How can we integrate SAP industry solutions into SAP ERP?

How can we integrate SAP industry solutions into SAP ERP?

I am very new to SAP Basis administration. When looking at the installed components on our system, it shows we have SAP industry solutions like IS-OIL, IS-M (SAP Media), IS-UT, etc. installed which have absolutely nothing to do with our business. I have no access to the consultants that installed our system so I can't ask them why these were installed, but I hear that some components are installed on your system by default. Is this true? If so, how can I determine what's installed by default vs. a component that was specifically selected to be installed? I'd also like to know if these additional components can cause any problems when we start to perform updates on our system and will we have to update these components even though they will not be used? We are running ECC 6.0.

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It is true. SAP ERP comes with all (or at least many) previously separate installable add-ons preinstalled. The advantage of this setup is that, if your company decides to implement additional functionality, the add-on is already there. The only thing left would be to install the necessary support packages and to activate the add-on.

The add-ons are in your system, but not yet activated. They have to be explicitly be activated by you, the customer, before their functionality becomes available.

The article, "Industry Solutions are now integrated into the SAP ERP Core", by Thomas Weiss, published in this month's issue of SAP Insider, explains further. Here's an extract from the article:

The Switch Framework and its different layers make the integration of SAP industry solutions into the SAP ERP core possible. Since all ISS are now developed in the latest ERP system and delivered one set of DVDs, this means lower TCO for you as customer; where you used to need two systems, you only need one.

This was first published in October 2008