As SAP users, the significance of SAP Patch Day is well understood. Held monthly on the second Tuesday, this event marks the release of critical updates essential for maintaining the security and efficiency of SAP landscapes. In this blog post, we delve into the fundamentals of SAP patching and its pivotal role in safeguarding system integrity. We aim to provide practical and actionable insights to assist organizations in determining when patching is necessary and how to conduct effective update assessments.
Table of Contents
Considerations for Update Assessment
Assessment criteria for deciding when to apply updates
Setting criteria for evaluating the urgency and priority of patches
Evaluating the impact on system stability, performance, and compatibility with customizations
Explore available tools for making this assessment
Use vulnerability scanning tools to identify vulnerabilities in SAP systems
Implement and Automate a Change Management Process
Document your patching process
What is SAP Patch Management?
SAP Patch Day delivers various patches, including security patches to address vulnerabilities, support packages for bug fixes, and enhancement packs for new features. Beyond routine updates, SAP patching is a proactive measure to mitigate risks and fortify defenses against cyber threats. However, as great as they may sound, it doesn’t mean that we should feel committed to applying patches every time SAP releases them, so we prepared the following list of things to remember when facing SAP Patch Day or any other system update event in your organization.
Related blog post:
SAP Patches Can Fix or Break SAP Performance
Considerations for Update Assessment
When it comes to update assessment, organizations must adopt a structured approach to ensure that patches are applied to minimize disruption while maximizing security and performance benefits. Here, we present several key considerations to guide your update assessment process:
Assessment criteria for deciding when to apply updates
Factors to consider include the severity of vulnerabilities addressed by the patches, the potential impact on system security, and the availability of resources for testing and deployment. Having said this, we might want to ask ourselves some questions such as:
-
Are there any known exploits for these vulnerabilities?
-
Could exploiting these vulnerabilities lead to unauthorized access, data breaches, or system compromise?
-
How critical are the affected systems to our business operations and data integrity?
-
Do we have sufficient resources, including time and manpower, to test and deploy these updates?
-
What is the potential impact on business operations if these updates are not applied on time?
-
Are there any dependencies or conflicts with existing systems or applications that must be addressed before deployment?
Setting criteria for evaluating the urgency and priority of patches
Not every patch is equally important, underscoring the need to prioritize them according to their urgency and impact. By adhering to specific criteria for evaluating urgency and priority, organizations can swiftly address critical vulnerabilities while mitigating the risk of disruptions to business operations.
-
Availability of Workarounds: Vulnerabilities for which temporary workarounds or mitigations are available may be deprioritized in favor of patches addressing more critical vulnerabilities.
-
Dependency and Interdependency: Patches addressing vulnerabilities that have dependencies or interdependencies with other systems or applications should be prioritized to prevent cascading failures or security breaches.
-
System Exposure: Patches for vulnerabilities that affect systems exposed to the internet or accessible from untrusted networks should be prioritized due to the heightened risk of exploitation.
-
Exploitability: Vulnerabilities for which exploits are publicly available or actively exploited in the wild should be considered urgent and prioritized accordingly.
-
Severity of Vulnerabilities: Patches addressing critical vulnerabilities that pose a high risk of exploitation should be prioritized over patches for less severe vulnerabilities.
-
Legal and Compliance: When there are Audit and Compliance requirements and/or Legal requirements by contract obligations with customers and partners, then the patches may be deemed necessary and must be within the required timeframe stipulated in those terms and conditions.
Related blog post:
IT-Conductor Latest Automation Features Q4-2023
Evaluating the impact on system stability, performance, and compatibility with customizations
Before applying updates, organizations must assess their potential impact on system stability, performance, and compatibility with existing customizations. This involves conducting thorough testing in a controlled environment to identify potential issues and mitigate them before deployment.
Explore available tools for making this assessment
SAP offers a range of tools to assist organizations in conducting update assessments. SAP Solution Manager provides comprehensive capabilities for managing the entire lifecycle of SAP systems, including update assessment and deployment. Additionally, tools such as SAP EarlyWatch Alert and SAP Readiness Check offer valuable insights into system health and readiness for updates.
IT-Conductor offers features designed to streamline SAP monitoring, management, and automation processes. With IT-Conductor, organizations gain real-time visibility into their SAP landscapes, software, and component versions enabling proactive identification of vulnerabilities and potential issues. Its monitoring capabilities provide detailed insights into system health, performance metrics, and security vulnerabilities (CVE - Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), allowing IT teams to assess the impact of updates on system stability and performance.
By carefully considering these factors and leveraging available tools and resources, organizations can conduct effective update assessments prioritizing security and stability.
Plan Your Patching Strategy
Once you've assessed the updates and determined their urgency and priority, it's time to plan your patching strategy. Here are some essential steps to consider:
Use vulnerability scanning tools to identify vulnerabilities in SAP systems
Conduct regular vulnerability scans of your SAP systems using dedicated scanning tools. These tools help identify potential security weaknesses and vulnerabilities, allowing you to prioritize patches and mitigate risks effectively.
Design a test strategy
Before deploying patches to production environments, it's crucial to test them thoroughly in a controlled environment. Design a comprehensive test strategy that includes testing updates in a sandbox environment to assess their impact on system stability, performance, and compatibility with customizations.
Patching time
Once the update assessment and testing phase is complete, organizations must implement the necessary patches effectively to mitigate security risks and enhance system stability. This involves scheduling downtime, backing up systems, deploying patches following best practices, and monitoring the deployment process closely. Verification of patch deployment, communication of changes to stakeholders, and post-deployment testing are essential to ensure the patches have been applied successfully and any potential issues are promptly addressed.
Implement and Automate a Change Management Process
Change Management helps us ensure the integrity and compliance of SAP landscapes. Establishing a change management process will help us set governance for change requests, approvals, and compliance reporting while we’re doing our update assessment. Fortunately, this is something that we can automate. Here are 3 examples:
-
Automated Workflows: Implementing an automated workflow can integrate submitting, reviewing, approving, and deploying changes, following a consistent path from initiation to completion.
-
Transport Automation Tools: Transport automation tools such as IT-Conductor facilitate the deployment of changes, including patches from the development to the production environment. For example, instead of manually transporting changes, these tools can automatically detect and select the relevant transport requests, apply predefined rules for conflict resolution, and schedule the deployment according to predefined workflows.
-
Automating deployment from service requests or service catalogs: This enables organizations to standardize and expedite the provisioning of IT services, including patch deployments. Once a patch deployment request is submitted, automated workflows trigger the deployment process, selecting the appropriate patches, scheduling deployment windows, and executing deployment tasks without the need for manual intervention.
Document your patching process
Of course, we can’t forget about documentation. Maintain detailed records of patch deployments, including the rationale for applying specific patches, testing results, and any issues encountered during deployment.
With careful planning, testing, and documentation, organizations can streamline their patching processes and maintain the integrity of their SAP systems.
In conclusion, by understanding the nuances of SAP patching, establishing rigorous update assessment criteria, and devising a meticulous patch strategy, organizations can fortify their SAP landscapes against emerging threats and ensure optimal performance. As you prepare for the next SAP Patch Day, remember our key takeaways, empowering you to master SAP Patch Management with confidence.