SUSE and Microsoft Solution Templates for SAP Applications

For every template there are four possible sizes available with the following naming convention:

The Demo and Small sizes are targeted at non-production SAP HANA workloads. The Medium and Large sizes can be used for production systems, as they are built on M-SERIES/VM which are certified.

One of the presumptions of this document is that you are familiar with SAP Netweaver and SAP HANA.

Microsoft provides a good overview page about SAP deployments in Azure at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/sap/get-started

For the High Availability (HA) scenario you should have in addition good knowledge of

For production systems you need to take care of the monitoring requirements of SAP:

You need to provide the SAP software and license by yourself. You can download SAP software from the SAP Service Marketplace (https://service.sap.com)

To prepare the Azure VM for the SAP Netweaver and HANA installation, follow the steps outlined in the section below.

sudo zypper list-patches

sudo zypper patch --category=security,recommended --severity=critical,important

The template provides and deploys a VM that is customized for use with SAP HANA, using the latest pay-as-you-go (PAYG) version of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications (SLES4SAP).

It deploys one server on Premium Storage (Premium_LRS) and uses Managed Disks.

Figure 1: SAP HANA 2-tier (DB-tier) Template Overview #

  

sudo saptune solution apply HANA

The template provides and deploys several VMs which are customized for use with SAP Netweaver and SAP HANA as database, using the latest pay-as-you-go (PAYG) version of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications (SLES4SAP).

It deploys all server on Premium Storage (Premium_LRS) and using Managed Disks.

Figure 2: SAP Netweaver 3-tier Template Overview #

  

sudo saptune solution apply NETWEAVER

sudo saptune solution apply HANA

3.4 Other Settings and Machines #

  

All machines created with the template use the Azure feature “Accelerated Network (AN)” (only if the VM size supports AN).

The XSCS machine gets a dynamic public IP address to be able to access all other machines in the private network and only uses the base OS disk. There is no additional disk.

The APP server machines use an additional 128 GB disk for /usr/sap/<SID> and the machines are placed in an Availability Set with a FaultDomainCount of 2 and an UpdateDomainCount of 20.

Note: Availability Set

An Availability Set is a logical group in Azure to ensure that the VM resources are isolated from each other when they are deployed within an Azure data center. It ensures that the VMs you place within such an Availability Set run across multiple physical servers, compute racks, storage units and network switches. The Virtual Machines are placed then into an Availability Set to minimize the chances that two of them fail or are updated at the same time. This is essential when you want to build reliable cloud solutions and clusters.

The template provides and deploys several VMs twice to be used in an HA configuration. They are customized for use with SAP Netweaver and SAP HANA as database, using the latest pay-as-you-go (PAYG) version of the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications (SLES4SAP).

It deploys all servers on Premium Storage (Premium_LRS) and using Managed Disks.

Figure 3: SAP Netweaver 3-tier HA Template Overview #

  

sudo saptune solution apply NETWEAVER

sudo saptune solution apply HANA

4.5 Other Settings and Machines #

  

All machines created with the template use the Azure feature “Accelerated Network (AN)” (only if the VM size supports AN).

The XSCS machine gets a dynamic public IP address to be able to access all other machines in the private network and only use the base OS disk. There is no additional disk.

The APP server machines use an additional 128 GB disk for /usr/sap/<SID> and the machines are placed in an Availability Set with a FaultDomainCount of 2 and an UpdateDomainCount of 20.

Note: Availability Set

An Availability Set is a logical group in Azure to ensure that the VM resources are isolated from each other when they are deployed within an Azure data center. It ensures that the VMs you place within such an Availability Set run across multiple physical servers, compute racks, storage units and network switches. The Virtual Machines are placed then into an Availability Set to minimize the chances that two of them fail or are updated at the same time. This is essential when you want to build reliable cloud solutions and clusters.

The HA template provides two additional instances for an HA NFS server which has an additional disk as share of 32GB.

This section leads you through the installation of a default SAP HANA on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

It does not replace the SAP documentation - PLEASE read the SAP HANA installation documentation.

Important: Transfer

You need to transfer the SAP media for SAP HANA to the Azure cloud environment.

az group create --name mytestRG --location westeurope

az storage account create \
    --name hsrsa4sapmedia \
    --resource-group mytestRG \
    --sku Standard_LRS \
    --location westeurope

az storage account show-connection-string \
    --name hsrsa4sapmedia \
    --resource-group mytestRG

export AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING="YOUR_connection_string"

az storage share create --name mediashare
az storage directory create --name SapBits --share-name mediashare

az storage file upload --share-name mediashare/SapBits --source ~/Download/51052325_part1.exe
az storage file upload --share-name mediashare/SapBits --source ~/Download/51052325_part2.rar
az storage file upload --share-name mediashare/SapBits --source ~/Download/51052325_part3.rar
az storage file upload --share-name mediashare/SapBits --source /Download/51052325_part4.rar

sudo zypper in cifs-utils unrar

mkdir -p /hana/shared/SapBits

sudo mount -t cifs //hsrsa4sapmedia.file.core.windows.net/mediashare/SapBits /mnt -o vers=3.0,username=storage-account-name,password=storage-account-key,dir_mode=0777,file_mode=0777,serverino

sudo cp -v /mnt/51052325* /hana/shared/SapBits

sudo umount /mnt

cd /hana/shared/SapBits
unrar x 51052325_part1.exe

5.3 HANA Install #

  

Hana requires a few packages installed within SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

zypper in -t pattern sap-hana

and configuration settings

saptune daemon start
saptune solution apply HANA

There are several possibilities to install SAP HANA, which are detailed in the following sections.

5.3.1 Installation Using the SUSE Installation Wizard #

  

• Start YaST.

• Under “Software” choose the “SAP Installation Wizard”:

Figure 4: YaST Control Center - SAP Installation Wizard #

  

• Point the Installer to the directory with the SAP Media from the step above (for example /hana/shared/SapBits/51052325):

Figure 5: SAP Installation Wizard - Directory #

  

• The sap media get copied to the local machine:

Figure 6: SAP Installation Wizard - Copying Media #

  

• Say “No” if you asked for Supplement/3rd-party media share:

Figure 7: SAP Installation Wizard - Medium #

  

• Click “Next” at the screen asking for SAP add-ons:

Figure 8: SAP Installation Wizard - SAP Add-ons #

  

• Fill out the four fields for HANA:

Figure 9: SAP Installation Wizard - System Parameters #

  

• Say “No” if you are asked for more products:

Figure 10: SAP Installation Wizard - More SAP Products #

  

• Agree with the question to continue the installation:

Figure 11: SAP Installation Wizard - Continue Installation #

  

• HANA gets installed and started.

This installation process will take some time - be patient. You will see the log output in the window.

5.3.2 Installation Using the Command Line #

  

The HANA installer will ask for some values.

Answer the questions according to your well prepared sheet with all needed parameters. Do NOT install HANA with a virtual host name, use the physical host name. Double-check before you type!

1. Install the SAP HANA Database as described in the SAP HANA Server Installation Guide on both machines.

   1. Change to the directory where you have downloaded and unpacked the installation medium ( in our example it should be /hana/shared/SapBits ):

         cd /hana/shared/SapBits/51052325/DATA_UNITS/HDB_LCM_LINUX_X86_64

   2. Start the SAP HANA database lifecycle manager interactively at the command line:

         sudo ./hdblcm

+--------+    +---------+    /------ | Host A |
| Laptop |--P-| XSCS    |---+
+--------+    +---------+    \-------| Host B |
                              ...
                              \------| Host X |

on YOUR local system create a ssh config file:

$ cat .ssh/config
Host XSCS
   User adminuser used here as example
   Hostname public-ip-of-xscs
   Port 22 # a non-standard port would be a good idea

Host hosta
   User adminuser
   Hostname private-ip of host a
   Port 22
   ProxyCommand ssh -q -W %h:%p XSCS

Host hostb
   User adminuser
   Hostname private-ip of host b
   Port 22
   ProxyCommand ssh -q -W %h:%p XSCS

etc...

ssh adminuser@hosta

ssh adminuser@private-ip-hosta

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