A practical approach to perform Technical assessment for SAP Upgrade project:

[Former Member]

A practical approach to perform Technical assessment for SAP Upgrade  project:      

Technical assessment is the first step for any SAP Upgrade project. Initially I struggled a bit to gather all the required information in structured format as I did not get any suitable template on internet and SDN site. Finally I have decided to prepare a generic template for any upgrade project so that I can use for any client / company.  Being a SAP Basis upgrade consultant / architect, what is the most important information I need for my upgrade project, so that it will help me to smoothly execute and deliver the project on time and can cover most of the unknown(s). From my personal experience, a technical upgrade assessment is a combined effort of SAP Basis, DBA, infrastructure and functional team, primarily driven by Basis upgrade consultant or designated project manager. Since this is a technical assessment, I will not cover any functional specifications or information about affected customized programs and changes. The main focus of technical assessment is to collect information about source landscape , interfaces and target landscape  - what is going to be changed and what are  interdependencies. Finally, what tool you will use and how you will translate or implement these changes and resolve all interdependencies. A lot of upgrade projects need to perform both upgrade and Unicode migration; formally we called CU&UC (combine upgrade and Unicode conversion). So I will cover some of the critical assessment points of Unicode migration too.

A assessment report varies from company to company – it may be  a simple page , two-page-document or a comprehensive report with detail technical specifications. I have prepared the following checklist as the starting point for any SAP upgrade project as a template for technical assessment. Once again this is not for functional upgrade or functional assessment – hence this will help SAP Basis folks only.

Please share your experience if I missed something.

Technical Assessment Checklist

Sl No	Topic	Collected Information	Status
1	Project Project is for : n  Release Upgrade n  Combine upgrade and Unicode migration n  OS+DB upgrade and SAP technical upgrade. n  Need to decide ( There are instances when client does not know whether upgrade requires OS+DB upgrade as well as platform upgrade and which path they need to follow ).	Example : n  SAP BW 7.0 upgrade to BW 7.3 n  CU&UC from SAP Enterprise 4.7 to SAP ECC 6.0 with EHP6 n  Multi steps upgrade process: First upgrade OS + DB, stabilize the environment. Start SAP release upgrade from CRM 4.0 to CRM 7.0 –EHP2 n  Multistep scenario.	Completed All other project types are straight forward except “need to decide” one.
2	Information about source system n  SAP Release n  Is it a single stack or duel stack n  SPS level n  Database version n  DB size n  OS ( Make and Version) n  Hardware n  Any clustering setup n  Any HA / DR solution Landscape details n  How many systems are there on this landscape n  Location of the servers n  Additional App Servers User base	Example : Source system is ECC system : n  ECC 5.0 n  Single stack n  SP18 n  Oracle 10.0.2.4 n  3 TB n  Solaris 10 n  SUN M5000 n  No clustering n  Oracle RAC for QA and Production systems. Example : n  Five systems landscape: Sandbox, DEV, QA, Training and Production. n  All non-production systems are on Data Center X and production system is on Data center Y ( 50 miles apart from each other and they are connected with 1 GBPS shared network.) n  For production system there are 20 App Servers. n  For ECC 5.0 – 14,000 named users across North America and EUROPE. n  30,000 Enterprise Portal user – for ESS/MSS applications.	Completed This info will be useful for any infrastructure changes and NFS mounting issue.
3	Is there any changes to the existing environment ? What are the things you need to change for the existing environment to perform this upgrade n  SAP Release upgrade ·         Is the any minimum support pack level for this upgrade ·         Changes to other SAP products ( release upgrade or patches ) ·         Solution Manager patching or upgrade required to generate stack xml ·         Changes to physical resource of the SAP server. ·         Does it require DB or OS upgrade ? n  Combine Upgrade and Unicode migration projects. (Printer is a key area need to address carefully in case of Unicode migration.).	Example ·         Yes ( for example ) upgrade the 640 kernel to 640_EXT while upgrading form ECC 5.0 to ECC 6.0 (EHP6) and that will support higher release of DB and OS. ·         Based on changes – it may trigger another SAP product to change. For example,  if you like to upgrade to ECC 6.0 with EHP6 and you have CRM 4.0 system, there is a strong possibility that you have to upgrade your CRM system too. So gather information about all changes. Another example is : if you upgrade your CRM system to CRM 7.0 EHP2 and your connected backend system is ECC 6.0  with EHP3, you need to apply patches for PI_Basis on your ECC system for interoperability. ·         Apply patch for Solution Manager ( for example to generate EHP6 stack xml you need to have minimum SPS23 for Solution Manager ). ·         Does it require more memory and CPU to cover your downtime? ·         In certain upgrade scenario, you have to upgrade OS or DB or both before upgrade ( verify with PAM) n  Perform CU&UC from SAP R/3 4.6 to SAP ECC 6.0 EHP5. Verify all third party software’s Unicode compatibility. Check all printers.  Changes to physical resource of the SAP server – Memory and CPU cores. Database size and storage. Changes to security and authorization. Specialize privilege require to perform upgrade.	Check interoperability OSS notes like : Note 1388258 Note 1064635
4	High level reason for changes n  Upgrade projects	n  Upgrade SAP release to the latest release to reduce licensing and maintenance cost, as extended maintenance support for SAP XXX product will end by first quarter of this year.
5	Information about SAP Interfaces and Add-ons : Collect information about all SAP systems connected through RFC and SSO setup. n  Is there any NFS file shared between source system and any other SAP system (viz  with PI system ). n  Is there any enterprise level / embedded search functionality has been configured? n  Is there any FPN (Federated Portal Network ) configuration exist. ( This is useful in case of upgrade of Portal or duel stack system ) n  UME ( User management engine ) – this is useful in case of Enterprise portal. n  Does your system use any external knowledge management or document management system using? n  Does your system use any archiving solution n  Does your system use any radio frequency device Add-ons : Add-on play a critical roles in case of upgrade and Unicode migration, so find out all SAP and third party Add-ons and their compatibility after upgrade or Unicode migration : n  Does your system use any SAP Add-on ? n  Current release and status n  Unicode compatibility n  Upgrade require ? Third party Add-on n  Does your system use any third party  Add-on ? n  Current release and status n  Unicode compatibility n  Upgrade require ? n  Any additional licensing cost ?	Example : Current source system is ECC 6.0 is connecting to n  SAP BW 7.0 system n  CRM 7.0 n  Portal 7.01 (ESS/MSS) n  PI 7.1 system n  Yes. NFS between PI and ECC system. n  TREX 7.0 is using. Does it require to upgrade current TREX? n  Collect all info about all FPN systems and gather info if you upgrade one system whether federation will work or not. Does it require to upgrade other system(s) too ? n  Local UME or external UME – like LDAP or other ABAP system. n  Information about external system / location for document management. n  Archiving solution like IXOS ? n  Radio frequency devices are configuring through SAP Telnet. Example : BI-CONT, ST-PI Example : BizRight Approva.	Need clarification from functional team.
6	Information about Non-SAP interfaces : Non SAP interfaces are more critical for Upgrade and Unicode conversion projects. Compatibility issue with upgraded SAP release is one of the major concerns. So important question will be whether existing third party software will run with upgraded SAP release or not ? Typical you need to gather info as follows : n  Is there any third party software connected to SAP system ? n  Any upgrade required? n  How it connects to SAP system n  Is there any FTP / SFTP transfer to/from SAP system that require SSH key to exchange.	Non SAP interfaces are : Example : n  There are three four third party software ( Vertax, TexWare, Seeburger and XiPay ) connected to SAP. n  Must be Unicode compatible. n  RFC (TCP/IP) connection n  SFTP communication with two banks (using Unix level scripts). One way communication.	This information will be useful in case of any hardware changes as you need to regenerate SSH key .
7	Business Expectation : Being a SAP Basis consultant, in many projects we do not know why company has decided to upgrade this SAP release or what is the business justification of this upgrade project. However, it is important to know the driving force for this changes. This is high level objective of the projects n  Upgrade projects n  Upgrade and Unicode migration projects.	Example : n  Upgrade SAP release to current version to reduce licensing and maintenance cost, as extended maintenance support for SAP XXX product will end by first quarter of this year. n  Expanding business to new countries ( having different languages) , so converting system to Unicode will help in this aspect. Performance improvements of SAP system  and reduce licensing and maintenance cost, as extended maintenance support for SAP XXX product will end by first quarter of this year.
8	Expected downtime This is the expected downtime time from the business.	Example : Business can give maximum production downtime of 36 hrs. This is one of the critical information to plan for production cutover activity and you have to optimize downtime to fit into this time frame. In certain instances downtime is determine based on trial run of the upgrade.
9	Resource requirement (Hardware  and Software) Hardware requirement : AS per SAP sizing guide, identify H/W requirements. This is a preliminary estimate and there is a possibility to adjust ( 20 -30 %). n  Upgrade Projects n  Upgrade and Unicode migration projects Software requirement : All media require  to perform the upgrade. n  Upgrade projects n  Upgrade and Unicode migration projects	Example : n  For upgrade projects ·         30 % more memory ·         30 % more CPU cores ·         20 % more database space ·         100 GB additional space for SAP file system. n  For upgrade & Unicode  projects ·           40 % more memory ·         40 % more CPU cores ·         40 % more database space ·         1 TB additional space for Unicode export /import ·         Additional App servers for – SAP distribution monitor ·         100 GB additional space for SAP file systems. n  Upgrade projects – check the PAM. Also identify any OS or DB upgrade require? Check / identify any third party software / Add-on need upgrade n  For CU&UC projects -- check the PAM. Also identify any OS or DB upgrade require ? Check / identify any third party software / Add-on need upgrade	Reference : PAM ( Product availability matrix ). SAP quick sizer
10	Expected Target environment Expected Target environment in terms of SAP release, hardware platform, OS and Database. n  Upgrade projects New SAP release along with OS and Database detail. n  Upgrade and Unicode migration projects	Example n  Target SAP release is  ECC 6.0 with EHP6. Database IBM DB2 LUW 9.7 and OS: AIX 6.1. Upgraded system must contain same number of App Serves. All connected SAP systems BW, CRM, SRM and EP etc must work without any error. n  Target SAP release is  ECC 6.0 with EHP6. Database IBM DB2 LUW 9.7 and OS: AIX 6.1 All connected SAP systems BW, CRM, SRM and EP etc must work without any error. All third party software must work  correctly.
	Customize Tablespaces Now-a-days it is common to have user-defined tablespaces in large SAP system ( as lot organizations moved out very large table from standard package, like APPL1, APPL2  to customize one). Collect all info related to customize tablespaces ( and this info will be very useful for Unicode migration export/import ). n  Is there any customize tablespace exist ? n  TABART or Data Classes are correct or not ?	Example n  Yes. There are five user defined tablespaces. n  Verify tablespace mapping and definition of TABART or Dataclass.
11	Infrastructure support Support from the infrastructure team is crucial for any Upgrade projects. You need to identify available expert or resource in the respective areas : n  Hardware and OS support n  DBA support n  Network team support	Example Outline info about infrastructure team n  In house support team for OS or hardware and storage are available however the support team sits in different location. n  There is no separate DBA team – you need perform all database related activity. n  Network support team is supporting from offshore.
12	Known constraint  and assumption n  Constraints n  Assumption	n  Known constraints ( example ) Strict downtime window of 24 hours. No in-house expert / support team for database. n  No structured documentation for SAP landscape info and third party software connected to SAP. n  Assumption : ( example ) Current backup system will work in case of emergency. n  Current team has all required authentication info – including all DDIC password and J2EE_ADMIN password.
13	Tools and technique Identify specific tool need to use for upgrade or migration projects : n  SAP Upgrade project n  Combine Upgrade & Unicode migration projects.	Example : n  Use ASU tool. Use Solution Manager (SOLAR_PROJCE_ADMIN) for project admin and change control. n  Which SAP upgrade tool will be appropriate for this upgrade – is it SAPEHPI or  SUM (SAP Upgrade Manager)  or SOLMANUP ( for solution manager upgrade). Use standard predefine configuration mode for all non-production systems and use customize mode where you can select number of Rtrans, number of R3load and number of batch processes. n  Use SAPINST to perform Unicode export/import for all database less than 200 GB. n  Use Migration Monitor to perform Unicode export/import for all database less than 1 TB and greater than 300 GB. n  Use Distribution monitor to perform Unicode export/import for all database bigger than 1 TB.
14	Unicode / Non-unicode For any CU&UC project, better to determine whether the existing non Unicode system is “single code page” or “MDMP” ? How many additional languages has been installed on the system.	Based on whether single code page or MDMP, Unicode migration time and effort as well as process will change. n  Run the report RSCPINST or I18N to verify this settings n  Also check SMLT.
15	Any changes to SAP level security and authorization Based on SAP product and upgrad release there will be number of changes to security and authorization area. Note down all major known changes. n  SAP Upgrade project	Example n  Upgrade projects Example : Upgrade from CRM 4.0 to CRM 7.0 (EHP2) ·         New CRM WEBUI ·         Concept of business role + UI role
16	Change management process Is there any change management system in place ?  Change management process will play a vital role for project schedules and mile stone dates.	Example : n  Company XXX is using “Remedy” change management system for any changes to OS level – including all Kernel parameters and file system adjustment. For all non-production system approval is require from SAP Basis Manager and Infrastructure manager. n  For any database changes, raise a helpdesk ticket to DBA team.
17	Number of effected structures or programs This is one of the key questions – business team and development team is always interested. However there is no straight forward answer for this question – until and unless use some third party tools or perform the first upgrade on Sandbox system.	n  Note down all SPDD and SPAU objects from the first test upgrade.
18	Key contacts	Key contact from project sponsored, infrastructure team and entire team.

Conclusion : This is a generic template, all examples must be replace with your actual data. This technical assessment document is primarily developed to gather info related to ECC upgrade and upgrade of any component of NetWeaver stack like – BW, SRM, CRM, SCM and Enterprise Portal. It may work for other SAP products; so far I did not try for other SAP products, except Business Objects ( BOBJ 4.0) upgrade.