SAP Upgrade to ECC 6.0 - What should I know as a SAP CCS Customer?

SAP R/3+IS-U CCS Upgrade to ECC 6.0 can be both time consuming, educating and challenging depending on how complex your business process is and how ready your Upgrade team is to transition your R/3 system to ECC 6.0. Hiring a big name consulting firm to handle the upgrade is no sure way for a successfull upgrade as each of them (no matter what they say!) have their share of successes and failures.

First things first, let me try to explain the reasons why every SAP R/3 customer need to start preparing to upgrade their R/3 system to the new Netweaver based Enterprise Central Component (ECC 6.0).

Close to half of SAP IS-U CCS customer base in U.S. as of 2008 was on the R/3 version of SAP, so first of all let's try to understand what Netweaver based ECC is all about, then let me try to give a few reasons as to why it's indeed useful to upgrade to ECC and how to approach and execute an upgrade?

Understanding Enterprise Central Component (ECC):

1. SAP introduced ECC with version 5.0 in 2003. The latest version is ECC 6.0. ECC is based on a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) of the Netweaver platform, enabling you to build new products and solutions, using Java and ABAP-Webdnypro programming techniques. Also available are new dimension tools such as Visual Composer and ability to create extranet and intranet portals.

2. There are also new and optimized business processes in Finance, Core IS-U CCS modules and Human Resource areas. If you need specific information on the functionalities that have been added or changed in ECC for your area, use the "ERP Solution Browser" available at the SAP Service Marketplace at http://solutionbrowser.erp.sap.fmpmedia.com/. (You may need an OSS id to access this information).

3. SAP ECC 6.0, lands you on SAP’s new software-delivery roadmap. This is the “go-to” release for all customers currently on SAP IS-U CCS R/3. From now on, all new functional enhancements to ERP through 2010 (when the next major synchronized release for SAP applications will take place) will be made available as optional enhancement packages for SAP ECC 6.0.

Reasons as to why an Upgrade to ECC is needed:
Let's first understand how SAP handles and resolves bugs and support issues regarding its software. SAP offers three types of maintenance for its software - Mainstream maintenance, Extended maintenance, and Customer-specific maintenance.

SAP provides support packages during mainstream maintenance and extended maintenance for a particular version. The delivery frequency of support packages is dependent on the maintenance phase. SAP charges customers in most cases for Customer-specific maintenance and this is done using the SAP Consulting services window.

• Mainstream maintenance for SAP R/3 4.6C ended in December 2006.
• SAP offers extended maintenance from January to December 2007.
• After December 2007, R/3 customers can benefit from extended maintenance for another two years until December 2009.
• Beginning in January 2010, SAP will provide customer-specific maintenance for SAP R/3 4.6C.
• Mainstream maintenance for SAP R/3 Enterprise ends in March 2009.
• After this date, SAP will offer extended maintenance until March 2012, subject to additional fees.
• Beyond 2012, SAP will provide customer-specific maintenance for all SAP R/3 customers.

Note: I have heard that there may be an incentive from SAP to its customers sitting on the fence over the upgrades. SAP offers incentives to customers to make the move, including discounts of up to 70% on the old R/3 licenses. They can make their move from today up until the end of 2009.

How to Approach and Execute an Upgrade:
Your upgrade happens in two phases technical upgrade and functional upgrade. Most customers not convinced with the business benefits of the new SAP functionalities opt for a technical upgrade to bypass the extended maintenance fees on R/3 versions. However, SAP has invested a great deal of money on tools (Business Objects acquisition), technologies (Java stack acquisition) and processes (several other industry specific acquisitions) to help its customers use SAP more than just as a business application focused software. SAP Customers of all sizes who have adopted this as a whole have realized significant value. Bottomline, yes eventually all customers have to upgrade to Netweaver based ECC platform.

To execute a successfull upgrade follow these steps:

1. Hire a Project Manager who has previously performed a SAP IS-U CCS Upgrade from R/3 to ECC 6.0 (preferably with some background in FI-CA) for a Utilities in your business line. Electric, Gas, Water and Waste utility business processes are quite different from each other.
2. Mobilize a project team with 4-6 expert level SAP resources (1 for each module) under the project manager. Depending on your budget hiring external resources for this job is advised, allowing your employees to focus on day-to-day support during upgrade.
3. First job for the Upgrade team members is to thoroughly document existing business processes, how it is tied into SAP, integration points with third party systems and any system risks during cut over to new ECC 6.0 system.
4. Build a Development ECC 6.0 system - configure it, bring in each and every Z or Y development object, mods, defects etc.
5. Build a Quality ECC 6.0 system - move the configuration transports and all other related transports. Perform Integration testing with all 3rd party systems.
6. Do a PARALLEL TESTING, where you compare your existing R/3 system output with the new ECC 6.0 output. Example: Billing different Customers, Invoicing different Service Class customers, Meter Read Uploads for different types of Meters, Notification Create, etc.
7. Do a CUTOVER TESTING, where you wipe out the Quality system and bring in everything fresh (including defects from Parallel Testing Phase) and do another round of Parallel testing.
8. Assuming the result of Step 7, is a success in major business areas (except for a few small defects), you are ready to go-live.