As you maybe know, Java Support Packages are assembled cumulatively. All development objects of a software component are included in the support package file, no matter whether they have been changed or not since the last support package shipment. When you apply the support packages, the patch tools like JSPM, SAPinst and SDM will redeploy all the objects. This unnecessarily leads to longer system maintenance time, although only a fraction of the entire package is updated and has to be redeployed. Now I have good news for you. Thanks to some improvements regarding how the Java support packages are assembled, the deployment time will be shortened.
As of SAP NetWeaver 2004 SPS20 and SAP NetWeaver 2004s SPS11 all Java support packages of these two NetWeaver releases will contain additional meta-information which indicates whether a deployment unit needs to be redeployed. Support Packages of Java applications of Business Suite and Industry Solutions will adopt this improvement after a probation phase. Every development component – this is the smallest deployment unit – maintains the version information in its meta-data. Up to now, the version numbers of development components are synchronized with the version numbers of the software components they belong to. From the aforementioned SP stacks on, development components maintain genuine version numbers as you understand by version numbers. The version numbers of development components remain the same in the higher support package levels, as long as they haven’t been changed in comparison with the previous SP levels. Once they are changed, they acquire a new version number which synchronizes with the SP level of the software component. Or within the same SP level, the patch number of the development component will be incremented. According to the version information of the development components, the patch tools determine whether a particular development component should be redeployed. In the following I want to mention some effects coming up with this improvement.
First of all, since the starting points of the version comparison are SAP NetWeaver 2004 SPS19 and SAP NetWeaver 2004s SPS10 respectively, the improvement will only become effective, if the start SP levels are at least SPS19 for NW 2004 and SPS10 for NW 2004s.
Second, because the version numbers of development components no longer synchronize with their upper level software components, the component information displayed in various places (like the system information page of the Java engine and JSPM component information tab) shows components with different version numbers. This is different than previously, so don’t be surprised!
Another effect to be mentioned is that the time reduction naturally becomes less significant, the more SP stacks have been skipped. Although it is necessary for Java systems to apply only the target SP stack, the target SP stack differs more greatly from the source SP stack with growing number of skipped SP stacks so that more development components have to be redeployed.
If you have questions, just comment on this blog!
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