Key to Managing Dual

Maintenance in an SAP Upgrade

Project

Applies to:
SAP Upgrade Projects.
For more information, visit the Enterprise Resource Planning homepage.

Summary
Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade projects involves additional effort and is one of the challenges which
need to be managed well. Upgrade Project Management should aim to minimize the Dual Maintenance
changes and use effective tracking and control mechanisms to keep the impact to minimum.

Author: Deepak Kumar

Company: Infosys Technologies Limited, India
Created on: 17-Sep-2009

Author Bio
Deepak Kumar is Principal Consultant in SAP Practice at Infosys Technologies Ltd. He has
over 15 years of experience in Business, IT Consulting, SAP Implementation and Upgrade
Projects.

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 1
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

Table of Contents
Overview .............................................................................................................................................................3
Key to Manage Dual Maintenance in Upgrade Project ......................................................................................3
Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................................................5
Related Content..................................................................................................................................................6
Disclaimer and Liability Notice............................................................................................................................7

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 2
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

Overview
Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade projects involves additional effort and is one of the challenges which
need to be managed well. Project Management should aim to minimize the Dual Maintenance changes and
use effective tracking and control mechanisms to keep the impact to minimum.
Dual maintenance is essential to keep the SAP Support or Parellel projects changes
(e.g.Devleopment/Configuration) performed in the current landscape (i.e. SAP older version landscape) in
synch with upgrade project landscape. Before the upgrade project go-live, the older version (Production
system) should be in synch with the upgrade Production system.

Key to Manage Dual Maintenance in Upgrade Project

The upgrade project may span from 6 to 8 months, the support & maintenance (i.e. fixes and changes) of
existing SAP production system is continued in parallel to the upgrade project. At the same time it is
important that the changes performed in old landscape are also performed in the upgrade landscape and are
corrected & adjusted for upgraded version. This is also referred as “Dual Maintenance”.
The following points would help to manage the Dual Maintenance effectively :
a) Reschedule parallel projects going on or are being planned in current landscape to be resumed after
Upgrade project go-live. Changes because of parallel projects should not be performed in System
Freeze period as communicated by upgrade project management.
b) From Support & maintenance stream, the changes marked for Dual Maintenance should be
monitored and tracked. The tracking may start after the copy of the upgrade development
environment from the source (older version) development system.
c) To control and minimize the Dual Maintenance, the Project Mangement should effectively
communicate the policy on support / project changes during the upgrade project execution. This
should be communicated to all the stakeholders at the time of Project Kick-Off. The communication
should cover the System Freeze period applicable for upgrade project phases and with applicable
dates.
i. Table below shows various System Freeze type linked to Upgrade project phases

Upgrade Project System Freeze Remarks

Phase type
Project Preparation Soft Freeze Only Urgency 1, 2 or 3 incidents.
No new Work Order (for enhancements)
Exception Approval by: Upgrade Project
Management
Blueprint Hard Freeze Only Urgency 1, 2 Incidents
No new Work Order (for enhancements). Previously
WIP Work Orders are completed.
Exception Approval by: Upgrade Project Steering
Committee
Realisation -Till Go-live Deep Freeze Only Urgency 1 Incidents (Show Stoppers e.g.
Regulation related, month end closing etc.). Urgency
2 based on case to case assessment
No new Work Order (for enhancements).
Exception Approval by: Upgrade Project Steering
Committee

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 3
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

The Freeze periods should be communicated to all the stakeholders even before the Project Kick-Off. This
will help to minimize the Support changes. On the other hand this communication may trigger high volume of
support changes as Business may want to push (before the freeze start date) maximum changes to
production system. This should be monitored by the upgrade Project management and evaluated on case to
case basis, if required.
b) The Service level agreements between the SAP support & maintenance group and the Business
should be amended for the period of upgrade project execution.
c) It is important that all “Dual Maintenance” related changes are performed in upgrade development
system and are screened to make sure the relevant functionality is performing as expected. From
upgrade development system such changes would flow via transport to rest of the system of the
upgrade landscape. Subsequently, these changes should also be tested in the upgrade Quality
system and should be monitored & tracked for testing.
d) In the Realisation Phase (Deep Freeze), the “Dual Maintenance” changes should be minimum or
none. If these are high in number still, the “System Freeze” is not working as planned and upgrade
project management should review the situation.
e) Project management should ensure that the Upgrade testing starts after all the “Dual Maintenance”
related changes are also available in upgrade Quality system. This would ensure that the upgrade
testing is performed with all the changes present in the upgrade Quality system. Exceptional “Dual
Maintenance” changes in this period should be controlled.
f) Additionally, the following should be ensured to act as “Point of Control” during Upgrade project:
i. Ensure old development system and upgrade development system are in synch at time of go-
live: Unfinished Changes (Support or parallel projects) which remain in older version
development system and which are assessed that these would not move to SAP production
system before the upgrade project go live should be dually maintained in upgrade
development system and should not move to next system till end of hypercare phase. Such
changes will be taken to completion in new (upgrade) landscape after the completion of
upgrade project as this becomes regular landscape after go-live.
ii. Ensure that all finished changes (Support or parallel projects) which were moved to older
version SAP Production system and were part of “Dual Maintenance” were maintained in
upgrade landscape and were tested in upgrade quality system. Once upgrade Production
system is prepared from older version production system, all “Dual Maintenance” changes will
be applied to upgrade Production system via transport (of upgrade landscape) as a part of
system preparation. This will ensure that upgrade SAP Production system would be in synch
with pre-upgrade SAP Production system.

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 4
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

Conclusion
Dual Maintenance requires tighter control and tracking during the SAP Upgrade project execution. System
Freeze period should be communicated in advance to all the stakeholders and upgrade project management
should monitor the quantum of dual maintenance changes and should take relevant action to control the
impact on upgrade project.

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 5
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

Related Content
For more information, visit the Enterprise Resource Planning homepage.

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 6
 Key to Managing Dual Maintenance in SAP Upgrade Project

Disclaimer and Liability Notice

This document may discuss sample coding or other information that does not include SAP official interfaces and therefore is not
supported by SAP. Changes made based on this information are not supported and can be overwritten during an upgrade.
SAP will not be held liable for any damages caused by using or misusing the information, code or methods suggested in this document,
and anyone using these methods does so at his/her own risk.
SAP offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the content of this technical article or
code sample, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between the content within this document and the materials and
services offered by SAP. You agree that you will not hold, or seek to hold, SAP responsible or liable with respect to the content of this
document.

SAP COMMUNITY NETWORK SDN - sdn.sap.com | BPX - bpx.sap.com | BOC - boc.sap.com

© 2009 SAP AG 7