Considering the Release Strategy of SAP
Availability and Maintenance Strategy of SAP Solutions
The SAP release and maintenance strategy determines the availability of new SAP software releases (including releases or enhancement packages of SAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver, and the SAP Business Objects portfolio). The strategy also determines the length and conditions of the maintenance of releases and the dependencies between the releases.
Shipments of SAP releases and the corresponding enhancement packages are introduced into the market in two or three shipment phases, such as beta, restricted, and unrestricted.
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Beta and Restricted Shipment Phases
They are not available for productive use. New software releases are available to only a restricted number of customers. The release to customer date marks the start of the restricted shipment phase.
During this phase, the new software release passes through a standardized process called the ramp-up. Ramp-up is a name given to the process of introducing new products or new releases of SAP software in the market.
Beta Shipment Phase
In some cases, SAP offers a beta shipment before the restricted shipment phase (which is before the release to customer date). Beta shipments are used for testing purposes only.
Restricted Shipment Phase
The SAP software can be used for a productive implementation. During the ramp-up, the software is available to only a limited circle of customers, who applied to SAP to participate.
The ramp-up serves to take customer wishes into consideration before the respective SAP software is made available. Participants in the ramp-up are given direct contact to the SAP development environment and are provided with wide-ranging support in implementing the SAP software.
A ramp-up takes about 6 months.
Unrestricted Shipment Phase
With the successful conclusion of the SAP ramp-up program, the unrestricted shipment phase of an SAP release begins on its default release date. After the default release date, all customers can request the new software without restrictions.
The latest available version of SAP software is called a default release. When SAP customers order software from SAP, they are given the current default release.
SAP Maintenance Strategy
A 5-1-2 maintenance strategy was introduced in 2004 to support aligned maintenance phases between SAP releases. To continue providing a strong, reliable support structure for the leading solutions of the industry, SAP extended its 5-1-2 strategy to 7-2, which is seven years of mainstream maintenance, with an additional option for two years of extended maintenance.
Some applications, such as SAP Business One and composite applications, do not follow the maintenance strategy rules. They have a minimum mainstream maintenance duration of two years and do not offer extended maintenance.
As a part of SAP Enterprise Support, customers receive extended maintenance for selected releases automatically and without an additional fee. Special rules apply to content shipments.
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SAP Business Suite 7 Maintenance Extension
Here you can check the maintenance extension for all applications included in SAP Business Suite
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For more information, see SAP Note 1648480.
Types of Maintenance
A release automatically enters into customer-specific maintenance. There is no need to apply for an additional contract. During this phase, customers receive support services similar to those offered in the mainstream maintenance phase, but with some additional restrictions.
For example, SAP does not deliver new support packages or updates to cover legal changes, and technology updates are limited. Resolution of problems is customer-specific, which means that customers are charged for solutions to problems that are not yet known to SAP.
The following types of maintenance are available from SAP:
- Mainstream maintenanceMainstream maintenance starts from the release to customer date and ends after seven years. This maintenance covers the restricted and unrestricted shipment phases.
- Extended maintenanceCustomers can extend the support period in which corrections or legal changes are taken into account for an increased maintenance fee.The scope of support for the entire extended maintenance period is similar to the scope of support provided during mainstream maintenance. SAP publishes information on the availability and scope of extended maintenance in advance.
- Customer-specific maintenanceYou do not adjust the release to meet external requirements after a certain point in time during the lifecycle of a release. Such requirements include the implementation of legal changes or the support of new technologies. The end of extended maintenance or the end of mainstream maintenance marks the time in question, as long as no extended maintenance is offered. Customer-specific maintenance starts at this time.
Upgrade
To facilitate smooth upgrades, SAP provides a sufficient overlap of two successive releases to make sure that the time in which customers may upgrade from one release to the next release is at least one year. For content releases, the overlap is at least six months.
SAP provides upgrade paths for SAP releases and the corresponding content releases. SAP also provides access to upgrade procedures for the current release. Usually, customers can upgrade directly from one release to another release as long as the releases occur during the mainstream maintenance phase. Depending on the technological constraints, an upgrade to a release that is several releases away from a customer’s current release may have to be performed in more than one step.
History of Selected Software Components
The figure shows the historical development of the following components:
- The basis technology (SAP Basis→ SAP Web AS→ SAP NetWeaver AS)
- The core business functionality (SAP R/3→ SAP R/3 Enterprise→ SAP ERP Central Component)
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