SAP Clustering

SteelEye® LifeKeeper® for mySAP.com offers an affordably priced and easy-to-use high availability (HA) solution for business critical mySAP.com applications, infrastructure and data. LifeKeeper for mySAP.com, designed in collaboration with SAP AG, is specifically built to provide uninterrupted use of mySAP services.

In 2004 an SAP® Pinnacle Award was presented to SteelEye in recognition for its special achievement in delivering proven high availability clustering solutions to support the mySAP Business Suite family of business solutions. For further information see here.

mySAP.com is composed of several cooperating services that may be run on a single server or may be distributed across several servers in a cluster. Some of these services have redundancy built into them, while others do not and represent single points of failure in the SAP environment.

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com protects and provide HA for production, development and test environments, all monitored and controlled from one management console.

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com overview

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com includes recovery capabilities that monitor and provide switchover for the SAP Central Instance (CI), including Enqueue and Message servers, and provides recovery capabilities for database, NFS and IP server components. LifeKeeper for mySAP.com provides support for DB2, Oracle and SAP/MAX DB, and enables virtualization of IP addresses so that they can be moved between network cards in the cluster as needed.

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com individually monitors the health status of key application resources, and is able to stop and restart the resource both locally or on another server in the cluster.

Supported High Availability Cluster Configurations

Within a single cluster, two major cluster configurations are supported that consist of two servers hosting the CI and DB with zero or more additional Application Servers (AS), and utilize shared file storage for database and application files:

1. CI and DB running on one server with failover to a second server.

2. CI and DB running on different servers, each backing up the other resource.

mySAP.com Health Monitoring & Recovery

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com monitors the health of the CI through the use of the sapinfo utility, and utilizes the lgtst utility to monitor the message server. Upon detection of a problem, LifeKeeper will initiate the following recovery operations:

Parallel Recovery -LifeKeeper for mySAP.com recovers mySAP.com and database servers in parallel, while preventing deadlock conditions by enabling restore of database service prior to mySAP.com in-service operation. This ensures correct recovery procedures.

Intelligent Switchback - LifeKeeper for mySAP.com enables the primary server to come back into service automatically, or manually with administrator intervention, as required.

mySAP.com Client Protection

LifeKeeper for mySAP.com supports the usage of a virtual server name for all client communication with the CI, thereby providing a switchable IP address that can be active on whichever server the CI is running. This enables users to connect without having knowledge of which server they are utilizing.

System Requirements:

• SAP R/3
• Oracle, IBM DB2, SAP/MAX DB
• Linux Distribution: SuSE or RedHat

Wizard-Driven Configuration

LifeKeeper utilizes intelligent wizards to automatically discover and configure mySAP.com hierarchies, and extend this hierarchy to backup servers. The LifeKeeper Java-based GUI enables management from any node within the network, and provides simple, convenient and easy implementation of the mySAP.com cluster.

TeliaSonera Finland offers Linux solutions for the Finnish SME sector

TeliaSonera Finland starts to offer also Linux-based SAP Hosting services. Thanks to the solution based on IBM’s technology, also small and medium-sized companies can now deploy the SAP systems reliably and cost-effectively. The concept is the first of its kind in Finland.

Linux-based services strengthen TeliaSonera Finland’s position as SAP hosting services provider. TeliaSonera Finland has provided SAP hosting services since the end of the 1990’s, mainly for large companies and is a certified SAP hosting partner. SAP hosting service is part of Sonera’s application management services in which TeliaSonera Finland is responsible for the functionality of the customer’s servers taking care of their control, management and maintenance. "In recent years, we have invested substantially in our SAP hosting services and we have long experience in producing these services especially for demanding SAP systems of high availability. Our hosting service is scaled via system platform and service content to meet the needs of our customers. By means of the Linux-based solution we can offer reliable SAP hosting service also to small and SME companies at a totally new price level. IBM is committed to develop the Linux systems and they are acknowledged as being global leaders in implementing Linux solutions”, says Tommi Kolehmainen, Vice President, Business Management from TeliaSonera Finland. The SAP hosting service of TeliaSonera Finland targeted at SME companies is built on IBM eServer xSeries infrastructure, DB2 database, SuSE Linux operating system and SteelEye Lifekeeper cluster solutions. The reliability and security of the solution have been tested in practice, for example, in Germany where IBM has implemented several Linux-based SAP solutions with its partners.

"At the moment, Linux is the only operating environment in the market, which offers our customers the opportunity to start small and grow seamlessly all the way to IBM's Mainframe class. However, all the benefits that Linux brings, such as cost-effectiveness, security and reliability, are available for the smallest systems, as well. TeliaSonera’s unique strength lies in the ability to flexibly manage the solution for the customer’s best interest", says Linux manager Kim Aaltonen from IBM Nordic. "Linux support is an important step in the SAP strategy and in deploying open technology", says Sales and Marketing Director Dan Ahlstedt from SAP Finland Oy. "For our customers this cooperation means more alternatives. In Finland the first SME customers have already moved on to production in the Linux environment."

Original Source (excluding TeliaSonera example): www.openminds.co.uk