SAP Upgrade Steps

In SAP there are various types of upgrades.

• SP upgrade
• EHP upgrade
• NetWeaver version upgrade

Before performing any upgrade, there are pre-requisites you should perform and need to co-ordinate with respective teams
Requirement gathering: All team

• Stack xml generation and patch download: Basis Team
• Database backup and checks : DB Team
• Perform upgrade activity: Basis Team
• Space for mount point increase if required: OS team
• SPDD/SPAU activity: ABAP/Functional Team
• Download side effects notes: Distribute to functional team

If you are planning to perform the any upgrade please perform below checks from Basis side.

• Read the release notes of target versions and if there are any pre-requisites perform those steps
• Update SAP Host Agent to latest patch
• Read the SUM guide and make sure all the pre-requisites are met
• Download side effect notes and distribute to the functional teams to verify
• Check the space of /usr/sap/trans mount point and make sure there is sufficient space available
• Check the space of /usr/sap/ mount point and make sure there is sufficient space available
• Make sure you have root access at OS level
• Check the credentials of SIDADM and SYSTEM user (if you are using HANA DB)
• Make sure you have access of DDIC in 000
• Check the license in slicense Tcode and renew if it expired
• Before performing upgrade take a complete DB backup of your DB and screenshot of the component version

Below are the steps that when we are running the ABAP system upgrade SUM tool goes through following phases. There is specific meaning and purpose for every phase

1- Welcome: This is first screen which comes when you logged into SUM tool. It points out the System technology eg. ABAP, JAVA or ABAP+JAVA. System ID and system directory /usr/sap/<SID>. Along with this it shows the note for current SUM version.

2– Specify Credentials:

Enter the password of <SID>adm user.

NOTE If the OS user credentials for any of the instances in your system do not match the ones you already entered for the primary application server instance, you should specify the correct credentials for each such instance on a subsequent screen

3-Select Target:

Here you will select the target version definition for your system. There are two options here

<1> Stack Configuration File: Select this option when   we have generated xml file from maintenance planner.

<2> Manually prepared directory:  Select this option when you manually prepared a flat directory containing the component updates and patches you want to apply to the system.

Refer note 1533222 to find out installed component version.

4-Confirm Target:

Here you will see the respective note to search the keyword to enter. Keyword is different based on SUM version. Based on XML it shows Target system version and current system version. You can also download target system version report also.

5- Execute Process:

5.1 – Initialization:  Information page of initialization of upgrade

5.2: Extraction:

• Following activities performed in this phase:
• DDIC username and password
• Scanning of download directory where all the patches are placed
• Extract files to move to EPS/in
• Check SPAM version. Skip this because already we have upgraded the latest SPAM in pre-steps.
• <SID>adm credentials
• Mapping of table classes to container
• Pre-upgrade note list implementation

5.3: Configuration:

Following activities performed in this phase.

• Main upgrade configuration, where you will give input parameters for -Advanced (expensive downtime optimizes, higher complexity, high resource assignment)
• Keep database archiving on
• Execution strategy for transaction SGEN
• Maximum number of processes to be used for load generation. SGEN Processes
• Batch Process(Uptime)
• Batch Process(Downtime)
• Maximum number of DDL processes (Uptime and Downtime)
• Number of parallel import processes (R3trans -Uptime and Downtime)
• Parallel Phases (Uptime and downtime)
• Update Instances
• Enhancement package inclusion
• Add-On selection
• Modification Adjustment (SPDD transport request and SPAU transport request)

5.4: Checks:

• Following activities performed in this phase:
• Insufficient space in database, Create four table spaces with script
• Space checks
• BW checks and phases
• Activation and conversion checks
• Modification support
• Preliminary upgrade processing
• List Locked SAP objects

5.5 Pre-Processing:

This is the pre-downtime phase where all the pre-tasks need to complete by SUM like

• Check for locked objects
• ABAP Workbench locking
• Run shadow system for preparation of new release (ACT_UPG, PARDIST, SGEN)
• SPDD Adjustments

5.6: Execution: Sum tool downtime is called as execution where actual are copied from Shadow to Main Instance and system were unavailable during the downtime.

• Merging of shadow and Real Instance
• system upgrade
• Table conversion

5.7 Post Processing: This is post processing step of SUM just after downtime.

• SPAU change
• Backup
• Create folder in trans directory (EHPi)

5.8: Finalization:

This phase just gives the whole summary of all upgrade and which phase took how much time. Process overview HTML file is must to have the actual look.

6: Summary:  Final confirmation and feedback about sap upgrade.

For Troubleshooting during upgrade few below sap note.

SAP note 1805195 – Handling and troubleshooting of tablespaces during Upgrades, EhPs and SPs updates

SAP note 1715052 – Tablespace cannot be deleted after upgrade

SAP note 1848753 – SUM 1.0: exchange tablespace (e.g. PSAPSR3702X) handling during release upgrade/update

SAP note 1805195 – Handling and troubleshooting of tablespaces during Upgrades, EhPs and SPs updates