ECC 6.0 EhP7 Upgrade Step by Step Process

Below are the Source and Target Details during the ECC 6.0 EhP7 Upgrade for our System upgrade

    Source: ECC 6.0 EhP5

    Target: ECC 6.0 EhP7

    OS: Linux RHEL 6

    DB: ORACLE 11.2.0.3

Prerequisites

Checking the Hardware Requirements

Checking the Software Requirements

Checking the Source Release of the SAP System

Meeting the Operating System-Specific Requirements

Upgrade of the Operating System and Database System if required

Checking the Software Update Manager Version, Please try and ensure that we have latest Tool SUM 1.0 SP10

Checking the Software Delivery Manager Version

Checking the Structural Requirements for ABAP

Setting the Operation Mode for the Update

Checking the Number of Background Processes

Making Preparations in the Monitoring Area

Checking the Requirements for the Modification Adjustment

• Update SPAM/SAINT to latest version and in the EPS we have SPAM/SAINT 51 so do it in advance
• OS level user: SIDADM and ORASID, SAP level user DDIC password in all the clients should be known prior to start and in 000 ,System user password is required for DB .
• 1639578,1547947 and 1622837 notes should be referred to setup the new DB connection before the issue arises( – Secure connection of AS ABAP to Oracle via SSFS for removal of OPS$ mechanism)
• Cleanup profile directory and only active and relevant profiles should be there , all the backup profiles etc. should not be present and removed from the location, See SAP note 1649026 .
• In case you are upgrading the second system in the landscape Import TR for SAP notes 001680583,0001678047,1609895,1861585 and can be imported before the upgrade and hence you can skip this step during the SUM checks, else you need to implement the above mentioned notes in DEV system and then generate a TR for the same. \
• Cleanup Inbound/Outbound(SMQ1/SMQ2) queues
• Perform Kernel upgrade on source if required
• Archive log mode off if required at any stage
• Generate XML from Solution manager system
• Download software packages
• Get the number of Dialog and Background WP’s increased and hence you can use the NZDM option
• Double the sessions and processes in Oracle from existing setup
• SAP note 1387739 for ACT_UPG phase please refer options used during the upgrade.
• Implement the new authentication technique as mentioned in SAP notes 1639578,1547947 and 1622837, so that you do not run into any issues and your production operation is not affected.
• You need to ensure that your present SAP kernel level should meet the criteria to use ssf authentication.
• Increase Memory as per client infrastructure capacity.
• Increase CPU as per client infrastructure capacity.
• Use NZDM option so that you use maximum resources and most of the activities are taken care during uptime only.

1.      Increase R3load processes and use 10 parallel phases
2.  Do not run SGEN during preprocessing phase. Run SGEN manually after upgrade to save time during preprocessing.
3.  Update SPAM/SAINT Latest Version in advance

• Create RFC destinations: FINBTR@<sysid>CLNT<(><<)>client> before hand for each client except 000,066
• Take the backup of /sapmnt/<SID>, /usr/sap/trans, /usr/sap/<SID>adm and /usr/sap/<SID>
• If there are operation modes set in the system, please adjust those as per WP distributon for upgrade
• Determining the Host for the Preparations(If separate host for shadow etc.. )
• Create New Table space with brtools named PSAPSR3740 of size 140 GB in advance

Use of NZDM (Configuration)

• NZDM option used for reduced downtime
• Increased the CPU Count as per infrastructure if running on same host.
• Increased memory as per infrastructure if running on same host.
• PSAPTEMP table space increased upto 20% of total DB size so as to avoid out of space in TEMP.
• Increase Sessions and Oracle Processes (Formula Sessions =2* Processes)
• Create PSAPSR3740 Tablespace of 140 GB size in advance (Applicable to ECC systems only)
• If your installation is of type HA then please make sure that XML file generated from solution manager contains the hostname of ASCS instance, else you will get an error while SUM is trying to recognize the instance .
• If Installation of SAP system is heterogeneous then please make sure that ASCS and CI kernels are upgraded independently, SUM tool even will ask you for DB host OS incase of HA/Distributed installation.

Challenges/Learnings

• Update statistics manually before the Upgrade starts.
• Increase the PSAPTEMP table space up to 20% of used DB size and then again reduce as per original allocation
• Create Table space PSAPSR3740 in Advance.
• Update SPAM/SAINT version to latest available
• Setup of SSF authentication mechanism for WP’s, before upgrade. As you need to complete the preprocessing with ssf mechanism in place and system needs to be restarted and environment parameters need to be implemented manually
• Change in SAP Kernel path and hence you need to update /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/exe/dbg link to reflect to new path.Ensure that new kernel path is updated in <sid>adm and ora<sid> users for all the systems , including App servers. If App servers are there then prefer to reinstall app servers with latest SWPM.
• Reinstall App servers
• Check Host agent version
• Increase the shared memory parameters on Linux Kernel as below in the file /etc/sysctl.conf and activate :

1. kernel.shmmax=68719476736
2. kernel.shmall=41943040