SAP ABAP support ends in 2018

[Former Member]

Dear All,

We have received this mail from one of our colleague.

a SAP prospect claims:

• SAP ABAP support ends in 2018
• new SAP ECC systems are delivered on HANA in-memory and no longer have ABAP
• There is no SAP BW (or other warehouse), as views on top of HANA ECC tables will provide BI type information with no need for a physical warehouse nor ETL.

Are you aware of these points?

What would then be the recommended approach for pulling data then from an ECC system? Read ECC tables/views? How would one pull a *consistent* set of data from multiple tables/views?

Could you please share the updates if you have any?

Thanks,

Neha

[former_member184657 · Accepted solution]

Was there also any mention about a Nigerian Bank Account in the mail?

pk

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

hahaha.

[Former Member]

So the original date for NetWeaver 7.0 end of support was in fact 2017. You can look at PAM for more details but the 2020 date does need you to move to a later version. Currently NetWeaver 7.4 support ends 31.12.2020 but I would be very surprised if SAP doesn't extend this one way or another.

Their current modus operandi is to provide a newer Enhancement Pack with a later support date. My guess is this will continue.

On the ABAP point, SAP has already designed HANA to include an entire application platform that doesn't require ABAP. However this is for smaller apps and I don't see a change in Business Suite strategy away from ABAP any time soon - both from the maturity of the HANA platform perspective (ABAP has 20 years of features) and from a customer perspective.

I think we can definitely expect to see Ariba or SuccessFactors moving to HANA Native using the HANA Platform and XS Engine (the current Ariba migration to HANA runs Tomcat/J2EE on HANA) and other new apps being built there too. McDermott talked about being the suite player in the cloud, so it's logical that SAP would continue to extend this offering further.

I wrote about the BW/ERP issue here, perhaps it is interesting to you: Blog: Does SAP HANA Replace BW? (Hint: Still, No.) | SAP HANA

On your last point, SAP HANA Live - Real-Time operational reporting | SAP HANA already provides operational reporting directly on SAP HANA without BW. This is the planned direction as I understand it.

[rosenberg_eitan]

Hi,

I think that SAP ABAP support already ended some time ago.

I cannot get two header lines in “CL_GUI_ALV_GRID” using ABAP......

Regards.

[Florian]

Yeah, and and the dynpro isn't case sensitive...

[Former Member]

SAP ABAP support ends in 2018


new SAP ECC systems are delivered on HANA in-memory and no longer have ABAP

Sounds like SAP is becoming "HANAP"

Regards,

Nick Loy

[Former Member]

Seems like a Whats App circulated message.

Send it to 3 of your friends!!!!!.

Just read it and ignore.

Regards,

Amit

[stephenjohannes]

Actually the date is wrong, but the general concepts in the e-mail should be correct.

First off latest check via PAM is that 12/31/2020 is the end of mainstream maintenance for the business suite as we know it.  The original date was 12/31/2015.

Next:  ABAP as we know it by 2020 will be different.  SAP is already pushing for stored procedures in HANA and language has been evolved to look quite different than your grandfather's ABAP/4.

Third: For operational reporting, yes we dont' need SAP BI, but datawarehouses don't go away, they just go back to their original role instead of how we had to use them for operational reporting, because our OLTP systems did not have the power to handle this.

Finally:  Several presentation I have seen have made it quite clear that SAP will only be delivering new applications utilizing HANA.  That means a next generation successor to the business suite(ERP and friends) will more than likely require HANA.  In my opinion you will be either using a solution based on HANA post 2020 or using another vendor.  That's the path we are being lead down, and your prospect might have been wrong in the details, but picked up a really big theme that most SAP customer haven't quite figured out fully.  HANA = SAP and non-HANA alternatives are being gradually phased out.  Even the business suite most of the newer large innovations are starting to utlize HANA(look at the latest EHP to see this work).

For everyone who laughed or thought the original comments were crazy, you probably need to start paying better attention to SAP current presentations on the offerings within the business suite and elsewhere.  The title of this thread sounded silly but the underlying ramifications are still there.

Take care,

Stephen

[Florian]

I'm absolutely with you. I'm just not sure about the dates you mentioned.. I think ABAP will resist a long time, because there are that much possibilities written in that code and the business which using SAP isn't changing that fast as well.

So we can use it quite a while, not to my retirement, but quite a while

Regards

Florian

[PeterJonker]

The moment SAP stops support for ABAP they will be bankrupt !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The amount of claims from their customers will go in the trillions.

[stephenjohannes]

Yes but SAP is already changing the ABAP language you use on traditional ERP, so once again you aren't going to be coding in the same fashion.  There are several language features widely used in old ERP code that have been deprecated in 7.40.  You can't activate a BADI implementation if the class contains warnings in sytnax in 7.40, you have to use pragmas.

The type of ABAP(structured code) that many people today will not be supported in 2020 as mainstream solution.  The newer solutions will require you to write and approach your ABAP code differently.  It's not that ABAP goes away in 2018 or 2020, but instead the language will have evolved away from the old ABAP/4 approach of the late 1990's/early 2000's in many areas.

I can sum this up by saying "where there is smoke, there is fire".  Please feel free to laugh at the end of support dates, but do take my message about needing to get ready to transition to the next solution seriously.

Take care,

Stephen

[Florian]

Hi Stephen,

as I mentioned before, yes you are right. But don't you think the language (ABAP) is changing in a slow move so a lot of people doesn't recognize it as a real change at all.

Regards

Florian

[stephenjohannes]

You are right and to borrow from another colloquialism, "the frog is in the pot, and the heat is being turned up slowly".

[former_member182421]

I wonder what will happens if the water is heating slow enough, so the frog has time to make a nice, healthy and numerous family, so when the water starts to boil, there's no room in the pot for more frogs...

Croak!

Luis

[Former Member]

Hi Neha,

I don't think so.. Because ABAP language has gone many changes recently in SAP Netweaver 7.4.

ABAP language is getting evolved down the lane.

Thanks,

Rajesh

ABAP Rocks!!!

[PeterJonker]

Haha, who ever gave you this information (was it on April 1st ??) is a joker.

[Former Member]

Oh, that is just an April Fool's joke from a guy called Stephen Johannes. It did the rounds in the internet more than expected and gathered a group of "believers". Stephen now heads the sect as spiritual leader. The members are not allowed to own watches or know what the date is, but apparently Stephen has one of the largest watch collections on earth.

Sometimes he performs recruitment activities here on SCN so be careful.

Cheers

Julius

[stephenjohannes]

You foiled my efforts to recruit new members.   Just because 2015 became 2020, doesn't mean the points in this blog aren't true: .

However I must admit I think I might have discovered something in a painting in the executive lunch room of NSQ when I was there back in January.  I might have given it away since I did tell someone that auditorium did not appear to be "upgraded" from my time almost ten years prior.  Perhaps d-code name for teched is just really way to tease those of us in the 2015/2020 group.

Take care,

Stephen

[Former Member]

Hi Neha,

I suggest you check the SAP website for dates when products go out of support and the architecture of SAP Business Suite on HANA.

Based on my own understanding, the first two points are completely untrue.

Regards,

Nick