Update

Andre_Fischer · ‎06-09-2016

Update

06.02.2016 added information that now also WEBCUIF is un-installable

24.03.2017 added informaton about IW_PGW being part of SAP_GWFND 751

22.12.2023 added informatoin about uninstallation option for all SAP Gateway AddOns (also IW_BEP, IW_FND, GW_CORE and IW_HDB)

Introduction

SAP Gateway consist out of several add-ons. Some of them are mandatory while others are only optional and some are even legacy. A complete list of SAP Gateway add-ons can be found in the SAP Online Help Installing SAP Gateway Components - SAP Gateway - SAP Library

So far all of the above mentioned add-ons have to be maintained and upgraded in a customer system landscape once you have installed them because it was not possible to uninstall SAP Gateway add-ons in the past. In the "worst case" you could have up to ten SAP Gateway add-ons installed in your SAP Gateway Hub and SAP Business Suite Backend

In order to offer the option to simplify your SAP Gateway landscape and because several of the SAP Gateway add-ons will not be supported by S/4 HANA you have now the option to uninstall the following SAP Gateway add-ons:

IW_SCS 200, IW_CNT 200 and IW_CBS 200

IW_GIL 100 and IW_SPI 100

IW_FNDGC 100

In addition it is also possible to uninstall the add-on

WEBCUIF 74x ('74x' = '746', '747', '748')

which has been a prerequiste for the installation of some of the add-ons mentioned above.

In the following two pictures these uninstallable add-ons have been marked with red.

The add-ons GW_CORE, IW_FND, IW_BEP and IW_HDB are now also uninstallable though their content became part of the software component SAP_GWFND which is part of the SAP Basis as of SAP NetWeaver 740.

This new uninstallation option was needed for technical reasons because support for IW_FNDGC and IW_GIL was removed with SAP S/4HANA 2023.

If we have a look at the add-on / software component structure of SAP Gateway as of SAP NetWeaver 740 it turns out that the total number of add-ons / software components that are mandatory and thus not uninstallable has been reduced to two add-ons while up to six add-ons are now uninstallable.

With SAP NetWeaver 751 the add on structure for SAP Gateway becomes even more simple. Please note that IW_PGW which is used for SAP Fiori applications such as the MyInbox is included in the coding of the software component SAP_GWFND 751 as well.

As mentioned above there are two reasons why you may want to remove an SAP Gateway add-on:

1. Remove add-ons that are not needed

As said, some of the add-ons only contain legacy functionality such as the screen scraping generator (IW_SCS) as well as (outdated) content which is based on the so called generic channel (IW_CNT and IW_CBS). Therefore you can uninstall these add-ons unless you are using services that are based on these legacy components. See SAP Note 2312680 for more details.

The add-on IW_FNDGC is only needed for customers using the above mentioned (outdated) services based on the Generic Channel when they upgrade their SAP Gateway Hub to SAP NetWeaver 740. This is because the add-ons IW_CNT and IW_CBS do depend on components that are shipped with the add-on IW_FNDGC. Therefore you can uninstall this add-on as well once you have uninstalled the add-ons IW_CNT and IW_CBS mentioned above.

This leaves us to the add-ons IW_GIL and IW_SPI. These add-ons were developed to allow customers to generate OData services using SEGW in a process called redefinition based on Service Provider Interface objects or GenIL objects. Customers that have installed these add-ons but are not using any service that has been generated based on these add-ons can benefit from the uninstallation option as well.

2. Transition to S/4 HANA

With the transition to S/4 HANA it was decided to not support all add-ons of SAP Gateway since not all of them are used within S/4 HANA and are thus not needed to build OData in S/4 HANA. As a result it was necessary to make these add-ons uninstallable so that they can be uninstalled before starting a transition of a customer SAP Business Suite System to S/4 HANA.

When attempting to select upgrade of your system from SAP NetWeaver 7.40 to 7.51 INNOVATION PKG in Maintenance Planner, you eventually receive an error, " Validation of software packages failed. Please check the logs".

When checking the logs you find the error message "SAP WEB UIF 747 is required to upgrade to SAP WEB UIF 748 by - SAPK-750BHINSAPABA during the queue check."

Software component version SAP WEB UIF 747 is part of Product Version SAP Gateway 2.0 and instance Gateway Server Core NW 740 which is not supported for the target you had chosen which is NW AS ABAP 7.51 INNOVATION PKG.

As a result the upgrade cannot be performed.

A solution is the desinstallation of the addon WEBCUIF.

With the latest release SAP S/4HANA 2023 also the addons IW_GIL and IW_FNDGC are not supported anymore.

How to remove an SAP Gateway add-on?

1. Import SAINT update

As described in SAP Note 2011192 - Uninstalling ABAP add-ons as of Version 0053 of the SAP Add-On Installation Tool, not only can you install ABAP add-ons, but you can also uninstall them again in certain circumstances.

As of version 0061 it is now possible to uninstall the above mentioned SAP Gateway add-ons using SAINT.

As of version 0064 it is also possible to uninstall the WEBCUIF addon.

2. Import Attribute Change Packages

Since the service packs in your system are not yet marked as uninstallable you have to import so called Attribute Change Packages that will change the uninstallable attribute of your service pack accordingly. How to find the ACPs is described in SAP Note 1119856 - Description, tips and tricks for Attribute Change Packages

The names of the ACPs you might be looking for are the following

IW_SPI====100

IW_GIL====100

IW_SCS====200

IW_CNT====200

IW_CBS====200

IW_FNDGC==100

WEBCUIF===748

You can search for them via the new launchpad UI from SAP quite easily if you use the following URL

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter/search/IW_SPI====200
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter/search/webcuif%2520748

After you have updated SAINT to at least version 0083 you can upload the ACP into SAINT directly from your front end. As described in the note above you do not have to import them. Instead, they already take effect when you upload them into the system when you use the function "Load From Front End") so that they show up in the tab "Deinstallable components".

The following screen shot shows SAINT after the above mentioned ACP IW_SPI====200 has been uploaded.

More information

You will find more detailed information about the uninstallation procedure and the technical prerequisites in the following SAP Notes:

SAP Gateway 2.0