Overview

Providing a significant number of new features is an important goal of release upgrades to deliver innovations to our customers and partners. There are four major release upgrades per year following a predefined schedule as described in this blog post.

An upgrade is intended as a “no event” for customers and partners. For example, only compatible changes of released objects (APIs) will be delivered. We recommend performing a test of the custom-built productive apps in a test environment for the new release. The complexity of the technical dependencies between the custom-built apps and the underlying environment cannot be tested isolated, only including the ABAP environment on SAP-side. Therefore, we offer you to pre-upgrade selected systems 15 days in advance to test the applications prior to the planned standard-upgrade.

Purpose

This option enables a customer or partner to test the applications they have already developed on top of the new release a couple of days before the standard-upgrade. With SAP BTP ABAP Environment (aka “Steampunk”), we follow the approach of keeping released objects stable and provide all enhancements in a compatible fashion. Early testing is an additional measure to ensure proper software quality and might be used to detect unforeseen regressions. However, this option is not intended to test new features or to consume new features earlier.

Approach

The standard-upgrade of all systems to release 2408 is planned for August 17/18.

A customer or partner can nominate one or more already existing systems for the pre-upgrade. A nominated system will be upgraded on August 2 within a planned downtime from 8:00 to 16:00 CET.

We recommend nominating a non-development system, such as a test system. The nomination of a development system is technically also possible, but fixes or other changes must not be imported into another system with a lower release. The nomination of a productive system doesn’t make sense because the purpose of the pre-upgrade is the re-test of the existing application before the productive system gets the new release.

According to the approach explained above, this offer is only relevant for customers or partners having at least two systems.

There might be situations where a correction of custom objects needs to be deployed. Such corrections are possible if the development / correction system is on the older release and is imported into the pre-upgraded system with the higher release.

Except potential fixes, the pre-upgrade is based on the same version as the standard-upgrade.

Costs

This offering is optional and free of any additional charges.

Planned New Features

The planned new features will be published on the What’s New for SAP BTP ABAP Environment on July 19. This list gives you an overview of potential areas for re-testing. The purpose of the pre-upgrade is not to consume these features before the standard-upgrade, because the documentation on help.sap.com will be delivered later before the standard-upgrade. It would also not be possible to transport code of such an adoption, because subsequent systems are not yet on the new release during the pre-upgrade phase.

Independent of the upgrades of the SAP BTP ABAP Environment, we recommend developing automated tests for the custom-built apps to detect regressions early on and without manual effort for re-testing. Such automated tests are perfectly suited to be run in the pre-upgrade test phase.

Time Schedule

The following figure summarizes the general approach:

Milestones for release 2408:

July 4: Nomination of system(s) is possible in the Landscape PortalJuly 19: Announcement of the planned new featuresJuly 29: Pre-upgrade systems are knownAugust 2: Pre-upgradeAugust 14: Potential decision to postpone the upgradeAugust 17/18: Standard-upgrade

System Nomination

To nominate a system, please register the system(s) by July 29 (EOB) latest by using the Landscape Portal. You can find further information about Accessing the Landscape Portal and about Register Systems for Pre-Upgrade. Please do not create customer tickets for system nomination like in previous pre-upgrades.

With such a nomination, the customer agrees to an extraordinary planned maintenance on August 2 (see above).

Report an Issue

Issues should be reported as part of the regression test phase by August 9 (EOB) to allow for a sufficient time frame for issue analysis and potential corrections on SAP-side.

Please create a customer ticket by using component BC-CP-ABA.

If a detected issue is likely to endanger the productive use after the standard-upgrade, you should use ticket priority very high despite the fact that the pre-upgrade system is not a productive system.

Exceptional Process in Case of Unresolved Priority Very High Issues

In case of the aligned decision on Wednesday, August 14 (based on unresolved priority very high tickets) to postpone the upgrade, a dedicated mitigation process needs to be started together with the respective customer or partner, with the following boundary conditions:

Resolving the open priority very high issues remains the highest priority for both, SAP and the customer or partner, as it is also the prerequisite for the upgrade.According to the estimated issue resolution, catching up the upgrade needs to be planned.The upgrade leads to a business downtime of 6 – 8 hours.The upgrade must be scheduled within 7 calendar days the latest after fixing all remaining open priority very high issues.We will not provide any fixes for the old release after the original date of the standard-upgrade to the new release.

In case business-critical issues are detected after the upgrade:

Issues need to be reported as priority very high issues and will be processed accordingly.Going back to the release before upgrade is not an option. Therefore, resolving the issues in the new release with the appropriate priority is the required approach.

Summary

We recommend performing regression tests in pre-upgraded test systems to avoid day-1 impacts of productive custom apps after the standard-upgrade.

​ OverviewProviding a significant number of new features is an important goal of release upgrades to deliver innovations to our customers and partners. There are four major release upgrades per year following a predefined schedule as described in this blog post.An upgrade is intended as a “no event” for customers and partners. For example, only compatible changes of released objects (APIs) will be delivered. We recommend performing a test of the custom-built productive apps in a test environment for the new release. The complexity of the technical dependencies between the custom-built apps and the underlying environment cannot be tested isolated, only including the ABAP environment on SAP-side. Therefore, we offer you to pre-upgrade selected systems 15 days in advance to test the applications prior to the planned standard-upgrade. PurposeThis option enables a customer or partner to test the applications they have already developed on top of the new release a couple of days before the standard-upgrade. With SAP BTP ABAP Environment (aka “Steampunk”), we follow the approach of keeping released objects stable and provide all enhancements in a compatible fashion. Early testing is an additional measure to ensure proper software quality and might be used to detect unforeseen regressions. However, this option is not intended to test new features or to consume new features earlier. ApproachThe standard-upgrade of all systems to release 2408 is planned for August 17/18.A customer or partner can nominate one or more already existing systems for the pre-upgrade. A nominated system will be upgraded on August 2 within a planned downtime from 8:00 to 16:00 CET.We recommend nominating a non-development system, such as a test system. The nomination of a development system is technically also possible, but fixes or other changes must not be imported into another system with a lower release. The nomination of a productive system doesn’t make sense because the purpose of the pre-upgrade is the re-test of the existing application before the productive system gets the new release.According to the approach explained above, this offer is only relevant for customers or partners having at least two systems.There might be situations where a correction of custom objects needs to be deployed. Such corrections are possible if the development / correction system is on the older release and is imported into the pre-upgraded system with the higher release.Except potential fixes, the pre-upgrade is based on the same version as the standard-upgrade. CostsThis offering is optional and free of any additional charges. Planned New FeaturesThe planned new features will be published on the What’s New for SAP BTP ABAP Environment on July 19. This list gives you an overview of potential areas for re-testing. The purpose of the pre-upgrade is not to consume these features before the standard-upgrade, because the documentation on help.sap.com will be delivered later before the standard-upgrade. It would also not be possible to transport code of such an adoption, because subsequent systems are not yet on the new release during the pre-upgrade phase.Independent of the upgrades of the SAP BTP ABAP Environment, we recommend developing automated tests for the custom-built apps to detect regressions early on and without manual effort for re-testing. Such automated tests are perfectly suited to be run in the pre-upgrade test phase. Time ScheduleThe following figure summarizes the general approach: Milestones for release 2408:July 4: Nomination of system(s) is possible in the Landscape PortalJuly 19: Announcement of the planned new featuresJuly 29: Pre-upgrade systems are knownAugust 2: Pre-upgradeAugust 14: Potential decision to postpone the upgradeAugust 17/18: Standard-upgrade System NominationTo nominate a system, please register the system(s) by July 29 (EOB) latest by using the Landscape Portal. You can find further information about Accessing the Landscape Portal and about Register Systems for Pre-Upgrade. Please do not create customer tickets for system nomination like in previous pre-upgrades.With such a nomination, the customer agrees to an extraordinary planned maintenance on August 2 (see above). Report an IssueIssues should be reported as part of the regression test phase by August 9 (EOB) to allow for a sufficient time frame for issue analysis and potential corrections on SAP-side.Please create a customer ticket by using component BC-CP-ABA.If a detected issue is likely to endanger the productive use after the standard-upgrade, you should use ticket priority very high despite the fact that the pre-upgrade system is not a productive system. Exceptional Process in Case of Unresolved Priority Very High IssuesIn case of the aligned decision on Wednesday, August 14 (based on unresolved priority very high tickets) to postpone the upgrade, a dedicated mitigation process needs to be started together with the respective customer or partner, with the following boundary conditions:Resolving the open priority very high issues remains the highest priority for both, SAP and the customer or partner, as it is also the prerequisite for the upgrade.According to the estimated issue resolution, catching up the upgrade needs to be planned.The upgrade leads to a business downtime of 6 – 8 hours.The upgrade must be scheduled within 7 calendar days the latest after fixing all remaining open priority very high issues.We will not provide any fixes for the old release after the original date of the standard-upgrade to the new release.In case business-critical issues are detected after the upgrade:Issues need to be reported as priority very high issues and will be processed accordingly.Going back to the release before upgrade is not an option. Therefore, resolving the issues in the new release with the appropriate priority is the required approach. SummaryWe recommend performing regression tests in pre-upgraded test systems to avoid day-1 impacts of productive custom apps after the standard-upgrade.   Read More Technology Blogs by SAP articles 

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