Sharing some experience from a technical/SAP Basis pov : upgrade to SCM 7.02 SP05 w/F&R 5.2

Basis stuff :

SUSE Linux (SLES) 11 OS on Fujitsu hardware.

Oracle 11.2.0.2.0 database. Size 800 GB / free space 190 GB.

FRP environment is placed in a file system on the SAP server.

Approximately 800 locations (stores & warehouses).

Upgrade source + target :

Source : SCM 2007 SP17 w/F&R 5.1 (FRP executables v4.1.0.XXX)

Target : SCM 7.02 SP05 w/F&R 5.2 (FRP executables v5.4.0.XXX)

After the upgrade we continue to use F&R 5.1 functionality. F&R 5.2 business functions have not (yet) been activated on the SCM system or the ERP 6.06 system.

Preparations :

The first upgrade was performed on a copy of our development system.

Initially we had the impression that we were able to use the FRP 4.1 executables on the upgraded SCM system. Tests (FRP runs) showed that this was not possible – issues were solved by replacing the 4.1 executables with 5.4 executables. Now the FRP runs were executed without errors. Remember to set execute permission on the FRP executables (safcleanup, safcnfg, safdetect etc).

The F&R 5.4 patches can be found this way :

To download the FRP program version, enter the following address in the Internet browser:

http://service.sap.com/support and choose “SAP Support Portal”. Then choose the “Software Downloads” tab page.

Choose “Support Packages and Patches” in the download area that is displayed.

From the menu on the left-hand side, choose “A – Z Index” and, from the letters displayed, choose F.

Choose “SAP F&R” from the list that is then displayed.

Choose the relevant release (“SAP F&R 5.2” in this case). Then choose “Entry by Component”.

Choose “SAP F&R” from the following list.

After you have chosen the program version “FRP 5.4.0”, choose the operating system-dependent program version (patch).

For the operating systems AIX6.1 and AIX7.1, select Version AIX 64bit. For the operating systems Linux Suse 64 bit, select Version Linux Red Hat on x86_64 64bit.

Path overview:

http://service.sap.com/support -> Software Download -> Support Packages and Patches-> A – Z Index -> F -> SAP F&R -> SAP F&R 5.2.0 -> Entry by Component –> SAP F&R –> FRP 5.4.0 -> relevant operating system.

3-4 weeks before the upgrade, the test system (both SCM and ERP) was refreshed with a copy of the production system. This gave us better test data and our hosting partner could do the technical upgrade on a test system which was very similar to the productive environment.

Go Live :

We did not have any serious issues –  the technical upgrade ran for approximately 14 hours (hand-over to hosting partner Day 1 at 1800h – upgraded system was delivered back to us on Day 2 at 0800h.). Business test activities took around 4-6 hours.

The first FRP run after the upgrade was done manually for 2-3 locations just to make sure that the FRP 5.4 executables would be able to handle the “old” v4.1 SAF files. During the first run an upgrade/conversion of the v4.1 SAF files was done by the safupgrade_410to5x_base410 program.

Important OSS notes :

1556270, 1487615, 1487733, 1656160, 1497083