Notes from Solman 7.2 SP4 installation

[Former Member]

Intro

SAP released recently SP4 for Solution Manager 7.2, which is mainly a Corrective SP. This seems like a good enough release to try Solman (never go to the first SP with Solman..). Going straight to SP4 saves a lot of time as it contains all the latests OSS Notes, so less notes to apply manually. Note that 7.2 SP4 is also the first release for the VAR scenarios (for SAP partners).

Solution Manager 7.2 is now based on Netweaver 7.4 (at last…) and is no longer a Dual-Stack system. In the past, customers tended to us Solman only for MOPZ (Maintenance Optimizer), which I think is a bit of a waste. With all the features SAP has been pushing in Solution Manager, customers are progressively realizing that Solman can bring a lot of value (when implemented correctly), so having 4 additional SAP systems to maintain (one Solman ABAP, one Solman Java, x2 for Dev & Prod) is less of a problem to justify.

Sizing

The split of functionalities between the ABAP and Java in 7.2 seems to be similar to 7.1, so the Java Stack mainly handles the communications with the various agents. Since the java stack keeps connections open to all the agents, for medium landscape (>50 systems) you should tweak the Java AS parameters. And for large landscape (>200 systems), an additional Java application server will be needed. In general, I would recommend having at least 2 application servers (the central instance counts as one AS) for High-Availability.

The ABAP stack can be heavily loaded depending on the number of systems you want to monitor. You may follow the Quick Sizer for more detail. Just a few tips :

• Scenarios like Service Desk and Charm (Change Request Management) do not cause a heavy load (but require a powerful CPU, cf. below)


• Solution Documentation can require a lot of space in the database as end-users can store files there.


• Monitoring (especially Technical Monitoring) will quickly require you to add application servers, as SAP collects a lot of data each minute. SAP did introduce parallelization of the collection/processing of metrics in Solman 7.1 SP10/12, but it is not enough. You must be prepared to add application servers if you plan to monitor a lot of systems.

If you have the resources available (hardware and dba knowledge), HANA is definitely recommended as this is the database of reference for SAP. SAP also gives you a free HANA license to run Solman.

Here’s an example of sizing for Linux VMs, to achieve High-Availability, and to be able to handle a few scenarios on a 50-system landscape. You should refer to the Quick Sizer for more details.

Note that if you plan to use Charm, or ITSM, you need to pay attention to the power of your CPU. This is because these scenarios are based on CRM, which is very heavy (SRM has the same problem). This is documented in note 1501701 - Single Computing Unit Performance and Sizing, and in the quicksizer the scenarios Charm and ITSM (both built on top of CRM) are thus classed (SCU Class) as AAA (benefits from a powerful CPU). If you don’t plan to use Charm nor ITSM, then you don’t need to pay attention to that.

Each line is a linux VM. This is only an example of deployment, for HA, to be able to support up to 100 managed systems. Details to actually have HA or DR are not provided as they depend on your infrastructure.

Content	Sizing	Comment
+ Solman ABAP ASCS + Solman ABAP Central instance + Wily #1	4 cores 16gb memory
+ Solman Java SCS + Solman Java Central instance + Wily Introscope MOM	2 cores 8gb memory
+ Solman ABAP DB (non-HANA case) + Solman Java DB (non-HANA case)	4 cores 16gb memory
+ Solman ABAP AS #1 + Wily #2	4 cores 16gb memory
+ Solman Java AS #1 + Solman Java ERS	2 cores 8gb memory
+ Web dispatcher #1	2 cores 2gb memory
+ Web dispatcher #2	2 cores 2gb memory	for HA
+ Central SLD	2 cores 8gb memory	NW 7.5 Java. Great place to install SAP LVM 2.1 / SAP LaMa 3.0

Having a separate central SLD is optional but cleaner in big landscapes, especially if you need to merge technical data coming from Americas, EMEA, etc… which could be managed separately. Otherwise, using the PI/PO SLD is also ok.

Installation and upgrade

Solman 7.2 supports up-to-date installations. The installation in itself doesn’t have anything special, simply install the ABAP stack, then the Java stack. The Java stack will use the ABAP stack for UME (User Management). Then install Wily and ONE diagnostics agent DAA/98 PER server.

Then proceed with the upgrade. Some of the packages, like SAPUI750, are quite big. You can go with Single System upgrade, to avoid wasting time creating the Shadow Database. The ABAP upgrade part should take ~24h on a small server with 3 R3load processes.

Post-configuration

I like to use client 100 so I create it as a SAP_ALL copy of client 001, but this is not mandatory.

During SOLMAN_SETUP, I was happy to see that SAP recommends to have a Solution Manager development system and to transport user roles and corrections from there. This is something I strongly recommend, as you WILL have problems with Solman and you WILL need to apply OSS notes that you WILL need to test. Breaking Charm in production is not nice when you have 100+ developers who cannot work anymore. So you NEED a development system at least and, if possible, a Quality/Test system.

I was also happy to see again my old friend LMDB_P_INSTANCE in SM50… if you have some steps in SOLMAN_SETUP that need LMDB data and are taking a long time, make sure that stats are up-to-date for the LMDB tables. cf. Note 1829335 - Slow performance or timeouts in prerequisites check phase during solman_setup - SAP ASE fo...

Pay attention to the following note(s):

• 2393893 - Solution Manager 7.2 SP Stack 04: recommended corrections


• 2334291 - SAP Solution Manager 7.2 Support Package 04 - Basic functions

Additional links

• http://help.sap.com/solutionmanager72


• Screenshots of Solman 7.2 installation and configuration, by Yuksel AKCINAR


• Official Solution Manager Set-up Wiki


• blog.boudrai.com for more articles like this one

Bookmarks

A few bookmarks to Solman features that I like to keep saved, for quick
access. The ports and hostnames need to be adapted to your environment.

Title	Link
LMDB	https://<solman-abap>:44300/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/lmdb_wda_expl_oif?WDCONFIGURATIONID=LMDB_WDA_EXPL_OIF_CFG#
DBACOCKPIT (Sybase)	https://<solman-abap>:44300/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/dba_cockpit?WDSTYLE-LABELALIGNMENT=LEFT&sap-wd-DeltaRendering=ON&SYSTEM_ID=<solman-sid>&ACTION_ID=9001#
SOLMAN_SETUP	https://<solman-abap>:44300/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/wd_sise_main_app
SM_WORKCENTER	https://<solman-abap>:44300/sap/bc/webdynpro/sap/ags_workcenter?WORKCENTER=AGS_WORK_SM_ADMIN&sap-language=EN#
Agent Administration	http://<solman-java>:50000/webdynpro/dispatcher/sap.com/tc~smd~server~agent~admin/SMDAgentAdminApplication