and may not even be realistically possible.

So, Martin, or anyone else, any ideas on how or where to proceed from here?

Thanks,

--Matt

[Matt_Fraser · Accepted solution]

Follow-up to my previous message. I did eventually get Solution Manager to understand all the systems in the solution, and from there I got Maintenance Optimizer to create a "cross-system" stack definition file. It was a large, unwieldy, hard to decipher file, but it was there. However, I ran into numerous problems when actually attempting to use the file with JSPM on my DEV Portal system. First, it didn't add all the components (most noticeably, ESS) to all the Portal systems -- it put ESS, for instance, in the queue for QAS and PRD, but not DEV -- so JSPM didn't want to recognize that I needed to import ESS components into my DEV system. It had the others there, though. I copied the ESS details in the xml file from the PRD section to the DEV section and that worked. However, then no matter what I tried I would get a NullPointerException immediately after completing the SpecifyQueue phase in JSPM. I checked available disk space and even made more available, despite there being enough (Note 891895); I renamed the file to SPSTab.xml and got rid of all other xml files from the EPS inbox, despite being on a higher JSPM patch level (Note 1020008); I checked my jstartup/vm/home parameter was in the correct instance profile (Note 1039484); I deleted the datamodel xml files and reinitialized (Note 874123); I checked Notes 952221, 971765, and others. In short, I did everything I could find from SAP Notes or SDN on this error, and I could not get past it. I did file a Customer Message with SAP about it, but before I heard back from them, I got around the problem by ignoring the stack definition file altogether. Instead I used the "Business Packages" option in JSPM instead of the "Support Package Stack" option, and bingo! Everything imported just fine, the modified components were correctly copied over on NWDI, and we're happy campers again (though more than a week behind schedule because of all this).

Maybe next time we do a round of support packs we'll be able to use SAP's recommendation of the "Support Package Stack" option for JSPM, but for this round we're sticking with the old-fashioned, more manual method. It works.

--Matt

[martin_juen2 · Accepted solution]

Thanks a lot for your information and ... well done 🐵

we will start our journey to ehp 3 next week... i will notice my experiences in the thread too.

best regards,

Martin