Challenge 6: SAP Start Stop Automation

< Previous Challenge - Home - Next Challenge >

Introduction

Contoso Inc is looking to optimize the cost of SAP landscape and exploring ways to do that. They're leaning towards getting Reserves Instances (RI) for all production systems and would like to save cost on non-production (sandboxes, project systems, etc.) systems by not operating those during non-business hours. This solution helps them achieve that either using automation tools or schedule based

Description

The goal of this solution is to facilitate a controlled shutdown & startup of SAP systems, which is a common mechanism to save costs for non Reserved Instances (RI) VMs in Azure.

Note: VMs must be deallocated for Azure charges to stop and that's facilitated by scripts

This flexible solution enables (using Azure automation, Azure Tags, Scripting, and PowerShell runbooks):

• Start & Stop of your SAP application servers, central services, database, and corrosponding VMs
• Optionally convert Premium Managed Disks to Standard during the stop procedure, and back to Premium during the start procedure, thus saving cost storage as well

SAP systems start and stop is done gracefully (using SAP native commands), allowing SAP users and batch jobs to finish (with timeout) minimizing downtime impact. For detailed information refer below Architecture.

Architecture of the Start/Stop solution

The solution is using Azure automation account PaaS solution to execute the SAP shutdown/startup jobs (as shown in the below diagram). Runbooks are written in PowerShell. There is also a PowerShell module SAPAzurePowerShellModules that is used by all runbooks. These runbooks and module are stored in PowerShell Gallery, and are easy to import.

Information about SAP landscape and instances are to be stored in VM Tags.

Secure assets in Azure Automation include credentials, certificates, connections, and encrypted variables. These assets are encrypted and stored in Azure Automation using a unique key that is generated for each Automation account. Azure Automation stores the key in the system-managed Key Vault. Before storing a secure asset, Automation loads the key from Key Vault and then uses it to encrypt the asset.

SAP system start / stop / monitoring and SAP Application server Start / stop is implemented using scripts (calling SAP sapcontrol executable) via the Azure VM agent.

SAP HANA start / stop / monitoring is implemented using scripts (calling SAP sapcontrol executable) via the Azure VM agent.

SQL Server start / stop / monitoring is implemented using scripts (calling SAP Host Agent executable) via the Azure VM agent.

Azure runbooks can either be executed manually or scheduled.

Success Criteria

• Create Azure Automation account
• Tag all the VMs for the SID in place
• List the SID to ensure all the systems were tagged correctly
• Execute runbook manually to stop systems
• Schedule the runbook to start the systems
• (Optional) Restrict access to runbooks to an individual user

Learning Resources

• Manage credentials in Azure Automation

• Azure Quickstart - Create an Azure Automation account

• SAP Library - Tools for Monitoring the System

• Azure Automation Start/Stop VMs during off-hours overview

• Pricing - Managed Disks

• Pricing - Automation

Import Az.Modules

SAP start / stop PowerShell (PS) runbooks use new Az PS module, so import following AZ modules:

• Az.Account

• Az.Compute

• Az.Automation

• Az.Resources

Import SAP PowerShell Module

Import SAPAzurePowerShellModules PowerShell module that will be used by SAP Runbooks.

NOTE: PowerShell module SAPAzurePowerShellModules is stored in PowerShell Gallery and is easy to import into Azure automation account.

Import SAP Runbooks

Navigate to Runbook Gallery and Import these runbooks:

• Stop-SAPSystem

• Start-SAPSystem

• List-SAPSystemInstances

• Stop-SAPHANA

• Start-SAPHANA

• List-SAPHANAInstance

• Start-SAPApplicationServer

• Stop-SAPApplicationServer

• Tag-SAPSystemASCSInstanceLinux

• Tag-SAPSystemDialogInstanceLinux

• Tag-SAPSystemStandaloneHANA

NOTE: All SAP runbooks are stored in PowerShell Gallery and are easy to import into Azure automation account.

Tagging and executing Runbooks

Example Distributed SAP ABAP System with HANA – ALL Linux

Here is an example of a distributed SAP ABAP System TS1 with HANA DB. ALL VMs are Linux VMs. SAP HANA SID TS2 is different than SAP SID TS1.

HANA DB VM

DB has following properties.

Properties	Value
VM Name	ts2-db
Azure Resource Group Name	gor-linux-eastus2
SAP System SID	TS1
SAP HANA SID * * in central SAP system HANA SID is can be different than SAP System SID	TS2
SAP HANA Instance Nr	0

VM [ts2-db] has to be tagged with following Tags:

Tag	Value
SAPSystemSID	TS1
SAPHANASID	TS2
SAPDBMSType	HANA
SAPHANAINstanceNumber	0

You can create these Tags manually. However, to simplify and automate Tagging process run this Azure runbook: Tag-SAPSystemStandaloneHANA

Parameter	Mandatory	Value
ResourceGroupName	YES	gor-linux-eastus2
VMName	YES	ts2-db
SAPSID	YES	TS1
SAPHANASID	YES	TS2
SAPHANAINstanceNumber	YES	0

ASCS VM

ASCS has following properties.

Properties	Value
Azure Resource Group Name	gor-linux-eastus2
VM Name	ts2-ascs
SAP System SID	TS1
SAP ASCS Instance Nr	0

VM [ts2-ascs] has to be tagged with following Tags:

Tag	Value
SAPSystemSID	TS1
SAPApplicationInstanceType	SAP_ASCS
SAPApplicationInstanceNumber	1

You can create these Tags manually. However, to simplify and automate Tagging process run this Azure runbook: Tag-SAPSystemASCSInstanceLinux

Parameter	Mandatory	Value
ResourceGroupName	YES	gor-linux-eastus2
VMName	YES	ts2-ascs
SAPSID	YES	TS1
SAPASCSInstanceNumber	YES	1

SAP Application Server VM #1

SAP application server 1 has following properties.

Properties	Value
Azure Resource Group Name	gor-linux-eastus2
VM Name	ts2-di0
SAP System SID	TS1
SAP Dialog Instance Nr	1

VM [ts2-di0] has to be tagged with following Tags:

Tag	Value
SAPSystemSID	TS1
SAPApplicationInstanceType	SAP_D
SAPApplicationInstanceNumber	1

You can create these Tags manually. However, to simplify and automate Tagging process run this Azure runbook: Tag-SAPSystemDialogInstanceLinux

Parameter	Mandatory	Value
ResourceGroupName	YES	gor-linux-eastus2
VMName	YES	ts2-ascs
SAPSID	YES	TS1
SAPDialogInstanceNumber	YES	1

SAP Application Server VM #2

SAP application server 2 has following properties.

Properties	Value
Azure Resource Group Name	gor-linux-eastus2-2
VM Name	ts2-di1
SAP System SID	TS1
SAP Dialog Instance Nr	2

VM [ts2-di0] has to be tagged with following Tags:

Tag	Value
SAPSystemSID	TS1
SAPApplicationInstanceType	SAP_D
SAPApplicationInstanceNumber	2

You can create these Tags manually. However, to simplify, avoid typos, and automate the tagging process use Azure runbook: Tag-SAPSystemDialogInstanceLinux

Parameter	Mandatory	Value
ResourceGroupName	YES	gor-linux-eastus2-2
VMName	YES	ts2-di1
SAPSID	YES	TS1
SAPDialogInstanceNumber	YES	2

Runbook Description

Listing SAP System <SID> VMs: List-SAPSystemInstances

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value	Comment
SAPSID	YES

Listing SAP HANA VM: List-SAPHANAInstance

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value	Comment
SAPSID	YES

Start SAP System: Start-SAPSystem

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value	Comment
SAPSID	YES
WaitForStartTimeInSeconds	No	600	Wait time to start SAP system
ConvertDisksToPremium	No	$False	If set to $True, all disk will be converted to Premium
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False	If set to $True, all OS commands will be printed

Runtime steps:

• Convert disk to Premium, if desired
  ConvertDisksToPremium = $True

• Start VMs in this order:

  • SAP ASCS or DVEBMS VM

  • SAP DBMS VM

  • SAP Dialog instances VMs

• Show SAP DBMS Status

• Start SAP DBMS

• Show SAP DBMS Status

• List SAP ABAP instances and show status.

• Start SAP ABAP system and wait for WaitForStartTimeInSeconds seconds.

• List SAP ABAP instances and show status.

• Show summary.

Stop SAP System: Stop-SAPSystem

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value	Comment
SAPSID	YES
SoftShutdownTimeInSeconds	No	600	Soft Shutdown time for SAP system
ConvertDisksToStandard	No	$False	If set to $True, all disk will be converted to standard
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False	If set to $True, all OS commands will be printed

Runtime steps:

• List SAP ABAP instances and show status.

• Stop SAP ABAP System with soft shutdown SoftShutdownTimeInSeconds

• List SAP ABAP instances and show status.

• Get SAP DBMS status

• Stop SAP DBMS

• Get DBMS status

• Stop VMs in this order:

  • SAP Dialog instances VMs

  • SAP DBMS VM

  • SAP ASCS or DVEBMS VM

• Convert disk to Standard, if desired
  ConvertDisksToStandard = $True

• Show summary.

Start-SAPHANADB

This runbook will only start VM and standalone HANA DB.

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value
SAPHANASID	YES
ConvertDisksToPremium	No	$False
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False

Runtime steps are:

• Convert disk to Premium, if desired
  ConvertDisksToPremium = $True

• Start VM.

• Show SAP HANA Status

• Start SAP HANA

• Show SAP HANA Status

• Show summary.

Stop-SAPHANADB

This runbook will stop standalone HANA DB, and VM.

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value
SAPHANASID	YES
ConvertDisksToStandard	No	$False
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False

Runtime steps:

• Show SAP HANA Instance status

• Stop SAP HANA

• Show SAP HANA status

• Stop VM.

• Convert disk to Standard, if desired
  ConvertDisksToStandard = $True

• Show summary.

Stop- SAPApplicationServer

This runbook will stop standalone SAP Application Server and VM.

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value
ResourceGroupName	YES
VMName	YES
SAPApplicationServerWaitTime	No	300
ConvertDisksToStandard	No	$False
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False

Runtime steps:

• Stop SAP application server.

• Stop VM.

• Convert disk to Standard, if desired
  ConvertDisksToStandard = $True

• Show summary.

Start- SAPApplicationServer

This runbook will start VM and standalone SAP Application Server.

Parameter	Mandatory	Default value
ResourceGroupName	YES
VMName	YES
SAPApplicationServerWaitTime	No	300
ConvertDisksToPremium	No	$False
PrintExecutionCommand	No	$False

Runtime steps:

• Convert disk to Premium, if desired
  ConvertDisksToPremium = $True

• Start VM.

• Start SAP application server.

• Show summary.