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Author's profile photo Denys van Kempen
Denys van Kempen
April 12, 2017 5 minute read

SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 01 What’s New: Installation and Update – by the SAP HANA Academy

Introduction

In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting new videos to the SAP HANA Academy to show new features and functionality introduced with SAP HANA 2.0 Support Package Stack (SPS) 01.

The topic of this blog is Installation and Update.

For the previous version of this blog, see

For the full SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 01 blog list, see

 

Tutorial Video

 

What’s New?

Multi-tenant Database Containers as standard operation mode

For those already familiar with the multi-tenant database operation mode, SPS 01 will not introduce a lot of new functionality in the domain of installation and updates.

However, for those that have not yet taken advantage of multi-tenancy, it may come as bit of a cold shower as MDC is now the standard and only operation mode.

MDC was introduced with SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 09, back in November 2014. This added a new deployment type to the list. As running each and every SAP application on a dedicated SAP HANA system was not always the most cost-effective solution, alternatives had come up that each posed its own challenges. Multiple Components One Database (MCOD) and Multiple Components One System (MCOS) both solved part of the puzzle but at the cost of either security or performance.

It is the classic dilemma: do you want it cheap, fast or good? Pick two.

Compared with running a dedicated HANA system, the choices with MCOS and MCOD were:  secure, performing or cost-effective.

For those not familiar, the MCOx concepts are older than HANA and came from the ABAP world. There are two notes that document the restrictions for running this in production.

 

MDC graciously solved the dilemma as it is cost-effective, secure and performing. So it comes as no surprise that for HANA 2 it will be the standard and only operation mode.

Please note that there are no changes with regard to MCOS support but it will be a bit more like MC²OS as you will now have two systems with multiple tenants each on each system (MCOS).

 

Andrea Kristin explains the concepts in her blog, so I will skip that part and just look at some of the practical consequences.

Multi-container database mode is the new default

 

The SAP HANA lifecycle manager (install mode)

The SAP HANA lifecycle manager no longer prompts to select the database mode.

Here we see both version SPS 00 and SPS 01, side-by-side.

Unfortunately, this also means that we have lost a UI to set the isolation mode to high.

When you install the SAP HANA server on the command line you can pass the isolation mode as a parameter (or use a configuration file). However, when using the graphical installer, this is not an option. Of course, you can always change the isolation mode later on but this is not trivial.

Here is the command, in case you forgot:

python /usr/sap/<SID>/HDB<instance>/exe/python_support/convertMDC.py 
--change=databaseIsolation 
--isolation=high

But before you execute this, make sure all the prerequisites are set. See SAP HANA Tenant Databases – Increase the System Isolation Level

 

The SAP HANA lifecycle manager (update mode)

The SAP HANA lifecycle manager now prompts to enter the credentials (OS and database superuser) for the original single-container database and for the new system database.

The update, in fact, involves flagging the original database as tenant (the SID is now also the tenant database name) and just adding a system database.

As mentioned in SAP note 2423367 – Multitenant database containers will become the standard and only operation mode:

  • Database size will stay roughly the same, performance is not impacted.
  • The upgrade is quick and no user data is changed or migrated.
  • Existing applications do not need to be changed (…) The default tenant database runs on the same ports as the single-container system and is also accessible through the same URLs.

The note is also mentioned in the Review & Confirm step.

 

The SAP HANA lifecycle manager (resident)

The resident SAP HANA lifecycle manager (post-installer) no longer includes the option to convert a system to multitenant (as all systems for this version already are …).

It would be nice, in the next release or so, if we had an option here to set the isolation mode for multi-tenancy.

Again, both version SPS 00 and SPS 01, side-by-side.

 

Playlist(s)

On the SAP HANA Academy, there is a full playlist covering all aspects of installation and update:

… and if you are new to MDC, we also have a playlist on that:

 

 

Documentation

For more information, see:

SAP HANA Product home

 

SAP Help Portal

 

SAP Notes

 

Thank you for watching

The SAP HANA Academy provides technical enablement, implementation and adoption support for customers and partners with 1000’s of free tutorial videos.

For the full library, see SAP HANA Academy Library – by the SAP HANA Academy

For the full list of blogs, see Blog Posts – by the SAP HANA Academy

 

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