SAP HANA Cloud Fallback Snapshots

Introduction of SAP HANA Cloud Fallback Snapshots

Service Level Agreements (SLA) for SAP Cloud Services requires high level of quality, performance and availability provided to the customer. Thus, fast recovery after i.e. a failed software or SAP HANA version update is essential. We provide a generalized fallback solution for these upgrade-related issues, introducing a SAP HANA Cloud snapshot-service. But even for other use cases, like i.e. a reset of your test or training environment, SAP HANA Cloud fallback snapshots is a fast and practical solution.

General Info

• Very useful for fast rollbacks after facing issues with Software or HC version upgrades
• Currently SAP HANA Cloud fallback snapshots are only supported via CF API
• CF API is an interim solution. UI version will come probably within 2023
• CF API commands are currently used to take, delete or fallback to a snapshot
• Snapshots have a retention period of 14 days before they will be automatically deleted
• Snapshots will be stored on the hyperscalers snapshot storage infrastructure
• Only one volume snapshot is supported. Delete the old one before creating a new one
• Velero is internally used as a 3^rd party tool to manage volume snapshots
• Customers will feel no disruptions and can continue working with their HANA systems while SAP HANA Cloud fallback snapshot is taken
• An SAP HANA Cloud fallback snapshot is not taken automatically like i.e. our regular daily SAP HANA Cloud database backups. Customers need to trigger the creation of a fallback snapshot manually, whenever required

Taking a Fallback Snapshot

• The process is triggered via CF API command update-service
• The status of the operation can be seen via the cf service command or in HANA Cloud Central
• The command cf service “instance name” –params will show you detailed information about the snapshot, like the snapshot ID and the HANA version

cf update-service <instance_name> -c '{

"data": {

"requestedOperation": {

"name": "TAKE_SNAPSHOT_FOR_FALLBACK"

}

}

}'

Deleting a Fallback Snapshot

• The process is triggered via CF API command update-service:

• You need to know the snapshot ID as an argument, use the command cf service “instance name” –params to find it
• To check if a snapshot has been deleted or still exists, use the command cf service “instance name” –params

cf update-service <instance_name> -c '{

"data": {

"requestedOperation": {

"name": "REMOVE_SNAPSHOT_FOR_FALLBACK",

"arguments": {

"snapshot_id": "<snapshot_id>"

}

}

}

}'

Recovering to a Fallback Snapshot

• The process is triggered via CF API command update-service:
• You need to know the snapshot ID as an argument, use the command cf service “instance name” –params to find it
• After recovery, the snapshot will be deleted automatically
• All new objects, tables, DB entries etc. made after the HANA version upgrade will be lost after the snapshot recovery

cf update-service <instance_name> -c '{

"data": {

"requestedOperation": {

"name": "FALLBACK_TO_SNAPSHOT",

"arguments": {

"snapshot_id": "<snapshot_id>"

}

}

}

}'

Summary

SAP HANA Cloud Fallback Snapshots via CF CLI is a powerful tool for fast rollbacks. SAP HANA Cloud Fallback Snapshots via CF CLI is an interim solution, an UI is currently in development. SAP HANA Cloud Fallback Snapshots via CF CLI is easy to use via CF CLI command “cf update-service”. Please like, comment and use the blog post to ask questions on this topic.