SAP HANA Requirements

Before registering each SAP HANA server in ECX, ensure it meets the following requirements.

Supported Platforms/Configurations

SAP HANA Configuration Requirements

Database Versions/Types Server Types Operating Systems Storage Configuration Storage Systems
 
  • SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 07+ [9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 02 [5, 9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 [9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 [9][11] (See Prerequisite note below.)
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 [9][11] (See Prerequisite note below.)
  Physical [4]
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0+
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0+
  • Fibre Channel [6]
  • iSCSI [6]
 
  • HPE Nimble Storage 5.2 and later [6, 7, and 8]
  • IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software 7.3 and later/8.1.2 and later:
    • IBM SAN Volume Controller [10]
    • IBM Storwize [10]
    • IBM FlashSystem V9000 and 9100 [10]
  • IBM Spectrum Accelerate 11.5.3 and later:
    • IBM FlashSystem A9000/A9000R [10]
    • IBM XIV storage systems [10]
  • Pure Storage running Pure APIs 1.5 and later:
    • FlashArray//c
    • FlashArray//m
    • FlashArray//x
    • FlashArray 4xx series

Virtual

(VMware) [1, 3, 4]

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5+
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0+
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12.0+
  • Physical RDM backed by Fibre Channel or iSCSI disks attached to ESX [2, 6]
  • VMDK (dependent as well as independent disks) on VMFS datastores backed by Fibre Channel or iSCSI disks attached to ESX [6]
  • iSCSI disks directly attached to guest operating system [2, 6]

[1] See System Requirements for supported VMware vSphere versions.

[2] Select the Physical provider type when registering the provider in ECX. Note that NetApp ONTAP and DellEMC storage systems are not supported.

[3] SAP HANA servers registered as virtual must have VMware Tools installed and running.

[4] Supported platforms: Intel based x86, IBM Power Systems (Little Endian)

[5] Single tenant configurations can be automatically protected using storage snapshots.

[6] HPE Nimble Storage must be version 5.2 or later to support iSCSI and Fibre Channel.

[7] SAP HANA revert is not supported with HPE Nimble Storage.

[8] The make permanent option is not available for HPE Nimble Storage using physical disks.

[9] Only the xfs filesystem is supported for SAP HANA data and logs locations.

[10] On IBM Systems Storage, condense is run during maintenance jobs.

[11] ECX supports protection and recovery of multitenant databases on SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 and SPS 05.

Prerequisites

  • The SAP HANA Client must be installed on your SAP HANA machine.
  • Create a symbolic link to the SAP HANA Client installation directory through the following command:
  • ln -s <installation directory of SAP HANA Client> /opt/hana.
  • For example, if SAP HANA Client is installed in /hana/shared/<SID>/hdbclient, you would enter the following: ln -s /hana/shared/<SID>/hdbclient/ /opt/hana.
  • For SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 and SPS 05, the hdbcli module must be installed. The hdbcli module should only be installed after the complete installation of the HANA client. The module may be extracted from <path to directory>/hdbclient/hdbcli-<version>.tar.gz.
  • Log backups require that the log backup option is enabled on the SAP HANA system. Additionally, the Universal Destination Directory for log backups must match the directory that is configured on the SAP HANA system when you enable log backups.

  • Each SAP HANA system has a system ID (SID). It is good practice to have the SID in the path. For example, if /hana/logbackup is the mount point, create these directories:
  • mkdir /hana/logbackup/<SID>
  • mkdir /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog
  • To ensure that database logs can be saved, permissions need to be appropriately specified for the created directories:
  • chown --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>
  • chmod --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>
  • chown --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog
  • chmod --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog

Software

  • The bash and sudo packages must be installed. Sudo must be version 1.7.6p2 or above. Run sudo -V to check the version.
  • Python version 2.6.x or 2.7.x must be installed.
  • RHEL/OEL/CentOS 6.x only: Ensure the util-linux-ng package is up-to-date by running yum update util-linux-ng. Depending on your version or distribution, the package may be named util-linux.
  • RHEL/OEL/CentOS 7.3 and above: A required Perl module, Digest::MD5, is not installed by default. Install the module by running yum install perl-Digest-MD5.
  • SLES only: The Python pip package will need to be installed. Follow these steps to install the pip module on SLES:
    • $ sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Cloud:Tools/SLE_12_SP4/Cloud:Tools.repo
    • $ sudo zypper refresh
    • $ sudo zypper python-pip
  • Note: The SLES equivalent of yum is zypper.

  • Linux only: If data resides on LVM volumes, ensure the LVM version is 2.0.2.118 or later. Run lvm version to check the version and run yum update lvm2 to update the package if necessary.
  • Linux only: If data resides on LVM volumes, the lvm2-lvmetad service must be disabled as it can interfere with ECX's ability to mount and resignature volume group snapshots/clones.
  • Run the following commands to stop and disable the service:
  • systemctl stop lvm2-lvmetad
  • systemctl disable lvm2-lvmetad
  • Additionally, disable lvmetad in the LVM config file. Edit the file /etc/lvm/lvm.conf and set:
  • use_lvmetad = 0

Connectivity

  • The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the server and any firewalls must be configured to allow ECX to connect to the server using SSH. The SFTP subsystem for SSH must also be enabled.
  • The server can be registered using a DNS name or IP address. DNS names must be resolvable by ECX.
  • In order to mount clones/copies of data, ECX automatically maps and unmaps LUNs to the servers. Each server must be preconfigured to connect to the relevant storage systems at that site.
    • For Fibre Channel, the appropriate zoning must be configured beforehand.
    • For iSCSI, the servers must be configured beforehand to discover and log in to the targets on the storage servers.

Authentication

  • The application server must be registered in ECX using an operating system user that exists on the server (referred to as "ECX agent user" for the rest of this topic).
  • During registration you must provide either a password or a private SSH key that ECX will use to log in to the server.
  • For password-based authentication ensure the password is correctly configured and that the user can log in without facing any other prompts, such as prompts to reset the password.
  • For key-based authentication ensure the public SSH key is placed in the appropriate authorized_keys file for the ECX agent user.
    • Typically, the file is located at /home/<username>/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • Typically, the .ssh directory and all files under it must have their permissions set to 600.

Registration

When registering a SAP HANA provider in ECX, note the following:

  • The format for the port number is 3<instance number>15. So, for example, if the instance number is 07, then enter the following port number: 30715.
  • The System Credentials are the credentials required to access the system. These credentials are used to log in to the system and perform restore operations.
  • The Database Credentials are used for querying the database and performing copy operations. The user must have sufficient privileges to access the database.

Privileges

The ECX agent user must have the following privileges:

  • Privileges to run commands as root and other users using sudo. ECX requires this for various tasks such as discovering storage layouts and mounting and unmounting disks.
    • The sudoers configuration must allow the ECX agent user to run commands without a password.
    • The !requiretty setting must be set.

For examples on creating a new user with the necessary privileges, see SAP HANA Requirements.

Restore Jobs

When performing a database or filesystem restore from an XFS filesystem, the restore process may fail if the "xfsprogs" package version on the destination server is between 3.2.0 and 4.1.9. To resolve the issue, upgrade xfsprogs to version 4.2.0 or above.

Revert Jobs

When performing revert jobs on SAP Hana, there are special considerations that must be met for jobs to successfully complete:

  • SAP Hana data and the operating system (OS) filesystem must be on separate datastores.
  • Ensure that the databases are on independent storage. The underlying storage volume for the databases being reverted should not contain data for other databases and should not contain a datastore that is shared by other virtual machines (VMs) or by other databases not being reverted.
  • Ensure that the production databases are not on VMDK disks that are part of a VMware VM snapshot.
  • All VM snapshots need to be removed from the SAP Hana server prior to executing the revert function.
  • Production databases will be automatically shut down during the revert.
  • Revert is available only once a restore has been completed.

When creating a job, you will need to set the default revert action for the job. Only SAP Hana can utilize the revert database functionality. This behavior is controlled through the Revert Database option during the job creation process:

  • Enabled – Always will revert the database.
  • Disabled – Never reverts the database.
  • User Selection – Allows the user to make the determination to revert the database when the job session is pending.

Sample Configuration of an ECX Agent User

The commands below are examples for creating and configuring an operating system user that ECX will use to log in to the application server. The command syntax may vary depending on your operating system type and version.

  • Create the user that will be designated as the ECX agent user: useradd -m ecxagent
  • Set a password if using password-based authentication: passwd ecxagent
  • If using key-based authentication, place the public key in /home/ecxagent/.ssh/authorized_keys, or the appropriate file depending on your sshd configuration, and ensure the correct ownership and permissions are set, such as:
  • chown -R ecxagent:ecxagent /home/ecxagent/.ssh
  • chmod 700 /home/ecxagent/.ssh
  • chmod 600 /home/ecxagent/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • Place the following lines at the end of your sudoers configuration file, typically /etc/sudoers. If your existing sudoers file is configured to import configuration from another directory (for example, /etc/sudoers.d), you can also place the lines in a new file in that directory:
  • Defaults:ecxagent !requiretty
  • ecxagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL

 


Catalogic ECX™ 2.12

© 2021 Catalogic Software, Inc. | All rights reserved. | 4/9/2021

MySupportKnowledge Base | Trademarks | info@catalogicsoftware.com