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A transition to SAP S/4HANA is on everyone’s agenda. Sooner or later you will start your journey to SAP S/4HANA. In such projects you deal with longer runtimes. As a result there are troubles meeting the requested downtime window by the business unit.
A downtime event is always costly for a company. Often not more than a weekend is allowed to ensure an uninterrupted operation. Hence, the downtime can be a showstopper for any project and needs to be kept under control.
In this blog post I would like to introduce the Technical Downtime Optimization app.
It helps upgrade/conversion project members meet tight downtime requirements by providing easy to consume analytics and tailored downtime minimization advices and simulation from continuously updated knowledge base curated by upgrade/conversion experts.
How does it work?
The Software Update Manager (SUM) collects runtime statistics in the UPGANA.XML file. They can be send to SAP along with the SUM feedback form at the end of your Upgrade or Conversion run.
An automated algorithm in the cloud backend processes the data and presents them after approximately three hours. This step is fully automated and doesn't require any interaction from your side.
Finally you are ready to analyze your data and identify potential downtime savings.
If you would like to go for the SAP ONE Support Launchpad then search for the "Technical Downtime Optimization" app. Afterwards add this tile to a group. Now you can see information about the number of maintenance events in the past 365 days as well as the data of the last available event.
Finally you enter the start page and are good to go.
Forgot to send your data?
No problem! With the new upload functionality you are now able to upload your UPGANA.XML and APPLANA.XML file. The processing time of about three hours applies as well.
How to use the app?
On the start screen, set a filter to reduce the number of displayed events or directly choose a desired maintenance event and check the analysis by clicking the event.
The analysis screen is divided into three parts: the header, the time chart and the recommendation part.
The Header The header of the app always contains information of the displayed maintenance event. Here you will see (1) the installation number, product, host and type of event, as well as information on source and target system including start and end date.
Additionally to that (2) you are able to open the UPGANA.XML and APPLANA.XML files to get more data of the event . Please note, that the APPLANA.XML file is just available for SAP S/4HANA conversions and if created and uploaded manually.
(3) Furthermore you have the possibility to switch the timeline between "Complete upgrade without tool waiting time" and "... with tool waiting time".
The Timeline
The timeline (4) consists of an overall runtime and a detailed analysis.
The overall runtime includes Uptime, Downtime and Postprocessing. The detailed analysis is dependent on one of that parts. As we focus on downtime optimization, we directly switch to the orange part, the "Technical Downtime".
The detailed analysis will now show SUM phases which run during the downtime. When clicking on a downtime phase you will see analysis and recommendation in the recommendation part (5).
The recommendation part
The last part of the app is also divided into three parts.
At the beginning you will read about the chosen phase, its runtime and how to optimize it. Afterwards you see the processes sorted according their duration and the line chart which shows the parallel processes. The granularity of the charts can be adjusted using either more or less bins.
How to check the Financial Data migration runtime?
In order to evaluate the Financial Data Migration runtime choose "Application analytics document" on the top right side of your start screen.
This will direct you to a structured view of the APPLANA.XML file.
In the next version it is planned to have a more detailed analysis on the Financial Data Migration part included into the app.
How to use the Compare View?
The major deliver of release 1.3 was the compare view. You have now the possibility to compare two runs of a recent project. This can be done as follows:
Select a specific run of a maintenance event
Press the "Compare View" button in order to choose the event you want to compare
Select the second event:
See both events and their runtimes next to each other for better comparison.
Using the compare view you have the chance to check what improvements you achieved. In above example the first run was executed using standard methodology. After implementing downtime decreasing parameter and choosing nZDM method in Software Update Manager the overall SUM downtime has been reduced by 57% with major improvements in Main Import (71%) and Data Conversion (72%).
With the 1.4 update in August 2022 you can now also see the detailed phases and their runtimes.
How to use the Cutover Planning tool?
The major deliver of release 1.5 was the cutover planning tool.
With the Cutover Planner it is possible to create a rough plan for an upcoming maintenance event based on the currently selected event. Adjustments can be made based on the required time windows. Once completed, an export function is available to use the plan in a spreadsheet program.
Note: The Cutover Planning Tool is currently not available for SUM procedures with ZDO.
You can enter the cutover planner in the event of your choice.
In the tool itself you see the most important cutover activities, like:
Ramp-Up / Ramp-Down
Buffer Time
Customer Postprocessing
Backup
Financial Downtime
These times can be changed by moving or resizing the blocks directly in the timeline. The orange blocks are proposals and might need to be changed. Durations are rounded to the nearest fifteen minutes.
Summary
Using the Technical Downtime Optimization app you get easy to consume analytics and simulation from an up-to-date knowledge base to evaluate your runtime and detect possible downtime drivers. This tailored downtime minimization advice is included in the SAP support offering and comes with no extra costs.
For more details and updates on new functionality and answers to frequently question, check:
SAP Note 2881515 - Introduction to the Technical Downtime Optimization App
SAP Note 3036423 - Frequently Asked Questions about Technical Downtime Optimization App
Andreas Lichtenau
Expert Support Engineer, Premium Hub CoE, Customer Success, SAP SE