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Martin_Lauer
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

Do you operate a large system landscape? Do you run business processes across system boundaries, i.e. are these system connected? Are you desperately looking for a tool that can help you to find out if your cross-system business processes will run after the upgrade?

 

The Upgrade Dependency Analyzer (UDA) can support you in planning your next upgrade!

 

The UDA (web) service on SAP Service Markeplace provides access to SAP's database  of known upgrade dependencies. So if you plan to upgrade certain components of your landscape and need to know the impact of the upgrade onto a cross-system business processes (functional connection) or a technical connection, run the start the UDA application and to get the answer.

 

The screenshot below shows a typical result of an UDA analysis. After entering the data for the Target Component, i.e. the planned product version for the component to be upgraded, and the Existing Component, i.e. the product version of any connected component in your landscape, you'll see as a result the so-called Dependency Statement, which explains the impact of the upgrade into the system connection and is usually accompanied by an SAP note with detailed information. 

 

Let's focus on the Target/Existing component area, shown in the screenshot below. The area is split into a the selection area on the left side and the detail infromation on the right. The Target/Existing component is not only specified by a product and a product version, but also by a so-called Technical Unit.

 

The Technical Unit (TU) is a collection of all (main) instances of a product version that shall be ugraded at the same time and to the same level. The details for the selected Technical Unit are shown on the right. In this example, the SAP SCM Technical Unit consists of three instances SCM Server, Optimizer and LiveCache.

 

When the Technical Units for Target and Existing components have been selected, the UDA database will be queried and directly show the result for your upgrade analysis: the Dependency Statement.

There are several Dependency Statements (DS):

  • No interaction
  • No known upgrade dependencies, independent upgrade possible
  • Independent upgrade possible, but with known restrictions (which can be additional support packages or manual activities)
  • Independent upgrade not possible
  • Currently no statement available

The DS itself is a general statement on the impact of the upgarde and is explained by the text that follows below the heading (see above screenshot). The detailed information for the currently evaluated connection between two business system can be found in the SAP note assigned to the DS for this connection of Technical Units. In the SAP note for example you'll find the information, which additional support packages have to be installed.

 

Please note that UDA checks connections one after another. If you're now wondering how to easily evaluated all connections of your upgrade landscape, you should carry on reading the next section about the SAP Solution Manager integration. 

 

Outlook: Integration into SAP Solution Manager

With SAP Solution Manager (SSM) one can document system landscapes and corresponding connections (system and process interfaces). Using the connectivity to the SAP Support backbone, SSM will be able to access the UDA database rmeotly and evaluate all connections of your upgrade landscape at once. 

The integration will probably consist of a list of upgrade dependency analyses performed or in progress inserted into the Implementation & Upgrade Work Center as shown in the screenshot below.

 

From the list in the Work Center one can either create a new analysis or access an existing one. A new analysis can be loaded with landscape infrmation from a solution or a project landscape or even a freely defined landscape.

 

Once the planned product version and TUs have been defined the DS can be queried from UDA via the remote connectivity of SSM to the support backbone and displayed in the Solution Manager application. In SSM you now have additional documentation capabilities (comments, attachments, user ratings) that will ease feasability studies of your next upgrade.

 

Stay tuned for the anouncement of the availability of the UDA integration.

 

More Upgrade Dependency Analyzer Information

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