Maintain complex SAP environments efficiently
The ongoing digital transformation throughout the economy and in the public sector naturally means that SAP ERP environments are also becoming increasingly complex.
In most cases, these are highly interwoven system landscapes based on a wide variety of SAP technologies and components - networked systems that are distributed across a large number of servers.
In addition, the individual interdependent services such as SAP instances, databases, technical components and operating system services are no longer tied to a server instance - they are mobile in the network, so to speak.
A good example of such an SAP environment is the Arvato Systems data center. The IT service provider operates around 890 SAP systems on a good 630 servers on behalf of its customers.
These use almost 600 additional SAP components such as Hana, ContentServer, Trex, SolMan, WebDispatcher and many others.
Complexity Maintenance
In view of this complexity, it is not surprising that the security requirements of companies have increased significantly due to the business-critical nature of SAP systems.
The main reasons for this are the requirements for compliance and high availability. An important requirement for high availability is the synchronization of business and maintenance processes - in the case of the Arvato Systems data centers, around 50 percent of the processes are related to essential IT housekeeping.
These must be planned in such a way that they do not collide with business processes and, as a further contribution to high availability, run with maximum efficiency.
These requirements can hardly be met with SAP's on-board tools - even SAP's Landscape Virtualization Manager, although often advertised as a solution, cannot provide a lasting remedy.
The only solution of choice here is a high-performance workload automation solution. Arvato Systems has developed Streamworks from its day-to-day business within its own data centers.
Touchstone patch processes
Patching the infrastructure of such multi-component systems is a particularly demanding challenge. On the one hand, business-critical patches for operating systems, databases, web servers and applications have to be applied more and more frequently - on the other hand, only very small patch windows can be used for this purpose for reasons of high availability.
Patch processes are particularly complex in centrally managed, multinational environments - here, patches must be planned taking into account the respective time zones to ensure global business operations.
The complexity of the patch processes is also due to the fact that the servers cannot simply be shut down and restarted just as easily after the patch.
Both when shutting down and restarting the servers, the applications must be stopped or started in a controlled manner, taking into account a wide range of dependencies. In order not to provoke any incidents, this also applies to processes that are executed on the servers as part of batch processing.
Arvato Systems developed a solution called PrePlanS for this requirement based on Streamworks and incorporating other tools such as configuration management systems, change and incident management and established monitoring procedures. The task was to develop a standard patch process with customizable characteristics for each server.
With the aim of fully automating even the most complex patch actions, this solution enables them to be planned in detail in terms of content and timing.
Cross-instance and cross-server dependencies are taken into account and the interaction of stop and start processes is coordinated with the flow of the individual patch processes. The dependencies within the entire patch process are displayed transparently.
An example from the Arvato Systems data centers: One of the SAP systems mentioned above comprises 24 SAP components on a total of ten servers, which in turn depend on an NFS Linux server for the exchange of files.
When a patch action takes place, all affected systems are shut down by Streamworks and started up again later. For this purpose, complex cross-system and cross-server dependencies are defined via PrePlanS and entered in Streamworks in advance for controlled processing.
These dependencies ensure that the SAP systems are stopped in the correct order - first the web servers, then the application servers and finally the databases. They also ensure interaction between the SAP systems and the servers so that the servers are only shut down once dependent SAP systems have been successfully stopped.
After the patches have been applied, the SAP systems are only restarted in the correct order once the server has been started up and all necessary checks have been carried out.
The automation of patch actions results in enormous time savings. Whereas previously only a few servers and systems could be patched in a patch action with a time window of four hours, today several hundred servers are patched in one action.
Here is another practical example from the arvato Systems data centers: the installation of several patches on 353 Linux servers, including 130 SAP servers with over 400 SAP components, was completed in just four hours on a weekend day. By planning the patches in Streamworks, the IT team no longer has to work at night.
Parallel processing of patches
The coordinated, parallel processing of patches leads to optimum utilization of the patch windows, which must be tight for reasons of high availability.
Streamworks monitors compliance with the patch windows - if there are delays, non-essential tasks are automatically postponed to a later date or a subsequent patch action.
However, if the tasks are completed faster than planned, further tasks such as a patch of the SAP kernel can be carried out.
The system administrators can see the current status of the process for each server at a glance. Any errors that occur, for example when a database is stopped, are documented so transparently that the name of the database in question is immediately visible.
This allows prompt intervention - either manually or, based on the prior definition of a possible workaround, again automatically. In the event that a patch fails completely, a fallback can be planned, during which a backup is automatically imported - a crucial contribution to ensuring high availability.
Separation of design and execution
Another important prerequisite for the optimization of patch actions is the separation of the design from the execution of the corresponding processes. This means that patch actions can be planned during the working week and executed on Sundays, for example.
This significantly reduces the workload on the IT team and eases the burden on personnel planning. The design of the processes themselves can also be significantly simplified, as the stop and start processes for similar SAP systems and components only need to be defined once and can be integrated into other processes on a modular basis.
This avoids redundant processes and minimizes the risk of errors in software maintenance. This structure also provides the flexibility required to react quickly to the increasing complexity of the SAP landscape - for example, when new SAP solutions or components are added or changes are required in stop/start processes.
The SAP maintenance environment described can be scaled practically indefinitely and is therefore also suitable for cloud infrastructures, which are generally characterized by dynamic growth.
Compliance and know-how
The continuous, controlled updating and standardization of the SAP systems and the comprehensive documentation of the patch actions carried out also significantly increase auditability - an important contribution to ensuring compliance.
The preservation of specific know-how should also not be neglected. In the past, silo knowledge inevitably developed at employee level in view of the complex and comprehensive processes involved - if the employees concerned left the company, there was a risk of losing this important knowledge.
With a solution like Streamworks or PrePlanS, the processes are so simplified and well documented that they practically become part of the IT team's general knowledge.
Simply enter a server name, for example, and the system immediately provides a comprehensive overview of the configuration of the server in question, including a list of all installed SAP components with a transparent display of dependencies.
Thanks to the very high degree of automation that can be achieved with Streamworks and PrePlanS, administrators only have to deal with a generally small number of individual solutions in terms of maintenance, which cannot be automated for economic reasons.
As a result, IT departments are relieved to a large extent and can devote the time freed up to more demanding tasks such as the further implementation of a digitalization strategy - a competitive advantage that should not be underestimated given the pace of digital transformation.
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