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former_member181887
Active Contributor
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In early November 2006, ASUG will be running the ASUG mySAP ERP Upgrades Symposium in the Americas - A 2 day forum completely dedicated to the topic of upgrading mySAP ERP and SAP R/3 systems. It really feels like this season is becoming the season of upgrades based on recent events, announcements and the buzz in the community. This symposium may be run by the Americas ASUG group, but it is open to every SAP customer and non-SAP customers worldwide (partners, consultants, etc). So no excuses for not going to Atlanta! (Event website: http://asug.prod.web.sba.com/events/2006upgrades/) So why is someone from SAP writing about this in SDN? Whell this is pretty simple - ASUG has its own website, forums, newsletters, webinars, so they tend not to advertise directly on SDN. However I thought that we, in the SDN community, should not miss the opportunity to learn about this event and how it might be interesting to everyone. After all it is one of THE current hot topics! (In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve also been asked by ASUG to present a couple of sessions at the event too)
So why go?
This Symposium is interesting, in my personal opinion, for a number of reasons:
  • It is a forum created by SAP users for SAP users.
  • Sessions are delivered by SAP Customers based on their direct experiences (with additional sessions by Partners and SAP at ASUG’s invitation).
  • SAP has announced that mySAP ERP 2005 is the long term mainstream release of mySAP ERP.
  • A small event with an upgrade to mySAP ERP focus.
  • It covers both the functional and technical views with tracks dedicated to each of them.
  • There is a specific track dedicated to the business justification of planning and actually doing the upgrade. All this sounds well and good but give me detail! Well, I feel this forum will help address a number of questions I have been getting very recently, especially questions that do not have a single answer but depend more on each customer's situation with their SAP R/3 / mySAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver rollouts. Most recently SAP have been getting these questions at the SAP TechEd events in Las Vegas and Amsterdam as a result of SAP announcements that mySAP ERP 2005 is ‘mainstream release’ of mySAP ERP with no future major release of mySAP ERP 2005 before 2010. That’s right, if you are upgrading to mySAP ERP, then it would be prudent to consider mySAP ERP 2005 for this very reason. Not to mention that it is the first release where SAP will be shipping all those Enterprise Services you have been hearing about on SDN. Also given the fact that SAP R/3 4.6c is out of standard maintenance at the end of the year (2006), there are lots of reasons for planning an upgrade. So getting on with - why is the symposium useful to the SDN community? 😉 Basically it should help answer these 10 questions that a lot of people have: 1. What you should consider when upgrading to mySAP ERP 2005 (and the underlying SAP NetWeaver 2004s)? 2. What does the 2010 announcement mean and how will I get enhancements “without Disruption”? 3. What are the functional deltas between my current SAP R/3 release and mySAP ERP 2005? What does the transition to mySAP ERP from SAP R/3 mean!? 4. What are the technical deltas and what technology is being used by mySAP ERP 2005? 5. How do I build a case and justify to the business an upgrade? You can also use this business justification to get your hands on the latest SAP NetWeaver 2004s technology (hmm, interesting if you haven’t been able to convince your boss to get it yet!) 6. How do I plan the project? What should I expect to have to plan for? 7. What skills will be required for the project and after it is done (functional, development, and system admin) 8. Who else has already done this upgrade? (and I don’t want to just hear from SAP – give me the real customer data!) 9. What are the requirements for Solution Manager with the upgrade? 10. What is the impact of the mySAP ERP 2005 upgrade on my existing SAP NetWeaver deployments? How will I get new functionality for mySAP ERP 2005 if there are no major releases until after 2010? So I think this just about covers it! I’m sure you have your own set of questions in these areas that you want answered. Hopefully ASUG have a session to help you, if not there will be open panel discussions to help you. I hope you found this interesting and can make it to Atlanta for the symposium. Ok, I came up with another reason! The community aspect: You get to engage and network with customers who have already completed their upgrades or are in the various stages of planning their upgrades. I better stop now otherwise I’m starting to sounds like a used car salesman. I hope to see you there! Mike. P.S. If you can’t go, why not try convincing your local SAP user group to host a similar event, meeting, or series of conference calls on the topic. Why not even try to get the SDN guys to host a virtual event if you can’t get the real-time event scheduled!? Craig, Mark, Marilyn?? 🙂
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