Contact Us

Connectivity to SAP's Support Backbone

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.

SAP's Support Backbone

Update of the support backbone - Customer action required!

SAP's support backbone has been updated. After a transition period of 1.5 years to allow a safe transition for customers, the legacy infrastructure has been shut down on January 8, 2020. Customers who have not yet done so need to switch to the new infrastructure to establish continuous connectivity.

This impacts every ABAP-based SAP system which is connected to the support backbone.
 

On Monday November 30, 2020 all remaining RFC communications from customer systems to SAP have been closed permanently and irreversibly.

Please refer to SAP Note 2923799.


Are You Ready for RFC Shutdown? 

Deactivate all remaining legacy RFC connections to SAP (and only those) on the systems whose RFC shutdown readiness you would like to ascertain and check whether everything is still working as expected for a week or two (to ensure that infrequent background jobs are not affected). If Yes, you can remove your RFC connections to SAP (and only those) permanently.

With RFC calls to SAP being successively cut off according to the schedule set out above, those RFC calls will increasingly cause errors, dumps and unnecessary system load. It is best practice to remove them as soon as possible.
 

Having trouble?

Are you facing issues in your system landscape which are related to the backbone update? Create a case for component XX-SER-NET.
 

Support Backbone Update Guide and Step-by-Step Checklists

The guide (HTML or PDF) describes all necessary activities related to the backbone update. The checklists focus on what needs to be done for specific SAP Solution Manager support packages. If you are planning to update to SP08 or higher in the near future, the respective support backbone update checklists are part of the update process so that no extra action is required. 

 

Document: How to validate connectivity for SAP Note Assistant, Download Service and for sending EarlyWatch Alerts (PDF)

Impact on SAP Solution Manager and Focused Run

You need to switch the communication of SAP Solution Manager and Focused Run to the new infrastructure to ensure connectivity.

  • SAP Solution Manager 7.2 needs to be updated to Support Package Stack 07 or higher (SPS08 or higher required for partners)
  • Focused Run needs to be updated to version 2.0 or higher

Note: SAP always recommends updating to the latest available support package stack.

On the info page linked below, you will find detailed information about the impacted scenarios in SAP Solution Manager and the required steps to ensure the connectivity of SAP Solution Manager and Focused Run.

Find out more for SAP Solution Manager and Focused Run

Impact on SAP Note Assistant

SAP Note Assistant (transaction SNOTE) needs to be enabled to handle digitally signed downloads. To achieve this, SAP Note Assistant needs to be updated in every system where it is used.

Note: The download of SAP Notes with SNOTE is no longer possible if SNOTE is not updated to handle digitally signed SAP Notes.

Find out more about SAP Note Assistant

Impact on ABAP-Based Systems Connected to SAP

All ABAP-based SAP systems which have direct connectivity to SAP (eg. sending EWA reports directly to SAP) need to be updated with the latest ST-PI AddOn. You can find the required ST-PI and ST-A/PI versions in the FAQ.

Systems which do not have direct connectivity to SAP, because, for example, EWA reports are sent through SAP Solution Manager, do not need to update ST-PI and ST-A/PI. Nevertheless, SAP generally recommends keeping ST-PI and ST-A/PI updated in the managed systems.

Handling of Technical Communication Users

For the new connections, a dedicated user needs to be in place. Connections using generic users do not work anymore after January 8, 2020. For this purpose, customers need to ensure that all connections use a technical communication user in all systems which have connectivity to SAP (this includes all systems directly sending EWA data to SAP and all systems where SAP Note Assistant is being used on). 

A technical communication user is an isolated user used for connectivity purposes only. No logon at any SAP portals is possible with this user. The password of a technical communication user does not expire. Technical communication users can be requested via this app.

You can find more information about technical communication users in the FAQ.

Find out more about the technical communication user

Resources

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

For a list of frequently asked questions, see the FAQ page.

 

Support Backbone Update Guide

This document describes all necessary activities related to the backbone update. It is available as HTML or PDF version.

Questions and Discussions

Post your questions or answer other user's questions in the SAP Community.

In case of technical problems, contact SAP Product Support via case, e-mail, chat or phone.