SAP's Support Backbone is the central infrastructure located at SAP to provide technical support to our customers. The Support Backbone consists of several different systems for different purposes - for example, it provides the SAP Support Portal infrastructure, the Maintenance Planner, SAP EarlyWatch Alert Reports, and many more.
On the customer side, SAP Solution Manager and SAP Focused Run for SAP Solution Manager connect to the SAP Support Backbone to exchange data for various purposes: Support incidents, system data for Maintenance Planner, SAP EarlyWatch Alert data, and many more.
The SAP Support Backbone has been updated. The legacy infrastructure remains in place to allow a safe transition for customers. You need to switch the communication of SAP Solution Manager and SAP Focused Run to the new infrastructure before January 2020 to ensure continuous connectivity.
Upgrade SAP Focused Run to version 2.0 SP00 or higher
Maintain legacy switch
Collect S-User information
Enable HTTP communication to public Internet
Configure the new Support Backbone infrastructure
Revert legacy switch to activate Support Backbone communication with new technology
The new communication channels in SAP Focused Run 2.0 enable the exchange of data with the updated SAP Support Backbone. All SAP Focused Run customers need to upgrade to SAP Focused Run 2.0 (Remark: SAP Focused Run 1.0 will enter its Customer-Specific Maintenance phase on November 23rd 2019).
Information on upgrading SAP Focused Run can be found in the SAP Focused Run Expert Portal.
The communication with the Support Backbone involves two different users. You need
A technical communication user
A Support User (S-User)
The technical communication user is used to secure the communication between the SAP Focused Run installation and the SAP Support Backbone. The technical communication user does not have any authorizations for activities in the SAP Support Portal assigned. It is purely used to authenticate the communication channel and to ensure, that the communication with the Support Backbone is executed for the right customer number.
The Support User (S-User) is used to authenticate the current user against the Support Backbone and all authorization checks are performed against this S-User. Each user in the SAP Focused Run System can have an individual S-User assigned. Also, all jobs running in SAP Focused Run communicating with the SAP Support Backbone needs to be executed with a user, for which a S-User assignment is maintained.
The technical communication user and the S-User used during communication must belong to the same customer number – this means, with a S-User for customer A data cannot be send via the communication channel having the technical communication user for customer B is maintained. Therefore, it is necessary to create for each customer number an individual communication channel and all background jobs running in SAP Focused Run must have an S-User assigned for those customer numbers. The default batch user recommended by SAP Focused Run master guide for this task is FRN_BTC_SMP.
SAP recommends requesting for the SAP Focused Run installation a dedicated technical communication user, which is not used in any other system. The user can be requested in the SAP ONE Support Launchpad. The technical communication user can be requested by an S-User having “Edit User” and “Edit authorization” credentials.
For the S-User it is possible to re-use the S-User already used for the RFC communication in SAP Focused Run 1.0 or any other normal S-User as long as the user has the following authorizations for all installations of this customer managed by SAP Focused Run:
Software Download
The updated SAP Support Backbone communication uses the HTTP technology. Therefore, the SAP Focused Run Installation needs to be enabled to communicate to the public Internet via HTTP communication protocol. To enable this – either open the firewall to allow direct communication or enable the communication from your SAP Focused Run installation to the public Internet via HTTP Proxy.
Remark: to communicate with the new SAP Support Backbone infrastructure – it is recommended to use a direct connection or a connection via a proxy to the public Internet!
The following 6 steps needs to be executed to enable the multi customer handling in SAP Focused Run. The steps 1 and 2 needs to be executed only once with the technical communication user of the SAP Focused Run installation owner. The steps 3 to 6 must be executed each time additional customers are added to this SAP Focused Run installation.
Remark: initially the steps 3 to 6 must be executed also for the customer number, technical communication user and S-User of the SAP Focused Run installation owner.
As a first step, it's essential to execute the STC01 task list SAP_SUPPORT_HUB_CONFIG. Most of the steps are automatic with very few manual steps. Here use the technical communication user of the Customer owning the SAP Focused Run installation.
Go to transaction SE19, choose enhancement implementation AI_SDK_SP_RFC_RP. Edit implementation and mark the flag “Implementation Active” (if asked, provide the SSCR registration key for the object).
Remark: It is required to maintain here also the customer number of the SAP Focused Run owner
Pre-requisite for this step is that the technical communication user and S-User (including credentials) of the customer is available (explained in the collect S-User information section).
Please implement SAP Note 2723182 before using the mass setup tool to apply the latest corrections.
The mass setup tool (a webdynpro application /sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/wd_sise_var_conf_app) will automate the creation of the three channels for every customer listed in the csv file. The csv file should be filled with these values - Customer number, Description, Technical communication user of the customer and password. The columns must be separated by semi colon.
The Mass Maintenance Application can be used with a csv file upload. As separator a semicolon is used, instead of comma. The proxy settings entered while executing the STC01 task list (in Step 1 – Execute STC01 task list SAP_SUPPORT_HUB_CONFIG) is also used when generating these channels.
The step can be repeated multiple times if new technical communication users are available.
Maintain all customer numbers managed by this SAP Focused Run installation in view V_AISAPCUSTNOS via SM30.
In transaction AISUSER, create an entry for the batch user FRN_BTC_SMP with corresponding dialog S-User for each customer.
Execute the Report AI_SC_REFRESH_READ_ONLY_DATA in Background mode to adjust the assignment of customer numbers to installation numbers.
After the new communication framework for all existing customer connections in the SAP Focused Run installation is configured, the new communication framework can be used. Please switch to the new communication framework as soon as possible.
Information on how to switch off the Legacy Switch can be found in SAP Note 2753453 - Support Backbone Communication does not work after SAP Focused Run 2.0 Upgrade.
Remark: Due to planned changes in the SAP Support Backbone this switch must be performed before 1st of January 2020, as the legacy communication infrastructure will not work after this date anymore.