** Not all content covered in the course introduction has been added to the course at this time. Additional content is scheduled to be added to this course in the future. **
In this section of the AWS Certified: SAP on AWS Specialty learning path, we introduce you to strategies for configuring high availability and disaster recovery for SAP workloads on AWS.
Learning Objectives
- Understand how to configure high availability with Amazon RDS
- Identify backup and disaster recovery strategies using the AWS Cloud
- Describe various approaches for business continuity and diaster recovery for SAP workloads on AWS
Prerequisites
The AWS Certified: SAP on AWS Specialty certification has been designed for anyone who has experience managing and operating SAP workloads. Ideally you’ll also have some exposure to the design and implementation of SAP workloads on AWS, including migrating these workloads from on-premises environments. Many exam questions will require a solutions architect level of knowledge for many AWS services. All of the AWS Cloud concepts introduced in this course will be explained and reinforced from the ground up.
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.
Stuart has been working within the IT industry for two decades covering a huge range of topic areas and technologies, from data center and network infrastructure design, to cloud architecture and implementation.
To date, Stuart has created 150+ courses relating to Cloud reaching over 180,000 students, mostly within the AWS category and with a heavy focus on security and compliance.
Stuart is a member of the AWS Community Builders Program for his contributions towards AWS.
He is AWS certified and accredited in addition to being a published author covering topics across the AWS landscape.
In January 2016 Stuart was awarded ‘Expert of the Year Award 2015’ from Experts Exchange for his knowledge share within cloud services to the community.
Stuart enjoys writing about cloud technologies and you will find many of his articles within our blog pages.