How to Upgrade SAP BW Service Pack Stack (SPS)?
SAP BW Service Pack Stack (SPS) : Below Steps to be followed to Upgrade SAP BW Service Pack Stack usually of 2 Types.
1. Technical Upgrade (SPS Upgrade)
2. Functional Upgrade
In Technical Upgrade Projects, Lead/Senior Consultant (Expertise) will be involve in many Phases.
SAP BW Service Pack Stack Upgrade Phases
If it is a global client (MNCs) : Decisions based on Business Needs/Cost/Time/Effective/Thorough.
Some times client will not like to upgrade ECC/CRM.
1), Client Will decide on which SAP BW Service Pack Stack (SPS) versions they are in (From) & To which Level System Should be Upgrade based on requirement and its Compatibility/supportability. As BW becomes a Necessary SAP Warehouse (Back end) for SAP Business Objects – Business Intelligence, GRC, EPM,
2), Current System Stack versions, Stats of the Systems (Boxes) & Documentation of Business process.
3), Senior Guys will approach The SAP Market Place, will search for Neccessary Patches/SPS (E.g. Upgrade from SAP BW 7.0 SPS 20 to SAP BW 7.1/7.2/7.X EhP 1) . Usually need to ABAP Stack (BW SPS version +2 Levels). Java Version upgrade as it is a necessary version to support BW BEx Web/WAD Reports.
4), The Basis team will have a copy of each box according the current Landscape.
5), SAP Come up with a list of SAP Notes (SNotes) to be applied to these boxes.
6), SPS Upgrade Team will have to ensure that each phase of testing are Pass/Correct. Team will check a list of BEx reports in Portals, Web Templates before and backend functionalities of BW(Entire ETL, BroadCasting/BWA Indexes) in Copied boxes (BASIS) are proper documented.
7), According to the current version/Level will need to check which snotes applied to be applied after SPS upgrade of BASIS. The list will call as SPAU & SPDD List.
8),Relavent SNotes will be applied in SPAU & SPDD T.codes by project team in those boxes.
9),Once these snotes properly applied, all the TRs will have to import to target boxes.
10), Before that QA boxes will do a lot of testing Like (BEx Reports/WAD templates/Webreports functionalities [RRI,Bookmarks/Dashboards/BroadCasting/Publishing to portals/iViews if any…etc..], ETL using Process chain/3rd Party tools(Control-M).
11), Each phases you will definite hit errors and face challenges. will need to search for fix the bugs, need to check for Side Effect Snotes to be applied. If couldn’t find, Rise Product error in SAP Market Place(OSS Notes). Some times will need to fix Cockpit issues/ABAP code issues in SAP Standard code/HTML/Java Script Issues in WAD Templates. Some clients may also use Testing tools (Mercury/HP-Win Runner/Load Runner/QTP/SAP TAO), Positive/Negative/SIT/Load Tests…etc
12), Same will be followed after Upgrade with the same list of Testing procedures. Once pass these phases.
13), Will Migrate to other boxes where users (UAT) will do test of all them, if a very few couldn’t fix, need to find workaround (Temporary Solution), Some couldn’t because we are not upgrading that level pack can’t apply existing snotes found in market place. If snotes does not exist SAP will suggest the team to ensure we are with 98% correctness in testing phases.
14), Based on Landscape necessary TRs will be import to PRD Box(es) to ensure all deliverables. As we all know, all we need is co-operation to achieve success.
Also See: What is SAP BW Monitoring Tool?