PLANNING and PREPARATIONS
1. General information
· We start with standalone, central system, which will be named ID1
· As a database we will use Oracle 10.2.0.5
· OS will be setup on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP1 for VMware (x86_64)
· System will be setup on Virtual Machine (VMWare)
2. VMWare requirements – we skip that part of preparations, as we don’t really have big influence on how our virtual machine is configured.
Note 1122388 - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1122388
· 2-4 x vCPU
· Follow SAP's rules for setting up file systems for your database installation. Distribute database files over different disks. Separate log and db files. Use at least two separate VMFS (VMware Filesystem) volumes to create the virtual disks.
· We highly recommend to use multiple virtual SCSI Controllers for the Database VM and VMs with high I/O load. The use of multiple virtual SCSI Controllers allows the execution of several parallel I/O operations inside the Guest OS. We also highly recommend to separate the Log I/O traffic from the Datafile I/O traffic through separate virtual SCSI Controllers. As a Best Practice, you can use one Controller for OS and Swap, one Controller for DB Log, and one or more Controllers for DB Datafiles (depending on the amount and size of DB Datafiles). Please refer to the VMware Administration Guide on how to add additional virtual SCSI Controllers.
· Virtual disks are created in "zeroedthick" format by default. This can lead to write performance degradation. Therefore, the format "eagerzeroedthick" should be chosen. See VMware KB 1022242 for details: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1022242. To determine which format a virtual disk currently has, consult VMware KB 1011170: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1011170
· For best network performance, use vmxnet3 network card. See VMware KB 1001805 for details: http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001805. Additionally, consult the document "Best Practices for Performance Tuning of Latency-Sensitive Workloads in vSphere VMs": http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10220
· Don't do memory over commit! With VMware it is possible to assign more virtual memory to the VMs than there is physical memory available in the host. This is not recommended at all with SAP. SAP allocates memory permanently and does not release it again. To enforce this policy, we recommend setting the "Memory Reservation" to the amount of memory configured for the VM. This will ensure that the VM with the SAP instance will always have the full amount of memory available. The same can be done for the "CPU Reservation", but we recommend enabling this only in case of performance problems, since the reserved resources need to be available on other hosts when using DRS or VMware HA.
· Set kernel parameter "elevator=noop" for Virtual Machines. This disables I/O scheduling. The VMware hypervisor has its own I/O scheduling mechanisms, therefore scheduling I/O inside the Guest Operating System can cause unnecessary overhead. See Red Hat KB http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-5428 for details. This recommendation also applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise.
· Installing VMware Tools is mandatory. The VMware Operating System Specific Packages (OSPs) can be used (http://packages.vmware.com). If you use the standard proprietary VMware Tools which are part of the ESX server, you load modules which taint your Linux Kernel. Although SAP Note 784391 prohibits using such modules, the use of the standard VMware Tools is tolerated and will be supported by SAP.
· SAP requires the implementation of the new virtualization aware monitoring. Please see SAP Note 1102124.
· Choose the optimum SAP Memory Model
o For latest processor generations (see point 1.) we recommend to use the "std" memory model (es/implementation = std) which is the default from NetWeaver 7.10 onwards (SAP Note 941735).
o For older processors we highly recommend to use the "map" memory model (es/implementation = map). This memory model gives much better memory throughput on older processors than the "std" model (SAP Note 386605).
3. Linux General Requirements - Note 171356 - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/171356
· English as OS system language (en_US)
Can be checked by entering command yast2
Then go to system à Language
· Install latest Service Packs / Updates to OS
First we need to register system at Novell, to update repositories. This can be done in YAST tool, in System à Online Update Configuration tool. To finish configuration, we will have to set up account at novell and also have valid activation code. At the moment I did not have valid activation code, so I requested 60-days evaluation code, which I used. Without it, system could not be updated, and official Novell repositories were not registered in system. Successful registration:
From Yast à Software à Online Update we install all security and recommended updates.
After update, system should be restarted
· Swap partition 3xRAM (min 20GB)
Currently, no swap in the system
We need to add it – we do it by creating swap file 3xRAM = 24GB = 25165816 KB
Also, we need to add line to file /etc/fstab to make our swap file permanent after system reboot:
/sapmnt/sapsystem_ID1/swap/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0
· The "hostname" command must only return the host name and not the "Fully Qualified Domain Name"
OK
· Check Host Name requirements - note 611361 - OK
General rule for hostnames according to RFCs 952, 1101, 1123, 1178:
Alphanumerical string of alpha characters [A-Z] and [a-z] and digits [0-9] and the hyphen (or minus) character "-". Although the newer RFCs permit hostnames beginning with digits we recommend hostnames to begin with an alpha character. The period character "." is only allowed to delimit components of domain names like (sapc11.sap.com).
SAP specific restrictions:
For hostnames of servers running SAP software the following additional restrictions must be obeyed:
Maximum length of the hostname:
up to 13 characters for SAP rel. 4.6 or higher
up to 8 characters for SAP rel. up to 4.5
Due to a problem in the installation routine, the host name of computers running Microsoft Windows must not begin with S-[0-9] (e.g. hostname S-12345 is not allowed). Please see SAP note 998631 for further information.
When using Oracle on Windows see note 849423 for restrictions.
Hostnames must be considered "case sensitive". That means hostnames shall be used in the same case (upper or lower) in all SAP configurations as well as in the network configuration (DNS or etc/hosts). You must ensure consistent name resolving of the hostname from hostname to IP address and back from the IP address to the the same hostname (case sensitive match). See also note 129997.
On multihomed hosts the hostname must be assigned to the IP address of the primary network interface. See also note 21151.
· For non-Unicode versions of the SAP software, you may have to install another RPM package that adjusts the locales of the Linux system to the SAP standard.
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (SLES 11)
Available as of: SLES 11 Service Pack 1
Available with: sap-locale (as of Version 1.0-24.33.1)
This package will be installed later, with SAP Application Server Base pattern
· It may be necessary to set the environment variable LD_ASSUME_KERNEL to 2.4.1 to run SAPINST
Our kernel version is 2.6.32.12 – we will set the variable only in case of problems during installation
4. SUSE Linux General Requirements - note 1310037
· Important note for SLES 11 SP1: After the completion of the SLES 11 SP1 installation an update of the java packages is required. See SAP note 1172419 for supported java versions on the x86_64 platform.
Currently java 1.4.2_12 is installed, but during SAP installation we will try to use SAP JVM, which is SAP’s own JVM.
· During installation:
o You should then have the following software selections:
§ SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11
o + Base System - OK
o + Help and Support Documentation - OK
o + Minimal System (Appliances) - OK
o + Gnome Desktop Environment (only as an option) - OK
o + X Window System - OK
o + Print Server - OK
o + SAP Application Server Base - Missing
o + Web-Based Enterprise Management - OK
o + C/C++ Compiler and Tools- OK
We are going to install SAP Application Server Base (sapconf) package (Yast):
We need to uninstall ulimit package, as it overwrites some parameters set by sapconf – see note 1275776 - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1275776
Installing our packages:
· Remove 127.0.0.2 <hostname>.<domain> <hostname> from /etc/hosts
Not there - OK
· Check if uuidgen is activated. When activated, following command should run for a while: uuidgen –t (uuidgen is activated during sapconf package installation)
· Activate sysstat (service boot.sysstat) to run the System Activity aRchiver (sar). If you have installed a current version of sapconf, the service sysstat should be automatically activated.
o Checking, if sysstat is activated for system boot. The command should either output "on" or "off".
chkconfig boot.sysstat
o Checking, if sysstat is activated in the running system. This command should either output "running" or "unused".
/etc/init.d/boot.sysstat status
· In order to activate the specific Linux kernel parameters needed by SAP software, you need to have the "sapconf" RPM package (former sapinit) installed on the system.
Already done
5. Oracle Requirements – http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e24326/toc.htm
· Kernel - 2.6.27.19 or later (uname –r)
· Packages
o binutils-2.19 - OK
o gcc-4.3 - OK
...
maxrafal