Kernel directories for upgrade: abap/exe and abap/exenew

[vladimir_kogan4]

Dear Gurus,

I am upgrading from ECC 5 ( Kernel 640) to ECC 6 EHP 4 (Kernel 720).

The Upgrade master have copied the oroignal kernel 640 to abap/exe folder, and the latest new kernel 720 into abap/exenew.

I have some problems during EU_IMPORT phase, and OSS note 1764062 says to replace the R3* and Databalse libraries to the latest one. The R3load starts froms abap/exe directory. I have copied the R3* tools from abap/exenew to abap/exe and the problem was fixed.

So my quiestion are:

In which steps abap/exe dir is used? As I know, the shadow instance uses new kernel from abap/exenew.

Can I replace the kernel in exe to the 720 from the begining of the upgrade? Or only when I have a problem?

Thank You

Regards

Vladimir

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vladimir,

As far as I know, You can copy the kernel manually. To run the show sometimes you have do things manually.

Regards,

Punna Reddy

[former_member188883]

Hi Vladimir,

Can I replace the kernel in exe to the 720 from the begining of the upgrade? Or only when I have a problem?

As per SAP, Support for SAP Kernels below 720 has been discontinued. So it would be a good practise to upgrade the kernel to latest supported version. During upgrades as well SAP recommends updating SAP kernel files atleast tp, R3trans,R3load etc to latest ones.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[vladimir_kogan4]

Hi

Thank you. I know that 720 is the only supported .

But why there are 2 directories - abap/exe and abap/exenew?

Regards

Vladimir

[Former Member]

Hi Vladmir,

Did you have chance to look at your XML file generated from solution manager ?

Have you compared the current versions and the version after upgrade ?

abap/exe should be used by the instance until downtime.

abap/exenew will be used by the shadow instance until downtime.

During the downtime abap/exenew will be copied to abap/exe. if the versions listed in XML file are not same as the versions in your current system then you will get errors only then to pass the errors we will manually switch kernel.

Hope this should help.

Regards,

Punna Reddy

[former_member188883]

Hi Vladimir,

Both the folder abap/exe and abap/exenew contains SAP kernel for target release.

After you execute the preparation roadmap steps, it unpacks this KERNEL DVD into the subdirectory exe of  the abap subdirectory of the upgrade directory. This overwrites the DBA tools

optimized for the minimum required database version with the tools best suited to your database version. It will not have all the executables from target release but only the database specific.

During the KX_SWITCH_1 phase, the upgrade program installs the kernel that is in the exenew subdirectory.  If the latest SAP kernel is available in this subdirectory, the SAP kernel of your system is

already up-to-date after the upgrade.

Regards,

Deepak Kori

[vladimir_kogan4]

Dear Punna and Deepak!

Thank you very much.

I am upgrading from ECC 5. The upgrade program copied the kernel from the ECC 5 instance ( 640) into abap/exe and one from the upgrade stack , as in XML file , into abap/new. 

The R3load for loading the shadow instance table was called from abap/exe and it leads to errors.

I have copies manully exenew-exe and now the EU-IMPORT runs fine.

For future upgrade, when EU_LOCK message apperarsm at the end of prepare, I will copy the new kernel to abap/exe manually to prevent the problems in load.

Is it right desicion?

Thank you

Vladimir