Guide to the Combined

Unicode Conversion

and Upgrade

Josh FisherBasis Consultant

Wednesday March 03, 1-2pm CST

Download the presentation recording with audio from the

Symmetry Knowledge Center

www.sym-corp.com/knowledge-center

Implementation Support

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SAP NetWeaver/ Basis

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Introducing

Josh Fisher

Basis Consultant

Overview

Unicode Overview – Why, What & How

Unicode & ECC 6.0

2.1. Project comparison

2.2. Paths to target

2.3. Complicating factors

Case Study

Resources

Wrap-Up

As is:

SAP R/3 NUC

Production

To be:

SAP ERP 6.0 UC

Production

32->64 bit?

Databasemigration?

MDMP or SCP?SAPGUIRollout?

Backout

strategies?

Database upgrade?

HW migration?

Sandbox hw?

SAP Solution Manager? ABAP work?

HW upgrade?

Outage

windows?

OS upgrade?

Testing?

Training?

Moving from R/3 Non-Unicode (NUC)

up to ERP 6.0 Unicode (UC)

Unicode Overview – Why, What & How

Unicode & ECC 6.0

2.1. Project comparison

2.2. Paths to target

2.3. Complicating factors

Case Study

Resources

Wrap-Up

Why Convert

– SAP Customer letter Apr 2006.

– SAP Customer letter Apr 2006.

―It is a strategic target of SAP to move our customer base to Unicode.

End of support for non Unicode based systems for future releases is

being discussed internally.‖

Why Convert – more reasons

Inherently a non-Unicode system cannot ―understand‖ all the

characters that could be sent from a Unicode system

SAP Java systems are only Unicode

Mixed landscapes may or may not work even in Single Code Page

environment.

Note 838402 - Problems within non-Unicode system landscapes

Note 975768 - Deprecation of Java features with non-Unicode Backend

―Non-Unicode code pages support only a small portion of the world-

wide existing character sets. Any character conversion based on

these code pages therefore bears the risk of silent data loss.‖

―Existing non-Unicode systems are still supported, but due to the

intrinsic limitations of non-Unicode code pages SAP recommends a

conversion to Unicode, especially when upgrading system to

Netweaver 7.0 (ERP 2005) and higher releases.‖

Why Convert

SAP Note 838402 – Problems with Non-Unicode SAP Landscapes

Only languages that can be covered by one single non-Unicode code

page can be supported within each non-Unicode system.

Some characters that are used in your language are not supported by

the installed non-Unicode code page.

Integration with Unicode based technologies:

Most technologies used within an SAP application context are Unicode

based

When using these technologies together with a non-Unicode SAP system

uncontrolled data loss can occur.

Why Convert

Release strategy well in progress

Source: p 30 Figure 6 FAQ Upgrading to myERP 2005

http://service.sap.com/maintenance

Terminology

CU&UC — Combined Upgrade and Unicode Conversion

Common abbreviation used in documentation

UTF — Unicode Transformation Format

Flavors differ in storage

UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32

UC / NUC — Unicode / non-Unicode

Used in SAP documents/websites/ ―exe directory names‖

NUC system types

SCP — Single Code Page

MDMP — Multi-Display Multi-Processing (i.e. multiple code pages)

Blended CPs — Special Code Pages for certain language combinations

The “What” is about Characters

American Standard Code for

Information Interchange (ASCII)

There are 95 printable ASCII

characters, numbered 32 to 126

.

What is a code page?

Code Page (from SAP Glossary)

Character set that defines the symbols that can be used in programs

and displayed by output devices such as printers and terminals.

1 character = 1 byte

What is Unicode?

International standard

Characters from virtually every language and script assigned a

unique Unicode Scalar Value

Unicode Scalar Value: a number written in hexadecimal notation.

Notational convention "U+" is prefixed to the Scalar Value.

UTF - Unicode Transformation Format

Note: Unicode only specifies text storage not translation. It does not

automatically make more languages available.

Unicode Storing Characters

16 bit

Mo

stly8

-bit

Byte Order Reversed

Source: SAP Note 73606 attachment “R3languages.pdf”

Required code pages depend upon languages used

Multiple languages ≠ multiple code pages (e.g. code page 1100)

Do I have to Convert in Order to Upgrade to ECC 6.0?

Yes

MDMPor

BCP

No

SCP

Code Pages in Use?

RSCPINSTor

SE16 TCPDB

Blended code pages?

Basic Unicode Conversion

SAP DatabaseWith

Non-Unicode

SAP DatabaseWith

Unicode

R3Load(Export &

Conversion)

R3Load(Install &Import)

Data

DowntimeProcessing

SPUMG&

UCCHECK

UptimeProcessing

Unicode Conversion Phases

Tcode UCCHECK *

Tcode SPUMG *

Export/SAPINST

Post Process

* UCCHECK & SPMUG not available in 46C and below

Unicode Overview – Why, What and How

Unicode & ECC 6.0

2.1. Project comparison

2.2. Paths to target

2.3. Complicating factors

Case Study

Resources

Wrap-Up

Unicode & ECC Project Comparison

Unicode Conversion

mostly technical & ABAP effort

Dependent upon number of “Z” objects

HW, OS, DB, SAN, Basis

Paths to Unicode ECC 6.0

Separate projects

UnicodeConversion

UnicodeConversion

Upgrade

Upgrade

If SingleCode Page

If R3 4.7 orECC 5.0

Note: CU&UC Downtime is normal SAPup downtime plus DB export/import

Project complicating factors

Hardware factors

Sandbox availability

Storage (exports, extra systems)

OS Upgrade / patches

Migration (new hw and/or new architecture eg x86->x64)

Parallel development (existing and upgraded)

Database factors

Upgrade / patches

Conversion (if source not Unicode compatible)

Size

Export/Import time

Backup/Restore time

Other factors

MDMP requires more Unicode preparation steps than SCP

Number of ―Z‖ Objects – Unicode syntax corrections / Upgrade driven changes

Can be significant efforts but do not change business process

Path to Unicode ECC 6.0

DB > ~500GB&

SCP

SeparateProjects

CU&UC

Yes

Gui Rollout

Min SP for Unicode

Latest kernel& spam/saint vers.

Hw migration

DB upgradeNo

Get these done as early as possible

May be done days/weeks

before

CASE STUDY

Source - Target

Source

R3 46C Windows X86 MSSQL 2000 MDMP ~300GB

Target

ECC 6.0 Windows x64 MSSQL 2005 Unicode

Complicating factors:

HW change x86 –> x64

Database upgrade MSSQL 2000 -> 2005

MDMP preprocessing

Interim 47/200 upgrade for Unicode prep

Timeline

Oct Nov Dec Jan

47/200 Interim System

Sandbox ECC 6.0

Development ECC 6.0

Production Rehost & DB upgrade

Production ECC 6.0

Sol Man 4.0

QA ECC 6.0 (system copy of Dev)

Go-Live Strategy

Weekend 1: HW migration & DB upgrade

Re-host 46C MSSQL 2000 onto new (x64) hw

Upgrade database to MSSQL 2005

During week: Perform (online) PREPARE and SPUMG for CU&UC

Weekend 2: Complete CU&UC

SAPup and Export/Import (UC)

Transports & Acceptance Testing

Resources

http://service.sap.com/unicode

(Start with the ―News‖ link)

Wrap up

Unicode Conversion is inevitable and primarily technical

CU&UC downtime: ―SAPup‖ plus DB export/import

DB Size key driver for UC downtime

Number of ―Z‖ objects affect both upgrade and UC

DB upgrades and hw changes are primarily technical – avoid go-

live

Sandbox very necessary for determining ―timing‖ and ―complicating

factors‖

Visit http://service.sap.com/unicode

Download the presentation recording with audio from the

Symmetry Knowledge Center

www.sym-corp.com/knowledge-center

Heather MickelsonPhone: 414 732 2738

Email: hmickelson@sym-corp.com