No one likes to be told “NO.” Especially not from customer support, whose job is to say “YES” when you need help. Unfortunately, many SAP ECC6 and S/4HANA customers may be hearing “NO” a lot more soon.
Mainstream Maintenance for SAP ECC6 is ending in 2025 or 2027, depending on which enhancement pack you use. Similarly, S/4HANA has several versions where Mainstream Maintenance has either already ended or will end in 2025, 2026 or 2027. Extended Maintenance is available for some of these versions of ECC6 and S/4HANA, but not all of them — and at significant cost increases.
Product/Version |
Mainstream Maintenance End Date |
Extended Maintenance |
|---|---|---|
ECC 6 EHP 0-5 |
December 31, 2025 |
Not available |
ECC 6 EHP 6-8 |
December 31, 2027 |
2 pp additional fee (~9% cost increase) through 2030 |
S/4HANA 1709 |
December 31, 2022 |
4 pp additional fee (~18% cost increase) through 2025 |
S/4HANA 1809 |
December 31, 2023 |
4 pp additional fee (~18% cost increase) through 2025 |
S/4HANA 1909 |
December 31, 2024 |
4 pp additional fee (~18% cost increase) through 2025 |
S/4HANA 2020 |
December 31, 2025 |
Not available |
S/4HANA 2021 |
December 31, 2026 |
Not available |
S/4HANA 2022 |
December 31, 2027 |
Not available |
In other words, clients who currently have Mainstream or Extended Maintenance for these platforms are about to hear a bunch of NO’s.
Question |
SAP’s Answer |
|---|---|
For ECC 6 EHP 0-5, is Extended Maintenance available after 2025? |
NO |
For S/4HANA 2020, is Extended Maintenance available after 2025? |
NO |
If Extended Maintenance is available, can we get it without increasing our annual maintenance fee? |
NO |
Customer-Specific Maintenance Adds to the NO List
So what support and maintenance options does SAP offer instead? When Mainstream Maintenance and/or Extended Maintenance ends, customers are automatically rolled into SAP’s Customer-specific Maintenance program. In that program, customers will pay the same amount as they had been paying for Mainstream Maintenance. But the program comes with an even longer list of NO’s.
Question |
SAP’s Answer |
Risk |
|---|---|---|
Does Customer-specific Maintenance include the following? |
||
Delivery of legal changes |
NO |
Non-compliance with government laws and regulations |
Delivery of new support packages |
NO |
Functional downtime |
Technological updates for operating system and database compatibility |
NO |
Inability to modernize tech stack |
Support for new interfaces |
NO |
Portfolio stagnation |
Guaranteed resolution of new problems |
NO* |
Functional downtime |
Service-level agreements (SLAs) for support responsiveness |
NO |
Delayed resolution of issues |
New enhancement packs |
NO |
No functional improvements |
*May be available with additional consulting fees
With SAP Customer-Specific Maintenance, you may pay the same amount as Mainstream Maintenance, but you get a lot less support – and a lot more risk. Without legal changes included, you could find yourself out of compliance without even knowing. Without technological updates covered, you could run into issues trying to keep your environment current and secure. Without SLAs for support responsiveness, you could be waiting hours or even days to get a reply from client support. These are unworkable conditions for mission-critical systems.
SAP has been clear that it is sticking with the plan to end Mainstream Maintenance and replace it with Customer-Specific Maintenance by 2025-2027. So what can your business do to make sure it gets the support it needs?
Rimini Street says “YES”
Rimini Street introduced third-party support for SAP software precisely because vendor support often failed to meet the business needs of SAP customers. It was too expensive, too slow, too limited or, as in this case of SAP Mainstream Maintenance, no longer available for software that was still in production and in wide use for customers.
SAP makes great software. But in the real world, its useful life far outlives SAP’s willingness to fully support it. Rimini Support™ is the number one independent alternative for SAP customers looking for more responsive, comprehensive, long-term support. In other words, where SAP says “NO,” Rimini Street says “YES.”
Here’s a list of what that looks like for Rimini Support™.
Question |
Rimini Street’s Answer |
Benefit |
|---|---|---|
Will Rimini Street support my existing SAP products and versions for up to 15 years or more from the day we switch to Rimini Street? |
YES |
Avoid costly and disruptive vendor-mandated upgrades just to stay fully supported. |
Will Rimini Street support our customizations? |
YES |
Your customizations are covered. They are as important to us because they are important to your business. |
Throughout our Rimini Street contract, will Rimini Street guarantee response time SLAs? |
YES |
Our response time SLA is 10 minutes for Priority 1 (P1), critical cases. Our actual average response time for P1 and P2 cases is less than 2 minutes. When you need help, we’re on it … fast. |
What about case update communication SLAs? |
YES |
For all case priority levels, you’re assured a regular cadence of case progress updates until we get it resolved. |
Does Rimini Street offer solutions to keep my existing SAP software compatible with updates to tech stack components such as OS, browsers and email systems? |
YES |
Rimini Connect™ can enable continued utilization of and integration with existing software and infrastructure without the need for expensive system and software upgrades and migrations. |
Does Rimini Street offer solutions to help secure our data and applications? |
YES |
Rimini Protect™ offers security managed services and products for applications, databases, and technology infrastructure that are designed to protect against known and unknown threats and vulnerabilities without any required code changes to the software being protected. |
Can Rimini Street also run, manage and optimize our SAP software? |
YES |
Rimini Manage™ delivers smoother system operations at predictable, fixed, optimized cost. And when combined with Rimini Support™, you get a single unified service for a broad array of issues and service requests. |
Will Rimini Support cost significantly less than SAP support? |
YES |
You can save up to 50% on vendor maintenance fees and up to 90% on total maintenance costs. |
Your SAP ECC and S/4HANA software is likely stable, customized, performant and continuing to meet your business needs. But it’s mission-critical, so you can’t risk leaving it unsupported when your SAP Mainstream Maintenance package expires.
Key Takeaways
Keep your existing SAP products and versions fully supported. Don’t keep paying the same amount and getting less when you could instead pay less and get more? Switch to Rimini Support™ and get responsive and comprehensive support services like you’ve never had before.
Want more details? Check out this comparison.
