SAP S/4HANA Fully activated appliance installation in Azure

by Contributed | Nov 24, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

The traditional method of installing SAP is using Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM using SAPInst). SWPM takes a long time to install the system. And, even after the installation, you have just a shell system, which still requires a technical and functional configuration before you can use it – this is a cumbersome process and based on your requirements, this configuration process may take days to weeks.

Generally, when you are in a pilot or proof of concept phase, where you want to evaluate a specific feature, you can’t wait weeks!

One of the quick and easiest method of deploying SAP is via SAP Cloud Appliance Library,  which gives you trial license as well. To unlock the CAL solution, along with the SAP product licenses, you also need CAL subscription (as mentioned in the Figure1 below).

Figure1: Unlock solution using SAP CAL

Another option to get fully configured SAP S/4HANA system with sample data in hours, is using the S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance.

In this blog, you can explore how to install this fully activated SAP S/4H appliance in Azure. At the end of this blog, you will be able to successfully install the fully configured SAP S/4HANA 1909 SPS02 Fully Activated Appliance in Azure.

The overall process is very simple. You install the system which comes with pre-configured SID, and hostnames. Then you rename the SID, and hostnames to your desired nomenclature.

The process is divided into the following seven sections:

1. What the end-results looks like?


2. Infrastructure in Azure


3. SAP Download


4. Installation Process


5. Register and rename the HANA system


6. Rename the SAP system


7. Post install activities

1.     What the end-result looks like?

After the installation, you will have the following three clients pre-installed.

Following products will be Installed:

2.     Infrastructure in Azure

Here are the VMs and storage configurations used for the VMs in Azure for this installation.

Jump box VM: used for software download, SAPGUI, SAPMMC, Putty etc.

• Name: jumpbox1


• Standard D4as_v4 (4 vcpus, 16 GiB memory)


• Windows Server 2016 Datacenter


• E drive with 128GB

SAP app and DB VM: VM to install SAP S/4HANA. Both Application and database layer are installed on the same VM

• Name: s4h1902f2vm1


• Standard E16ds_v4 (16 vcpus, 128 GiB memory)


• SLES 12 SPS4 for SAP


• SAP S/4HANA 1909 SPS2 Fully Activated Appliance


• Disk layout

3.     SAP Download

You will need the following bits for installation. Download the installation bits from SAP marketplace https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter. Use the SAP download managed to download these files. Download them to Jumpbox VMs. Based on download speed, it may take several hours to download them.

SAP S/4HANA 1909 FPS02 FA APPL INSTALLATION Bits

Software Provisioning Manager

Download SWPM 2 latest version from here: https://support.sap.com/en/tools/software-logistics-tools.html#section_622087154

SAP MMC

Search SAPMMC in download option

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter/search/sapmmc

SAPGUI

4.     Installation Process

In this phase, we will install the SAP system from fully activated appliance, and then rename the SID and host name to our desired names. Please note, both sap application and database layers are installed on the same VM.

Please note, your VM name in Azure is s4h1902f2vm1.

Adjust /etc/hosts file

You will need to make the following entries in /etc/hosts for the installation. IP 10.x.x.8 is the private IP of the VM s4h1902f2vm1.

10.x.x.8       vhcalhdbdb.dummy.nodomain       vhcalhdbdb      vhcals4hci.dummy                                                                                                                                   .nodomain       vhcals4hci      vhcals4dcs.dummy.nodomain       vhcals4hcs

Copy and extract the SAP installation files.

Copy the 51054504_*.ZIP files from your jump box server (where you had downloaded them) to VM where SAP will be installed (i.e. s4h1902f2vm1). Copy them under the /sapmedia folder.

After copying the files, extract them on VM s4h1902f2vm1

#unzip 51054504_1.ZIP

#unzip 51054504_2.ZIP

#unzip 51054504_3.ZIP

#unzip 51054504_4.ZIP

It takes a while to extract these files.

Note: During this process, it may ask to overwrite label and version files, say Yes to overwrite them.

Once the extraction of zip files is completed, it will have a lot of *tgz* files. We will need to extract these tgz files now.

Let’s move all the tgz files to one location so we can easily extract them.

 # /sapmnt/sapmedia/S4FullyActivatedApplianceBits/51054504_1_1/SAPS4HANA1909FPS02SAPHANADB20basedonSAPNetweaverASABAP754_1

Once all the tgz files are under the above folder, let’s extract those tgz files in below order

# cat dblog.tgz-* | tar -zpxvf – -C /

# cat dbexe.tgz-* | tar -zpxvf – -C / 

# cat dbdata.tgz-* | tar -zpxvf – -C /

# cat usrsap.tgz-* | tar -zpxvf – -C /

# cat sapmnt.tgz-* | tar -zpxvf – -C /

You are done with the installation. You can get the passwords from the file /sapmnt/sapmedia/S4FullyActivatedApplianceBits/SAPS4HANA1909FPS02SAPHANADB20basedonSAPNetweaverASABAP754_4/SAP_Software_Appliance.xml.

5.    Register and rename the HANA system

Register the newly created database, also rename the system to new SID and hostname.

#/hana/shared/HDB/hdblcm/hdblcm –action=register_rename_system

After the registration is completed, HANA instance should come up automatically. You can check the status from the following command

#/usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/sapcontrol -nr 02 -function GetProcessList

6.    Rename the SAP system

Now, it’s a time to rename SAP system from S4H to SGH. Use SWPM to rename the SAP system.

#./sapinst SAPINST_USE_HOSTNAME=vhcals4hci SAPINST_ACCEPT_INTERNAL_SIGNATURE=true SAPINST_SLP_MODE=false

7.     Post install activities

Now, your system is ready to use. Please adjust the following before you use the system:

• Check the RFC connection and change from vhcals* name to s4h1902f2vm1


• Update host name in tCode /UI2/FLP_SYS_CONF


• Apply License. You will need both SAP application and HANA licenses


• Adapt transport configuration

Conclusion

Fully activated appliance is an easy and quick way to install your SAP system with sample data. This is a great solution when you want to perform a rapid prototype. Hope you like the blog.

Cross Service Query – Azure Monitor (LA/AI) and Azure Data Explorer (ADX)

by Contributed | Nov 24, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Azure Monitor<->Azure Data Explorer cross-service querying (join between LA/AI and ADX!)

This experience enables you to query Azure Data Explorer in Azure Log Analytics/Application Insights tools (See more info here),

and the ability to query Log Analytics/Application Insights from Azure Data Explorer tools to make cross resource queries. (See more info here.),

For example (querying Azure Data Explorer from Log Analytics):

Where the outer query is querying a table in the workspace, and then joining with another table in an Azure Data Explorer cluster (in this case, clustername=help, databasename=samples) by using a new “adx()” function, like how you can do the same to query another workspace from inside query text.

Both experiences are in Private Preview.

The ability to query Azure Monitor from Azure Data Explorer is open for everyone to use – no need to be allowlisted,

The ability to query Azure Data Explorer from Log Analytics/Application Insights requires to be allowlisted – We need the following to get you enrolled (you can send the info to me):

1. Tenant ID


2. List of the Azure Data Explorer clusters (the list is required to enable the team to modify the callout policy of that cluster, that will allow them to communicate with the proxy)


3. Email address

We started a private preview program, and we are happy to add early adopters to experience the new functionality.

Please note that the product is new with limited SLA, and we estimate that we will be able to move to pubic preview with production level SLA within ~2-4 months.

Cross Service Query – Azure Monitor and Azure Data Explorer

by Contributed | Nov 24, 2020 | Azure, Microsoft, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Azure Monitor<->Azure Data Explorer cross-service querying

This experience enables you to query Azure Data Explorer in Azure Log Analytics/Application Insights tools (See more info here),

and the ability to query Log Analytics/Application Insights from Azure Data Explorer tools to make cross resource queries. (See more info here.),

For example (querying Azure Data Explorer from Log Analytics):

Where the outer query is querying a table in the workspace, and then joining with another table in an Azure Data Explorer cluster (in this case, clustername=help, databasename=samples) by using a new “adx()” function, like how you can do the same to query another workspace from inside query text.

Both experiences are in Private Preview.

The ability to query Azure Monitor from Azure Data Explorer is open for everyone to use – no need to be allowlisted,

The ability to query Azure Data Explorer from Log Analytics/Application Insights requires to be allowlisted – We need the following to get you enrolled (you can send the info to me):

1. Tenant ID


2. List of the Azure Data Explorer clusters (the list is required to enable the team to modify the callout policy of that cluster, that will allow them to communicate with the proxy)


3. Email address

We started a private preview program, and we are happy to add early adopters to experience the new functionality.

Please note that the product is new with limited SLA, and we estimate that we will be able to move to pubic preview with production level SLA within ~2-4 months.