Install SAP systems automatically by using open-source tools - AWS Prescriptive Guidance
SummaryPrerequisites and limitationsArchitectureToolsEpicsRelated resources

Install SAP systems automatically by using open-source tools

Created by Guilherme Sesterheim (AWS)

Code repository: Main repository

Environment: Production

Technologies: DevOps

Workload: SAP

AWS services: Amazon EC2; Amazon S3

Summary

This pattern shows how to automate SAP systems installation by using open-source tools to create the following resources:

  • An SAP S/4HANA 1909 database

  • An SAP ABAP Central Services (ASCS) instance

  • An SAP Primary Application Server (PAS) instance

HashiCorp Terraform creates the SAP system’s infrastructure and Ansible configures the operating system (OS) and installs SAP applications. Jenkins runs the installation.

This setup turns SAP systems installation into a repeatable process, which can help increase deployment efficiency and quality.

Note: The example code provided in this pattern works for both high-availability (HA) systems and non-HA systems.

Prerequisites and limitations

Prerequisites

Limitations

  • Only SAP S/4HANA 1909 is fully tested for this specific scenario. The example Ansible code in this pattern requires modification if you use another version of SAP HANA.

  • The example procedure in this pattern works for Mac OS and Linux operating systems. Some of the commands can be run only in Unix-based terminals. However, you can achieve a similar result by using different commands and a Windows OS.

Product versions

  • SAP S/4HANA 1909

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.2 or higher versions

Architecture

The following diagram shows an example workflow that uses open-source tools to automate SAP systems installation in an AWS account:

Example workflow uses open-source tools to automate SAP systems installation in an AWS account.

The diagram shows the following workflow:

  1. Jenkins orchestrates running the SAP system installation by running Terraform and Ansible code.

  2. Terraform code builds the SAP system’s infrastructure.

  3. Ansible code configures the OS and installs SAP applications.

  4. An SAP S/4HANA 1909 database, an ASCS instance, and PAS instance that include all defined prerequisites are installed on an Amazon EC2 instance.

Note: The example setup in this pattern automatically creates an Amazon S3 bucket in your AWS account to store the Terraform state file.

Technology stack

  • Terraform

  • Ansible

  • Jenkins

  • An SAP S/4HANA 1909 database

  • An SAP ASCS instance

  • An SAP PAS instance

  • Amazon EC2 

Tools

AWS services

Other tools

  • HashiCorp Terraform is a command-line interface application that helps you use code to provision and manage cloud infrastructure and resources.

  • Ansible is an open-source configuration as code (CaC) tool that helps automate applications, configurations, and IT infrastructure.

  • Jenkins is an open-source automation server that enables developers to build, test, and deploy their software.

Code

The code for this pattern is available in the GitHub aws-install-sap-with-jenkins-ansible repository.

Epics

TaskDescriptionSkills required

Add your SAP media files to an Amazon S3 bucket.

Create an Amazon S3 bucket that contains all of your SAP media files.

Important: Make sure that you follow the AWS Launch Wizard’s folder hierarchy for S/4HANA in the Launch Wizard documentation.

Cloud administrator

Install VirtualBox.

Install and configure VirtualBox by Oracle.

DevOps engineer

Install Vagrant.

Install and configure Vagrant by HashiCorp.

DevOps engineer

Configure your AWS account.

  1. Verify that you have an IAM principal with an access key and secret key, and that has the following permissions:

    • Read only permissions: Amazon Route 53, AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS)

    • Read and write permissions: Amazon S3, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS), IAM, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon DynamoDB

  2. Save the IAM principal's access key and secret key for reference later.

  3. Create a Route 53 private hosted zone, if you don’t have one already. Save the zone name (for example, sapteam.net) for reference later.

  4. Subscribe to the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services 8.2 AMI in Amazon Marketplace. Save the AMI ID (for example, ami-0000000) for reference later.

  5. Create an AWS KMS customer managed key. Save the KMS key’s Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for reference later.

    Note: The following is an example AWS KMS customer managed key ARN: arn:aws:kms:us-east-1:123412341234:key/uuid

  6. Create an SSH key pair. Save the key pair’s name and .pem file for reference later.

  7. Create an Amazon EC2 security group that allows SSH connection on port 22 from the hostname where you install Jenkins. Save the security group ID for reference later.

    Note: The hostname is most likely localhost.

General AWS
TaskDescriptionSkills required

Clone the code repository from GitHub.

Clone the aws-install-sap-with-jenkins-ansible repository on GitHub.

DevOps engineer

Start the Jenkins service.

Open the Linux terminal. Then, navigate to the local folder that contains the cloned code repository folder and run the following command:

sudo vagrant up

Note: The Jenkins startup takes about 20 minutes. The command returns a Service is up and running message when successful.

DevOps engineer

Open Jenkins in a web browser and log in.

  1. In a web browser, enter http://localhost:5555. Jenkins opens.

  2. Log in to Jenkins by using admin for the username and my_secret_pass_from_vault for the password.

DevOps engineer

Configure your SAP system installation parameters.

  1. In Jenkins, choose Manage Jenkins. Then, choose Manage Credentials. A list of credential variables that you can configure appears.

  2. Configure all of the following credential variables:

  • For AWS_ACCOUNT_CREDENTIALS, enter your IAM principal's access key ID and secret access key ID.

  • For AMI_ID, enter the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP with HA and Update Services 8.2 AMI’s AMI ID.

  • For KMS_KEY_ARN, enter your AWS KMS customer managed key’s ARN.

  • For SSH_KEYPAIR_NAME, enter the name of your SSH key pair, without entering the .pem file type.

  • For SSH_KEYPAIR_FILE, enter the full name of your key pair’s .pem file (for example, mykeypair.pem). Make sure that you also upload the key pairs’ .pem file to Jenkins.

  • For S3_ROOT_FOLDER_INSTALL_FILES, enter the name of the Amazon S3 bucket—and folder, if applicable—(for example, s3://my-media-bucket/S4H1909) that contains your SAP media files.

  • For PRIVATE_DNS_ZONE_NAME, enter the name of your Route 53 private hosted zone (for example, myprivatecompanyurl.net).

  • For VPC_ID, enter the VPC ID (for example, vpc-12345) of the Amazon VPC that you’re creating the SAP resources in.

  • For SUBNET_IDS, enter two public subnet IDs if you’re working in a test environment (for future HA capabilities). If you’re working in a production environment, it’s a best practice to use two private subnets with a bastion host.

  • For SECURITY_GROUP_ID, enter the ID of the Amazon EC2 security group that allows SSH connection on port 22 from the hostname where you installed Jenkins.

Note: You can configure the other nonrequired parameters as needed, based on your use case. For example, you can change the SAP system ID (SID) of the instances, default password, names, and tags for your SAP system. All of the required variables have (Required) at the beginning of their names.

AWS systems administrator, DevOps engineer

Run you SAP system installation.

  1. In Jenkins, choose Jenkins Home. Then, choose SAP Hana+ASCS+PAS 3 Instances.

  2. Choose Spin up and install. Then, choose Main.

  3. Choose Build now.

For information on the pipeline steps, see the Understanding the pipeline steps section of Automating SAP installation with open-source tools on the AWS Blog.

Note: If an error occurs, move your cursor over the red error box that appears and choose Logs. The logs for the pipeline step that errored out appear. Most errors occur because of incorrect parameter settings.

DevOps engineer, AWS systems administrator

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