ECC 5.0 to ECC 6.0 EHP6 upgrade

[Former Member]

Hi All,

We have planned to upgrade the SAP ERP system for one our of customer - 

Current Environment : ECC 5.0 - SP15 / SQL 2005 SP3 / NUC / WIndows 2003 - Kernel 640 the latest one

Target Environment : EHP6 - NUC

Note : I have done the ugprades to EHP5 from the same level ( ECC 5.0 with SP15) - CU&UC and it was successful as well, indeed that there are no intermediate upgrade required. At the time of doing unicode conversion, I have imported in windows 2008 R/2 and SQL 2008 R/2.

But in the case of EHP6 its not possible from the same level, Because the EHP6 component  prerequisite itself SQL 2008 and also windows 2008 R/2.In that case its not possible for me to do the upgrades in one shot from the current version

Because the sad point is that, SQL 2008 R/2 will support only from Netweaver 7.0 SR3 onwards and not on the lower version. Which means I cannot do upgrade to SQL 2008 R/2, since I am lying on 640 / SP15 - ECC 5.0

In this case, What will be the sequence for me to do an EHP 6 upgrade from ECC 5.0 SP 15.

Looking forward for your suggestions

Regards

Vijay

[tomas_black · Accepted solution]

Hello Vijay,

on this case, you will have to perform a 2-step procedure. First you'll have to do a system copy from your current system (Windows 2003 + SQL 2005) to the desired target (Windows 2008 R/2 + SQL 2008 R/2). Then you'll have to upgrade the ECC5 to ECC6+EhP6.

Take a look at this thread for more, valuable information on this procedure:

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3198283

and

http://scn.sap.com/message/13363261

I hope this information helps.

Best regards,

Tomas Black

[nicholas_chang · Accepted solution]

Hello Vijay,

Below notes describe the possible paths to upgrade to NW7 SR3 above with lower version such as 620/640 on MSSQL 2008.

Note 1409085 - Support for SQL Server 2008 (R2) in 4.6C and 6.20, 6.40

Note 1443424 - Migration path to Win2008/MSSQL2008 for 4.6C and 6.20/6.40

Note 1476928 - System copy of SAP systems on Windows 2008 (R2): SQL Server

Hope it helps,

Cheers,

Nicholas Chang

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Nicholas / Tomas,

Thanks for the note

From the note : 1443424

Summary

Symptom

SAP releases based on 4.6C, 6.20, 6.40 and 7.0 SR1/SR2 are not supported on Windows Server 2008 (R2) - i.e. Windows Server 2008 or Windows Server 2008 R2 - and they are also not supported on SQL Server 2008 (R2) - i.e. SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2008 R2. This note describes additional upgrade paths for customers who want to upgrade to SAP releases based on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SR3 and higher.

• The additionally provided upgrade paths are valid for the following start releases:

• SAP R/3 4.6C

• All 6.20/6.40-based SAP products

• All SAP products based on SAP NetWeaver 7.0 SR1/SR2

Solution

To prepare the upgrade the existing system should be copied to the new operating system and database platform by applying note 1476928.

The upgrade must be started immediately after the system migration.  The system must not be used productively until you reach the end of the upgrade downtime.

Considering my case : I need to upgrade the system in the following sequence

First step 1 : Upgrading SQL 2008 R/2 and Windows 2008 R/2 from the current landscape

Then I should not use this system for any productive things till i complete the SAP upgrade

Second step 2 : Then upgrading to EHP6 using SUM immediately.

Am i Correct?

If this is the case, really customer will not be happy and they would not prefer to go to EHP6 I guess, because if you see the downtime (  Thats really huge one here )  DB / OS upgrade + SAP upgrade then I need to release the system to them. I can imagine the downtime for the whole thing, indeed we are the health care customers -  So, this is not possible.

I am wondering will there be any time frame allowed after upgrading the OS / DB upgrade make it productive to the customer ( ECC with windows 2008 and SQL 2008 )and then system will be alive for a week time meanwhile I will initiate a upgrade and will complete till preprocessing when the systems are productive.

This will be doable and wondering about the possibility for the same.

Please let me know if I am not clear with the thing which I need here?

Nutshell : We cannot afford such a big time for the downtime ( DB/OS upgrade + SAP upgrade ) - DB size as 300GB

Regards

Vijay

[nicholas_chang · Accepted solution]

Hi Vijay,

Perhaps you have 2 alternatives:

1) Upgrade to EHP5, where you dont need to upgrade OS/DB.

2) Upgrade to EHP6, perform a dry run to gauge the total downtime for system copy to sandbox, OS/DB preparation on source, either system copy from upgraded EHP6 from sandbox to target OR import the UC dump to source (if you perform CUUC)

Above are just my 2 cents worth.

Cheers,

Nicholas Chang

[former_member189725 · Accepted solution]

You will have to do the following :

1. Upgrade from ECC 5.0 to ERP 6.0 EHP5 ( Both the versions can be on Windows 2003 server and SQL server 2005 ) and with unicode conversion move to SQL server 2008 and Windows server 2008 R2. You can do a CU&UC for this as well.

2. Using the SAP SUM tool , move to ERP 6.0 EHP6.

Your entire activity is hardware dependent .

But you should be able to complete this entire activity over a weekend - a 48 hour business downtime. But make sure you have done enough mock runs to feel comfortable. Also this would give you a fair idea of the time required.

Regards

Ratnajit