Understanding SAP Versions

SAP continues to update their offerings to further improve the user experience. While this is great to ensure our ERP systems have the greatest capabilities possible, it can be hard to keep track that our own systems are up to date. That’s why we put together a list of the SAP versions and how your business can learn more about which version you are operating.

ECC vs. S/4HANA

At the highest level, we can differentiate SAP systems as either ECC or S/4HANA. The main difference between the two is the type of database they use.

• ECC stands for ERP Central Component. It is SAP’s legacy system, with roots stretching back to their very first ERP solution in the 1970s. It can operate on any database, including third-party and, more recently, HANA. New versions of ECC are not being released and it is expected that customers will transfer their systems over to S/4HANA.

• S/4HANA is short for SAP Business Suite 4 HANA. As the fourth version of the SAP Business Suite, it is the latest offering from SAP.  It runs only on the HANA database, which is an in-memory database developed and tuned by SAP for faster performance and real-time reporting.

Let’s dive into more details.

S/4HANA Versions

S/4 HANA is offered on two different platforms: On-Premise or Cloud. Both products are very similar in terms of lines of business, coverage, and functionality.

• On-Premise is located on your organization’s own servers and managed in-house. It has an annual innovation cycle with several smaller updates each year.

• Cloud is hosted externally on SAP’s servers and maintained by SAP. It has a quarterly innovation cycle.

Until 2020, all S/4HANA versions were named after the year and month that they were released (YYMM). For example, S/4HANA 1909 was released in September 2019.

SAP revised the naming convention in 2020. Going forward, On-Premise releases will be named for the year only (YYYY), starting with S/4HANA 2020 in October 2020. Cloud releases will continue with the YYMM naming convention.

To look up the version of your system, go to: More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Product Versions. This will tell you the product name.

Technical folks may be more interested in the S4CORE Component version, which can be found nearby:
More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Software Component Versions.

SAP HANA Database Versions 

S/4HANA operates on the HANA (High performance ANalytic Appliance) database.

• For reference the two versions referred to are HANA DB 1.00.122 (HANA 1.0 SP12 Rev 122) and HANA DB 2.00.052.0 (HANA 2.0 SPS05 Rev 52).

• The HANA 1.0 database will reach end-of-maintenance in June 2021.

• SAP will provide Maintenance Revisions for SAP HANA 2.0 SPS05 for a period of five years after RTC. These Revisions after SPS05 are not scheduled but delivered on demand. Bug fixes and security patches are released for every Support Package Stack (SPS) for two years after RTC.

• SAP will introduce new capabilities once a year, every time a new SAP HANA Support Package Stack (SPS) is released. An overview can be found in SAP HANA 2.0 Revision Strategy.

NetWeaver Versions 

SAP NetWeaver (NW) is the underlying technology layer or software stack that ECC is built on. SAP NW can be used for custom development and integration with other applications and systems and is most commonly build using the ABAP programming language. As of 2019, the most up to date version of NetWeaver is AS ABAP 7.54.

• EHP Stands for EnHncement Package.

• AS stands for Application Server.

To identify the version that your business is operating, check the SAP_BASIS component version in the system stack info (More > System > Status > SAP System Data > Installed Software Component Versions).

The version releases are as follows:

• SAP Fiori Introduction was released in 2013, followed by SAP Fiori 1.0.
• SAP BlueCrystal theme came out the following year in 2015.
• In 2016 SAP Belize/Belize Deep themes was released in Fiori 2.0.
• The current version is Fiori 3 (not Fiori 3.0!) with the SAP Quartz Light/Dark theme. It is a totally new theme with a fresh, modern look and revised homepage design.

UI5 Versions 

On the development side, SAP user interface for HTML 5 (SAPUI5) is the collection of libraries that are used to build desktop and mobile applications. UI5 versions must be considered for Cloud only & On-Premise deployments.

To identify the UI5 version, type sap.ui.version in browser developer tools. From there navigate to the console tab for more information.

For more up-to-date information, go to the official SAPUI5 Version Overview.

SAPUI5 VERSIONS AVAILABLE ON SAP BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY PLATFORM

SAPUI5 is switching from a quarterly to a monthly cloud delivery via SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This means every four weeks a new version is provided for productive usage and version numbers will increase by one instead of by two. Additionally, every 12th version will become a long-term maintenance version.

It is important to note that only versions with long-term support receive patches for the duration of the maintenance.

Bug fixes will also be released in the next version.