Installation Quick Start

2.1 Hardware requirements #

This section lists minimum hardware requirements for the installation of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications and gives basic guidance on the expected hardware requirements of certain SAP software. For the most up-to-date information about the hardware requirements of SAP software, see the official sizing guidelines at https://service.sap.com/sizing.

Supported CPU

Intel 64

IBM POWER 8 (with PowerVM)

IBM POWER 9 (with PowerVM)

Hard disk

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications requires at least 41 GB (without swap) of hard disk space for the system volume. In addition to that, reserve an appropriate amount of hard disk space for the swap partition.

To install an SAP application such as SAP NetWeaver, you need at least 200 GB of free disk space in addition to the required space for the operating system for the application's /data partition.

To install SAP HANA, you need either:

An SAP BusinessOne-certified machine
A compatible machine that meets the requirements for SAP HANA TDI (Tailored Datacenter Integration). That is, you need the following amounts of free disk space in addition to the required space for the operating system:
- 52 GB of free disk space for the partition /usr/sap
- Space for three partitions for SAP HANA data: /hana/data (same size as RAM), /hana/log (same size as RAM up to a maximum of 512 GB), and /hana/shared (same size as RAM up to a maximum of 1 TB).

For more information about SAP HANA refer to https://help.sap.com/docs/SAP_HANA_PLATFORM (the section Implement › SAP HANA Master Guide › SAP HANA Deployment Options › On-Premise Deployments).

RAM

The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server operating system itself requires a minimum of 1024 MB of total RAM or a minimum of 512 MB of RAM per CPU core (choose whichever is higher).

Any SAP software you install will require additional RAM.

To install SAP HANA, your machine needs a minimum of 24 GB of RAM.

For more information about configuring hardware for SAP HANA, see SAP Note 1944415: Hardware Configuration Guide and Software Installation Guide for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with SAP HANA and SAP Business One (https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1944415).

For more information about partitioning, see Section 2.6, “Partitioning”.

2.2 Installation image #

Unlike previous SLE products, the entire SLE 15 SP4 product line can be installed from a single installation medium: SLE 15 SP4 Online media 1. To install without network access or registration, download the SLE 15 SP4 Full media 1 image. Both ISO images are available from https://download.suse.com/.

Burn the image onto a physical DVD or copy it to a removable flash disk. Make sure the size of the disk is sufficient for the desired image. Alternatively, use a virtual DVD-ROM device for installation in a virtual machine.

Tip: Copying the installation media image to a removable flash disk

Use the following command to copy the contents of the installation image to a removable flash disk.

> sudo dd if=IMAGE of=FLASH_DISK bs=4M && sync

Replace IMAGE with the path to the installation media image file and FLASH_DISK with the flash device.

2.3 Offline migration #

The migration paths for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications are identical to those for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server with Enhanced Service Pack Overlay Support (ESPOS). Find detailed information in the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Upgrade Guide at https://documentation.suse.com/sles/html/SLES-all/cha-upgrade-paths.html.

2.4 Overview of the installation workflow #

The installation workflow of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications consists of the following steps:

Installation of the operating system (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server). See Section 3.1, “Installation workflow”.
SAP Installation Wizard, part 1: Copying all required SAP media to the local disk or selecting a shared storage medium to use. See Section 4.2, “Using the SAP Installation Wizard”, in particular Step 1.
SAP Installation Wizard, part 2: Collecting all parameters for the actual installation by querying the user interactively. See Section 4.2, “Using the SAP Installation Wizard”, in particular Step 10.
SAP Installation Wizard, part 3: Running the SAP Installer. See Section 4.2, “Using the SAP Installation Wizard”, in particular Step 13.

Most of these steps do not need to be run immediately after each other, which allows for flexibility in how you install systems. This means that you can prepare a single installation as a first step and then continue from there. For example:

Install the operating system (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server) only.
or
Install the operating system (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), copy SAP media, and collect SAP installation parameters.

Then, create disk images, copy them to other systems, and adjust SAP installation parameters. Finally, finish the installation on each machine individually.

2.5 Required data for installing #

Operating system

The SUSE Linux Enterprise Server installation requires the following data for every physical server:

Network configuration parameters, such as host name, domain, IP address, subnet mask, domain search list (DNS), IP for name server, IP for gateway
Administrator (root) password for the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server installation

SAP application

The installation of an SAP application generally requires specifying:

SAP SID
SAP Instance Number
A password for the SAP application

Depending on the SAP application you are installing, more parameters may be necessary, such as T-Shirt Sizing or parameters for virtual networking.

SAP HANA database

The installation of SAP HANA requires specifying:

SAP SID
SAP Instance Number
Whether to enable Multitenant Database Containers (MDC). The multi-tenant support of SAP HANA allows having multiple databases that run as one SAP HANA installation. (To use SAP HANA MDC, you need SAP HANA Life Cycle Manager.)
For a single-tenant installation, choose No.
For a multi-tenant instance administrated by one SIDadm user, choose Yes with low isolation.
For a multi-tenant instance administrated in which each database has its own SIDadm user, choose Yes with high isolation.
A password for the SAP HANA database

For more information about installing SAP software, see the SAP documentation at https://help.sap.com and https://support.sap.com.

2.6 Partitioning #

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications creates the partitioning table in two stages:

Partitioning for the operating system (stage 1) (during the installation of the operating system)
Partitioning for the SAP system (stage 2) (during the installation of the SAP product)

2.6.1 Partitioning for the operating system (stage 1) #

During the installation of the operating system, partitions for the operating system are created.

A logical volume group (LVG) named /dev/system will be created. This LVG contains two logical volumes (LVs):

/dev/system/root: by default 60 GB to account for the operating system and SAP media
/dev/system/swap: by default 2 GB, avoid setting a smaller size. See also SAP Note 2578899: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15: Installation notes (https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2578899).

Additionally, a boot or UEFI partition will be created as necessary.

2.6.2 Partitioning for the SAP system (stage 2) #

This part of the partitioning can only be created after the operating system has been installed. That means the partitions are created either in the installation workflow after the reboot or in the running system.

Depending on the product you are installing and your particular use case, the amount of hard disk space necessary can vary.