By Dr. Surya Subrahmaniam Ravi, PhD
February 25, 2021
Introduction
The first version of SAP S/4HANA 1511 will no longer be supported in the year 2021. SAP S/4HANA 1511 mainstream maintenance expired on 31st December of 2020. Customers who are still running SAP S/4HANA 1511 are strongly advised to start planning the upgrade now.
SAP S/4HANA upgrade is an opportunity to take advantage of the latest functionalities. As far as my experience goes on upgrade projects, the process is generally very smooth. Many SAP S/4HANA 1511 customers have already moved to the latest release, and customers using other version are making the move to upgrade to SAP S/4HANA to get the latest capabilities. These upgrade projects will become a normal part of keeping up with the pace of innovation and will be a part of the continuous improvement process of their SAP Business Suite system.
Why upgrade an SAP S/4HANA System?
There may be several reasons, one being the SAP S/4HANA maintenance schedule. Another reason may be to replace Compatibility Packs functionality with SAP S/4HANA capabilities. There may be a need to upgrade from a business or IT point of view. Or companies may want to get the latest functionalities that are available in the latest releases – such as Group Reporting or Accrual Engine. The reason for the upgrade determines the upgrade type – technical or functional.
If the upgrade is just technical, consultants can do the mandatory changes during their simplification item checks and complete the project. Your company can decide to improve your functionalities at a later time.
If the upgrade is aimed at also getting new capabilities, then it will be a functional upgrade. This includes a technical upgrade, with added scope to take advantage of new business functionality immediately after an upgrade.
If SAP provided an alternative solution for any Compatibility Packs currently in use on the SAP S/4HANA system, then companies may also need to do an upgrade to adopt them.
Customers choose S/4HANA functional upgrade to get new capabilities, new business requirements or to improve their end user experience with the latest SAP S/4HANA Fiori apps. Often it may be a business need to upgrade for new requirements e.g. digital transformation or automation or a need for mobile applications, etc. This functional upgrade enhances value for the business and also likely to improve ROI. During this functional upgrade, consultants work on different capabilities by designing or re-designing business processes in the new version of SAP S/4HANA. This takes more time than a technical upgrade.
But this generally also helps customers to get the benefits from new innovations such as predictive analytics, AI, machine learning and robotic process automation.
In most cases, if your SAP S/4HANA system is under mainstream maintenance, it will have direct upgrade path to the latest version of SAP S/4HANA. Sometimes, an upgrade may take more than one step if customers have delayed in performing the upgrade. This not only involves additional cost, but IT downtime.
Performance Improvements
SAP S/4HANA upgrade brings performance improvements, new functionalities, new apps, new design etc. The latest version of SAP S/4HANA may bring more Fiori apps with new features. For example, in the latest version of SAP S/4HANA “export to spreadsheet” has been added to many SAP Fiori elements apps, along with touch-enabled user interfaces for Web Dynpro ABAP applications and SAP GUI for HTML transactions.
Technical Factors for S/4HANA Upgrade
The driving factor for IT departments to upgrade SAP S/4HANA is to stay up to date with the latest corrections and security patches that are delivered with new releases, new Feature Package Stacks (FPS), and Support Package Stacks (SPS).. IT departments will prefer upgrades to ensures the security of their system. They may prefer at least technical upgrades from time to time even if the business may not have a business reason for a functional upgrade. The technical upgrades indirectly help to improve the functionalities as well as business processes.
Functional Upgrade or Technical Upgrade?
When companies plan for SAP S/4HANA upgrades they often have questions whether they should perform a technical or functional upgrade. So what are key considerations for choosing technical or functional upgrade?
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- If there is any hard deadline for go-live with new version of SAP S/4HANA, then you should steer away from a functional upgrade project, as these projects run longer based on scope.
- If business requirements are not finalized, usually companies prefer to run technical upgrades. For example, the business may be in the processes of finalizing plans to use SAP S/4HANA group reporting or existing consolidation functionalities.
- If the business is not ready to cope with the timelines for any reason. Then a technical upgrade is the only option to keep up maintenance.
- If specific users want to finalize some of their business requirements, then technical upgrades may be the option.
- If there are significant budget concerns and restrictions, then technical upgrade is the only solution.
- If companies did not get an opportunity to implement SAP Fiori in SAP S/4HANA 1511 or 1610 release, and now the business wants to include SAP Fiori as a scope item along with the technical upgrade, then that leads to a functional upgrade.
- Functional upgrades are needed to utilize various SAP S/4HANA innovations such as embedded analytics, central procurement or demand-driven MRP.
- Screen personas can be included as part of SAP S/4HANA technical upgrade. This provides non-coding options to improve classic user interfaces, such as SAP GUI and Web Dynpro ABAP applications.
Where to Start
The SAP S/4HANA upgrade project usually starts with a sandbox upgrade, or through a testing environment. Your sandbox system should be a dedicated standalone system to work on your product requirements before starting your upgrade within your development environment.
Your SAP sandbox environment should be used for research and development, for testing different distribution system and the latest Fiori apps.
All most all, the same upgrade steps will be repeated for subsequent iterations on each system. When companies reach the development environment upgrade. The plan should be improved throughout each upgrade exercise until we reach to PRD upgrade.
The sequence of upgrade is, first companies upgrade the SAP HANA database to the relevant release, then they upgrade SAP S/4HANA. This question raises when upgrading from SAP HANA 1511 to the latest release.
In embedded mode the SAP Fiori frontend server and SAP S/4HANA server are different components of the same server. This reduces the technical upgrade of the servers somewhat, however all other considerations are largely similar regardless of whether embedded or standalone(hub) mode is used.
While additional components are needed – such as SAP Web Dispatcher for load-balancing and to avoid cross-site scripting – upgrading these is typically unlikely to add significant effort in a technical upgrade project.
Downtime for Upgrade
When performing first iteration on Sandbox upgrade, upgrade architects will find out the downtime and evaluate if the downtime window will fit into the business downtime window that is planned in initial stages of upgrade.
The upgrade team can also verify SUM logs for downtime optimization. The upgrade evaluation file important. At the end of each SUM run, the upgrade statistics can be uploaded to SAP. The data is used to optimize the runtimes of updates and upgrades.
Silent Data Migration
In order to reduce the duration of the downtime, a new data conversion technology known as silent data migration (SDMI) has been introduced for target releases SAP S/4HANA 1909 or higher.
SDMI allows migrating application data during uptime. During this time, the system can be used without impacting the business processes. This approach requires the upgrade to follow release sequence step by step.
After an Upgrade
Whether companies decide to perform a functional or technical Upgrade, customers want to get improvements and business value from their upgraded SAP S/4HANA sooner rather than later. Customers can immediately start benefitting from the new functionalities due to your system upgrade.
What are the risks if we do not upgrade?
Once an SAP S/4HANA release reaches the end of its current maintenance date, SAP will provide extended maintenance for an additional maintenance fee. After the supplementary maintenance agreement has expired, the release automatically enters customer-specific maintenance, where additional maintenance fees must be paid and there is a restricted scope of services.
You can refer to SAP’s product availability matrix and SAP’s release strategy for dates on which maintenance will expire.
Further more you will not be able to access to below unless you upgrade:
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- Latest SAP Fiori apps
- Latest SAP Fiori launchpad features
- Latest intelligent technologies scenarios
- Newly designed business processes
- New business models
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Conclusions
The planning of an SAP S/4HANA upgrade project helps to properly execute the upcoming SAP S/4HANA upgrade. SAP S/4HANA customers are advised to refer to the product availability matrix (PAM) of the SAP S/4HANA system they want to upgrade for details. The SAP S/4HANA upgrade project can be combined with or may even require infrastructure changes, e.g. the replacement of server hardware.
This can help to reduce the overall effort for all change activities. Consequently, further limitations or opportunities might exist, which need to be incorporated. These boundary conditions need to be known to the transition project to integrate them in the planning and execution. Regardless of your chosen upgrade approach, Answerthink® offers support for SAP S/4HANA customers for planning an upgrade of an existing SAP S/4HANA system.
