Why you should have your SAP PI/PO system current. How to ensure you can update the system with minimal effort. How to test the updates most efficiently

1. Updating a
SAP PI/PO system,
what to think about.

2. Your SAP Integration
In all organization is Integration really important. It must run 24/7 without
interruptions or problems to ensure that your IT systems function optimally.
The integration layer connects everything and is therefore critical in all
processes.
As developers, we have to be at agile and develop integration today so the
business can start using it and get the benefit of it today. This contradicts
normal system development because the amount of paperwork and testing
can take a lot of time.
I hope this document will give you some insight into how to keep your SAP PI/
PO system update and what is really useful in that case.
Do you open iPhone/Android apps that have not been updated for
1 year. I have 3 apps on my phone not updated in 2018. Yet most
companies do not upgrade vital systems for years. This document is
around updating your SAP PI/PO system.
Updating a
SAP PI/PO system,
what to think about.
2
To make the upgrade/update
easier, ensure you have
automated your testing.
Have a look at Figaf IRT to
improve the test
figaf.com/IRT

3. 3
What is the current status
If you are on SAP PI/PO 7.5 SP 8 or above you are probably one of the few
companies that keep the system updated to the latest release. In the survey
from 2016, there was a large number of users still on releases prior to 7.31.
The number adds up to some strange percentages but it shows that a lot of
users still use the old platforms. SAP PI 7.31 is from around 2011 so it is pretty
old in a world that change so much. 7.5 is from fall 2015. You would probably
not start an iPhone/Android app that has not been updated for 2 years.
The two main reasons why companies are not using the latest release is the
following
The difference with the license is that SAP Process Integration was licensed
pr number of GB traffic sent to Non SAP systems. Process Orchestration is
licensed based on the number of cores in your system so it may be a little
strange converting the two and many have found it expensive.
There are some ways you can reduce the price by limiting the number of cores.
It is too difficult to get
the system upgraded.
This document covers
this part
They are licensed
differently
1 2
There may be a saving
in the number of cores
if you move to a newer
processor architecture
so it can reduce the
new price.
You can also run the
database on a separate
system, so you are not
paying for cores only
used for database
activity.
Setup message
prioritization so you
have batch messages
being processed
slower.

4. 4
Why Update the
SAP PO system
There is a number of benefits of having an updated
system at your disposal.
SAP Bugs
It has the potential to backfire when
implementing new scenarios you could run
into problems bugs in the software that you
need SAP to fix. So once you find bugs report
them to SAP you are asked to upgrade to a
new patch. And if you just patch are you then
sure nothing else is broken in the process.
See the section on update types and patches.
Security
All systems have security bugs that are fixed
from time to time. There has not been that
many security problems in SAP PI/PO system. It
would still be an important target for hackers to
get access to. So if something critical is found it
should be fixed fast.
Latest release
You want to be on the latest release to be able
to get the new functionality so it can be used
to enhance your scenarios. Most features will
come in the newest Support Pack that way
you can start using it without having to do any
workarounds. This is true if you want to run
Cloud Integration Content locally, where there is
a lot of work going on.
Continued support
SAP has a limit on how long time they will be
supporting each release and if you get too
close to the limit you will have to pay a higher
maintenance cost.
SAP Support cost
What would happen if SAP only had to support
tools 1 year back, then it would be much easier
to maintain the code and ad new functionality.

5. 5
The cost involved with
updating the systems
Each time you must perform an upgrade or update of the systems
there is a number of the cost associated with it. I have tried to list
them below at a high level.
Installation cost of
installation of the new
software on all SAP PI
systems can take time.
SOLMAN should help to make
the installation process easier
Downtime for the upgrade. Near Zero Downtime is a hot topic
at SAP and it makes it easier to do different types of upgrade
without affecting the business. It is also a costly procedure and
many organization may skip it so they PI systems can be down for
up to a weekend. This always causes problems.
Developers may not be
able to develop or deliver
new functionality while the
upgrade is in progress.
Testing of the installed system
can be a rather big process.
It often requires the developer,
business experts to do a lot of
testing to ensure that it works.
This is probably the most costly
part of all the upgrade.
Then there the once that fit
into your organization.

6. 6
Different update types
So there’s a couple of different updates types that you
can use whenever you are doing SAP PI development.
I will cover them in this section.
Patch
A patch fixes barks in the current release and it’s not
adding new features. It is a cumulative patch so once it
is applied it will include all other bug fixes found in the
support pack. So you don’t really know what changes are
made to the code in the period. Many upgrades also have
dependencies to other components so you may have to
upgrade may different components to get one updated
correctly. This could then lead to other problems.
Support package
A support package add new functionality to the system
to follow customer requirements. It also contains some
patches of the previous release to fix the bugs in it.
Release
A release is adding new functionality but most important
other deployment options like new java versions
or support for other databases. It may add new
functionality, not in previous releases and contains an
updated Support Pack. There has not been any talk on
any new version above 7.5.
Migration
One of the upgrades that a lot of people are doing is
immigration from a dual stack system to a single stack
system this is not really an update but it also counts as
a major change in your environment. Most customers
would use a new system to do this migration and then
move all the different countries that have over to it.

7. 7
What can go wrong
with an upgrade
There is a number of things that can go wrong with an update to the standard
components. I have seen the following things happen in my time applying patches
or support packs. This is the things that should be found in your testing.
Message mapping is changed.
A support package add new functionality to the system This is the most
common change. The message mapping framework is complex and
rather delicate, so once something is changed it affects other processes.
It could be the way User Defined Function is evaluated for complex
queues or how it is evaluated if a node is correct.
In this occasion, the problem may only be affected by the few elements
where you use a specific function of the framework in the mapping. I
have seen four different cases of those changes, where it sometimes
only is seen in production because the testing was not complete
enough. So some messages failed in production, while a solution should
be created. And what happens if the messages do not fail but just give a
different output.
Adapters are changed.
New functionality has to be added to an adapter so it may behave
differently in the scenario that you are using. Sometimes there has been
changed to the adapter specific attributes. This will mean that the adapter
does not function as you expect and the integration will not work.
Modules are changed.
The SAP is providing a number of different modules and they may change.
This is not often they are changed, but I would expect that the B2B
modules could be a little fragile and when combined with custom content
for flat file conversion.
Your own code could change.
If your code relies on any SAP or Java libraries the functionality may
change in the process.
Something else.
There is room for other problems to occur like routing or use of Trading
Partner Management functionality.

8. How to test?
End to end test
Unit test
Automated Unit testing
There are different ways that you can test your SAP PI/PO solution and they
all have advantages and disadvantages. The more you are able to test fast
the better because then you don’t have to worry about the changes.
An end to end test that you test all components in the flow. You start with
the sending system to create the document that you are looking to use,
the document is processed in the SAP PI/PO system and delivered to the
receiving system.
This is a very time-consuming process to set up and ensures it works. You
can either automate it with scripts or just make it manually. In both cases, it
takes a lot of effort to create, maintain or execute.
The unit test allows you to test just the part that is changing. You are just
testing the SAP PI/PO system it is only that part you want to test. Most
would just test the message mapping, or just run it to see that it functions.
Or you can send in the message in using the test tool in SAP PI and
download the response. It is a way to test, though not optimal.
Both of the options for testing is too time-consuming. It takes much time
to perform the test each time you upgrade, or just to setup the test cases.
That is why I created the Figaf IRT tool for SAP PI. It is a tool that simply
allows you to collect a bunch of test data and you can use to test your
interface.
So we are narrowly focused on testing just the SAP PI/PO interface, that
mean you just select which ICO’s you want to do testing on. Then the
system automatically fetches test data from your production system,
which is then used as a baseline. To run a test it sends this set of recorded
messages into the test SAP PI system and gets a result. The two output
message is then compared to ensure they are identical.
A customer has reported they were able to set up test cases 300 ICOs in
just 3 weeks. So it is something that is fast to setup compared to a normal
End to End test.
The best tool on the market to make it easy to
test the things is Figaf IRT, a tool build around
optimizing the SAP PI/PO test to be done fast.
8
Learn more at figaf.com/IRT

9. Produktionsvej 1.
2600 Glostrup
Denmark
Daniel Graversen
Senior SAP Integration Consultant
dgr@figaf.com
Phone: +45 29 72 36 88
CVR number: 30514092