Upgrade from ABAP 7.31 to ABAP 7.51

[hugo_degroot2]

Hello!
I'm working on an older SAP system with SAP_ABA = 7.31. I would like to be able to take advantage of new ABAP statements introduced in 7.51.

Does anybody know how difficult it is to upgrade just the ABAP component?

Any pointers to documentation for this upgrade scenario (7.31 to 7.51) and/or feedback on your experiences while doing such an upgrade will be appreciated!

Thank you.

---Hugo

[NTeunckens]

I would say, talk to your BASIS people regarding the possibility, effort and risks.
You might see it as a simple upgrade, they probably do not see it the same way ...

From my experience : I'm not a BASIS-guy so I don't know a lot about the drawbacks, but as a Developer / Architect we did see some issues when Upgrading to 7.5x from 7.4x. These issues arose with the fact that ABAP 7.5x is Unicode-Only. This could impact some (custom) programs.

When upgrading one System, there might be a need / want to upgrade related Systems (such as a separate SAP NW Gateway that is connected?) to a likewise Stack/Patch-level ... Again, that might surface similar problems and allocate more effort than what was anticipated.

Resources :

• SAP-Help on ABAP 7.51 : link
• SAP Guide Finder on Netweaver ABAP offers Installation / Upgrade / Patch documentation : link

Hope this helps

[hugo_degroot2]

Thanks, Nic for your response and the links provided.

I was hoping to stumble upon somebody who had gone through this upgrade scenario in the past.

Best,

---Hugo

[Sandra_Rossi]

Please use the button Comment. Answers are only there to provide solutions. There is also the menu Convert answer into comment. Thanks.

[Jelena]

I'm also not a Basis person but to add to what nic.teunckens mentioned, there is definitely a dependency between ABAP version and Netweaver (possibly other components as well?) version, so you can't just upgrade ABAP stack without the rest. It's like you can't run Office 2010 on Windows 3.11. 🙂 Therefore I doubt anyone has ever upgraded only ABAP from 7.31 to 7.51. (Considering significant changes between the versions, it makes sense.)

The information on what exactly is required by each version should be available in the mysterious SAP document called "product availability matrix". Try searching in the Support portal with S-user.

[hugo_degroot2]

Thanks, Jelena, for your comments. I'll dig deeper. Looking forward to stumble upon a Basis person that knows about this upgrade scenario.

[Jelena]

hugo.degroot2 - I'm assuming any decent Basis person should either know this or know how to find this out easily. You could just add "SAP Netweaver" tag to the question as well.