SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 Installation and Update | Hands-on

What’s New – Installation and Update

SAP HANA Platform

We can be brief about what’s new for the installation and update topic area for the latest SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 release.

1. NEW: We can enable data and log volume encryption at installation time.
2. CHANGED: We can now use the local secure store (LSS) for production. LSS was introduced last year with SPS 04.

As documented,

• SAP HANA Server Installation and Update (New and Changed)

As described in the What’s New in SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 overview blog, when compared, we can safely put the Installation and Update topic area in bimodal IT camp number one: predictable. In fact, we have to back to 2014 for the last major innovations in this domain. Changes at the time were coming so fast, we wrote a blog about it

• A Short History of SAP HANA Platform Lifecycle Management – by the SAP HANA Academy

Since, it has been an extra parameter here, a minor enhancement there.

• SPS 04: support for persistent memory and install_execution_mode parameter
• SPS 03: software authentication verification and database selection for XS advanced
• SPS 02: AFL update without restart
• SPS 01: installation defaults to tenant database mode

Good thing or bad? Very good would be my vote. You want operations to be predictable. The installation process for SAP HANA has been consistent for the last 6 years and with SPS 05 will remain the same for another five.

If you are new to this topic, we can recommend the video tutorial series and blog posts created for the SPS 02 release (2018), we cover the topic in much detail for every component: server, client, studio, XS advanced, etc. As very little has changed, this information is still accurate.

• SAP HANA 2.0 Installation and Update – by the SAP HANA Academy

SAP HANA Cockpit

Although there are a lot of new features introduced with SAP HANA 2.0 cockpit SP 12, concerning installation and update we can be short: it is the same as before, no new features.

The installation uses the same HDBLCM tool as for the database server and other components with a slight modification: we call the tool using a script (hdblcm.sh) instead of directly (hdblcm) to pass some parameters along. To automate (batch), we can use the same process as with the database. This is illustrated below in this blog.

Since the first release of SAP HANA cockpit 2.0 with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 00 in 2016 only once was there an entry for the Installation and Update topic with SP07: support for installation into existing databases.

Tutorial Videos

SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 – Installation and Update

Short tutorial video showing selections choices and procedure (server only).

SAP HANA Cockpit 2.0 SP 12 – Installation and Update

Short tutorial video showing selections choices and procedure.

SAP HANA Cockpit

Documentation

Always check the documentation and release notes before starting the installation. This might save you a lot of time later on.

• SAP HANA Cockpit
• 2380291 – SAP HANA 2.0 Cockpit Central Release Note
• Important SAP Notes

Hardware and software requirements are documented in the SAP HANA Cockpit Installation and Update Guide, that is to say, the reference to the actual SAP Note/KBA where this is recorded.

Although you can add SAP HANA cockpit to an existing SAP HANA system, in the standard architecture it contains an SAP HANA, express edition database (persistence), the XS Advanced runtime, plus several Node.js applications, including

• SAP HANA cockpit – system administration tool
• SAP HANA cockpit manager – metadata management tool
• SAP HANA database explorer – catalog browser and SQL console
• SAP HANA SQL Analyzer – execution plan analysis

From the cockpit we make named database user (e.g. SYSTEM) connections to SAP HANA systems (release 1.0 SPS 12 or later). In addition, for connections to the system database to start/stop. offline troubleshooting, or recover we can also add an operating system account, typically the <sid>adm user.

Software Downloads

You can download SAP HANA cockpit 2.0 from Software Downloads on the SAP ONE Support Launchpad. Time of writing, SP12 was the latest version but typically you always install the latest version.

• SP12 Patch14 for SAP HANA COCKPIT 2.0

The SAR file starts to approach the 4 GB. If your network connection is good enough, you might get away with downloading the file directly (click the link) otherwise check the box and select the shopping cart. Click Download Basket on the bottom menu bar to verify.

Download Manager and File Transfer

To download multiple or larger files unattended, get the Download Manager (also from Software Downloads).

• Download Manager

Unzip the ZIP and put the JAR where you like or leave it where it is). Should you have a properly configured Java environment, double clicking the JAR will execute it. Otherwise, run command

java -classpath "DLManager.jar" dlmanager.Application

If you need a JVM, go to

• sap.github.io/SapMachine/

Next, you need to transfer the file to the host. You can use secure FTP clients like WinSCP or in case this concerns a cloud-hosted environment use a cloud shell command. For Google Cloud Platform, for example, use

gcloud compute scp SAPHANACOCKPIT12_14-70002299.SAR hanacockpit:/install

To extract, you need to download SAPCAR from Software Downloads. Should you recycle the server, check if the SAP host agent is still present and run SAPCAR from there.

/usr/sap/hostctrl/exe/SAPCAR -manifest SIGNATURE.SMF 
-xvf SAPHANACOCKPIT12_14-70002299.SAR 

Installation

Like the database, we install SAP HANA cockpit with the SAP HANA Database Lifecycle Manager (HDBLCM) except this time via a shell script and not directly

./hdblcm.sh

We are prompted to enter

• installation path
• local host name
• system identifier
• instance number
• master password

Default values are provided including Password1 as master password (joke, that’s a joke – you need to come up with one yourself and better make a strong one as it will be the password for all superusers

• <sid>adm – OS
• SYSTEM – system database
• SYSTEM – cockpit tenant database
• COCKPIT_ADMIN – XS advanced

Default SID is H4C and instance number 96. These are arbitrary values and can be changed as desired. Note that by default port-based routing is used and that the instance number is present in a number of TCP ports, e.g. 3<instance_number>30 for the XS controller, etc., which may affect the firewall configuration. Port numbers (range) are configurable.

• 2389709 – Specifying the port for SAP HANA Cockpit before installation

As mentioned, cockpit uses the same installer as the database so should you want to perform an unattended installation with customised settings, see the platform documentation

• Parameter Reference, SAP HANA Server Installation and Update Guide

Summary before execution shows XS Advanced administration user: COCKPIT_ADMIN and the XS advanced org and space (SAP, HANACockpit). Also note that the default domain might be different from the value expected. We can change easily after the installation.

• 2245631 – Routing Mode and Default Domain configuration for SAP HANA extended application services, advanced model

Note the built-in database is SPS 04 and the location of the log files (should anything go wrong). The installation takes about 45 minutes.

When all is well, the installation ends with

SAP HANA Cockpit System installed
Launch SAP HANA cockpit by opening https://<hostname>:51026
Launch SAP HANA cockpit manager by opening https://<hostname>:51028

Post-Installation Configuration

When we access the cockpit URL, the browser returns an invalid certificate warning and we cannot connect. SAP HANA cockpit use self-signed certificates and this is like printing your own passport. It does not get you very far.

For test, demo, and training, you can add the certificate to Keychain (macOS) and mark as trusted or install the certificate as root (Windows). For anything serious, get proper certificates. Ask the network admin if that is not you. See the blog post for some suggestions

• SAP Analytics Cloud – Live Connection to SAP HANA using Direct (CORS)

Reload the page and we should get routed to the XS Advanced user authentication and authorization (UAA) service. This is a different port, so in case you only opened up 51026 and 51028 through the firewall you may get stuck at this point and need to go back to the network admin.

If not, we get an error message (with the promised land in sight, how painful!). Fortunately, we are informed what to do: ask ourselves to launch the cockpit manager tool.

Update the port from 26 to 28 and login. Now we are still not authorized but this time we are prompted whether we want to have the required role collection assigned. Duh.

We are making progress. We are connect to the cockpit manager although no databases are registered yet. There are no groups and there is one user (cockpit admin).

From the bottom bar, we can now navigate to the cockpit (opens in new tab). There is nothing to do yet but we can navigate back to Manage Cockpit (opens in another tab). Let’s add a database.

SAP HANA

Documentation

As with cockpit, always check the documentation and release notes before starting the installation.

• SAP HANA Platform
• 2844322 – SAP HANA Platform 2.0 SPS 05 Release Note
• 2235581 – SAP HANA: Supported Operating Systems

Supported operating system requirements have not changed and are the same as for the latest revisions of SPS 04 (e.g. SLES 12 SP05 or 15 SP1).

Software Downloads

As with cockpit, download the full SAP HANA platform SPS (14 GB) from Software Downloads.

• SAP HANA Platform Edt. 2.0 SPS05 rev50 Linux x86_64 (or Power)

Click Download Basket on the bottom menu bar to validate your choice before downloading.

In case you only need the server component (or a new revision), go to Support Packages and Patches. IMDB_SERVER is 3.5 GB. Make sure to select LINUX ON x86_64 in the header.

• IMDB_SERVER20_050_0

Download Manager and File Transfer

Use Download Manager and file transfer to copy the file to the hana host. There are many ways to do this. For cloud-based systems, use the command line secure copy (scp) command. Alternatively, store this file in cheap cloud storage or on a drive that you attach to the image.

gcloud compute scp 51054084.ZIP hana-vm1:/install

The SPS comes as ZIP file, the component revisions as SAR. Use unzip or SAPCAR to extract.

unzip 51054084.ZIP

The first level contains label information for automation. The second level all components.

System Preparation

For SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), use YaST to configure host and network settings.

Yast > Network Settings > Hostnames configures /etc/hosts

Yast > System > Network Setting: configures /etc/resolv.conf

For new systems, preparing the environment should be planned and executed carefully. For this hands-on, I used an existing SAP HANA, express edition system and removed the existing installation.

/hana/shared/HXE/hdblcm/hdblcm

Installation

Go down the path to the server and run the SAP HANA database lifecycle manager (HDBLCM):

cd DATA_UNITS/HDB_SERVER_LINUX_X86_64
./hdblcm

Note that besides the server, the client is detected, the application function library (AFL), EML, EPM-MDS, smart data access (SDA), the local secure store (LSS), XS advanced runtime. and different applications from XSA_CONTENT, including the SAP Web IDE and the database explorer.

For a database-only installation, we are prompted to enter

• installation path
• local host name
• single or multiple host (i.e. distributed) – adding a second host automatically makes it scale out
• system identifier – no default value
• instance number
• worker group – standby or extension node are alternatives (exceptional cases)
• system usage
• enable encryption – SPS 05 alert! New Feature
• location of data and log volume
• restrict memory allocation – e.g. to the licensed amount
• certificate host name – for SSL connections
• passwords for <sid>adm and SYSTEM
• OS user login shell, ID, and home
• reboot – cryptical description meaning start HANA system with operating system (or not)

In other words, we only need to supply the SID and the passwords, all other values take on default parameters.

The log file location is the same as for cockpit. Server only installation takes about 8 minutes.

Post-Installation Configuration

There is no required post-installation activity as such but making a backup and changing passwords are usual activities. SAP also recommends to disable the SYSTEM and create less privileged users, e.g. USER ADMIN for user administration, BACKUP ADMIN for backups, etc.

SAP HANA Cockpit Manager

Register Database

Register the database(s) and optionally create a group. This works the same as with previous releases except that we now register a database and not a resource (name change)

SPS 05 alert! New Feature

This is documented in the cockpit administration guide. 

• Set Up SAP HANA Cockpit for the First Time

Note that if you have yet properly configured the SSL certificates, you do not want to enable SSL as self-signed certificates do not get you very far.

Home

Navigate from the cockpit manager to the cockpit. Note that we are running with issues…

Database Directory

The resource directory is now Database Directory. New graphs have been added for resource consumption, a new column for expensive statement, and views to filter on usage type.

Enter credentials and connect to the database.

Database Overview

System overview is now Database Overview. Like the directory, we can now select a view in the header to filter (monitoring, administration. user management).

The Alerts card informs us that there is one issue with Backups.

The Backups card informs us that there are no backups.

Time to make a backup. Where are those sysadmins when you need them…

On a side note: when we create an instance of SAP HANA Cloud there are zero issues when we access the SAP HANA cockpit (included with the database as-a-service, no need to install or register anything). When we access the database for the first time, a backup will already have been created.

Database Information

Running SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05. Mission accomplished.

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