IBM Support

SAP HANA requirements: IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management 2.2.17

Detailed System Requirements


Abstract

This document details the backup and restore requirements for SAP HANA for IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management 2.2.17

Content

This document is divided into linked sections for ease of navigation. Use the following links to jump to the section of the document that you require:



 

General

  • IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management installs an agent on application servers when they are registered. Some anti-virus software might flag or attempt to remove the agent software. If you run anti-malware software application servers, exclude the installation path of the IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent.
  • For Microsoft Windows-based systems, such as Microsoft SQL Server, the agent installation directory must be excluded for any anti-virus scans. Add this path to the exclusion list for all anti-virus software that is installed on the application server:
    C:\Program Files\IBM\IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management 
  • For Linux-based and AIX-based systems, the agent installation directory must be excluded for any anti-virus software scans. Add this path to the exclusion list for all anti-virus software that is installed on the application server. For Oracle (Linux and AIX/Power), InterSystems Caché and IRIS (on Linux and AIX/Power), and SAP HANA (on Linux and Power):
    /tmp/cdm_guestapps_username
    Where username of the account used to register the application server in IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management.
  • IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management support for third-party operating systems, applications, services, and hardware depend on the respective vendor. If a third-party product or version moves into extended support, self-service support, or end-of-life, IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management supports the product or version at the same level as the vendor. See also IBM Support General Guidelines and Limitations - IBM support for software on unsupported operating systems


 

Before you register each SAP HANA server in IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management, ensure it meets the following requirements.



 

Configuration

Supported platforms and configurations

Table 1: SAP HANA configuration requirements
Operating system
  • SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 07 or later [6, 9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 02 [5, 6, 9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03 [6, 9]
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 [6, 8, 9] (See following Prerequisite note.)
  • SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 05 [6, 8, 9] (See following Prerequisite note.)
Storage system
  • IBM Spectrum Virtualize Software 7.3 or later and 8.1.2 or later
    - IBM SAN Volume Controller [7]
    - IBM Storwize [7]
    - IBM FlashSystem V9000 and 9100 [7]
  • Pure Storage running Pure APIs 1.5 or later
    - FlashArray//c
    - FlashArray//m
    - FlashArray//x
    - FlashArray 4xx series
Server types Operating Systems Storage Configuration
Physical [4, 10]
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 or later
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 or later
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 or later
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 or later
  • Fibre Channel
  • iSCSI
Virtual (VMware) [1, 3, 4, 10]
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 or later
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.0 or later
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 or later
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3 or later
  • Physical RDM backed by Fibre Channel or iSCSI disks attached to ESX [2]
  • VMDK (dependent and independent disks) on VMFS datastores backed by Fibre Channel or iSCSI disks attached to ESX
  • iSCSI disks directly attached to guest operating system [2]

Notes:

Note: If you are using IBM storage systems running IBM Spectrum Accelerate level 11.5.3 or later, including FlashSystem A9000/A9000R and IBM XIV storage systems use IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management 2.2.13.


 

Prerequisites

  • The SAP HANA Client must be installed on your SAP HANA machine.
  • Create a symbolic link to the SAP HANA Client installation directory through the following command:
    ln -s <installation directory of SAP HANA Client> /opt/hana.
    For example, if SAP HANA Client is installed in /hana/shared/<SID>/hdbclient, you would enter the following:
    ln -s /hana/shared/<SID>/hdbclient/ /opt/hana
  • For SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04 and SPS 05, the hdbcli module must be installed. The hdbcli module must be installed only after the complete installation of the SAP HANA client. The module might be extracted from <path to directory>/hdbclient/hdbcli-<version>.tar.gz.
  • Log backups require that the log backup option is enabled on the SAP HANA system. Additionally, the Universal Destination Directory for log backups must match the directory that is configured on the SAP HANA system when you enable log backups.
  • Each SAP HANA system has a system ID (SID). It is good practice to have the SID in the path. For example, if /hana/logbackup is the mount point, create these directories:
    mkdir /hana/logbackup/<SID>
    mkdir /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog
    To ensure that database logs can be saved, permissions need to be specified for the created directories:
    chown --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>
    chmod --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>
    chown --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog
    chmod --reference=/hana/shared/<SID>/HDB01 /hana/logbackup/<SID>/catalog



 

Software

  • The bash and sudo packages must be installed. Sudo must be version 1.7.6p2 or later. Run sudo -V to check the version.
  • Python version 3.x must be installed.
    It might be necessary to add your python3 binary file location to the system PATH or to create a symbolic link. For example, if your python3 is installed at /opt/freeware/bin, you need to create a link as follows:
    ln -s /opt/freeware/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python3
    SLES only: Run the following commands before hdbcli installation:
    python3 -m ensurepip
    pip3 install hdbcli
  • RHEL/CentOS 6.x only: Ensure the util-linux-ng package is up to date by running:
    yum update util-linux-ng
    Depending on your version or distribution, the package might be named:  util-linux.
  • RHEL/CentOS 7.3 or later: A required Perl module, Digest::MD5, is not installed by default. Install the module by running:
    yum install perl-Digest-MD5
  • SLES only: The Python pip package needs to be installed. Follow these steps to install the pip module on SLES:
    $ sudo zypper addrepo https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Cloud:Tools/SLE_12_SP4/Cloud:Tools.repo
    $ sudo zypper refresh
    $ sudo zypper python-pip
    Note: The SLES equivalent of yum is zypper.
  • Linux only: If data stays on LVM volumes, ensure the LVM version is 2.0.2.118 or later. To check the lvm version and if necessary to update the package, run:
    lvm version
    yum update lvm2
  • Linux only: If data stays on LVM volumes, the lvm2-lvmetad service must be disabled as it can interfere with IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management's ability to mount and resignature volume group snapshots and clones.
    Run the following commands to stop and disable the service:
    systemctl stop lvm2-lvmetad
    systemctl disable lvm2-lvmetad
    Additionally, disable lvmetad in the LVM config file. Edit the file /etc/lvm/lvm.conf and set:
    use_lvmetad = 0



 

Connectivity

  • The SSH service must be running on port 22 on the server and any firewalls must be configured to allow IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management to connect to the server by using SSH. The SFTP subsystem for SSH must also be enabled.
  • The server can be registered by using a DNS name or IP address. DNS names must be resolvable by IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management.
  • To mount clones or copies of data, IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management automatically maps and unmaps LUNs to the servers. Each server must be preconfigured to connect to the relevant storage systems at that site.
    • For Fibre Channel, the appropriate zoning must be configured beforehand.
    • For iSCSI, the servers must be configured beforehand to discover and log in to the targets on the storage servers.



 

Authentication, registration, and privileges

Authentication

  • The application server must be registered in IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management by using an operating system user that exists on the server (referred to as "IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent user" for the rest of this topic).
  • During registration, you must provide either a password or a private SSH key that IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management uses to log in to the server.
  • For password-based authentication, ensure the password is correctly configured and that the user can log in without facing any other prompts, such as prompts to reset the password.
  • For key-based authentication, ensure the public SSH key is placed in the appropriate authorized_keys file for the IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent user.
    • Typically, the file is at /home/<username>/.ssh/authorized_keys
    • Typically, the .ssh directory and all files under it need to have their permissions set to 600.


 

Registration

When you register an SAP HANA provider in IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management, note the following:

  • The format for the port number is 3<instance number>15. So, for example, if the instance number is 07, then enter the following port number: 30715.
  • The System Credentials are the credentials required to access the system. These credentials are used to log in to the system and run restore operations.
  • The Database Credentials are used for querying the database and running copy operations. The user needs sufficient privileges to access the database.


 

Privileges

The IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent user needs the following privileges:

  • Privileges to run commands as root and other users by using sudo. IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management requires these privileges for various tasks such as discovering storage layouts and mounting and unmounting disks.
    • The sudoers configuration must allow the IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent user to run commands without a password.
    • The !requiretty setting must be set.



 

Restore and revert


Restore Jobs

When you restore a database or file system from an XFS file system, the restore process might fail if the "xfsprogs" package version on the destination server is between 3.2.0 and 4.1.9. To resolve the issue, upgrade xfsprogs to version 4.2.0 or later.


 

Revert Jobs

When you run revert jobs on SAP HANA, there are special considerations that must be met for jobs to successfully complete:

  • SAP HANA data and the operating system (OS) file system must be on separate datastores.
  • Ensure that the databases are on independent storage. The underlying storage volume for the databases being reverted must not contain data for other databases. Also, must not contain a datastore that is shared by other virtual machines (VMs) or by other databases not being reverted.
  • Ensure that the production databases are not on VMDK disks that are part of a VMware VM snapshot.
  • All VM snapshots need to be removed from the SAP HANA server before you run the revert function
  • Production databases are automatically shut down during the revert.
  • Revert is available only once a restore is completed.

When you create a job, you need to set the default revert action for the job. Only SAP HANA can use the revert database functionality. This behavior is controlled through the Revert Database option during the job creation process:

  • Enabled – Always revert the database.
  • Disabled – Never reverts the database.
  • User Selection – Allows the user to make the determination to revert the database when the job session is pending.



 

Sample Configuration of an IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management Agent User

The following commands are examples for creating and configuring an operating system user that IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management uses to log in to the application server. The command syntax might vary depending on your operating system type and version.

  • Create the user that is designated as the IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management agent user:
    useradd -m cdmagent
  • If you use password-based authentication, set a password:
    passwd cdmagent
  • If you use key-based authentication, place the public key in /home/cdmagent/.ssh/authorized_keys, or the appropriate file depending on your sshd configuration, and ensure the correct ownership and permissions are set, such as:
    chown -R cdmagent:cdmagent /home/cdmagent/.ssh
    chmod 700 /home/cdmagent/.ssh
    chmod 600 /home/cdmagent/.ssh/authorized_keys
  • Place the following lines at the end of your sudoers configuration file, typically /etc/sudoers. If the existing sudoers file is configured to import configuration from another directory (for example, /etc/sudoers.d), you can also place the lines in a new file in that directory:
    Defaults:cdmagent !requiretty
    cdmagent ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:ALL



 

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Document Information

Modified date:
16 September 2022

UID

ibm16615297