Introduction
The new Maintenance Planner application hosted at the SAP Support Portal offers a simplified way to plan new installations, updates, and upgrades. As a key prerequisite, the Maintenance Planner consumes system data from the Customer Profile, which is provided by the SAP Solution Manager systems in the customers’ landscapes.
So now the question is: Which is the process with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 and Maintenance Planner, when it comes to using technical systems data and, specifically the product system…
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Entities and Consuming Applications in the Different Scenarios
So let’s have to have a look at the big picture of landscape entities, their relations, and consuming tools with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 SPS 5+ – you’ll see them in the following figure:
Figure 1: The detailed big picture of landscape management with SAP Solution Manager 7.1 SPS 5+ and the Maintenance Planner. Data of technical systems are uploaded to the LMDB via the SLD. In the LMDB they are used and uploaded to the Customer Profile for additional use in the SAP Support Portal.
Technical systems C00, P00, and E00 are forming the customer’s IT landscape, which is managed using SAP Solution Manager and Maintenance Planner. Systems have been registered in the LMDB via the SLD. Product system are created based on technical systems’ data, and both can be uploaded to the customer profile.
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Using Data in SAP Solution Manager On-Premise
Technical systems’ data is used to create
- technical scenarios, which are used in monitoring and
- product systems, which are are used as a basis for maintenance transactions in the Maintenance Optimizer (MOpz)and
- logical components required e.g. by Change Request Mgmt (ChaRM).
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Using Data in SAP Support Portal Services On-Demand
Product system data is uploaded together with technical systems’ data. Technical systems’ data is used for the Maintenance Planner as a target for planning including the definition of dependencies between systems, namely maintenance dependencies; like product systems, these are used to update product installations that run across technical systems. Additionally, you can define system tracks, used to propagate changes of product versions on technical systems in roles development, quality assurance, and production.
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Note that product systems - used as a basis for MOpz transactions -, which can be used to plan changes are required for the use of the Scope & Effort Analyzer (SEA) in SAP Solution Manager 7.1. The creation of logical components is required for example in Change Request Mgmt (ChaRM) and also is based on the product system in SAP Solution Manager 7.1.
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Recommendation
Here, we need only to concentrate on product systems, since here do we find the only changes. We recommend (see best practices guide in further information) for bigger update processes using SEA to estimate the test effort, since this is one of the biggest task in a update or upgrade process. Also, in many case using Charm is recommendable. To get the correct results of both processes, Maintenance Dependencies and Product systems must match. Remember that product systems are converted into product maintenance automatically in the Maintenance Planner. So…
- … if you’re using SEA and /or ChaRM, create product systems in the LMDB
- … if you’re not using either SEA or ChaRM, use the much more comfortable creating of maintenance dependencies in the Maintenance Planner
Note that if you have a product system defined in the LMDB it will not only define a product maintenance dependency (PMD) for you in the Maintenance Planner, but will when uploaded change an existing product maintenance dependency. This also will delete a PMD created in the Maintenance Planner if the technical system coupled in the PMD are not part of a common product system with the next upload. So:
- Use the same definition for product system and PMD
- You can calculate the results for a differing PMD in a kind of simulation mode if you define the PMD and without activation plan inside the transaction used to define it
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Summary – Entities and Their Use
The only landscape entity affected by the new process with the Maintenance Planner is the product system – however, this influences processes in the LMDB, Scope & Effort Analyzer (SEA), and Change Request Management (ChaRM). Product systems…
- … can be replaced for the maintenance case (update/upgrade planning) with the product maintenance dependencies in the Maintenance Planner; this can be done in a simulation mode only, if maintenance dependency and product system definition don't match, because they will be syncedwith the next upload
- … can be uploaded and used in the Maintenance Planner as product maintenance dependencies will be created automatically, accordingly
- … are still needed if you want to define logical components
- … are still needed if you are using the SEA, which is based on MOpz maintenance transactions
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Further Information
- A lab preview of the planned state of handling landscape entities in the next major version of SAP Solution Manager (currently being in ramp-up, meaning it is not being generally available😞 Landscape Entities & Maintenance Planner in SAP Solution Manager 7.2
- More information on the process, roles, and tools involved in that process is available under Landscape Management @ the SCN
- This includes a best practices guide Planning Landscape Changes (incl. Maintenance Planner).
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