In this course, we discuss planning for data recovery, including disaster recovery of SAP workloads in AWS. We present and discuss some of the design and best practices gathered by AWS customers, AWS Experts, and SAP Specialists running SAP workloads on AWS.
Learning Objectives
We introduce best practices for business continuity and disaster recovery related to SAP workloads on AWS. The recommendations are aligned with the Reliability pillar of the Well-Architected Framework and focus on planning for data protection and recovery of SAP solutions implemented using AWS services.
Intended Audience
This course is intended for SAP architects and SAP Operators who deploy and maintain SAP workloads on AWS. This course also aligns with the objectives of the AWS Certified: SAP on AWS Specialty (PAS-C01) exam.
Prerequisites
To get the most from this course, you will need to meet the requirements for the AWS Solutions Architect Associate or AWS SysOps Associate certifications or the equivalent experience. This includes the function, anatomy, and operation of core AWS services that are relevant to SAP implementations, such as:
- The AWS global infrastructure, Amazon VPCs, Amazon EC2, EBS, EFS, S3, Glacier, IAM, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, the AWS CLI, Amazon Route 53
- The Well-Architected Framework
It is also assumed that you are familiar with SAP software workloads and their implementation. SAP is well known for enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications, including SAP Business Suite, SAP Net weaver, SAP S/4HANA solutions, and supporting products.
Background Concepts for SAP on AWS. Before we dive into the details of business continuity and disaster recovery, let's review some basics about SAP and AWS. Architecting your SAP landscape on AWS requires a bit of a change to take advantage of the agility and scalability that AWS offers for SAP workloads. When it comes to using Amazon EC2 instances to support SAP workloads, AWS has worked with SAP to certify over 100 Amazon EC2 instance types for SAP solutions including SAP HANA.
In general, instance types such as C5, M5, R6, and X1 of the large variety and bigger capacities are certified for SAP workloads. Also, AWS supports the following operating systems for SAP workloads and they include: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions, Windows Microsoft Server, and Oracle Enterprise Linux.
Please note some EC2 instance families like the X1 and high memory are not available across all availability zones within a region. So, you should confirm that the instance types required for your SAP workloads are available in the region and availability zone of your choice. As it relates to AWS database support for SAP, SAP workloads require a database like most workloads. The AWS database support for SAP starts with: Number 1, do it yourself databases using Amazon EC2 instances.
All database platforms and versions supported by SAP for on-premises infrastructure are also supported by SAP on AWS. When it comes to databases to support AWS implementations, many customers use a self-managed database model using Amazon EC2 instances. The installation and all administrative details including backup and recovery are done by the customer or an AWS SAP solutions partner. Using this model, AWS supports the following implementations. They include SAP Business Suites, SAP NetWeaver-based applications, SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA, SAP BW/4HANA, SAP Business Objects BI, and SAP Business One. Above and beyond using Amazon EC2 instances for databases, AWS permits for you to use the RDS service for support on SAP applications.
Amazon relational database service is currently supported for SAP BusinessObjects BI and SAP Commerce. Also, Amazon Aurora MySQL is supported for SAP Commerce. When it comes to licensing, you have a number of ways to approach it. Database licensing can happen by bringing your own license or by including it on the on-demand or reserved instance hourly fee for the instance type. For SAP workloads, you are responsible for obtaining a valid SAP license and you must ensure that you are in compliance with the SAP licensing policy, and this is because AWS does not provide or sell SAP licenses.
So, when it comes to SAP licensing, you only have the model of bring your own license. SAP support on AWS is there to deliver the proper support required for SAP workloads and there are three primary requirements that need to be met. Number 1, each EC2 instance is required to have detailed monitoring enabled. Detailed monitoring provides metrics every minute. The default setting provides metrics every five minutes. Any AWS account running SAP workloads also must have an AWS support plan of type business support or enterprise support.
Finally, the third requirement is each EC2 instance needs to have the AWS data provider for SAP software installed, configured and running. For the sake of clarity, the AWS data provider for SAP is a tool that collects key performance data on an EC2 instance that SAP applications can use to monitor transactions. These data includes information about the operating system, the network, and the storage about your SAP infrastructure. Data from the AWS data provider for SAP is read by the SAP Operating System Collector or SAPOSCOL and the SAP CIM provider.
Experienced in architecture and delivery of cloud-based solutions, the development, and delivery of technical training, defining requirements, use cases, and validating architectures for results. Excellent leadership, communication, and presentation skills with attention to details. Hands-on administration/development experience with the ability to mentor and train current & emerging technologies, (Cloud, ML, IoT, Microservices, Big Data & Analytics).