Thursday, March 12, 2020

Life after life of SAP NetWeaver and Business Suite/ECC

It was well known fact for some years now that SAP NetWeaver will be at some point reaching end of support. It is true for every software – at some point it is being replaced some something new and not being enhanced/maintained anymore. In the year 2017 the NetWeaver celebrated 20 years. However, SAP announced already earlier that end of mainstream maintenance will be on 31.12.2024 for version SAP NetWeaver 7.5. Similarly, for SAP NetWeaver 7.4 the date is set to 31.12.2020.
However, on 4.2.2020 SAP announced (via official update of maintenance roadmap) that they extended it to end of December 2027. In particular, for SAP NetWeaver 7.5 mainstream maintenance will be offered through 31.12.2027 and extended maintenance will be offered until end of 2030. Considering that by the year 2030 the NetWeaver will be death – it will be 33 years old if I count it correctly.

Concerning SAP Business Suite 7 – it will be also offered by mainstream maintenance until 31.12.2027 and extended maintenance until 31.12.2020. Nevertheless, there is a “but” like there always is. Mainstream maintenance will be provided for the latest three EhPs only after 1.1.2026. Another the “but” is that the extended maintenance comes with additional 2% fee on top of the respective support fee (20%). The 3rd “but” is that SAP customer needs to buy SAP S/4HANA license already to show that they are in process of transition to S/4HANA.
In October of 2014 SAP extended support from 2020 until 2025 for the ECC/Business Suite 7. At the end the most pressing question of all SAP customers – “Is there any chance that SAP will extend their 2025 deadline ECC/Business Suite 7“ has an answer,
For both NW and BS - after 1.1.2031 only customer-specific maintenance will be offered.

Finally, concerning S/4HANA current SAP’s commitment is until 2040.


More information:
1648480 - Maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 Software including SAP NetWeaver
2741041 - Maintenance for SAP NetWeaver 7.X Business Warehouse
2881788 - End of SAP Business Suite 7 mainstream maintenance
SAP Release Brochure - SAP release and maintenance strategy
Extended Innovation Commitment for SAP S/4HANA Clarity and Choice on SAP Business Suite 7

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