All credits to Renan Correa and his expertise, without mention the clarity of information on everything he shares on SCN.
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In the end of 2017, it is planned the ending of Mainstream Maintenance of Application Server Java Netweaver 7.0 (including EhP’s 1,2 and 3 of NW 7.0).
Due to the non-existing maintenance (correction, fixes, patches and support packages) and updates to new technologies, it is recommended the upgrade before the end of the maintenance in order to guarantee the stability and system reliability.
Find below a table that specify the end of maintenance of NW 7.0 in December 31st, 2017. Be aware that the NW 7.0 AS ABAP will continue having maintenance until 2025.
You can find this information in the SAP Note “1648480 – Maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 Software”.
But, what does this has to do with the Electronic Nota Fiscal?
The NW 7.0 was released in 2006 and its last version (EHp 3) released in 2012, same period when the Electronic Nota Fiscal (NFe) became mandatory for majority of the companies in Brazil.
In this period’s interval, an architecture very common among the customers was the Netweaver 7.0 Dual-Stack ( ABAP and JAVA ) along with the PI and GRC NFE (now called SAP NFE) as image below:
Now, with the maintenance ending for NetWeaver AS JAVA 7.0, this kind of architecture is no longer supported by SAP if a customer reports new bugs at the AS JAVA or if any new upgrade is required to accommodate new technologies.
The recommendation to companies running the SAP NetWeaver 7.0x Java stack is to plan the upgrade before the maintenance ending in December, 2017. Besides that, customer with SAP NetWeaver 7.0x dual stack (ABAP and JAVA) will need also to plan a split of the dual stack environment if they want to upgrade to NW 7.5, as from this version and beyond, dual stack is no longer supported.
In this case, the main option of upgrading would be to use the SAP PI/NW 7.5 Dual usage with the following architecture:
There are other upgrade possibilities, but they do not bring the same benefits of upgrading to a newer environment. An example of another possibility is the usage of SAP PI / NW 7.4 Dual Stack with the following architecture:
More details on this upgrade and functionalities permitted in each PI version are available at SAP Note “1515223 – SAP Process Integration and SAP Process Orchestration: Release Recommendation”.
FAQ:
Are there any other possibilities of deployment beyond those mentioned in the post?
Yes, there are several possibilities such as creating a new PI installation from scratch, connecting the SAP NFE with an up-to-date corporate PI. In the note below there are some important details about interoperability between systems that must be taken into account when planning the architecture to be used: SAP Note “2200904 – Version Interoperability for Business Suite 7i2016“.
I do have a SAP NFE running on NW 7.0 ABAP and a PI client in a separated instance, do I need to upgrade the SAP NFE or the NW of that SAP NFE?
Maintenance of the ABAP Stack of NW 7.0 continues until 2025, so it is not mandatory to upgrade NW 7.0 ABAP although it is recommended.
Do I need to upgrade the SAP NFE Support Package during this upgrade? No, but it is recommended to upgrade the system in due to new legal changes and process improvements developed.
I will need to test the NFE layout 4.00 this yeat, do I need to upgrade the PI NW 7.0 in order to have the TLS 1.2 support?
The NW AS JAVA 7.0x offers support to the TLS 1.2 using a workaround, all you need is to use the file SCA from “SAP Note 2284059” and extract the jars iaik_ssl.jar and w3c_http.jar of DEPLOYARCHIVES-sap.com~mail_activation_iaik.sda (sda and sca are zip), copy the files to the directory: ./j2ee/cluster/server0/bin/ext/tc~sec~ssl/ of your server 7.0x . Without considering this workaround, the TLS 1.2 will only be included to the 2017 NW AS JAVA 7.0x patches (to be released).
I do have a PI Dual Stack 7.0 and I would like to convert it to a PI 7.5 AEX, is that possible?
As stated in SAP Note 2190371 – Configuration Wizard: PI Split” no tópico 7 in topic 7 this process is not possible via upgrade, the system after Split will have ABAP connected to JAVA and in this way cannot discard the ABAP stack.
I’m functional consultant and I don’t how to look the PI version, what do I do?
Call the BASIS!
Or go to the PI system and follow the steps:
1- Click at system and then status:
2- Find the product’s version:
3- Use the magnifying glass to confirm the Support Package details for the release, look the component below:
4- After that, if the release is 700, 701, 702 or 703 then you MUST call the BASIS.
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This information was shared by Renan Correa at the SCN community. I decided to translate his post because it is a subject that will have big impact to companies running NFe.
If you found this useful, please, go to the original post at SCN in this link and hit “Like”.
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