Enhancement Package 3 and 4 comparison

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We have ECC6.0 without any Enhancement Packages. We are planning to go either enhancement Package 3 or 4. Right now we are looking at the timing of installing the EPH3 and EPH4n. I came to understand the EPH3 will be using SAINT and EPH4 will be using the installation tool. Also hearing that there are a lot of issue with EPH4 installation.

If anyone has experience implementing both, please advice how much of time of the EPH3 and EPH4 took you, the complexity of installing them and any issues that I need to aware off.

Thanks

Yuva

[christianoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi Yuva,

have a look at the EHP4: How-to install guide (http://service.sap.com/~sapidb/011000358700000293582009E.PDF) - there you can get a fast overview about the main steps of the EHP4 installation.

The EHP Installer is from a technical perspective more complex (e.g. during this procedure we clone the existing repository in order to import all packages during uptime) - with TA SAINT we won't build up a shadow system...

However we do so with EHP4 for the sake of reducing downtime compared with EHP3 SAINT installations.

Just another thought: What are your functional requirements? This should drive the selection of Technical Usages and the EHP level. In general we recommend to install the latest EHP - thereby you are able to eliminate the risk of missing functionality during installation time (which the business might later on require).

Best regards,

Christian.

PS: By the way: Where did you hear about installation issues? Right now (=3 months after end of Ramp-Up) we have already 200+ happy EHP4 live customers..

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Christian,

> PS: By the way: Where did you hear about installation issues? Right now (=3 months after end of Ramp-Up) we have already 200+ happy EHP4 live customers..

Don't know what you call an issue at your side - but reading

Note 1143022 - Installation of SAP Enhancement Package 4 on SAP ERP 6.0 and (with 27 notes attached)

Note 1292069 - Add. info. on upgrading to SAP ERP 6.0 EHP4 SR1 ABAP (with 35+ notes attached)

can make one really think about issues.

EHP4 is quite a challenge, definitely feasible and of good quality (!!!), but one has to read a LOT of notes and PDFs to be sure all possible errors are excluded before trying to solve them in the middle of the upgrade.

Want some statistics?

I have done 14 upgrades (from EHP3 to EHP4) on various platforms (Windows, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris) with several database (MaxDB, Oracle, SQL-Server) with database sizes ranging from 190 GB to 2.6 TB. For someone doing nothing else 8 hours a day this is "easy" (as I have learned after the 4th of 5th too) - but for someone doing that the first time it requires really a lot of reading and understanding (I'm not a consultant).

It's certainly not something you do as a support package installation (as propagated), the pure technical complexity is pretty high (as with every upgrade) and the work to be invested in Solution Manager is underestimated.

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Well said Markus...

I completely agree with you..

I was just going round in circles the first time, with our dear Solution Manager:)

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> I was just going round in circles the first time, with our dear Solution Manager:)

You can solve that problem with the following actions:

<ironic>

- make sure your office Windows are closed

- get two or three bodybuildes

- tell them pull the server forcefully out of the rack including cables

- make sure all cables are taken

- count backwards from 10

- if 0 is reached throw the server right out of the closed window

- call a fork-lift and tell him to drive back an forth over the server until it's flat

- feel better/very good

</ironic>

Markus

Edited by: Markus Doehr on Sep 4, 2009 1:25 PM

[former_member194360 · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus

I have taken a look to 1143022 (EHP4, 27 notes attached), and 1083533 (EHP3, 24 notes attached),

1) Maybe the following might be helpful in trying to understand the role of these references differently.

First of all, the important information comes with the note itself. In the attachment will you find notes, with various roles. For example

- 1165438 - Enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP: Required SWC -> Which is central to any installation, as it helps you to select the needed Software Components ("Help to install")

- 550993 - Release strategy for ERECRUIT add-on -> Information, which is just needed for customers using E-Recruiting, and which use older versions ("Release Information")

- 1224011 - Fehler AD285 oder DT304 in Upgrade Phase ACT_700 -> Instructions, which you need, if receive a certain error in an upgrade. ("Correction, or Consulting Note")

=> Depending on your particular project holds: Not everybody needs to read everything in depth

In the SAP Service Marketplace http://service.sap.com/erp-inst, below enhancement packages can you find a new page (with important notes from the Master Guides), which increases the transparency along the above mentioned lines.

You see there as well, that there is a certain pattern of notes (i.e. 1165438 EHP4, 1083533 EHP3, 1045303 EHP2, have identical content, which differ by EHP. I.e it is sufficient to use 1165438, when working EHP4).

2) Many of these notes appear over and over again. I.e. 1165438 is referenced from a lot of deliverables/ guides/documentation, because it is quite central. To get this kind of transparence, it is helpful to use the documentation in a certain sequence. For example: Must Know Guides -> Master Guides -> relevant installation guides, as recommended in these guides, then important notes, etc.

For this type of transparence, see for example the "first steps documentation" on http://service.sap.com/erp-inst, or see the overview information from http://service.sap.com/erp-ehp.

3) In general all documentation addresses all eventualities. If your project is much simpler, you might not need everything. This is for example made transparent in the different (Master) Guides, as far as possible. It is thus helpful to run a planning step, before you actually run the installation itself (as you already suggest)

Please let me know if it makes sense to you.

regards

Andreas Rudolph

Edited by: Andreas Rudolph on Sep 7, 2009 4:41 PM

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> => Depending on your particular project holds: Not everybody needs to read everything in depth

Oh well - out of experience one should really do that to avoid problems appearing in the middle of the upgrade that can be avoided. If you then need to change your self-built sequence you have to do a test run again to verify that it works (e. g. if one needs to apply a note before a certain phase in the source system etc.) This kind of iteration is very time consuming if you do those runs as "run-as-often-as-no-more-error-appears-and-you're-finished-to-do-the-production".

> For this type of transparence, see for example the "first steps documentation" on http://service.sap.com/erp-inst, or see the overview information from http://service.sap.com/erp-ehp.

Two places, several documents/powerpoints (master, first-step, installation 'doing' document...) - do you really thing it's "clear"? The ambiguation starts with "is it an EHP4 installation" or is it an "upgrade to EHP4"?

> 3) In general all documentation addresses all eventualities. If your project is much simpler, you might not need everything. This is for example made transparent in the different (Master) Guides, as far as possible. It is thus helpful to run a planning step, before you actually run the installation itself (as you already suggest)

> Please let me know if it makes sense to you.

I understand the conceptual thing, yes, but having to read almost 100s of pages in different document doesn't make things easier, even if you read them in a special sequence.

I loved the "old" method of having ONE guide for an upgrade that had all instead of several, distributed guides. If someone has no experience in doing upgrades he has a hard time doing it, especially given the fact, that EHP4 is advertised to be equal to a support package installation.

On top of that all comes the Solution Manager thing, where you need additional "guides" and notes to enable it to generate that needed .XML file and where the installation guide says preposterous things like "if you need further information please see at http://service.sap.com/solutionmanager".

(to be continued at second post since one has too many characters)

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

(second part)

I have printouts of roughly 60 notes in total, with markings and own "pointers" written by hand to get all the necessary information and dependency - plus all the "guides" and "howto's" This is, well, not something that is "easy" - as opposed to what presentations to managers and @ SAP tell.

Another really confusing thing is the "technical usages" abstraction. I remember that some years before one big advantage of ERP 6.0/ECC 6.0 was the retrofit of all IS (and other addons) back to ERP as a whole; you upgrade everything rather than having to do dependency checking for single components upgrades. Now you replace that step with an abstraction of technical usages, a for non-english speaking people a pretty inapphrehensible "mapping thing" where an administrator needs to know which of those usages are in use (how should he?) and what is basically nothing else than a component upgrade as with former ERP releases.

Since we were unable to thoroughly "match" those components - despite using SAP for 14+ years - we upgraded all of them. I am of the opinion, that if I am e. g. a responsible person for the "MM-Module" in Germany then I shouldn't need to know SAP-Denglish terminologies to judge, whether special functions are in use or not.

The whole procedure is not "one big thing confusing" but dozens and dozens of small things; starting with jce_policy_zip, SAPehpi vs. SAPup + FIX, PREPARE now being "integrated", Solution Manager .XML file, hundreds of .SAR files, several keywords (for EHPI, for ERP, for Addons you have...), a "kernel 7.01"

I seriously grieve about the old ugprades: a DVD, a patched SAPup, a FIX for it and you can go with the two central notes without all the other stuff around which just complicates things in an utter matter (IMHO).

Not trying to blindly bash or slam, I can just imagine the complexity you have to deal with - but please:: Don't try to compensate that complexity YOU built into YOUR products with more complexity at the customer site to handle it.

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

BTW: The total confusion is perfect if you read

Note 1245473 - Add. Info. - SAP Enhancement Package Installer 7.00

<...>

For existing installations of SAP Business Suite systems (for example,

SAP ERP 6.0) that are based on SAP NetWeaver 7.0, the enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 must not be installed separately...

Installing enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver 7.0 in an SAP ERP 6.0 system without installing enhancement package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0, or installing enhancement package 1 for SAP NetWeaver in an existing SAP CRM or SAP SRM system will result in malfunctioning of the installation procedure and/or the final system state.

<...>

and

Note Note 774615 - Support Package levels of ERP/ECC installations/upgrades

which clearly shows it's just exactly the above constellation, - EHP1 for Netweaver but without EHP4 for ERP

Markus

[markus_doehr2]

> If anyone has experience implementing both, please advice how much of time of the EPH3 and EPH4 took you, the complexity of installing them and any issues that I need to aware off.

Just do add:

We had EHP3 last year and upgraded to EHP4 this year. EHP3 is installed using SAINT, EHP4 is installed using a new tool SAPehpi - which is basically a "new SAPup" as you'd use for the normal upgrades.

We haven't had most trouble with the installation (and testing etc.) itself but with the Maintenance Optimizer and Solution Manager. Not trying to scare anyone off but MOPZ was/is a real alienating tool with all those notes, to-be-uploaded .XML files, SMSY configurations and all that stuff. It was a complete and utter disaster at that time we did it (with SP18); things are better now but calculate some more days for preparation of MOPZ.

I have seen upgrades running from 2 days (completely) to 6 days (on a small 2-way Windows/Itanium machine). There are various options available to speed up the processing but this has to be evaluated for your system. So the best advise I can give is to create a copy of your production system on a likewise hardware, do the upgrade and check which phases are running for a long time. On top, you'll get an overview how this all works and where you are having issues that can be solved.

- use the LATEST tools (kernel, R3trans, libdbsl, SAPehpi etc.) for the upgrade

- don't run the default upgrade configuration (too less parallelism, you'll need to experiment with the test system)

Markus