ProcedurePlanning and Monitoring Product Maintenance

 

The Maintenance Optimizer guides you through the procedure for planning, downloading, and implementing SAP support packages and patches for your systems. You can choose between different procedures:

  • Downloading files with the Download Basket

  • Automatic downloads using the Software Lifecycle Manager (SLM) are an integrated part of the Maintenance Optimizer.

The Maintenance Optimizer automatically offers you all of the options available for your system:

  • Maintenance by including an SAP support package stack

  • Installing technical usages from an enhancement package release

  • Including enhancement packages in you system upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0 (previously SAP ERP 2005).

The Maintenance Optimizer offers you a guided procedure for each of these options.

  • It guides you through the procedure for planning and implementing maintenance.

  • It complies all the necessary information in a procedure. Included in this are the users involved, the product to be maintained, the affected systems, and the assigned SAP support packages.

  • If you manually select the product maintenance files, it guides you directly to the corresponding download area of the SAP Software Distribution Center for the product that you want to maintain.

  • If you Automatically Calculate Product Maintenance Files, it determines the files for maintaining your system landscape.

  • It confirms and approves the items in the Download Basket of the SAP Software Distribution Center.

  • It gives an overview of all open and completed product maintenance processes.

  • It provides a report function so that you can search for and display all product maintenance processes in your SAP Solution Manager.

  • If you automatically download the product maintenance files, the files are stored in the background in a central directory.

    It is not required to approve the download.

Prerequisites

You have configured the Maintenance Optimizer using the SAP Solution Manager configuration guide.

You are required to perform the following activities in Customizing for the Maintenance Optimizer:

  • Assigning S-Users for SAP Support Portal Functionality

    In this activity you define which S-users (user ID for the SAP Service Marketplace) are assigned to user IDs for the SAP Solution Manager.

  • Entering Users for Communicating with SAP Service and Support Systems

    In this activity you enter the RFC connection SAP-OSS and the corresponding RFC user.

You have installed the SAP Download Manager locally at your work center.

If you have not yet installed the SAP Download Manager, visit the SAP Software Distribution Center in the SAP Support Portal.

If you want to download product maintenance files automatically, you have successfully completed the following activities for configuring the Software Lifecycle Manager in SAP Solution Manager Customizing:

  • Setting up the RFC connection

    SAP recommends you set up an HTTPS connection. For more information, see the Security Guide on the SAP Service Marketplace under   http://service.sap.com/instguides   SAP Components   SAP Solution Manager   Release 4.0   Security Guide SAP Solution Manager 4.0  .

  • Setting up a logical port

    For more information, see the Security Guide on the SAP Service Marketplace under   http://service.sap.com/instguides   SAP Components   SAP Solution Manager   Release 4.0   Security Guide SAP Solution Manager 4.0  .

  • Setting up the Download Directory Assistant

  • Setting up the Software Lifecycle Manager

Procedure

You are guided through the procedure for product maintenance. This procedure consists of five steps. Each step is assigned its own status. You can repeat actions of a previous step as many times as you want until the procedure has the status Complete. The status of a procedure is set to Complete once you have chosen Continue. Then you are no longer able to change the status of the procedure.

  1. Planning Maintenance

    Enter the product maintenance information as required. Required entry fields are indicated by a red asterisk.

    • Short text

      Enter a text as description. The text New Maintenance Optimizer Procedure is displayed here by default.

    • Product Version

      You can choose one of the product versions from the current solution. The Maintenance Optimizer determines the choice of product versions based on the systems that are assigned to your solution.

    • System

      Once you have selected a product version, the Maintenance Optimizer displays the systems assigned to this product version. Select the system, or systems, for which you would like to perform product maintenance.

    Choose Continue.

  2. Selecting Files

    Select the product maintenance files for your system or have the Maintenance Optimizer make this selection for you. Depending on which product version you entered as assigned for the product maintenance procedure, all the possible procedures are displayed for you under Automatically Calculating Download Files.

    Example Example

    If, for example, you have chosen the product version SAP ERP 6.0 in the first step, you can now choose between maintaining, that is including an SAP support package stack, and installing enhancement packages.

    If you chose a product version in the first step for which the upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0 is supported, you can choose between maintaining the assigned system and including enhancement packages in the upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0.

    End of the example.

    Proceed as described in the Automatically Calculating Product Maintenance Files section.

    Alternatively, you can fill the Download Basket manually. To do this, use the link to navigate to the SAP Software Distribution Center of the SAP Service Marketplace.

    • The Maintenance Optimizer opens the SAP Service Marketplace in a new browser.

    • The Maintenance Optimizer navigates directly to the relevant download area based on the product version you selected in the previous step.

    • For more information and help on moving items in you Download Basket, see the SAP Service Marketplace documentation.

    If you have selected files for download, choose Continue in the Maintenance Optimizer.

  3. Downloading files

    Before you can download the files, you have to confirm your selection in the Maintenance Optimizer if downloading files with the Download Basket. To do this, choose Confirm Selection in the Maintenance Optimizer.

    • On the next screen select the files and choose Confirm Download.

    • Once you confirm your selection, the files are assigned to the product maintenance procedure and released for download.

    You can now download the files with the SAP Download Manager. For more information about using the SAP Download Manager, see the documentation on the SAP Service Marketplace.

    If you have had your product maintenance files calculated automatically, you can execute the download from the Maintenance Optimizer. If you download the files with the Software Lifecycle Manager, choose Start Download. The download starts and the status is displayed in a dialog box.

  4. Executing the implementation

    After you have downloaded the files, execute the required maintenance in your systems.

    After successfully calculating the files for product maintenance and after successfully installing and activating the Software Lifecycle Manager, you can use the automatic downloads option.

    Once the product maintenance procedure has the status Download, select...

    • If you assigned systems at the beginning of the procedure, the Maintenance Optimizer now lists these systems for you. You can enter a start and end date for the implementation and specify the procedure status.

    • The Maintenance Optimizer displays an overview of the data you selected in the previous step. By clicking on the corresponding link, you can view the correction documentation and its side effects for each SAP support package.

    • Once you have executed the necessary maintenance in all the selected systems, you can close the product maintenance procedure. To end the procedure, you must first set the implementation status to Complete for each system assigned to the procedure.

    Choose Continue.

  5. Ending maintenance

    Once you have successfully completed your maintenance, close the product maintenance procedure. You can no longer edit the procedure when you have set the status to Complete.