Simplify complex EHP4 SPs upgrade using SAPehpi

With complex landscape job of basis consultant become more and more interesting. Simple support packs upgrade become challenge.

I still remember early days of my basis career when we used to take 2 days of downtime for upgrading hot packs in R3 systems and great thing is business use to approve that.

These days almost all the core business applications are running on SAP and downtime for SAP systems is next to impossible.

Regular support pack upgrade to our SAP systems is also necessary because of legal changes.

When we negotiate the downtime with business, it always kneels down to hrs and minutes and requirement become more and more complex.

Our current landscape is ECC EHP4 SP03/NW7.01 SP03. Here is example of typical business requirement:

Requirement:

    Before Jun: (Approved downtime 8 hrs)

• Upgrade existing SAP ECC EHP4 SPs 02/NW 7.01 SPs 03 system to EHP4 SPs 08

After Jun:  (Approved down time 2 hrs)

• Upgrade HRSPs 36 in ECC EHP4 landscape

Challenge:

HRSP 36 required EHP4 SPs 8 and NW7.03 SPs 08. But EHP4 SPs 08 comes with NW7.01 SP07.

Resolution:

To achieve above complex requirement we:

• We use SAPehpi  as a tool for upgrading support pack
• We applied ABAP NW7.01 SPs 08 patches together with ECC EHP4 SPs 08 in one step

               Steps to apply NW7.03 SPs08 together with EHP4 SPs08

                    –  Copy all the NW7.01 SPs 08 patches to /usr/sap/trans/EPS/in directory

                  –  During the install SAPehpi calculates the queue and it prompt NW7.01 SPs08 patches in calculated level. Select take over “Calculated Level” and continue installation. 

We successfully upgraded our sandbox with minimum downtime of  6 Hrs 10 Min and we are in the process of upgrading production landscape.

Here are the steps to complete EHP4 SPs08/NW7.01 SPs08 upgrade in minimum downtime : 

• Install SAPEHP4 SP08/NW7.01 SP07 (JAVA NW SP07)
• Use the “Single Support Packages” option in JSPM and select update only the component “BC-FES-IGS” (ABAP stack restart is required)
• USE JSPM to apply remaining NW7.01 SP08 components (ABAP stack restart is not required)