Patent Grant
7926056
The present patent applicati on claims the priority benefit of the filing date of European Application (EPO) No. 04 025 502.8 filed Oct. 27, 2004, which is incorporated herein by reference.
This application relates generally to servicing of a software system landscape, and more particularly to a method for effecting a software service in a system of a software system landscape and to a computer system.
Complex software like applicant's SAP R/3 Release 4.5 (SAP) requires customization, e.g. selection of predefined functionality, and adaptation, e.g. addition of or amendment to functionality, as well as other servicing like program and data updates, cf. “SAP System Landscape Optimization” by A. Schneider-Neureither (Ed.), SAP Press, 2004, ISBN 1-59229-026-4, and “SAP R/3 Änderungs-und Transportmanagement” by Metzger and Röhrs, Galileo Press GmbH, Bonn, Germany, 4th reprint 2004, ISBN 3-934358-42-X.
Before such servicing may be performed, however, it has to be assured that the customizations, adaptations, program and data updates etc. are free of errors and integrate flawlessly into the software and data environment. In a factory for instance servicing errors are bound to result in costly workflow disruptions due to software malfunction or data corruption. Apart from the servicing side, other use of the software like training of new or inexperienced users may also result in a disruption of the productive system.
Such complex software may therefore be implemented in form of separate logical systems that together form a system landscape. A typical implementation of the aforementioned SAP software for instance may, cf.
The logical systems are identical in large parts, function autonomously and may be run on a single computer. The quality assurance system 102 for example resembles the productive system 104 in that it provides all the functionality, its present data and additionally special test data. New customization settings or adaptations may thus be thoroughly tested in the quality assurance system 102 without jeopardizing the productive system 104. Likewise, the training system 103 resembles the productive system 104 in that it provides some of the functionality and special test data. A new user using the training system 103 may thus become accustomed to the functionality and observe the effect of his actions, albeit without disturbing the productive system 104.
A transport management system connects the logical systems and serves to forward software services between systems of the system landscape via logical transport paths 105. A service may for example be approved in the development system 101 for export. It will then be forwarded to an input buffer of the quality assurance system 102. Import into the quality assurance system 102 is approved or denied manually by an operator. Thereafter, the software service is forwarded to the quality assurance system 102, and then to the training system 103 and the productive systems 104 where it will be imported following manual approval by an operator.
The operator is in charge of manually effecting the servicing. This requires an analysis of the system landscape layout, of the route that each service takes through the system landscape, project status switches in each system that define the respective system's changeability options, attributes in each service that define properties of the service etc. Import of services and other tasks are performed based on this analysis.
This process is time consuming and bears the risk of errors, in particular in cases that are not part of the routine servicing. In case of a malfunction of a productive system for instance a hot fix or program patch, here referred to as preliminary software service, needs to be implemented quickly. In such a case, only rudimentary testing of the preliminary software service in the development system may be regarded sufficient, so that the preliminary software service need not be imported into all systems but may be routed from the development system straight to the malfunctioning productive system. The operator then needs to analyze the system landscape, decide which systems to log into, which settings of which systems to change, etc.
In addition to the manual consideration of the type of software service and the system landscape layout and configuration, the operator also needs to take care to import services in the correct order, cf.
In view of the fact that an SAP R/3 implementation may comprise dozens of systems and require thousands of services per month during phases of change, the operator time required becomes considerable as does the risk for errors to occur.
In one aspect of the invention, a method is provided for effecting a software service in at least one of a plurality of logical systems of a software system landscape, wherein the logical systems are interconnected by logical transport paths, each logical system has associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles and the software service relates to at least one of the code and the data of the at least one system, the method including providing a transport track that defines a route for software services through logical systems in a particular order and specifies one source system, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one target system; generating a task list in a central task system from the transport track and the system roles, the task list defining tasks for routing a software service from a starting system to the at least one system and for implementing the preliminary software service in the at least one system; and scheduling in a central control system the execution of the tasks stored in the central task system and monitoring task statuses from the central control system.
In a further aspect of the invention, a computer system is provided comprising: a software system landscape comprising a plurality of logical systems that are interconnected by logical transport paths and each have associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles; a transport track that defines a route for software services through logical systems in a particular order and specifies one source system, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one target system, a software service relating to at least one of the code and the data of at least one system; a central task system; means for generating a task list in the central task system from the transport track and the system roles, the task list defining tasks for routing a software service from a starting system to the at least one system and for implementing the preliminary software service in the at least one system; a central control system; and means for scheduling in the central control system the execution of the tasks stored in the central task system and for monitoring task statuses from the central control system.
In a still further aspect of the invention, a computer program product is provided, the computer program product comprising on a storage medium a computer code that upon execution on a computer system performs the method according to the invention.
Example embodiments of the invention thus provides an automated generation of a task list with all tasks that are required for effecting a software service and a control system for automated scheduling of the tasks and for monitoring their statuses. This effectively provides an automated management of tasks for effecting a software service, be it a regular or a preliminary software service, which considerably reduces the complexity of the process.
Further embodiments of the invention are inferable from the following description and the claims.
a and 2b illustrate software services performed in different orders according to the prior art.
The embodiment shown in
The global part 302 comprises at least a development system 301a for customizing and development work, a quality assurance system 301b for testing functionality using representative test data, and a productive system 301c for actual productive use.
The local part 303a comprises a development system 301d for customizing and development work of local adaptations to SAP, e.g. to meet different legal requirements if part 303a is located in a different country than the global part 302. The local part 303a further comprises a quality assurance system 301e for testing functionality using representative test data, a training system 301f for training new users, and a productive system 301g for actual productive use.
The local part 303b comprises a development system 301h, a quality assurance system 301j and a productive system 301k, but no training system. The local part 303c is a two system landscape comprising a development system 301l and a productive system 301m only.
The system landscape may be different according to the actual requirements. Fewer or more, different or differently connected or grouped systems 301 may be defined as needed.
The logical systems 301 are identical in large parts and function autonomously. The quality assurance system 301j for example resembles the productive system 301k in that it provides all the functionality, its present data and additionally special test data. New customization settings or adaptations may thus be thoroughly tested in the quality assurance system 301j without jeopardizing the productive system 301k.
Each system 301 comprises an import buffer 304 for buffering incoming software services and means 305 for communication with a central task system 307 that is connected to a central control system 308. A transport management system connects the logical systems 301 and serves to route software services across the system landscape via logical directional transport paths 306. A service may for example relate to customization of a system 301, e.g. a selection of predefined functionality in the system 301, or an adaptation of a system 301, e.g. an addition of or amendment to functionality, or to program and data updates or hot fixes or patches the like. Transport tracks are provided that each define one or more particular routes for software services along the transport paths through the system landscape. A transport track may for example define the route from system 301a through systems 301b, 301h, 301j to system 301k. Another transport track may define the route from system 301d through systems 301e, 301f to system 301g. Transport tracks with branches may also be provided, e.g. from system 301a to system 301b and then in a first branch to system 301c and in a second branch to systems 301l, 301m. There may be more than one transport track per system landscape, each transport track being assigned to a project context like a development project for the local part 303a only or a documentation project for the global part 302 only etc.
The systems 301 of each part 302, 303a, 303b, 303c and the central task system 307 may be located and simultaneously executed in a single computer, or may be distributed across separate hardware. The global part 302 and the local parts 303a, 303b, 303c may each run on physically separate computer systems, which themselves may comprise different computers.
An example implementation of the local part 303a may comprise, cf.
Connected to the data base layer 401 by a suitable network 404, e.g. a LAN, is an application layer 405 for execution of the software of the systems 301d, 301e, 301f and 301g. The application layer 405 comprises one or more application servers 406.
Finally, connected to the application layer 405 by a suitable network 407, e.g. a LAN, is a presentation layer 408 for the graphical user interface (GUI). The presentation layer 408 may comprise dumb terminals 409, Personal Computers 410 and/or wireless access devices 411 like PDAs.
Each system 301 has associated therewith a system role which defines the respective system's function within the landscape. The system 301a, 301b and 301c for example, have the roles “development system in the global part”, “quality assurance system in the global part” and “productive system in the global part”, respectively. The systems 301l and 301m have the roles “development system in the local part 303c” and “productive system in the local part 303c”, respectively. The other systems 301 have corresponding roles. In SAP, the system roles are typically defined in the Solution Manager for Implementation.
According to an example embodiment of the invention, system role types are provided. System role types may comprise the following:
D Source systems: A transport request comprising a software service is generated and sometimes tested in a system of this type, usually a development system.
O Follow-on system: A transport request comprising a regular software service imported into a system of this type and then forwarded to at least one next system of the transport track. A transport request comprising a preliminary software service is not imported into a system of this type but instead forwarded.
P Target system: A transport request comprising a software service is imported into a system of this type but not forwarded. Target systems are typically productive systems.
In the embodiment of
Furthermore, at least two software service types are provided. The first type is a regular software service that is generally effected at predefined intervals. Transport requests comprising a software service of this type are collected in the import buffers and imported, tested, forwarded etc. at the time when the regular software service is effected. The second type is a preliminary software service, also called hot fix or patch. This software service needs to be processed immediately in a particular system, generally a malfunctioning productive system, and not necessarily in all systems.
Tasks are assigned to system role types and software service types. The tasks may be marked as compulsory and may comprise the following exemplary tasks:
for type D:logon to remote system
for type O:logon to remote system
for type P:logon to remote system
In the example of
Based on the type and the destination(s) of the software service, on the transport tracks, the system role types and the list 500 or a corresponding list for a regular software service, a task list is automatically generated in the central task system 307. The task list contains all tasks that are required to effect the software service in the destination productive system(s).
The task list has a hierarchical structure. The top level contains one entry per transport track. The next level contains one entry per system role type, even in case that no system of corresponding type is defined. The next level contains one entry per system role, only if this role is used by a system. The lowest level contains the tasks for each system.
An exemplary task list 600 is illustrated in
Execution of the tasks of a task list is scheduled by the central control system 308. The central control system 308 contains for this purpose a schedule that is automatically generated according to the tasks of the task list. The generation of the schedule involves analyzing the type of each task and other system information and accordingly compiling predefined schedule elements to form the schedule. The predefined schedule elements comprise responsibilities, e.g. assign certain types of tasks for certain systems to particular persons or groups of persons.
For example, the schedule may be assembled to comprise the following elements with responsibilities: create task list for regular software service—change manager; import into quality assurance system—operator; take over for testing and describe test results—tester; approve or reject—quality manager; if approved: import into productive system—operator; if not approved: notify developer—tester.
The central control system 308 is thus suited to completely manage all service and preliminary service related processes from the reporting of a possible malfunction to the final implementation of the correction in the productive system.
The central control system 308 allows a user to display, manage, analyze and document the tasks and any related activity and also to trigger execution of the tasks in the central task system 307. For that purpose, the tasks may provide spool lists, statuses, application logs, job logs etc. to the central control system 308.
According to the method of an example embodiment of the invention, system roles and system role types are provided, the systems of the system landscape being associated to the system roles, and a list of tasks associated to system role types is provided. At least one transport track is provided that defines a route for transport requests through systems in a particular order and specifies one source system, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one end or target system. A task list is generated from the software service type, the system role types, the list and the transport tracks, and defines tasks for effecting the software service. This involves analyzing the transport tracks to identify the systems that need to be passed, analyzing them to identify their system roles, analyzing the system roles to identify their type, and compiling tasks for the affected systems according to the list. A schedule is also compiled in the central control system according to the tasks in the task list. The central control system then triggers execution of the tasks by particular persons or a group of persons according to authorization levels, and monitors the status of the tasks. The complex process of manual analysis and action of the prior art is thus replaced by an automated centrally managed structured schedule.
Although the foregoing has been a description of an example embodiment of the invention, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of this disclosure that numerous variations and modifications may be made in the invention. For example, instead of using SAP R/3 Release 4.5, other SAP and non-SAP systems may benefit from the invention.
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