A major change in the mySAP ERP 2004 release is the flexibility to continue running your ERP component and SAP BW 3.5 on separate servers or to combine them on a single server. Choosing which deployment option is appropriate for your situation is difficult. Selecting the right one is a case-by-case decision, and I'll provide some guidelines here. The upgrade and implementation scenarios I present are representative examples and do not cover all possible combinations of SAP NetWeaver BI and mySAP ERP releases.

mySAP ERP 2004 bears the label "Powered by SAP NetWeaver." I'll explain what this means in terms of licensing and technology in the sidebar, "Powered by SAP NetWeaver."

Deployment Options for SAP BW 3.5 and mySAP ERP 2004

Companies have many options for upgrading to mySAP ERP 2004 and upgrading or implementing SAP BW 3.5. You can use mySAP ERP 2004 in conjunction with SAP BW 3.5 or any earlier, supported release. In turn, you can integrate SAP BW 3.5 with supported SAP R/3 releases.

Therefore, your specific business needs, including resource requirements, determine the upgrade or implementation sequence. Perhaps the user productivity benefits of implementing Manager Self-Service (MSS) and Employee Self-Service (ESS) in mySAP ERP 2004 are your company's main initiative. In this case, you would want your upgrade to mySAP ERP 2004 (with associated SAP NetWeaver Portal functionality) to be a priority. If you don't have the resources to upgrade to mySAP ERP 2004 right now, it may make sense to upgrade to SAP BW 3.5 first.

You should also consider when maintenance of a release ends. Table 1 shows the maintenance strategy for both the SAP NetWeaver BI and mySAP ERP families of releases.

The only case in which you must follow a controlled implementation sequence is if you operate SAP BW 3.5 on the same server as your mySAP ERP solution. In that case, you need to upgrade your SAP R/3 release to mySAP ERP 2004 first because a local implementation of SAP BW 3.5 is not possible on prior ERP releases. The deployment examples that follow explain available options.

Scenario 1: Implement SAP BW 3.5

In this scenario, the company has SAP R/3 4.6C and has not yet installed SAP NetWeaver BI (Figure 1). One option (Option A in Figure 1) is to remain on SAP R/3 4.6C through the end of its maintenance cycle in December 2006 and implement SAP BW 3.5 on a separate server.

Figure 1

Deployment options for a new implementation of SAP BW 3.5

Option A allows you to use the business intelligence capabilities of SAP BW 3.5, although you won't be able to use the new business content until you upgrade your ERP system. You could still use existing business content associated with the relevant SAP R/3 release, however. Go to the SAP Service Marketplace link www.service.sap.com/bi and click on SAP BW 3.5 (on the left) for information on the new content.

Another implementation path (Option B in Figure 1) is to upgrade to SAP R/3 Enterprise or mySAP ERP 2004 (SAP ERP Core Component [SAP ECC] 5.0) and implement SAP BW 3.5 on a separate server. In this case, you benefit from both the new capabilities of the relevant ERP release as well as the new BI capabilities. The SAP ECC 5.0/SAP BW 3.5 combination provides access to the entire business content benefits. However, you must allocate more resources to run the projects in parallel.

The final choice (Option C in Figure 1) is available only if you upgrade to mySAP ERP 2004. This gives you the option to operate SAP BW 3.5 on your SAP ECC server in a separate client. The configuration steps and capabilities of SAP BW 3.5 are the same in this case as in options A and B; this is simply a landscape alternative. See the "Landscape Considerations" section later in this article for more information.

Scenario 2: Upgrade to SAP BW 3.5

In this scenario, the company currently runs SAP R/3 4.0B and SAP BW 3.0B (Figure 2). One choice (Option A in Figure 2) is to upgrade to SAP R/3 Enterprise or mySAP ERP 2004 (SAP ECC 5.0) and remain on SAP BW 3.0B through the end of maintenance in December 2006. Although you can take advantage of many of the new features of mySAP ERP 2004, you are unable to use the associated new business content developed for SAP BW 3.5 to support mySAP ERP 2004. For example, the SAP BI Content 3.5.2 Add-On includes new structures for the new general ledger in mySAP ERP 2004.

Figure 2

Deployment options for upgrading to SAP BW 3.5

Another possibility (Option B in Figure 2) is to upgrade to SAP R/3 Enterprise or mySAP ERP 2004 (SAP ECC 5.0) and upgrade your existing SAP BW 3.5 and maintain it on a separate server. The drawbacks and benefits are the same as for option B in the first scenario.

The final alternative (Option C in Figure 2) is an extension of option B. After upgrading your SAP R/3 system to SAP ECC 5.0 and upgrading your standalone SAP BW release to SAP BW 3.5, you can choose to migrate your existing BI data to the SAP BW 3.5 client on the SAP ECC 5.0 server.

Excluding the specific end-of-maintenance dates referenced in these two scenarios, the considerations described apply to any currently supported SAP BW or SAP R/3 release. For information on the future of SAP NetWeaver BI, see the "What About the Next Release of SAP NetWeaver BI?" sidebar.

Landscape Considerations

mySAP ERP 2004 offers companies the opportunity to install SAP BW 3.5 on the same server as SAP ECC 5.0. SAP does not expect all existing SAP NetWeaver BI customers to move to this landscape configuration, however.

Based on my experience and conversations with users, I expect that most companies already operating SAP R/3 and SAP NetWeaver BI on separate instances will continue to do so. The effort required to migrate the data as well as other considerations of the single-server implementation in many cases outweighs the benefits. An exception might be a case in which you are not using the full capabilities of SAP NetWeaver BI — for example, if you have implemented it to support SAP SEM Business Planning and Simulation (SAP SEM-BPS). Because these tend to be very small implementations, the same-server alternative might be an attractive solution.

Likewise, companies upgrading to mySAP ERP 2004 and performing a new SAP BW 3.5 implementation should consider the alternative of a single-server implementation. Again, if you intend to only use SAP BW 3.5 for the planning capabilities of BW-BPS, using a single server may be the optimal choice, but consider future strategies as well.

There may also be cases where a company chooses to maintain both a standalone and local implementation of SAP BW 3.5. If you want to keep some information in a separate data mart from your Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW), this approach might be ideal. For example, you may have legal or security reasons for keeping your HR data separate from your other corporate data. You can use your local SAP BW 3.5 on your mySAP ERP 2004 instance for your HR data and use your standalone SAP BW 3.5 as your EDW to hold the rest of your data.

What should you consider when making the decision about your landscape approach? The following are some areas that each company needs to analyze. Of course, the results depend on your situation.

• New installation versus upgrade — As I've already mentioned, in an upgrade situation, data must migrate from the existing SAP BW 3.5 (the standalone implementation must be on the same release as the local implementation, including business content add-on). No migration tools are available for this process, so you must perform them manually. Steps include copying the BI objects to the local SAP BW 3.5, configuring and loading the data from the standalone system to the local system, and updating the extraction, Web application, and role configuration to complete the setup of the local SAP BW 3.5. Therefore, an upgrade scenario is much more complex than a new implementation.
  
  
• Sizing — Clearly, a local BI implementation reduces the number of servers, but in some cases, this may not lower costs. Calculate the required hardware to determine what best meets your needs. Using the respective sizing procedure for each stack, consider memory, disk space, and SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS). (One hundred SAPS equals 2,000 fully business processed order line items per hour.) The Quick Sizer tool in SAP Service Marketplace (www.service.sap.com/quicksizer) guides you through the sizing procedure for mySAP Business Suite solutions, and you can find a sizing guide for SAP NetWeaver BI at Media Library>Technical Documents SAP BW>SAP BW 3.x Hardware Sizing on the www.service.sap.com/bi Web site.
  
  
• Software maintenance — SAP ECC 5.0 and SAP BW 3.5 must support your operating system and database patches before you can apply them. Also, be aware of the dependencies between mySAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver support packages. Refer to additional information about support packages at www.service.sap.com/swdc- addinfo and click on SAP Support Packages in Detail for information about ABAP and Java Support Package Managers.
  
  
• Performance — SAP believes that a single-server architecture for SAP NetWeaver BI and mySAP ERP works without significantly affecting performance. However, testing is ongoing.
  
  
• Administration — Your total cost of ownership (TCO) should decrease with fewer servers. However, other factors that you need to consider are the backup/restore effort, scheduling extracts and reports, and the impact on system resources and system copies.
  
  
• Other considerations — As of this writing, implementing SAP BW 3.5 on the same server as SAP ECC 5.0 is done on a project basis, meaning that you must contact SAP to review your project and provide support and monitoring once you are accepted into the program.

Powered by SAP NetWeaver

From a licensing perspective, the "Powered by SAP NetWeaver" label means that when you upgrade your license from an SAP R/3 license to a mySAP ERP or mySAP Business Suite license, SAP automatically ships SAP NetWeaver and the ERP functionality provided by the new release. While SAP licenses some of the engine-based functionality such as SAP NetWeaver Exchange Infrastructure (SAP NetWeaver XI) separately, the mySAP ERP or mySAP Business Suite licensing now covers most of the SAP NetWeaver features supporting ERP activities.

This includes, for example, using SAP NetWeaver BI to report on your financial information from mySAP ERP 2004 and deploying these reports, as well as your ERP transaction processing, via the SAP NetWeaver Portal. As contracts vary, check with your SAP account executive about specific licensing questions.

Technology has the most potential impact on your upgrade or implementation of SAP BW 3.5 and mySAP ERP 2004. The mySAP Business Suite 2004 solutions, including mySAP ERP 2004, are delivered on top of the SAP NetWeaver 2004 technology platform. You can see this in Figure 1, which is an overview of the mySAP ERP 2004 architecture. This figure shows three major areas. The SAP NetWeaver 2004 platform is the foundation; SAP ECC 5.0 offers enhanced ERP processing previously provided by SAP R/3; and SAP ECC Extension Sets and add-ons allow you to implement additional functionality such as SAP Strategic Enterprise Management (SAP SEM) and industry extensions.

Figure 3

Architecture of mySAP ERP 2004

Figure 1 also introduces SAP BW 3.5 as an integral part of the mySAP ERP 2004 architecture. What this means is that you have the ability to implement SAP BW 3.5 on the same server as SAP ECC 5.0 with the underlying SAP NetWeaver 2004 platform. You can see this architecture in more detail in Figure 2.

Figure 4

mySAP ERP running on SAP NetWeaver

The ABAP and Java stack boxes in the System 1 grouping in Figure 2 illustrate the components of SAP NetWeaver 2004 that are automatically installed on the server when you implement or upgrade to mySAP ERP 2004. You can implement the additional components on the same server as shown, but they are not installed automatically.

When running the upgrade/installation process, you see installation steps for SAP BW 3.5. You have the choice to use this local implementation of SAP BW 3.5, however. As you receive the full set of SAP NetWeaver CDs in your mySAP ERP shipment, you can optionally upgrade or install SAP BW 3.5 on a separate server. The example in Figure 2 shows SAP NetWeaver XI implemented on a separate server, but you could install SAP BW 3.5 on the second server instead.

Katie Beavers

Katie Beavers is a product manager for SAP NetWeaver, focusing on SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence. After several years in management consulting, Katie joined SAP as an FI/CO instructor prior to moving to the SAP NetWeaver BI team in 2000 to lead the rollout of SAP BW 3.0.

You may contact the author at kathleen.beavers@sap.com.

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