SAP MII ends support, no new release?

[Ganimede-Dignan]

Hi,

at my latitude, some consultants is telling customers, creating considerable dismay and concern, that MII will be discontinued on 31.12.2027 and that there will be no new releases beyond 15.5, the only SAP strategy is DMC. Is this also your opinion? It's so strange.

Thank you.

Bye.

[danilosantosbr]

Hi Ganimede,

In my opinion if SAP discontinues the improvements in SAP MII they will go back to zero in the manufacturing area. That is, as they were before the acquisition of Lighthammer.

Factory personnel still consider the SAP MII to be a good way to get data from SAP and also send it. That's what we still see in our customers. This is due to the speed with which we develop projects with MII and also to the reduced number of people involved in the SAP MII project. Things get easier.

We have already tried to offer SAP DMC to our customers and show some SAP solutions within BTP and our impression is that the factory solutions available within BTP are not so well seen by shop floor people who have decision making power.

In addition, there is a lot of resistance in factories when we talk about the cloud. Maybe that will change one day, but costs are still high and not everything can travel through the cloud.

Instead of discontinuing they could evolve the tool, I as a developer and customer would be very happy if...

SAP removes SAP MII from SAP NW and gives flexibility to create container in Dockers and have our applications according to the architecture of each project. That way we wouldn't be stuck with a server as big as SAP NW.

In this way we could create our local/cloud projects and have visualization projects (Intelligence) or integration (API) according to the SAP customer's needs. All this on-premises or in the cloud. SAP already has a standard in SAP MII and would follow suit, but the architecture is scalable whether on-premises or in the cloud.

We could have the solutions marketed in the SAP Store as they currently exist in other solutions.

Among other improvements, I believe that every SAP MII developer could contribute to improving the tool a lot. The potential is there and so are the customers. I just think that SAP with DMC is evolving into something that is not as widely accepted because of the challenges the industry still faces. The speech is beautiful, but the reality is different.

That's my opinion. I believe in SAP MII and that it will continue for a long time at SAP.

Regards,

Danilo Santos

[erwanbastard]

Hello,

I completely agree with you Danilo. SAP MII is widely used and often in local application with strong integration with machines and PLCs in factories. Many customers have saved a lot of money by allowing factories and shipments to continue despite network disruptions or access to the central ERP.

I don't see how SAP can announce the end of life of a product without offering an alternative and tools for migrating to the new offer.

Regards.

Erwan.B

[JarleiN]

hi Erwan,

I understand there are some important differences between DMC and Mii:

1. Mii: Necessary to develop the scenario you need, for example, the integration with the supervisory systems, the necessary dashboard, the production order appointment, the integration with QM, and the necessary results, etc.

2. DMC: The integration and management dashboard are already available, and the integration with SAP to control the production order is also defined, many reports are available.

So, you need to consider the cost to implement DMC / Mii and the technical team available to support you.

[agentry_src]

MII has always been a bit of a conundrum for SAP as it is a toolkit rather than an application. The sales and marketing folks know how to sell applications, but have little enthusiasm for selling something with which one can rapidly and easily build applications.

I think SAP will not go to zero in manufacturing, but I do think they will lose some customers if they discontinue providing updates to MII. And there will be quite a few angry ones. DMC is cloud based and many will resist putting their production livelihoods in the cloud even those which are not restricted from doing so.

Cheers, Mike

[michael_cressman]

Currently, we don't have any SAP MII releases planned beyond end of 2027, however, we are exploring the possibility to extend our maintenance window to end of 2030. SAP DMC is our go forward shop floor solution. We are in the process of establishing a program that will help bridge our SAP MII customers to SAP DMC in the coming years. Our next step will be to send out more communication on our plans in the months ahead.

[former_member1012665]

so as a new costumer, would it be better to deploy MII from scratch, or start with DMC instead?

[salvatore_castro]

The above statement is a "half truth" and at a high-level yes we (SAP) are moving away from SAP MII because we are now a cloud first company. The movement of our manufacturing offering into the cloud space (leveraging BTP) is significant and should not be underestimated either. We are certainly not back to zero and have a very robust offering that spans multiple different industry processes and provides a low cost of ownership to adopt and use the solution over time (The Impact of Cloud on Manufacturing | SAP Blogs).

[JarleiN]

DMC roadmap, what we can expect from DMC: https://roadmaps.sap.com/board?PRODUCT=73555000100800001492&range=CURRENT-LAST#Q4%202022

[JarleiN]

So, seems that DMC is the new SAP strategy for Shop Floor, in Cloud, but with options to embrace the shop floor directly without disrupting it.

And there are a lot of papers, comments, and announcements about DMC, but Mii has a short message. Considering that Mii and DMC require a significant investment, I understand that a clear position from SAP is necessary.

[vinita_kasliwal]

Hi Ganimede

That is correct but they do mention in the note "SAP MII releases is subject to changes and can be extended"

Refer this note 2894103 - Maintenance for SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence Maintenance Term

Check it in Product availability matrix here

https://userapps.support.sap.com/sap(bD1lbiZjPTAwMQ==)/support/pam/pam.html#ts=4&s=SAP%20MII%2015.5&...

"No changes are planned for the mainstream maintenance dates of a major SAP MII releases currently available on the SAP Marketplace (Download Portal). Maintenance period for the subsequent major releases beyond 15.3 is planned considering the same for related products maintenance dates(check below SAP Note for SAP Netweaver).

Maintenance dates of a major SAP MII releases is subject to changes and can be extended. Please follow the PAM updates for any updates and this note for news."

Regards

Vinita

[Ganimede-Dignan]

Hi,

>That is correct but they do mention in the note "SAP MII releases is subject to changes and can be extended"

so, no new MII releases after 15.5? DMC only?

[vinita_kasliwal]

Thats what the link says!

[Ganimede-Dignan]

Mhmm... you can see the same for S/4HANA 2021

[steve_stubbs]

The best way to determine if there are any new releases planned for SAP MII is to use the SAP Roadmap Explorer. If you search for Manufacturing Intelligence and Integration, you can see that MII 15.5 is the last released Road Map for MII. These roadmaps have previously been updated on an annual basis. So while support for MII 15.5 may be extended, there are currently NO plans to add any more features and capabilities to MII beyond 15.5 from SAP. Also, SAP requires Netweaver 7.5;it has no new roadmap defined, and has the same End of Mainstream Maintenance date as MII 15.5, as was noted by Vinita in her answer.