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Author's profile photo Noboru OTA

A Do-It-Yourself Step-by-Step Guide: How to Set Up Your On-Premise System of SAP S/4HANA 1709 at Home

§ [Additional remark 9 April 2019]
I have posted a new article in my blog series. This time, you will extend your S/4HANA system (1809) by creating a Node.js app. You deploy the app on SAP Cloud Platform (Cloud Foundry environment). It calls an OData service from your S/4HANA on-premise system securely via Cloud Connector. All of this from your home PC with minimal budget, using SCP trial account. My original source code is available on GitLab.

‡ [Additional Remark 29 Jan 2019]
I have managed to deploy S/4HANA 1809 onto the same GCP infrastructure (the same project) I created for 1709. I am planning to include this in an upcoming tutorial blog if I can get things working (no problem with 1809; I’m learning new staff)… Thank you for all the views, likes, and interactions in the comments. Stay tuned.
— Noboru

† [Additional remark 21 Jan 2019]
A couple of people reported in the comments that they did not have to pay Google US$ 35 equivalent like I needed to. Happy for those lucky ones 🙂  Or perhaps Google did something to increase their base computing capacity for their free trial. Either way, you might not need to pay.

Part II is also available 🙂

Introduction

This tutorial blog series is aimed at anyone who wants to play with an SAP S/4HANA on-premise system from your Windows PC at home.

What I am advocating is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approach for SAP S/4HANA. It probably required a heroic amount of learning and efforts to set up an SAP R/3 system at home 15 years ago. The time is different now. We can do it easily with the help of cloud infrastructure services like Google Cloud Platform and Amazon Web Services, and SAP Cloud Appliance Library.

Hopefully true to the DIY spirit, I will be able to show you the path I blazed through. Along the way and beyond, I hope you will have a lot of fun. I will cover the following items with step-by-step screen shots, sharing my learnings from my own trouble-shooting experiences.

What We Will Cover in This Blog Tutorial Series

Part I Let’s Get Your Own SAP S/4HANA On-Premise System in the Cloud using CAL

  1. Dealing with Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
  2. Deploying S/4HANA 1709 Trial from CAL onto GCP
  3. Connecting to Your Own S/4HANA 1709 Instance

Part II. Let’s Play with Development Tools, SAP Demo Data, CDSs, oData Services, and Fiori Apps 

  1. Playing with ABAP Development Tool (ADT)
    1. Setting up Java, Eclipse, and ADT Plug-in
    2. Connecting ADT to Your S/4HANA Instance via SMGW
    3. Generating SAP Demo Data
    4. Creating a Custom CDS View
    5. Publishing and Testing an oData Service
  2. Playing with Web IDE (desktop version)
    1. 7-zip, Unarchiving and Setting Up Web IDE
    2. Creating your own Fiori App Using a Template on Web IDE

Assumptions about You

  • Yes, I assume you are familiar with basics of SAP ERP or SAP S/4HANA, like SAP GUI, some development transactions, etc.
  • No, you do not need to have an army of consultants and friends with SAP Basis skills to help you; I assume you are doing this at home after work, or on a quiet weekend, by yourself
  • No, you do not need to get a budget approved by senior management to have a server and SAP license; I assume you are doing it by yourself, for yourself, with a hobbyist budget – that is, not much money
  • No, you do not need to spend long hours to muster all the necessary documentation scattered through the internet universe; I assume you want to benefit from experience of someone else – like me – to ease the burden of the journey

What you need to have

Windows

I will focus on the operating system (OS) most of us in the corporate environment is familiar with: Windows.

Here are the computer environment that you need to have for this tutorial:

  • Windows 7, 8 or 10
  • SAP GUI for Windows 7.40

I used Windows 10, 64-bit version. I also happen to have SAP GUI for Windows already installed on my laptop PC (it’s my work PC). If you do not have access to SAP GUI, unfortunately, I do not know how you might be able to legitimately obtain SAP GUI outside SAP support website  (Comments, anyone?). The page leads you to  SAP launchpad’s Software Download area. Downloading software from this place requires you to have an authorisation.

You can still use SAP Fiori apps, as they require only a browser to use.

ADT, even if it is a plug-in for Eclipse, requires SAP GUI installed on your computer.

Java? (Optional)

Yes. Java. It is optional. We need it for ABAP Development Tool (ADT), as it is a plug-in for Eclipse. Eclipse is an integrated development environment (IDE) written (mostly) in Java. Windows normally does not come with a Java environment, so you will need to get an installer execution file and install a runtime by yourself. We will see this step-by-step in the section for ADT later in Part II.

Credit Card and 35 USD equivalent for GCP

† [Additional remark 21 Jan 2019]
A couple of people reported in the comments that they did not have to pay US$ 35 equivalent. Happy for those lucky ones 🙂  Or perhaps Google did something to increase their base computing capacity for their free trial. Either way, you might not need to pay.

Yes, it is true that GCP has a free 12-month trial. Unfortunately, however the computer resource provided for a free trial is not enough as we will be running an enterprise software on it. You will be upgrading the account and then to increase the computer resource allocation (GCP calls it quota). In order to do so, GCP needs you to prove that you are “serious” about it; as a proof, you need to pay $US 35 or equivalent in your currency via credit card. You will see a step-by-step how-to later. I did this in Germany; you may have other conditions depending on your geography – perhaps you could share your experience in the comment below.

Anything else?

There are other small bits and pieces. We will cover them step-by-step when necessary.

Notes

  • I used Google Chrome as my browser
  • For screen shots, the browser screen size is set to 1024×768
  • Screen shots are taken between 26 April and 10 May, 2018
  • SAP CAL offers a 30-day free trial. After this, there is an option to extend the trial under some conditions. I am not sure what you could do to retain your system after this
  • The official documentation for ADT mentions a DLL VS2010 as one of the prerequisites. I did not have to do anything extra. It is possible that my Windows PC already had it; I could not tell

 


 

Part I: Let’s Get Your Own S/4HANA 1709 Instance

In this part, you will deploy your own instance of SAP S/4HANA 1709, fully configured, ready for you to play with. It can be all done from your home PC with the internet. We will be covering the following steps:

  1. Do all the set up in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) to host your instance of S/4HANA 1709
  2. Activate your trial instance of S/4HANA 1709 in SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL)
  3. Connect to your S/4HANA Instance with SAP GUI and Fiori Launchpad

Time You Need Spend

  • About 60 minutes of your time actively facing and typing in your computer
  • About 90 minutes to wait for your S/4HANA instance to be ready (automatically)
  • Up to 48 hours of waiting; this is specific to Google Cloud Platform. You will need to wait up to 48 hours for Google staff to increase quota (i.e. more CPUs — details later). In my case, it was done overnight (so in the matter of… 12 hours or so)

 

 

Step 0. What’s SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL)?

For me as a consumer of CAL, it is a catalog of SAP systems you can deploy onto a cloud infrastructure. With CAL:

  • You can put up an on-premise instance of S/4HANA in a matter of 60 minutes. You do not need to deal with command prompt or any other “SAP Basis” activities; it is all done in your browser.
  • You do not need to have a server lying around in your garage to install your SAP S/4HANA system; your instance is hosted in an infrastructure on the Cloud like Google Cloud Platform (GCP) or Amazon Web Services (AWS).
  • It is also friendly to your wallet; CAL offers 30-day free trial, which we will gracefully accept and use for this tutorial.

There is a good blog from a colleague of mine at SAP that explains general information on CAL for S/4HANA 1709: https://blogs.sap.com/2017/12/14/sap-s4hana-1709-fully-activated-appliance-create-your-sap-s4hana-1709-system-in-a-fraction-of-the-usual-setup-time/.

In my blog tutorial, I have chosen GCP just because I never used it before to host a system. I have used it only for some small tutorials. It is exciting to try something new, isn’t it? You can choose AWS, of course. Perhaps you could share your experience in the comments below, or write your own blog about it.

So let’s get started!

From my own experience, it is smoother to start with GCP. You will see why later.

 

 

Step 1. Let’s Set Up Google Cloud Platform

1.1. Create a Project in GCP

Go to GCP console: https://console.cloud.google.com/.

There is a landing page for GCP but you will be doing actual set up in the console.

I have a Google account. If you don’t, you will need to create one for yourself.

Here is the console. I already have a couple of projects from my past. Clicking on where the arrow is pointing gives you a pop-up menu like this below. Create a new project for your S/4HANA system.

It will take 30 seconds or so for your new project to be active.

 

 

1.2. Create a Service Account for Your Project

Go to the dashboard for your project.

­­­­­­

You will need to create a service account within your project. I will let Google explain what it is.

The service account requires the following roles to host your S/4HANA instance:

  • Compute Instance Admin (v1),
  • Compute Network Admin
  • Compute Security Admin

Note: I could not see these roles in the drop-down menu on the day I created this project. I tried next day, and I could see them. I am not sure what the difference is; perhaps the project needs a little bit of time to fully activate?

Make sure that you keep the default selection of JSON for Key type. You will need the JSON file in CAL later.

When you create a new service account, you will get a JSON file (a private key for the account). You will upload it to SAP CAL later to establish connection between CAL and GCP (next section).

 

 

1.3. Enable Google Cloud Resource Manager API

This step tripped me when I was creating my own S/4HANA instance. If you do not do this step, you will get an error message when you try to upload the JSON file in CAL.

Enable Cloud Resource Manager API by pressing the “Enable” button.

 

 

1.4. Enable Compute Engine API

You also need to enable the Compute Engine API.

For this API, it looks like you will need to be a little more serious about using GCP. Breathe, and commit to enabling billing.

If you do this for the first time like I did, Google gives you free credit of USD 300; or at least that’s what I got (in Germany, around April / May 2018).

Activation takes 30 seconds or so with the waiting animation, and then you will see this.

 

 

1.5. Upgrade to Paid Account, Pay 35 USD or equivalent, and Increase Quota for “CPUS” and “SSD_TOTAL_GB”

At the moment, you are using a free GDP account. In order to host your SAP S/4HANA 1709 instance, you will need to commit to GCP a bit more. Essentially, you need to do these things:

  1. Upgrade to a paid account
  2. Increase the quota for SSD_TOTAL_GB
  3. Pay Google 35 USD or equivalent in your currency
  4. Request increase quota for CPUS

Can you stay with a free GCP account?  Unfortunately, the answer is no. I could not activate my S/4HANA instance correctly. With the APIs enabled, you can establish connection between GCP and CAL. The problem is the free GCP account does not give you enough computing resources; in our case, CPUs and SSD storage.

With these measures, you will get the error message like above when you try activating your S/4HANA instance in CAL. The explanation of “Quota ‘CPUS’”and “Quota ‘SSD_TOTAL_GB’” is listed in this GCD documentation (the link is also provided in FAQ in CAL documentation for GCP).

I have already blazed through this path myself. You can follow me in my footsteps below.

Here is how you upgrade to a paid account.

After the upgrade, SSD message can be resolved.

You can see that the error message is now reduced to only ‘CPUS’, but you cannot still activate your S/4HANA instance yet.

In order to increase your quota for CPUS, you need to go through GCP’s process. You start with requesting this like this.

You will see a message saying that you may need to wait for 24—48 hours. Instead, in my case, I almost immediately got an email from Google Compute Engine Quota Support, requesting to make a payment of 35 USD or equivalent in my currency.

Here is how you do this…

I googled how much is 35 USD in Euro (currency in Germany where I did this). According to Google, 35 USD on the day was about 30 Euro.

As soon as I have confirmed that it is shown in the Console as “credit” (in my case, almost immediately, not 24 hours), I replied to the email. Yes, it was a manual process to write an email and send it back.

This reply from GCP Support came back within perhaps 12-20 hours or so, I think. I sent the email back to them in the evening before I went to bed. I worked next day, and checked my email after I came back home from work to find the reply.

Now it’s all set to get your S/4HANA up and running on GCP from CAL.

 

 

Step 2. Let’s Set Up SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL)

Go to CAL at https://cal.sap.com/. Clicking on Get Start will take you to a catalog of solutions (I would say “virtual machines”) available.

There are many different solutions. Filter by “1709” like in the screen shot to find “SAP S/4HANA 1709, Fully-Activated Appliance”. You then create your own instance by clicking on Create Instance button. If you have not logged on to SAP CAL, then it will prompt you to log on with the screen like in the next screen shot.

Note: at the time of writing this after the screen shot was taken, a fully-activated appliance for 1709 FSP01 is available from 13th of May, 2018. You might like to choose to use this newer solution; the rest of the tutorial should still be applicable. The rest of the tutorial is based on 1709 available from December 13th 2017 as in the screen shot.

If you do not have an SAP ID, do not worry. You can register yourself here; it is a quick process of filling in a simple form. If you have an SAP ID, log on.

You will also get a terms & conditions around here. If you accept it, then you will be in a screen where you maintain account details.

If you are following this tutorial, I do not believe you need to read these details. In case you want to, here are some GCP specific information you can navigate to from this tip bubble: https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/Exp7H and https://cloud.google.com/compute/quotas.

Remember the JSON file (the service account’s key) you downloaded when creating a GCP service account in the previous section? You upload it here.

For Region and Zone, I just kept the default ones automatically populated for me.

I stored the private key, provided password and downloaded a .pem file here.

For the first time, you do need to wait for about 90 minutes.

If you have done all the pre-work in GCP described in previous step, you should have no problem activating your S/4HANA instance.

Congratulations! Now you have your own SAP S/4HANA 1709 in the Cloud.

 

 

Step 3a. Let’s Connect to Your Instance of SAP S/4HANA 1709 via SAP GUI

Once you have successfully activated your instance of SAP S/4HANA 1709, you can easily connect to it. There is documentation with a good detail, including settings for Fiori, and pre-defined users with passwords, etc. (Getting Started Guide).

But Let’s just connect to it via good ol’ SAP GUI, shall we?

If you have SAP GUI installed in your PC, you should get this pop up. Allow the connection.

For pre-defined users and password, refer to the “Getting Started Guide” – you see the link on top of this pop-up window.

For example, you can use S4H_MM. All the pre-defied users have a common password, “Welcome1”.

Logged on as S4H_MM.

It is truly your system. You can even create a super user with SAP_ALL and SAP_NEW profiles (!).

 

 

Step 3b. Let’s Test Fiori Launchpad from Home

To access the SAP Fiori Launchpad using your browser in your home PC, you need to do a little more. Getting Started Guide has a section dedicated to this as below. Let’s unpack it.

 

 

IP Addresses

In your CAL Console, navigate to the detail of your instance. It lists all the IP addresses to add to your “hosts” file. You need the following three IP addresses for your hosts file.

Tick the Public Static IP Addresses check box and save. If you do not do this, every time you suspend and activate your instance, the IP addresses will be different – you would then need to edit your hosts file in your PC each time.

 

 

Edit hosts file in your PC

Make sure to run the text editor as administrator (in my case, I use Notepad, as instructed by the Guide). Otherwise, you will not be able to save the file. I will assume you know what you are doing if you are using some fancy text editor.

If you run as administrator, you will probably get this confirmation box. Say yes.

The location of the file should be:

C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

If you see nothing in the folder, then make sure to change the selection to include all the files, not just *.txt files (this is the default).

Note that your Console lists a pair of IP addresses for each machine, internal IP and external IP. Make sure to use the external ones. In my case, all the external ones start with 35, internal ones 10.

Make sure you save the file.

 

 

Finally, SAP Fiori Launchpad!

I assume that this is DIY with your PC at home, so probably you do not need to do anything with the proxy related settings for your browser. I did not have to do anything.

If you encounter some issues related to internet connection, it may be worth looking at the Guide; there is a section that mentions some changes you might need to do to your browser settings, especially when you are using a web proxy and for Internet Explorer.

If you have edited your hosts file correctly, this URL should get you to your SAP Fiori Launchpad. The entry in your hosts file map this domain name to the IP address of your SAP S/4HANA system.

https://vhcals4hci.dummy.nodomain:44301/sap/bc/ui5_ui5/ui2/ushell/shells/abap/FioriLaunchpad.html

Congratulations! Now you have set up your own SAP S/4HANA instance on GCP, and can access it via SAP GUI and the SAP Fiori Launchpad.

 

 


 

 

Next Part of the Blog Tutorial Series

Part II of this tutorial blog will build on this, and walk you through a process of developing a simple Fiori app with using a ABAP Development Tool (ADT) and Web IDE (desktop version). We will also cover how to get these development tools and set them up.

 

 


 

 

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      107 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Rajeev Parimi
      Rajeev Parimi

      Hi Noboru,

      Awesome Blog!!

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you, Rajeev. Stay tuned for Part II 🙂

      Author's profile photo AMIT Lal
      AMIT Lal

      Hi Noboru,

      Very nice step by step details indeed. But one must ensure to shutdown services prior to 30 days completion, else it will bill heavily after free tier auto switch. 🙂

      Regards ,
      Amit

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Ah! I need to check mine then!

      Author's profile photo Krishna Kishor Kammaje
      Krishna Kishor Kammaje

      Thanks, Amit for the warning. Do you have any idea how much this would cost per month, considering 3 to 4 hours of usage per day?

      Noboru Ota : Great tutorial.!

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you.

      I have this in my CAL instance page. I am not entirely sure if I have been billed yet.

      Also for GCP, I have about 8 euro credit left.

       

      Author's profile photo Joachim Rees
      Joachim Rees

      Hi Noboru,

      just from reading the introduction , this sound very relevant and interesting!
      (This is one of the rare times where I jump to commenting before even reading the full blog!)

      This is an actual example on what cloud-services can enable, how they can make things better, and a very valid use case: get your own SAP Instance, play around with it, go ahead and (try to) break it, if you want! If you're done, just throw it away.

      ...and when the time/need comes, start right over again (doing it the 2nd time will be even faster, I'm sure).

       

      Just recently I outline a use case, buried deep down in some blog comments: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/07/02/abap-the-special-snowflake/comment-page-1/#comment-430510

       

      So while I'm not sure if I will actually do it, I’m very much looking forward to experiences others share here!

      Best
      Joachim

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Joachim,

      Thank you for jumping to the comment!

      I don't think I can comment on the CI/CD discussion, but certainly an interesting topic.

      Hopefully someone much more knowledgable than I am can share their experience 🙂

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      I spent some time in the evening reading the Snowflake blog and other related one.

      Your use case seems to have a progenitor from 2007 (based on NW 2004s) http://xunitpatterns.com/~gerard/agile2007-erp-paper.pdf.

      It is refreshing today to see a first-hand account of a project hitting against the "ABAPer culture".

      To address the server-based development issues, we
      worked with some senior people at SAP Canada to
      come up with the concept of an Agile Zone consisting
      of one dedicated developer workspace (on a shared
      server) for each pair of developers and one for our
      business testers.

       

       

      Author's profile photo Martin English
      Martin English

      Noboru,

      Regarding access to the SAP GUI; Several years ago there was a BW on HANA Developer edition available on CAL that set up two virtual servers  - one was the SAP system and the other was a front-end that contained both eclipse and a SAP GUI.

      This had the advantage that the DNS names and hosts files were correctly configured between the two servers, so that ICF, and Fiori worked seamlessly when you logged into the front-end system (the hosts file was preconfigured for the back-end). It also resolved the issue of where to get a copy of the SAP GUI from 🙂

      Unfortunately, I can't find this particular package anymore on the 'new improved' https://www.sap.com/developer/trials-downloads.html page

      hth

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you for this comment, Martin.

      Separately, I was reminded there is a remote desktop wihtin CAL. I understood it to be a virtual Windows environment (I assumed that it would be Citrix based). You might be talking abou the same thin as the second "virtual server". I might have a look later (and potentially update this blog).

      Thanks again 🙂

      Author's profile photo Abdullah Galal
      Abdullah Galal

      That's an awesome blog, thanks a lot for sharing

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you Abdullah. Part II is on its way. Stay tuned 🙂

      Author's profile photo Wasay Safder
      Wasay Safder

      Excellent blog !

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for your encouraging comment, Wasay.

      Author's profile photo Kamal Bhargava
      Kamal Bhargava

       

      Excellent Blog and you define it correctly, no need for an army of basis people to do it ?

       

      Thank you very much

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks, Kamal.

       

      Author's profile photo Roger Waymen
      Roger Waymen

      Thank you for this!! Still in the middle of resolving GCP quotas - apparently the region where GCP increased the quota has to match the one you set in CAL. Just so happened the region in GCP does not appear in CAL so I had to request for a different region.

      Anyway, do you think it would be possible to install additional components in the instance, ie via spam?

      I check back here everyday waiting for part 2!! 😀

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Roger,

      Thank you for sharing your experience here!

      I believe you can install an addtional component -- I think you have access to the operating system to place a .sar file. From memory, the documentation provides the password for SAP* so you should be able to log on to client 000, and do what you need there...

      I did not do these myself, so please check the documentation (and if you can, share your experience here, or write up your own blog 🙂 )

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Roger,

      Just an idea regarding the GCP quota and region.

      Looking back at my screen shots, I believe the quota I increased were both global, not region-specific (CPUs and SSD). I am writing this as a quick comment without really checking the details of what I really did, so I may be totally mistaken. But this might give you an "aha". You might like to check the exact technical names of the quota...

      Good luck!

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Just submitted Part II for review. I hope it will be made public soon. Thanks for waiting! 😀

      Author's profile photo Rama Shankar
      Rama Shankar

      Awesome Blog - thanks

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you, Rama.

      Author's profile photo Bryan Koetting
      Bryan Koetting

       

      Noboru,

      I guess I have to take issue with the title of your article saying set up of an "on-premise" S/4 HANA system.  On-premise means the software is installed locally on your own computers, and when I saw the title I was really intrigued because I thought this would discuss installing S/4 HANA on my laptop.  But this was a tutorial on SAP's "CLOUD" Appliance Library, and although it was a good and thorough tutorial SAP CAL is a totally cloud solution and is not "on-premise".  You don't even need the Sapgui installed locally if the CAL Solution enables remote desktop (some do, some don't).

      Bryan

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks for the comment, Bryan.

      I see. I guess I am quite lighthearted about the definition of "Cloud".

      The SAP S/4HANA system in this tutorial blog is an "on-premise" system deployed onto an IaaS cloud platform (i.e. GCP). It is different to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which is provided as SaaS. With the on-premise system, you can access IMG and the source code via SE80/ADT etc. You would not be able to do this with S/4HANA Cloud.

      I used to have a mini-Basis system in a spare PC at home that I assembled in a DIY manner long time ago -- I was really happy to be able to do this myself, but quickly became weary of having to maintain both the hardware and software.

      Personally, I prefer to have an full-blown ERP on-premise system on a cloud infrastructure. I guess this comes down to personal preference.

      Thanks for the comment and reading this, and comment about the remote desktop!

      Author's profile photo Bryan Koetting
      Bryan Koetting

      Oh I see, very interesting, I wasn't aware of those differences between the CAL Solutions and the SAP S/4HANA Cloud SaaS so yes that certainly changes the definition/perspective of "on-premise".

      I agree there's no way I would try to attempt a laptop install of S/4 HANA, even if it was available to do so.  I have used various CAL Solutions for a couple of years now as an independent consultant, have found them to be a cost-friendly way to explore new features.

      Bryan

      Author's profile photo Dominique Poisson
      Dominique Poisson

      Hi, all,

      I am a newcomer to ABAP.

      Is there a way to access a development platform (ABAP workbench) from my computer (I am using a MacBook), using it as a 'thin client'?

      Thank you.

      dominique

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Dominique,

      I would love to know the answer, too!

      There is a possibility — I cannot test this right now. Perhaps you or someone reading this could update us in the comments ?

       

      There is an option to access the ABAP workbench (via SAP GUI) via Windows Remote Desktop (RDP). I am attaching an excerpt from the Getting Started guide below (screen shot).

      I believe this is what you mean by “thin client”. 

      And… There is a free Microsoft Remote Desktop app for macOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/microsoft-remote-desktop-8-0/id715768417

      So if this version of the app is compatible with the RDP, then I would expect you can access the remote desktop to use ABAP workbench (transaction code SE80) via SAP GUI installed on the RDP.

       

      Author's profile photo Ayad Aljadiri
      Ayad Aljadiri

      Dear Noboru,

      Thank you so much for this great Blog, I'm really fascinated with the level of details and efforts you put on. couple questions.

      do you have any idea why I had been heavily charged even if I had not used the service too often?

      another question please do you have any idea why I had kept getting this error message when I'm trying to navigate to the SAP Fiori Launchpad( I had also tried to follow the steps in the guide regarding the Network proxy for the Google Chrome with no success). I had connected the instance of SAP S/4HANA 1709 via SAP GUI perfectly

      Thank you so much for your help

      Ayad Aljadiri

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Ayad, Thank you for your encouraging comment.

      For your bill, the biggest cost for you was the VCPU running for 867 minutes.

      My cost estimate from CAL says 3.42 USD per hour -- 867 minutes = 14,45 hours x 3.42 ~= 50 USD. So... Perhaps you are getting a good discount for that? (what's the rate between USD and EUR?)

      I will attach my July bill from GCP. Mine has been suspended for the whole of July (I think).

      CAL's estimte is 81.76 USD. My actual is around 60 EUR. So I feel I paied less than the cost estimate. The cost is mostly the SSD if I read GCP's bill correctly (I don't know what PD Capacity is).

      I would need to leave it to your judgement how you feel about the cost vs benefit.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      For the HTTP 503 error, I am not sure what causes this.

      Have you ever been able to access Fiori Launchpad (FLP)?

      Not sure, but I would double check the steps (e.g. host file configuration, IP address, etc. The IP address may change everytime if you do not tick the static IP checkbox, etc.). If error persists, I would Google (or search within the community)....

      Some others might have already fixed the same problem.

      Author's profile photo Pablo Alberto Trejo Ponce
      Pablo Alberto Trejo Ponce

      I'ld love it on-premise, not on cloud (CAL, google, hawei, azure, amazon etc ) , do have a guide that you can share about how to get it on-premise , i got a 54 GB RAM for it, not need a huge server it will be just for my personal usage and test on it, if FI module activated will be awesome or IDES. Thanks for sharing this is awesome, will considered it if i not find on premise.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Sorry for the lateness of the response — I did not seem to have received a notification. Perhaps I was travelling.

      I do not know a way (other than being a customer) to install the entire S/4HANA on your local machine.

      Having said this, there is a tutorial on installing an SAP NetWeaver system in openSUSE Linux.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Also just to be sure: what you get via CAL is S/4HANA on-premise, deployed onto a machine in the cloud.

      Author's profile photo Pablo Alberto Trejo Ponce
      Pablo Alberto Trejo Ponce

      I appreciate your help, thank you so much.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      You are welcome. Thank you for the question and encouraging comment.

      Author's profile photo GSAP project Shell London
      GSAP project Shell London

       

      Is it possible to extend the 30 day trial at the end, or to delete and recreate it again or is this just a one off 30 day chance to play with S/4 system

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi GSAP project Shell London (!)

      The Quick Start Guide (available from this sap.com site) has the following (slide 29):

      Want to extend your trial beyond 30 days (SAP customers / partners only) ?
      ▪ Acquire a monthly subscription for SAP CAL (see How to acquire an SAP CAL subscription)
      ▪ Acquire SAP S/4HANA product licenses (the ones that are used within the appliance) via your SAP representative
      Thank you.
      Noboru
      Author's profile photo Dominique Poisson
      Dominique Poisson

      Hi, thank you.

      But I want to avoid installing all these tools locally, precisely!

      Any other idea?

       

      dp

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Dominique,

      Are you the same person who asked a simliar question on the macOS on 2 August?

      I am not sure if you had a chance to read my response there. Did you try Windows Remote Desktop?

      I would love to hear your experience of it on macOS — I thnk it would benefit other readers in the forum, too.

      Thanks

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Krishna PrasadKarkala
      Krishna PrasadKarkala

      Hi Noboru,

       

      Thanks. Very informative blog.

      Does this procedure will be same for other cloud applications like IBP?

       

      Regards,

      Krishna

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Krishna,

      This blog tutorial is specific to S/4HANA 1709, which is an on-premise application, deployed onto an infrastructure on cloud. So it is not a SaaS application.

      In addition, I used SAP CAL as the source of the virtual machine (I think I could call it that). So it is a very specific way of deploying an on-premise S/4HANA system, making it easy to access from your home PC.

      I would suggest you to ask the question in other forums lived by experts in the specific applications you are interested in. I am sure they would be happy to help you there.

      Warm regards,
      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Julian Paulina
      Julian Paulina

      Noboru,

       

      Thank you very much for this blog.

      I just workout your document and have GCP paid and running .

      I'm using SAP S/4HANA 1709 FPS01 latest version in calc.sap

      But now I don't see connect only suspend. Where do I start troubleshooting this?

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Julian,

      Do you see more menu items if you clicked on “…” to the right of the “Suspend” button?

      Or do you see more menu items if you navigate to the detail by clicking on the “>” sign at the far right of the table row?

      It is possible that CAL has updated the UI, compared to the one I saw when I took the screen shots.

       

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Marcos Mata
      Marcos Mata

      Noboru Ota, thank you for sharing this information. It saved me a lot of time...

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Marcos, thank you for your comment!

      Author's profile photo Anup Gondkar
      Anup Gondkar

      Excellent Post. It really helped a lot. Just an update. I followed every step mentioned by you except that I used Asia-East1 as the region and requested to add more CPUs within the Quotas. I was not asked to upgrade to paid account. Rather I received an email that CPUs were added successfully without any request to upgrade to paid and my instance is active and I am able to use. Not sure if anything has changed recently.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you for your comments and sharing your experience with using a different region, Anup.

      Good news that you didn't have to pay and upgrade to deploy your instance!

      Author's profile photo Tri Minh Le
      Tri Minh Le

      Hi Noboru Ota ,

      Thanks for your great blog.

      One question is can I use this system as IDES?

      Another thing is if I mess up the system and want to refresh the whole system, how can I do it?

      Thanks

      Tri

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Tri,

      IDES. Well, yes. Have a look at the related blog referenced in mine (SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance: Create your SAP S/4HANA 1709 system in a fraction of the usual setup time) 

      "In the SAP S/4HANA 1709 fully-activated appliance, you will find the SAP S/4HANA software (along with some other components, see further below), the fully-activated SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA 1709".

      The data set and configuration may not be exactly the same as IDES, but you can use the instance as a sandbox system or proof of concept, etc., like you used to do with IDES.

      For refresh, you can throw away an instance and then activate a new one. This is like what you can do with virtual machines.

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Elias Santos
      Elias Santos

      Thanks! Excellent post!

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Happy New Year! Thank you for your kind words, Elias.

      Author's profile photo Oh Hyuk
      Oh Hyuk

      It works perfectly.

      Thanks for great post and  Happy new year!

       

      - Google didn't ask me 35$ for some reason : ) -

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Oh Hyuk, thank you, and Happy New Year to you, too 🙂

      Glad to hear that your S/4HANA system works and didn't have to pay like I did 😉

      Perahps Google did something to increase their base capacity -- not sure.

      Perhaps I should revisit this, with the 1809 release...

      Author's profile photo Paul Antunes
      Paul Antunes

      Hi Noboru great article , fantastic instructions . Quick question does this environment include HCI for full integration .

      Also these environments from your experience are only scalable for corporate usage ?

      Can we do our own developments in these enviroments  ?

      many thanks

      Paul

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Paul,

      Thank you for your comments.

      Not entirely confident that I understood the intent of your quesiton -- sorry, but I will try and comment below.

      You mean HCI = SAP HANA Cloud Integration, right?

      It’s now part of SAP Cloud Platform. Landing page here.

      My blog instruction is about SAP S/4HANA on-premise system, so the environment does not include HCI or SAP Cloud Platform Integration — but they are meant to work together if integration capability is needed.

      S/4HANA is primarily a business software application.

      If you have a need to develop software applications totally detached from a business (or corporate) use in mind — like, online game applications, for instance — you would be better served by another development platform (e.g. GCP, AWS, Azure, etc.)

      But you can use SAP Cloudplatform (especially Cloud Foundry environmment) for something like a Node.js application. Perhaps it would be best if you saw it yourself to make your own judgement. Here is a link for a tutorial on Node.js application on SAP Cloudplatform (inluding a link for an instruction to get a trial account)

       

      Author's profile photo r.ten bosch KLM E&M
      r.ten bosch KLM E&M

      GCP will not work for SAP GUI

      BW4HANA with BPC11 SP05 deployment on GCP looks fine, BUT doesnt work:
      The SAP GUI port 3200  IS MISSING in the allowed AccessPoints..
      Look at the previous versions... there SAPGUI is included in the list of AP's
      Have lost about 24 hrs to find this... I dont feel good about this...
      regards, r.tenbosch@gmail.com

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi, r.ten bosch,

      Thanks for the note, and sorry to hear that you have lost so much of your time!

      I have had no problem connecting to S/4HANA instances (both 1709 and 1809) with SAP GUI from my PC.

      I was not looking at BW4HANA. So thanks. Hopefully your note will save time for others looking at this post when they use BW4HANA.

      Best,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo r.ten bosch KLM E&M
      r.ten bosch KLM E&M

      Hello Noburu, thank you for your excellent posts!                        Urgent

      Have a question how to deploy the BPC11 part for the SAP CAL deployment of BW4HANA SP05 and BPC SP01.
      I have this april 2018   Server  [A4H] working on msft AZURE and GCP.
      > But now remains BPC11. How should we deploy this and how to deploy FIORI on A4H ? Because FIORI kicks-off with a Client web part or via FIORI LPD.
      How should we do this please?  The central ABAP server is named vhcala4hcs. I tried some parameters in the HOSTS file, but it didnt work. Looking very much forward to an answer,
      kind regards,
      robert

       

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Robert,

      I am afraid I cannot help you with this issue.

      With my blog, I wanted to share my own experience with setting up an S/4HANA solution from CAL on GCP. I have no experience with BW4HANA, and I am not an expert in setting up an Fiori environment.

      I can only wish you best luck.

      Noboru

       

      Author's profile photo Suresh Kumar Sivasubramani
      Suresh Kumar Sivasubramani

      Hi Noboru,

       

      First of all congratulations on the Excellent blog series, I haven't tried it out yet, I will try it out for 1809 soon though.

      My objective is to learn UI5 and Fiori via the WebIde, so I was just wondering after the 30 day period of CAL, how much were you charged ? or how much is it charged for people working outside of SAP ?

      My rationale is having the webide, cloud connector and a backend system would enable me to create and test real-time like scenarios than having just the Webide trail(with just the northwind's oData).

      Thanks.
      Suresh Kumar
      email: suresh2989@gmail.com

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Suresh,

      I am not sure if you can keep the same CAL instance after 30 days. I have not really done that.

      I always retire an instance, and create a new one — so starting from scratch in the initial state of the appliance, which is already a good state. For Cloud Connector, you might need to install it by yourself as an additional step. There should one installed already in CAL 1809 solution, but around mid March, I could not use it any longer. See my new article, where I touch on this point. The situation might have changed since then.

      In terms of the cost, I have never had to pay for CAL. I believe this is because I have always been within the 30-day period (I do not believe this is because I am an SAP employee).

      The cost of the infrastructure can be expensive for an individual hobbyist like me. I kept my instance for 28 days of Feb 2019. The bill came from GCP was 102.20 EUR (See the screen shot below). This was when I did not activate the instance at all for the entire month. Just keeping my system inactive cost me this much.

      My March bill was about the same (112 EUR), when I was using the system more actively for writing up the new article. I would usually activate the system for 2-3 hours in the evening (after work), and then deactivate it for most of the day and night. This was for about 15-20 days (I cannot be too sure, sorry).

      This is for Europe. Different geographies may have different GCP rates.

       

       

       

       

      Author's profile photo Suresh Kumar Sivasubramani
      Suresh Kumar Sivasubramani

      Thanks for the quick reply Noburu,

      So you would just keep paying for GCP, in the meantime just before the 30 day mark reaches in CAL, you would retire it and I assume you can start another trail from the same S-user id and link CAL's JSON file to it and start over again?

      Which is awesome in my opinion, for people like me who are going to use it for practice and non-productive objectives.

      Thanks again for providing more information on Cloud connector, on second thought I would stick to just your part 1 and part 2 tutorials and get it up and running first.

      Regards,

      Suresh Kumar
      email: suresh2989@gmail.com

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Yes, that’s what I have been doing.

      Uploading a JSON file from GCP is one-off thing to link your CAL account with GCP. In fact, I forgot about it as I have never had to do it again ?

      Author's profile photo Rahul Unni
      Rahul Unni

      Hi Noboru

       

      I should start by thanking you for this very informative post.

      When you mentioned that you "always retire an instance, and create a new one", do you mean to say that you only terminate an instance (say an instance created using "SAP S/4HANA 1809 FPS01, Fully-Activated Appliance") before the 30-day trial ends and create a new instance using the same appliance?

      I created an instance yesterday (June 6), terminated it to save cost and created one again today. However the licence period did not change beyond what was originally assigned to me yesterday, that is from June 6~July 6. Does this mean that I need to create a new instance using a new appliance for it to work beyond the 30-day trial period?

      Just for your information though, I launched my new instance on AWS and it was equally smooth. You only need to increase the instance limits from 1 to 2 in your particular region.

       

      Regards

      Rahul

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Rahul,

      Yes. That's what I have been doing.

      In my case, I terminate an instance (removed from GCP in my case, and AWS in your case), and then come back to re-create a new instance from the same solution after initial 30-day period -- so in your case, it would be after July 6.

      I had no problem creating my second (and even third, if I remember correctly) instance when I was writing my Node.js integration in this way (I think I needed three instances to do so, over 3-4 months).

      This was my experience.

      Of course I would need to start from scratch every time.

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Daniel A. Egaña Rojas
      Daniel A. Egaña Rojas

      excellent work! very thankful

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thank you Daniel!

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Hey Noboru, YOU…ROCK ! ?

      outstanding quality blog, with all necessary details to set up an instance, it worked fine on my side, seems I’m one of lucky guys about those 35$

      Got all set for a month trial, I don’t know how much it would be with a few hours usage after month trial, maybe hourly basic rate change after a month trial, not sure, but it gives some time to play which is valuable, thanks a lot for this really cool contribution, I will check if there is an opening by SAP with this kind of process for other apps where a little play would be nice (IBP and Hybris on my side)

      very good blog Noboru!

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

       

      Hi abdelaziz,

      Thank you for your kind comments, and I'm happy that you got your system working!

      Regarding the costs of keeping the instance after the trial period, I have noted my experience in one of the comments above. Here is just copy and paste from it:

      The cost of the infrastructure can be expensive for an individual hobbyist like me. I kept my instance for 28 days of Feb 2019. The bill came from GCP was 102.20 EUR (See the screen shot below). This was when I did not activate the instance at all for the entire month. Just keeping my system inactive cost me this much.

      My March bill was about the same (112 EUR), when I was using the system more actively for writing up the new article. I would usually activate the system for 2-3 hours in the evening (after work), and then deactivate it for most of the day and night. This was for about 15-20 days (I cannot be too sure, sorry).

      Hope you will have more of fun.

      Please write about your experience with this instance of yours,and your research with IBP and Hybris <-- we now tuck this under C/4HANA 😉

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Hey Noboru, thanks for your reply, indeed I can see that the cost without any process flow handling in the system is already high. I activate it and deactivate (suspend) manually to make sure it is ok. I will use it for the 30 days to play with MRP Live, Fiori tiles processes and PP/DS I hope I get enough time

      I don't know with another through another gmail account and CAL account it is fine to request a new free month trial, if you tried, feel free to let me know 🙂

      I will keep you posted if something similar to your process is applicable for C/4HANA or IBP, finger crossed 🙂

      best regards

      Abdelaziz

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Thanks! MRP and PP/DS sounds awesome.

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Sounds great indeed, I could do my data set and transfer to PP/DS, no issue with that.

      The issue is, for all transactions of PP/DS (show product view, proceed for production planning in PP/DS) I have a program dump 🙁

      ABAP Program /SAPAPO/SAPLOM_CORE dumps, showing this:

      The current application program has detected a situation with the
      ASSERT statement that should not occur.
      The reason for this runtime error was one of the following:
      - For the checkpoint group specified with the ASSERT statement,
      activation mode is "abort".
      - A system variant has been used to set the activation mode to "
      globally for all checkpoint groups in this system.
      - The activation mode is set to "abort" at program level.
      - The ASSERT statement is not assigned to any checkpoint groups.

       

      if you have an idea, more than welcome 😉

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Not sure; it's not an area of my expertise.

      Perhaps the capability is not activated in IMG?

      If you read the programs around that assertion, you would be probably able to see what is missing (?)

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      not sure, as everything is activated in customizing side, and I could transfer data to PPDS that's why it is weird

      maybe I should terminate my 1709 instance and try with a full 1809 ?

      In this 1709 I had to adjust CIF (core interface) customizing in IMG, to adapt logical system and assign latest APO version to it, so that data transfer could occur

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      For what is worth, it might be worth checking what best practices configuration and master data are in the system. Below is an excerpt from Getting Started guide for 1809 FPS01 fully-activated appliance. PP/DS set up (either IMG or master data, or both) may not be part of the appliance.

      The SAP S/4HANA 1809 FPS01 Fully Activated Appliance uses SAP Best Practices as main business content.
      The chart below summarizes the Best Practices scope for SAP S/4HANA 1809 (details can be found on
      https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/browse/packageversions/BP_OP_ENTPR).

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Hi Noboru

       

      Indeed, as packages include best practices only, if I want to run some PP/DS processes, I need to find a package where there is BP linked to PP/DS

      On premise package has this one covering a PP/DS flow

      SAP S/4HANA Chemicals trial with industry best practices

       

      do you think I should terminate my 1709 instance and run this one instead ? (same process you shared)

       

      I can see it is in the free packages in SAP CAL, worth to try?

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi abdelaziz,

      I can't give you a qualified "yes" based on my experience, as I have only used fully-activated appliances.

      But, I would try the one you are looking at, if I were you; in general, I would give a try to learn from hands-on experience. Sounds like that appliance does not cost you more than a fully-activated appliance. Then... why not 😉

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Hi Noboru

       

      good stuff, will try this one 😉 thanks for sharing your opinion, much appreciated

       

      best regards

      Abdelaziz

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      Hey Noburu

      quick one to inform you that for SAP S/4 Hana Chemical has the necessary BP activated for PP/DS flows, which is good for testing

       

      best regards

      Abdelaziz

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Abdelaziz,

      Great to hear that!

      Thank you for letting me and the community know this.

      Perhaps you could turn your experience into a blog later 😉 It would be lovely to read about it.

       

      Regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo abdelaziz khaoua
      abdelaziz khaoua

      ok, so if I turn this experience into a blog, I will make sure to be as detailed as you are 🙂

      chemical solution is well activated for planning purposes, which is very useful.

      I will share when I will run interesting scenarios with good best practices

       

      regards

      Abdelaziz

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash
      Sriram Prakash

      Hi Noboru ,

      Thanks for this blog .Was really helpful. I got this quota error ,

      Usage limits reached: Regional: – Quota ‘CPUS’ exceeded. Available: 24, Requested: 32 To solve this problem you have to request additional quota from the Quotas page in the GCP console.

      Now upgraded my GCP CPU to 32 .I am not sure how to proceed from here .

       

      Regards

      Sriram

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sriram,

      If I recall correctly, you don't have to do anything.

      I am guessing the error you had was the same one I noted in Step 1.5 above.

      Try activating your instance as Step 2. At least in my case, I did not have an issue to do so after paying to increase my CPU quota.

       

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash Suresh
      Sriram Prakash Suresh

      Thanks Noboru  .Very good blog .I got my my instance sorted .

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Good to hear that, Sriram.

      Thanks for your comment; very encouraging!

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash Suresh
      Sriram Prakash Suresh

      Hi Noboru ,

       

      Before I get charged on my GCP can I terminate my account ??Will I be charged if I terminate on the 30th day .

       

      Can I create a new google cloud account and launch the same thing from the scratch ?

      Can we create a S/4 HANA instance using the free SAP cloud platform (1 year free ) ?If yes ,please let me know if there is any document ?

       

      Regards

      Sriram

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sriram,

      I cannot really answer how Google does the business with GCP.

      I believe you will still be charged for the days you used GCP even if you terminated the account on the 30th day -- you identify yourself with credit card, etc. so... I think that would be a reasonable assumption.

      You could create another Google account and get another free trial, maybe... But they may identify you through the credit card? I don't know.

      I suppose you can find out by doing it (?)

       

      I do not know a way to deploy S/4HANA on-premise onto SCP.

       

      Noboru

       

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash Suresh
      Sriram Prakash Suresh

      Thanks for the response !

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash
      Sriram Prakash

      Hi Noboru ,

      Just out of curiosity ,have you ever tried doing this with Microsoft Azure .?

      Please share me any blogs or docs that you have come across .

      -Sriram

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      No. I haven't tried MS Azure.

      Have a look at cal.sap.com or this blog to see if any appliance is available on Azure.

      https://blogs.sap.com/2018/12/12/sap-s4hana-fully-activated-appliance-create-your-sap-s4hana-1809-system-in-a-fraction-of-the-usual-setup-time/comment-page-1/#comment-478877

      Author's profile photo Quynh Doan Manh
      Quynh Doan Manh

      FYI, if you try the Fully-Activated Appliance of any version (1610~1909) you would need 32CPUs+ that why you need to upgrade and pay $35 to GCP.

      If you try the "modify" version like SAP S/4HANA 1809 FPS01 - Rapid Activation for Fiori, SAP S/4HANA 1909...its only required 20CPUs+ (free GCP have 24 CPUs) then you good to go without paying.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Great! Thank you for letting me and the rest of the community know about this!!

      Quynh Doan Manh !!!

      Author's profile photo Sriram Prakash
      Sriram Prakash

      Hi Noboru ,

       

      I am trying connect to HANA DB through HANA Studio I am unable to connect it .Please let me know if you have connected and what are the properties that you declared for connection

       

      Regards

      Sriram

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Sriram,

      Sorry that I don't think I can help you here.

      I did not deal directly with HANA DB.

      S/4HANA is an ERP application sitting on top of HANA DB, and I don't have to touch the DB directly when I use S/4HANA for the things I do.

      I hope you will find useful resources in other blogs, wikis, etc.

       

      Warm regards,

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Anthony Poltera
      Anthony Poltera

      Best Blog on the internet!

      Setup a Google Cloud Platform DIY S4 HANA 1809 FPS02 in a morning.

      Everything works 🙂

      Brilliant!

      Thank you so much.

      Now to "Performance Test" /Hack the Fiori Display G\L Line Item for 15 million DB records...in my Z namespace i.e. Copy ACDOCA to ZACDOCA and use existing data to replicate volumes....hope S4 HANA can handle such volumes....

      😉

      Thank you once again.

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Anthony Poltera, 

      Thank you so much for your kind comments.

      Good luck with your performance test.

      I have a feeling people in the community would be interested in your write-up, when you have a chance; I would be 🙂

       

      Noboru

      Author's profile photo Ivan Milazzotti
      Ivan Milazzotti

      I'm a ABAP senior developer and I have a few noob questions:

      1. Can I use this service for training purpuses? To do some training at developer.sap.com I need to have a valid instance of an on-premise AS ABAP server, version 7.51 or higher ...
      2. It already came with some data (sales orders, customers, companies) ? I don't want setup anything, I just want to connect Eclipse and start to develop acessing already installed information.
      3. To cancel the service (no more payments) what to I need to do? Suspend will cancel the charges on my creditcard?

      Thanks

      Ivan

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Ivan,

      I take it that your “training purpose” is self-study. Then that should be fine. I don’t believe you are allowed to use the system to give a training for a fee, etc.

      Fully-Activated Appliances come with business data. For example, I am now looking at its latest release, 1909 FPS01; it has 2,500 sales orders (see the screen shot below).

      Charges come from your infrastructure. In my example, I used Google Cloud Platform — you can use others such as Azure or AWS.

      Within CAL, you have “Activate”, “Suspend”, and “Terminate”. Suspend is just a “sleep mode” that reduces the charges from the infrastructure service. To cancel, you need to terminate your CAL instance. And ensure that the instance is removed from your infrastructure service — this depends on which one you choose. It might sound a little complicated, but once you see it, it should be intuitive. That was my experience.

      Make sure to suspend your CAL instance once you have finish your self-study for the day. Active instance typically charges 1-3 Euro (in my region) but suspended instance charges far less. There have been a couple of exchanges about charges above: like here.

      Good luck!

      Noboru

      Screen Shot. List of Sales Orders via “Manage Sales Orders” app

       

      Author's profile photo Ivan Milazzotti
      Ivan Milazzotti

      This is marvelous !!!!!

      I appreciate your enlightment !!!

       

      Thanks

       

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      You're welcome.

      Author's profile photo Sanjay Ram
      Sanjay Ram

      Hi Noboru,

      Great job and thanks. I have only 2 questions :-

      1. For USD35 what is the computing power and memory provided by Google?
      2. For how long the S/4 Hana Cal license will be valid and can we re-install the same trial software once again or we need to create a new CAL account?
      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      For Question 1, this was written some time ago; I haven't gone back to GCP since then. As you can see in my writing, there is enough computing power (CPU, memory, etc.) to run SAP S/4HANA. If you need accurate detail, then I suggest you refer to GCP. It could have changed over time since my writing this, and can also be region dependent, but I cannot be sure.

      For Question 2, from my experience, you can deploy another instance -- this means you cannot carry over the configuration and data you created to the next instance. I don't think you can continue to use the same instance longer than 30 days. Please refer to this:

      The Quick Start Guide (available from this sap.com site) has the following (slide 29):

      Want to extend your trial beyond 30 days (SAP customers / partners only) ?
      ▪ Acquire a monthly subscription for SAP CAL (see How to acquire an SAP CAL subscription)
      ▪ Acquire SAP S/4HANA product licenses (the ones that are used within the appliance) via your SAP representative
      Author's profile photo Sanjay Ram
      Sanjay Ram

      Thanks for the answer

      Author's profile photo Mike Quinn
      Mike Quinn

      Hi

      great blog.  Is it possibel to get access to the backend via say putty to carry out any config at the OS level?

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      Maybe. I'm not sure. My knowledge in system administration is minimal. I believe the OS used is Windows Server and you should have the full access. So... If Windows Server can let you remote command line operations via SSH, etc., then I suppose you can (??).

      Author's profile photo Noboru OTA
      Noboru OTA
      Blog Post Author

      You can read more about the system in the documentation on CAL.

      For example: Getting Started with the SAP S/4HANA 2020 (FPS02) Fully-Activated Appliance.

      I believe all you need to read it is to register yourself for a user on SAP CAL.