White Paper. SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management on VCE Vblock System 300 Family

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Introduction

As cloud computing and virtualization rapidly evolve, SAP AG is working in strategic collaboration with part- ners VCE Company LLC, EMC Corporation, and VMware Inc. to develop tools and services that make it faster and easier for customers to operate on-premise SAP^® solutions in virtualized and cloud environments. The goal is to help customers run SAP Business Suite applications in con- verged infrastructure systems with increasing levels of automation. VCE, a company formed by Cisco Systems Inc. and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel Corporation, accelerates the adoption of converged infra- structure and cloud-based computing models. This approach dramatically reduces the cost of IT while improving time to market for customers.

Table of Contents 2 Introduction

3 A Best-of-Breed Integrated Operations Architecture

3 SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management

4 Vblock Systems

4 Solution in Detail

4 Software Components

5 Logical Layout

6 Test Scenarios in Detail

7 Start, Stop, and Relocation of SAP Systems

9 SAP System Copy and SAP System Clone

10 Cloning Using EMC Storage Integrator (ESI)

14 System Rename and Post Copy Automation

14 Conclusion

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A Best-of-Breed Integrated Operations Architecture SAP Consulting and VCE have jointly designed a best-of-breed integrated operations architecture, intended specifically for customers that have invested significantly in on-premise SAP landscapes to run their mission-critical applications, and vali- dated it in a lab environment. This document describes the architecture design and provides information to help your staff perform routine operational tasks and respond quickly and efficiently to IT and business needs. The paper details design considerations such as the configuration, software versions, and tips, tricks, and traps associated with the various test scenarios.

SAP customers running RISC/Unix have been taking a phased journey to the cloud by first migrating existing landscapes and associated databases to an x86 platform by way of converged infrastructure from VCE. Customers have reported achieving 50%

better performance, 30% reduction in total cost of ownership, and 50% smaller footprint.

SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management is an SAP software product that automates the operations of SAP system landscapes. It increases flexibility and business agility by simpli- fying and optimizing the provisioning and management of SAP systems through the use of virtualization technology such as VMware vSphere and VMware vCloud Director.

Figure 1 summarizes the functionality of SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management for the simplification of landscape management. This is achieved by:

• System management (start, stop, relocate and mass operations)

• Landscape visualization

• End-to-end monitoring of systems and infrastructure (performance and health data)

• Configurable dashboards

• Reporting functionality

Besides the system management, automation is achieved by:

• Automated end-to-end framework for SAP system clone, copy, and refresh

• Automatic capacity management via dialog instance scaling

• Task planner to schedule one-time or repetitive activities

• Automatic validation to verify environment before performing operations

Figure 1: Functionality of SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management, Version 1.0

Automated capacity management Landscape visualization

Third-party support

and extensibility System cloning

End-to-end visibility and monitoring of all infrastructure layers

System copy and refresh

Manage your SAP^® landscapes

Start, stop, relocate systems and mass operations

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This paper focuses on the start, stop, relocate; system copy;

and system clone functionality. SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management can be quickly deployed and easily operated on VCE Vblock™ Systems since Vblock is a standard- ized, predefined converged infrastructure.

Vblock Systems

VCE Vblock Systems smoothly integrate leading compute, network, and storage technologies. Through intelligent discovery, awareness, and automation, Vblock Systems provide the high- est levels of virtualization and application performance. Vblock Systems are unique in their ability to be managed as a single entity with a common interface that provides customers with end-to-end visibility. VCE’s flagship systems are as follows:

• The Vblock System 300 family of systems includes a range of agile and efficient data center–class solutions providing flexible and scalable performance. It features a high-density, compact fabric switch, tightly integrated fabric-based blade servers, and best-in-class unified storage.

• The Vblock System 700 family of systems includes a range of enterprise-class, mission-critical solutions for the world’s most demanding workloads and service levels.

Each Vblock System has a base configuration, which is a mini- mum set of compute and storage components, as well as fixed network resources. Within the base configuration, certain hard- ware aspects can be customized. Together, the components offer balanced CPU, I/O bandwidth and storage capacity relative to the compute and storage arrays in the system.

The Vblock System 300 environment used for this paper consists of:

• Cisco UCS servers as the compute base (10 UCS B-440 M2 blades at 2.4 GHz, yielding a total of 5.12 TB memory, 40 sockets, and 400 cores)

• EMC VNX 5700 storage with 157 TB capacity used as a Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network File System (NFS) option

• VMware vSphere 5.1

Solution in Detail

The following is a detailed overview of the physical and logical layout of the infrastructure and software architecture used in this reference setup.

Software Components

The table below summarizes the software components that were used for the reference setup hosted on the Vblock System.

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Logical Layout

The software components are deployed on a Vblock System.

Figure 2 shows the infrastructure components provided by the Vblock System 300 and the software building blocks provided by SAP components and operating system building blocks.

Software Components Used for the Reference Setup SAP^® Components

1 SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management software, version 1.0, SP06 (SID: LV1, Instance Nr: 00) 2 SAP ERP 6.0 based on SAP NetWeaver 7.02, SP13 (SID: EC1, Instance Nr: 00)

3 SAP ERP 6.0 based on SAP NetWeaver 7.02, SP13 (SID: EC2, Instance Nr: 00)

NOTE: This system is created via the cloning operation performed in SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management.

4 SAP host agent for Red Hat Linux Operating Systems

5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 6.4 6 Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2

Database

7 Oracle 11.2.0.3 EMC Storage Integrator (ESI)

8 JBoss Application Server 7.1.1

9 EMC High-Level Storage Library Administrator Console (EHAC)

10 EMC ESI Storage Adapter v1.51 for SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management Virtualization

11 VMware vCenter Server 5.1.0 12 VMware ESXi 5.1.0

The reference setup used in this paper hosts the following components:

• SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management 1.0 SP6 runs on a virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 6.4 in combination with Oracle 11.2.0.3 acting as the management system.

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• The managed system is SAP ERP version 6.0 running on a virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server 6.4 in combination with Oracle 11.2.0.3.

• The virtual resources (for example, virtual machines) managed by SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management are Red Hat Linux servers installed on phys2, phys3, and phys5.

• EMC Storage Integration for the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management storage adapter is deployed on a JBoss Application Server 7.1.1 running on Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server, which is installed on phys4.

Test Scenarios in Detail

The systems to be managed with SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management can be installed in different variants:

• Storage-based and adaptively configured SAP systems are installed on shared, central storage with virtual host names and IP addresses.

• SAP systems based on a virtual machine (VM) are tradition- ally installed within a VM, and the corresponding virtualization manager is configured within SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management.

Figure 2: Building Blocks of the Reference Setup

OS/SAP building blocks

Vblock building blocks

phys1.mo.sap.corp Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server 6.4

pocesx16.wdf.sap.corp

*(see legend) SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management 1.0 SP06

SID: LV1 (00)

*(see legend)

EMC VNX5700™

156 TB Capacity

SAP^® ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) 6.0 SID: EC1 (00)

*(see legend)

*(see legend) SAP ECC 6.0 SID: EC2 (00)

*(see legend)

phys4.mo.sap.corp Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Server

*(see legend) EMC Storage

Adapter

*(see legend)

*(see legend) pocesx15.wdf.sap.corp

*(see legend)

* (VMware ESXi 5.1.0) Cisco B440-BASE-M2, 512 GB 40 Intel^® Xeon^® 2.40 GHz

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The SAP systems used in this setup are adaptively installed on a Vblock System 300. The system copy process is based on a storage-based file-system cloning approach. The following describes the functionality and required configuration aspects.

Start, Stop, and Relocation of SAP Systems

The start, stop, and relocate functionality is achieved by using an adaptively configured SAP application used in conjunction with the appropriate SAP host agent.

The adaptive configuration refers to decoupling of the operating system (OS) from the SAP application layer. This setup is estab- lished by using virtual IP addresses and virtual host names in conjunction with mounting the application-relevant file systems via a shared, central storage, in this case NFS, from the central EMC VNX.

The SAP ERP 6.0 system (SID: EC1) has been set up as a dis- tributed configuration for the test scenario using the following virtual host name configuration.

In addition to the virtual host names and IP addresses, the SAP application and database-specific file systems have been mounted to the Red Hat Linux operating system via NFS from the EMC VNX series, unified storage system.

Figures 3, 4, and 5 show the mount point configuration in SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management.

Virtual Host Name Configuration

Host Name SAP^® Component

vec1db.mo.sap.corp System Database (ABAP):

Oracle 11g

vec1ascs.mo.sap.corp Central Services (ABAP) - Instance No. 00

vec1ci.mo.sap.corp Central Instance (ABAP) - Instance No. 01

Figure 3: Central Services Mount Point Configuration in SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management

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The EC1 system can be attached to the virtual resource phys2, phys3, and phys5 running on Red Hat Linux. As a prerequi- site, the users ec1adm and oraec1 have to be available on all three resources. The corresponding home directory of ec1adm is mounted to each virtual resource via NFS as well. The SAP host agent 7.20 SP148 is installed on all virtual resources.

The relocation process can be used for each SAP component of the EC1 system separately. This means the database, the central service, or the central instance can be moved to the virtual resource phys2, phys3, or phys5.

Figure 4: Central Instance Mount Point Configuration in SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management

Figure 5: Database Mount Point Configuration in SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management

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The relocation process has been performed successfully, as shown in Figure 6.

SAP System Copy and SAP System Clone

SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management provides end-to-end SAP system clone, system copy, and

system refresh functionality. The system clone functionality is the basis for a system copy and system refresh.

Each process – system clone, system copy, and system refresh – can be divided into subtasks, which are shown in Figure 7.

Figure 7: Subtasks for System Clone, System Copy, and System Refresh

Prepare Activate

isolation System-

rename Start Deactivate

isolation Clone

Export

configuration Stop Unprepare

isolation Start

isolation System-

rename Start Import configuration +

PCA Deactivate

isolation Clone

Post copy automation (PCA) Clone

System refresh System copy System clone

Figure 6: Relocation of SAP^® Services Using SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management

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Using SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management, a fully automated, comprehensive SAP system copy was performed using the SAP ERP application system as a source system, as shown in the table below.

The existing resource phys3 was used as the target resource for the system copy procedure.

Cloning Using EMC Storage Integrator (ESI)

The cloning step is performed via a storage-based cloning using the EMC Storage Integrator (ESI) for SAP NetWeaver Landscape

Virtualization Management. One component of EMC ESI is an adapter deployed on SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management. The other component is the EMC High-Level Storage Library Administration Console (EHAC) running on a JBoss Application Server. EHAC provides a single point of management to manage user accounts, assign storage systems to users, and act as a gateway for the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management adapter to access storage systems.

With EHAC, administrators can manage storage space assigned to individual users by controlling read/write access to the storage pools for each individual system.

Item Source System

SID EC1

Database vec1db.mo.sap.corp

Central Services vec1ascs.mo.sap.corp

ASCS Number 00

Central Instance vec1ci.mo.sap.corp

CI Number 01

Item Target System

SID EC2

Database vec2db.mo.sap.corp

Central Services vec2ascs.mo.sap.corp

ASCS Number 00

Central Instance vec2ci.mo.sap.corp

CI Number 01

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Vblock System

Figure 8 shows the components of the EMC ESI for the integration with SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management used in this setup.

The ESI for SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management provides storage management capabilities and allows users to manage cloning and snapshots from within the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management user interface.

Figure 8: EMC Storage Integrator for SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management

Storage system EMC Storage Integrator (ESI)

Managed systems SAP system landscape

EMC VNX5700

SAP^® ERP EHAC ESI

JBoss Application Server Microsoft Windows Sever

SAP CRM SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

SAP NetWeaver Process Integration SAP host agent SAP host agent SAP host agent SAP host agent

http(s) http(s)

Management system

SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management

ESI Adapter

* Host agent is part of >=

SAP NetWeaver 7.0

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The EMC ESI is fully integrated into SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management for defining the cloning process. The volumes to be created during the storage configuration step are displayed in the system copy workflow

of SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management.

The screen shot of the storage configuration in the system copy workflow of SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management is shown in Figure 9.

Figure 9: SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management System Copy Workflow – Configuration Steps for Storage-Based Cloning

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To minimize the downtime of the source system during the system copy process, the Oracle database has been cloned online.

Figure 10 shows the screen shot of the SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management log view for the successful cloning of the EC1 system.

To perform the online copy of the Oracle database, a transfer mount point needs to be defined for the EC1 system in SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management in order to have the last redo logs available for replay on the target system.

(See Figure 11.)

Figure 10: SAP NetWeaver^® Landscape Virtualization Management Log View for the Successful Cloning of EC1 System

Figure 11: Transfer Mount Configuration Required for Online Cloning of the Oracle Database

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System Rename and Post Copy Automation

After the cloning of the EC1 system and the prepare phase to attach the cloned volumes to the resource phys3, SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management triggers the system rename feature in the software provisioning manager to rename the Security Identifier Definition (SID) and virtual host names to the target EC2 system.

To perform the post copy steps, SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management triggered the post copy automation task list that has been implemented in the ABAP^® programming language on the target EC2 system.

Conclusion

Until now, managing SAP landscapes has been mostly a manual and time-consuming endeavor. SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software combined with Vblock Systems from VCE deliver a highly efficient and productive environment to provision and operate on-premise applications based on the SAP NetWeaver technology platform. By leveraging SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management along with the converged infrastructure of VCE Vblock Systems, customers can realize greater business and IT agility, improve the quality of their operations, and reduce their total cost of ownership. Do it faster, do it cheaper, do it better – a winning formula for today’s competitive business environment. For more information, please contact [email protected].

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