Additional Blogs by Members
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
c821311
Participant

Applying Solution Manager 7.0 Enhancement Pack 1

We recently went through the Solution Manager upgrade cycle at AusPost. We were on SolMan 7.0 and in our bid to upgrade it, we came across Enhancement Pack 1 (EHP1) also known as SPS 18.

 

EHP1 Value Proposition at AusPost

Apart from software currency, we read about the rich functionality EHP1 would bring to SolMan 7.0. We were keenly interested in the Work Centre concept of grouping new and improved functionality. The top five new functionality interests include:-

  • Downtime Management

  • NetWeaver Business Client (NWBC) integration for SolMan

  • Wizard based SMD (diagnostics) and Wily Introscope agent deployment

  • Integrated BI central reporting history (CPH) reporting

  • Automatic maintenance of the SMSY system landscape using the central SLD

Plan your system landscape well

Be warned, unless you have a non-production SolMan system you will need to back up (and hold your breath) often. My suggestion is to get yourself a Sandpit SolMan where you can test maintenance before productionising the process. Take the opportunity to line up your SLDs and deploy some nice snapshot technology using IBM FlashCopy SE or similar.

 

High Availability

Around 2 years ago, SolMan was installed on a Linux Server under my desk – to generate install keys. These days, SolMan has become a mission critical application. Keep this in mind when locating your Production SolMan system – or be prepared to move (or reinstall) it later.

 

Sizing

Make sure you place the Production SolMan on scalable infrastructure like IBM PowerVM or similar. All new functionality obviously needs processor power. Please also consider disk IO rates, Tier 3 disks just won’t cut it when using Wily Introscope or Central NWA to manage a large landscape.

 

Essential reading for EHP1 installation

As always, read all the right documentation and download the latest SAP notes. Here is a list of the essential reading:-

 

System preparation for EHP1 installation

The following are a collection of things we did before launching into EHP1:-

The order of EPH1 maintenance

Things to consider after the upgradete  

Special mentions

The quality of assistance from our Maximum Attention consultant was invaluable. The Maximum Attention gig is now becoming more common place in the industry, and paying dividends at AusPost.

 

Lastly, always work with a Basis guy who is not afraid to land and productionise the new functionality.

7 Comments