Will SAP stop supporting PPM?

[Former Member]

With the advent of PDS, PPM has become a tougher master data to maintain. PDS offers lot of capabilities more than PPM but still falls short of allowing maintenance only in ECC and not in SCM at all. Such cases make PPM more easier to use. Can anyone provide proof if SAP will stop supporting the PPM structure and want all customers to move toward PDS?

If this is a future direction of SAP, please let me know when is SAP planning to stop supporting.

Thanks in advance

Sudar

Edited by: Sudarshan Kandaswamy on Jan 25, 2010 8:32 PM

[Former Member]

Hi Sudar,

SAP will not develop the PPM anymore but SAP will continue to support the PPM for as long as needed (providing there are customers systems in maintenance).

Best Regards,

Adalbert

[Former Member]

Hi Sudar,

Both PPM and PDS has its own advantages depending upon the

business requirements. As you have rightly pointed out, the

PDS maintenance is little complex when compared to PPM but

it has comparatively more advantages.

Also in order to bring control and for performance reasons, the

master data maintenance always can be in single line of contact

system ie at ECC level. This will also brings traceability. Hence

it is always recommendable to maintain master data at one level

Regards

R. Senthil Mareeswaran.

[Former Member]

Ken & Pranav

Thanks for the answers.

Ken

It will be easier to maintain PPM than PDS in implementations that have just APO with OLTP other than ECC.

Doesn't SAP need to continue supporting PPM in these cases though they do not enhance it?

One other limiting factor for PDS is that it cannot be maintained directly in SCM. This makes it a painful process of maintaining the operation structures for simulation versions. Not sure if SAP will enhance PDS enough that it will maintainable in SCM as I feel SAP is moving in a direction where all the Master data will be maintained in ECC and not SCM.

Sudar

[kenneth_snyder]

It is possible.

SAP no longer supports v3 that is why some clients are upgrading to maintain their maintenance agreements.

PPM's have not been developed since v3.x

IPPE's have been around since v3 and now PDS are similar and basically replace IPPE's.

PDS is the future and will continue to be enhanced with each release.

Ken Snyder

[Former Member]

There is no proof that SAP will stop PPm. But PDS is the way to go forward as the next version called IPPE is based on PDS.