Changes to the license server protocol in SAP Business One 9.2 PL05

With the release of SAP Business One 9.2 PL05, communication with the license service has been enhanced to give a number of benefits to our customers.

We have switched the license protocol from CORBA to https, the secure protocol for communication within the SAP Business One landscape. For cross version compatibility the CORBA protocol will remain available for some time. This results in a change in system behaviour, I will outline the old and new system behaviour for a good understanding. The previous system behaviour allowed all SAP Business One components like the client application, DI API and server tools etc., to ask for the license server address and then use the license address to transfer to the SLD address. The license server address was maintained in the b1-local-machine.xml file. Now, in the new system behaviour all these components will ask for the SLD address directly. THe license server address is registered in the SLD, so the components will get the license server address from the SLD. It’s the SLD address which is now saved in the b1-local-machine.xml file.

Our customers will see some major benefits in respect to this implementation change, firstly there is an improvement in the license performance. The high availability (HA) feature is now supported for the license service and SLD components within the SAP Business One landscape giving customers the security and peace of mind that their business can continue to be operational in the event of component disruption or failure. Additionally it is now possible to have multiple network card devices installed and active on the license server machine without any degradation in performance during the login process. You can refer to note 1135705 for details.

Delving deeper into the details of the HA concept, the process setup can be done either as part of a new installation or as part of an upgrade and you will have need to prepare two or more servers.

For new installation, the configuration of HA setup can be done using the following steps

• Install the SLD on both SLD node 1 in server A and SLD node 2 in server B
• Make **virtual IP (VIP) address accessible that can be shared among the multiple servers
• Install the license service on both server A and server B
• Update the license server address in the SLD to the VIP address.
• Install B1 client components

** Virtual IP addresses are commonly used to enable HA on various nodes. If one node fails then the VIP address will automatically be reassigned to another node. In the SLD the VIP address is made accessible by configurations of a reverse proxy for example, nginx.

For upgrades, the configuration of HA setup can be done using the following steps

• Upgrade your current version of SAP Business One to PL05 or higher on server A.
• Install the SLD on SLD Node 2 on server B
• Make SLD VIP address accessible by configuration of a reverse proxy
• Install license server on server B
• Update the license server address in SLD to VIP address
• Upgrade SAP Business One client components

Please refer to the comprehensive guide released with the patch for more details on the topic, SAP Business One Components High Availability Guide.