Are you one of the organizations that migrated to SAP solutions and now planning to uplift your business processes upgrading your SAP S/4HANA premise or someone in the middle of the adoption process?
Either way, it is important for you to understand the specifics of the technology and be aware of the recent updates launched by the SAP community. It is seen that even if an organization is in the process of embedding an SAP solution, adhering to the upgrades will only benefit the organization in the long run.
Having said that, let’s move ahead to see why would you need to opt for an upgrade and then highlight the different updates as released by SAP.
Do you really need to upgrade?
Long before we step foot on the SAP S/4HANA updates, a short summary of why should an organization invest time and efforts for levelling up their solution.
Consider that you have been using an SAP solution for years and the same has been working well. The performance is great, the returns are excellent and everything happening within your business is streamlined. So why undergo the pain of updating the same?
The answer to this lies in the fact that consumer behaviour is changing and with this, the industry also is changing. The existing set of customers and employees is different from the new ones. The upcoming generation seeks results faster and better and in order to meet their needs, you need a modern holistic solution. Not to forget the fact that sooner or later, SAP would rescind support to the older solution. Apparently, in 2027, SAP would stop supporting ECC and the organizations still using the same would be exposed to an array of problems.
So the sooner you do, the better it becomes to stay consistent with the industry standards.
Elements of SAP S/4HANA Upgrade
- Technical Upgrade:
Irrespective of the type of application you run or the software that you use to host your enterprise solutions, technical updates of the same are always important. Even without considering the performance and efficiency, one thing that mandates a technical upgrade is to turn your system hack-proof. Often, outdated software solutions become the number one reason for hacks, attacks, and security breaches. It is extremely important for organizations to keep their IT infrastructure strong, robust, and secure.
Similar is the case with SAP S/4HANA. The core features that drive the need for a technical upgrade is to deal with security patches and keep the performance as per the expected figures. Narrowing down the discussion to the improvements in the SAP S/4HANA solution post an update.
Migrating from SAP ECC would cover the following:
Prerequisites:
- Upgrade To ECC 6.0: To migrate to S/4HANA, it is important that your system is currently using SAP ECC 6.0.
- Split dual-stack ABAP+Java -> ABAP: In case you are currently using ECC 6.0 system and this is active on the dual-stack, you would need to split them. migration to S/4HANA only requires the ABAP-only stack.
- Convert to Unicode: SAP S/4HANA is shipped with UNICODE and the migration is only possible if your SAP solution is Unicode.
Preparation:
- Start with removing all of the redundant data to prevent storage space dilution.
- Clean up all of the custom code to avoid wasting time in moving data that is no longer needed.
- Move the existing database to the S/4HANA database.
The next thing to do is check the readiness of the system and once convinced, you can finally move the system to the SAP S/4HANA infrastructure.
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Functional upgrade
Talking about an upgrade, the driving factor irrespective of the type is the increased ROI backed by performance improvements. Now when this happens, it gives users the ease to leverage the change, adopt technologies such as AI and smart data to further improve the way businesses conduct their day to day operations. This is what we term as a functional upgrade.
With the new SAP S/4HANA technical upgrade , the SAP software gets updated. But talking about the functional upgrade, it takes into account the additional features that come along with the software. SAP functional aspect involves the consolidation of two architectures and implementing the same as a single architecture.
In addition to the above, SAP S/4HANA has an extended warehouse management system which eliminates the need for organizations to have a separate supply chain management system. Not to forget the in-memory database rolled out that adds to the functional capabilities of the system.
Use of simplification list:
A Simplification Item Catalog is one that we can use to gather information about the changes in the upgrade and further allow the analysts to track the overall impact of the update on the system. Significant checks are made directly to the system to find out the impact of the simplifications and further allow them to prepare for the changes accordingly. Once the test has been conducted, it would provide holistic data on the impact of the change on both technical and functional teams.
SAP Fiori upgrade
Besides offering functional and technical benefits on updating SAP ECC, SAP S/4HANA also gives organizations the ease to update your SAP Fiori apps. With this, you will have access to an array of apps and features. The new SAP Fiori has 3 specific design improvements and has also fixed bugs in the older version improving the overall performance.
Conclusion
Whether you are just starting out or in the process of an upgrade and looking for an expert to help, you can reach out to Stridely Solutions. We are one of the leading organizations in the spectrum of cloud solutions. We are also a trusted SAP solution partner helping organizations across the globe to embed the same. From consultation to deployment and migration, we provide all kinds of SAP solutions. Our experts are skilled and have tremendous experience in working over enterprise solutions with ease.
With us, you will never have to worry about the support and maintenance job along with the complexities posed by the same as we cover all.
