SAP Data Services 4.2 and Information Steward 4.2 now "Release to Customer"

SAP Data Services 4.2 and SAP Information Steward 4.2 entered Ramp-Up back on May 13th 2013 as General Availability for a planned duration of 6 months.  As scheduled both have been released to customer on December 6th 2013.

The final products ready for download are:

• SAP Data Services 4.2 SP01 (14.2.1.0)
• SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP01 (14.2.1.0)

Note: SAP took the same approach with SAP BI 4.1 released earlier this year whereas they have entered Ramp-Up with SAP BI 4.1 SP00 and was officially released with SAP BI 4.1 SP01.

The software can be downloaded as a full installation or update:

• SAP Data Services 4.2 SP01

http://service.sap.com/support> Software Downloads > Installations and Upgrades > A - Z Index > D > SAP Data Services > SAP Data Services 4.2

Microsoft Windows:

Linux:

• SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP01

http://service.sap.com/support> Software Downloads > Installations and Upgrades > A - Z Index > I > SAP Information Steward > SAP Information Steward 4.2

Microsoft Windows:

  Linux:

Myself and I'm sure many of you have been waiting for this release for quite some time.  I'm sure for one or both of the following reasons:

• New features:

• SAP DS 4.2 SP01: http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbods42/en/ds_42_whats_new_en.pdf

• SAP IS 4.2 SP01: http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbois42/en/is_421_whats_new_en.pdf

• You can (finally) patch your SAP BI 4.0 environment!

Customers with implementations such as SAP BI 4.0 or IPS 4.0 and SAP DS 4.1 have been left unable to patch BI to SAP BI 4.1 (SP01 or SP02) when it was released few months ago.

This is of course because of the infamous "compatibility matrix".  SAP Note 1740516.

Note: I'll be testing this ASAP on my test environment and contact my customers in January for a series of long and awaited BI and DS (IS) updates!!

See my installation notes:

• How to install SAP Data Services 4.2 - Part 1: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-50135
• How to install SAP Data Services 4.2 - Part 2: [in progress]
• SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP01 [next]

Here are some helpful documentations:

• SAP Data Services 4.2 SP01:

• SAP Help Portal: SAP Data Services 4.2 – SAP Help Portal Page

• Product Availability Matrix (PAM): https://service.sap.com/sap/support/pam?hash=pvnr%3D67838200100900005703%26pt%3Dg%257Cd

• More What's New: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-41440

• SAP Information Steward 4.2 SP01

• SAP Help Portal: SAP Information Steward 4.2 – SAP Help Portal Page

• Product Availability Matrix (PAM): https://service.sap.com/sap/support/pam?hash=s%3Dinformation%2520steward%26o%3Dmost_viewed%257Cdesc%26st%3Dl%26rpp%3D20%…

I'll continue to add content here as I learn more.  My main focus is BI Platform so this is always going to be architecture related.  I'll let much more knowledge able people than me deal with the new features in those products!

See more blogs and articles here: BI Platform, Enterprise Information Management, Data Services and Data Quality, SAP Information Steward.

As always, I'd be happy to hear your comments, suggestions and experiences with these releases.

Thanks!