Support Backbone Update – Time to upgrade SAP Solution Manager to SPS 08 or higher!

As mentioned in our blog from July 5th, 2018, the SAP Support Backbone infrastructure has been updated.

With the availability of SAP Solution Manager Support Package Stack 08 as of December 2018, we would like to reiterate the requirement that all Partners must upgrade to SPS08+ as soon as possible.

Why is it important?

ABAP-based systems that communicate with SAP Support (e.g. for SAP EarlyWatch Alert, Maintenance Planner, SAP Note Download, IT Service Management and many more) will lose communication with the SAP Support Backbone unless the required updates have been installed.

The SAP Support Backbone has been updated; however, the legacy infrastructure remains in place, to allow a safe transition for customers and partners.

Required Actions

To ensure continuous connectivity, ALL SAP Solution Manager 7.2 systems (yours and your end customer’s) must be updated to SPS08 (note: manual activities required) or higher, before January 2020.

SAP PartnerEdge Sell partners (formerly known as Value-Added Resellers) delivering end customer support must upgrade their SAP Solution Manager systems immediately.

Inform all your maintenance customers to perform the following before 2020:

• Ensure that a Technical Communication User has already been requested and exists.
• Update ST-PI and ST-A/PI of all business systems before 2020.
• Replace all generic S-users in RFC connections with Technical Communication Users in RFC connections to SAP and Partner.

Do note that failure to do so will impact SAP EarlyWatch Alert (EWA) compliance levels for Sell Partner COEs by 2020 as any EWA data packages sent to SAP via older plug-in versions will no longer be received at SAP. The minimum threshold for SAP EWA compliance for Partner COE certifications and quarterly Quality Measurement Reports (QMR) will for EWA compliance remain at >=85% to qualify for support authorization and a green rating, respectively.

Please reference this page from the SAP Support Portal for updated information on this topic. It has been enhanced and contains FAQ in the Resources section.

See more articles on Partner COE: Compilation of PCOE Articles