SAP HANA Upgrade from SP11 to SP12

Introduction

SAP has recently released SP12 with whole lot of new features. I started to explore the new SP12 features with the 1^st step of upgrading HANA DB to SP12 version.

The intent of this blog is to document the upgrade process for HANA DB to SP12 and then start exploring various new features as part of SP12.

Please find below step by step details for SP12 upgrade.

The process is not different from the upgrade process what we used to follow till now. So let’s get started with the initial planning and further steps for upgrade to latest version of HANA DB

In our case the source HANA version is SP11 and Target version is SP12

Project Plan/ Task List:

Task No	Activity Details	Time (Mins)
1	Do the pre-requisite checks	1 Day
2	Read thru SAP notes release for SP12 and any other required dependencies	0.5 Day
3	Download the required media from the service market place	30
4	Validate the file systems	15
5	Extract and transfer media files to server	30
6	Take backup before starting the upgrade	15
7	Start the HANA DB upgrade	40
8	Take backup after the upgrade process is completed	15
9	Complete the post upgrade activities	10

Pre-Upgrade Steps:

Download the media files from SMP – service market place

https://service.sap.com/swdc

Required SAP notes and upgrade guide

http://help.sap.com/hana/SAP_HANA_Server_Installation_Guide_en.pdf

As of SAP HANA SPS Platform 12 (Revision 120), the SAP HANA server installation and update documentation has been updated for XS Advanced installation, as well as other smaller improvements to existing functionality.

Note: We will be using AWS cloud platform for this upgrade, with 256 GB RAM and SUSE SLES 11 SP3 platform. This is the demo system which I am using and the application server is S/4 HANA.

Supported Operating Systems for SAP HANA: For information about supported operating systems for SAP HANA, see SAP Note 2235581 – SAP HANA: Supported Operating Systems

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

SAP Note 1944799 – SAP HANA Guidelines for SLES Operating System

SAP Note 1855805 – Recommended SLES 11 packages for HANA support on OS level

SAP Note 1954788 – SAP HANA DB: Recommended OS settings for SLES 11 / SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP3

Check the OS level File system details and all the required permissions

The SAP HANA database lifecycle manager (HDBLCM) requires certain file systems in order to successfully install an SAP HANA system

Check the <sid>adm user ID/PWD and required OS user ID/PWD

Transfer the media files to HANA server

Please make sure you are taking the backup before we start the actual upgrade activities

Backup Details before Upgrade: Backup Size: 114.72 GB, Time taken to complete backup time: 14 mins 20 sec

Stop the application server: Login with <sid>adm > and stop the SAP application server

Upgrade Process:

We will be performing upgrade thru command line; other ways of doing the upgrade is thru HDBLCMGUI.

Navigate to Installation Media > Run command – ./hdblcm

As of SAP HANA SPS Platform 12 (Revision 120), SAP HANA supports installation and update of the SAP HANA XS Advanced Runtime.

SAP HANA supports installation and update of the SAP HANA XS Advanced Runtime

The following XS Advanced Runtime parameters are available now:

xs_components_cfg: Specifies the path to the directory containing MTA extension descriptors (*.mtaext)
xs_customer_space_isolation :Run applications in customer space with a separate OS user
xs_customer_space_user_id :OS user ID used for running XS Advanced applications in customer space
xs_domain_name: Specifies the domain name of an xs_worker host. The domain name has to resolve to the SAP HANA host which is running the xscontroller and xsuaaserver service.
xs_routing_mode: Specifies the routing mode to be used for XS advanced runtime installations.
xs_sap_space_isolation: Run applications in SAP space with a separate OS user
xs_sap_space_user_id: OS user ID used for running XS advanced runtime applications in SAP space

As of SAP HANA SPS Platform 12, the SAP HANA database lifecycle manager (HDBLCM) supports the update of the XS Advanced Runtime.

For more information, see Installing XS Advanced Runtime in the SAP HANA Server Installation and Update Guide

At the end of installation you will find new services added to SAP HANA Studio