Method for effecting a preliminary software service in a productive system of a software system landscape and computer system

• US 7,877,730 B2
• Filed: 10/27/2005
• Issued: 01/25/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 10/27/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Stegmuller, Herbert, Schulz, Volker, Demuth, Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): Kendall; Chuck O
• Application Number:
  US11/262,043
• Publication Number:
  US 20060123407A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,916 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/117
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/65 Updates security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

A method for effecting a preliminary software service in at least one productive system of a plurality of logical systems of a software system landscape, wherein the logical systems are interconnected by logical transport paths and each logical system has associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles, the method comprises: providing system role types, each system role being associated to one of the system role types; providing an association of tasks to system role types; providing a transport track that defines a route for software services through logical systems in a particular order and specifies one source system in which software services are permitted, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one target system; providing a preliminary software service relating to at least one of the code and the data of at least one productive system; and generating a hot fix instance from the preliminary software service, the system role types, the association and the transport tracks, the hot fix instance defining tasks for routing the preliminary software service to at least one productive system and for executing the preliminary software service therein.

Claims

1. A method to effect a software service in at least one productive system of a plurality of logical systems of a software system landscape, the plurality of logical systems being interconnected by logical transport paths and each of the plurality of logical systems having associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles, the method comprising:

providing, using one or more processors, system role types, each system role being associated to one of the system role types, low-level operational tasks being assigned to the system role types, the system role types including source systems, follow-on systems, and target systems, the follow-on systems including at least one of a training system, a testing system, and a quality assurance system;

providing a transport track that defines a route for software services, the route being subsequently through the plurality of logical systems and specifying one source system in which software services are permitted, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one of the target systems;

providing software services between systems of the landscape by forwarding the software service into an input buffer of a system, importing the software service into the system, forwarding the software service into the import buffer of the next system;

providing a preliminary software service for fixing a malfunctioning system relating to at least one of the code and the data of at least one productive system;

providing an association of tasks to system role types; and

generating automatically a hot fix instance from the preliminary software service, the system role types, the association and the transport tracks, the hot fix instance defining tasks for routing the preliminary software service to at least one productive system and for executing the preliminary software service therein.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the hot fix instance is generated with hierarchy levels.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the hierarchy levels are generated to include a transport track level, a system role type level below the transport track level, a system role level below the system role type level, a system level below the system role level and a task level below the system level.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein a task to include the preliminary software service in the next regular software service is added to the tasks.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the tasks in the respective system are executed from a central server.

6. A computer system comprising:

a plurality of logical systems having one or more processors and comprising at least one productive system, each of the plurality of logical systems having associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles;

logical transport paths that interconnect the plurality of logical systems to form a software system landscape;

a transport track that defines a route for software services through systems in a particular order and specifies one source system in which software services are permitted, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one target system, each software service relating to at least one of the code and the data of a system in the landscape;

system role types, each of the plurality of system roles being of a system role type, low-level operational tasks being assigned to the system role types, the system role types including source systems, follow-on systems, and target systems, the follow-on systems including at least one of a training system, a testing system, and a quality assurance system;

an association of tasks to system role types;

a preliminary software service for the at least one productive system; and

a hot fix instance configured to be generated from a preliminary software service, the system role types, the association and the transport tracks, the hot fix instance to define tasks to route the preliminary software service to at least one productive system and to execute it therein.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the hot fix instance comprises hierarchy levels.

8. The system of claim 7, wherein the hierarchy levels include a transport track level, a system role type level below the transport track level, a system role level below the system role type level, a system level below the system role level and a task level below the system level.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the system role types comprise one of the group of source system, follow-on system or target system.

10. The system of claim 6, wherein the tasks in the respective system are executable from a central server.

11. A computer program product comprising on a storage medium a computer code that upon execution on a computer system performs a method to effect a software service in at least one productive system of a plurality of logical systems of a software system landscape, wherein the logical systems being interconnected by logical transport paths and each logical system has associated therewith one of a plurality of system roles, the method comprising:

providing, using one or more processors, system role types, each system role being associated to one of the system role types, low-level operational tasks being assigned to the system role types, the system role types including source systems, follow-on systems, and target systems, the follow-on systems including at least one of a training system, a testing system, and a quality assurance system;

providing a transport track that defines a route for software services, the route being subsequently through logical systems and specifying one source system in which software services are permitted, adjacent interconnected systems, and at least one of the target systems;

providing software services between systems of the landscape by forwarding the software service into an input buffer of a system, importing the software service into the system, forwarding the software service into the import buffer of the next system;

providing a preliminary software service for fixing a malfunctioning system relating to at least one of the code and the data of at least one productive system;

providing an association of tasks to system role types; and

generating automatically a hot fix instance from the preliminary software service, the system role types, the association and the transport tracks, the hot fix instance defining tasks for routing the preliminary software service to at least one productive system and for executing the preliminary software service therein.