Category: Azure DevOps

Preface – This post is part of the SAP on Azure series.

Introduction

In previous articles, we have discussed about SAP on Azure and types of Azure sizing based upon use case. In this article we will discuss SAP on Azure Migration Journey.

SAP on Azure Migration Journey

When we say migration, it is either ECC to S/4HANA migration for on-premise or from on premise to cloud migration. It involves the following steps:

1. SAP on Azure Planning
2. Mapping On-premise SAP Instance to the required one among the following:
   1. SAP AnyDB on Azure
   2. SAP HANA on Azure
   3. S/4HANA on Azure
3. Performing Migration Operation:
   1. Lift & Shift
   2. Lift & Shift/Migrate
   3. Transformation to S/4HANA & Azure Consolidation, Re-implementation

Image source: Google

SAP on Azure Planning

We have already discussed the phases involved in SAP on Azure Projects, you can read them here. SAP on Azure planning is a very critical process and it requires all checklist to be ready. The six phases includes:

1. Project preparation and planning phase
2. Pilot phase (strongly recommended)
3. Non-production phase
4. Production preparation phase
5. Go-live phase
6. Post production phase

 

Performing Migration Operation

Once you identified what exactly you want in terms of Infrastructure, then you can perform any of the following paths:

Path A: We can do a lift & shift of our existing environment up to Azure without any DB changes, and later we can do migration to HANA or conversion to S/4HANA.

Path B: We can do a lift & shift of our existing environment up to Azure without any DB changes, and then migrate the database to HANA database. Till now, we will be running ECC on HANA. From here again we can perform the conversion from ECC on HANA to S/4HANA.

Path C: We can directly perform transformation to S/4HANA & Azure Consolidation or Re-implementation of ECC in S/4HANA (which will be then a Greenfield implementation).

Preface – This post is part of the SAP on Azure series.

Introduction

Sizing for SAP on Azure Projects is all about determining the following:

• Hardware requirements for your Virtual Machines (VMs) including:
  • Memory
  • CPU Power
  • Disk Space
• I/O Capacity
• Network Bandwidth

Sizing according to the type of SAP Project

Sizing for SAP can be broadly divided into three types:

• Greenfield Sizing: It is the sizing of a fresh and new SAP instance
• Brownfield Sizing: It is the sizing for an existing SAP Instance that will either be migrated to the cloud, upgraded, or re-sized
• Expert Sizing: It is done based upon the tools provided by SAP. This is mainly used in complex sizing and is processed with the help of a sizing expert.

The above types will highly depend upon your use case:

• If you have a new SAP System and you want to develop fresh implementations there, then it will be part of the Greenfield Sizing
• If you have an existing SAP system and you are migrating it to the cloud, then you will need Brownfield sizing
• If you have a current SAP Cloud system, and you plan to re-size them, then again, you will need Brownfield sizing

The above types are just to differentiate the sizing based upon your use case. The actual tools for sizing will be discussed next.

Sizing in SAPS

Sizing in SAP is known as SAPS. SAPS stands for SAP Application Performance Standard. SAPS is a hardware-independent unit of measurement that describes the performance of a system configuration in the SAP environment. Derived from the Sales and Distribution SD-Benchmarks, where 100 SAPS is defined as 2,000 fully business processed order line items per hour.

SAP came with SAP Standard Application Benchmarks which makes the sizing process easy. You can view the official page here. Here you can filter and understand where you will land in terms of sizing based upon your filter.

SAP Quick Sizer

SAP Quick Sizer is a free web-based tool built by SAP in partnership with platform partners such as Azure to help with sizing your SAP instance. You can check it out here.

Quick Sizer (classic / HANA) translates business requirements into technical requirements used for sizing. Quick Sizer is basically an online questionnaire that you work through, and it spits out sizing results.

Preface – This post is part of the SAP on Azure series.

Introduction

Understanding the phases of SAP projects on Azure is a very important aspect for the successful completion of SAP on Azure projects. In this article, we will discuss all the phases in detail and also share official Microsoft Azure documentation.

Phases of SAP on Azure Projects

Phases of SAP on Azure Projects is designed by Microsoft in the form of checklist for the customers who are already using SAP NetWeaver. This checklist helps a client to identify small issues and hence prevents bigger future issues. These phases do not include any tasks that are independent of Azure, e.g. SAP GUI related changes.

Following are the six phases of a SAP on Azure:

1. Project preparation and planning phase
2. Pilot phase (strongly recommended)
3. Non-production phase
4. Production preparation phase
5. Go-live phase
6. Post production phase

Project preparation and planning phase

This phase is where you plan your SAP migration or new SAP deployment on Azure. During this phase, we typically create High-level design and Technical design documents to guide us through the project. They cover:

High-level design document

• (If migrating): inventory of current SAP landscape including components, applications, network, security, compute, operating system, database, & HA/DR
• Build the responsibility assignment matrix (RACI)
• A high-level solution architecture
• Automation & operation plans, procedures, & processes

Technical design document

• A diagram for the solution & architecture including networking, high availability & DR Sizing for computing, memory, storage, & networking
• Operating System, Database, kernel, & SAP support pack versions
• Interfaces inventory including SAP & non-SAP

You can read the checklist here.

Pilot phase (strongly recommended)

This is the pilot/proof of concept (POC) phase. This phase is for testing the designs & approaches from the planning phase. In this phase. it is also common to include a full build of HA/DR, security, & scalability testing. Microsoft strongly recommends having this phase as a part of the SAP on Azure journey. You can read the checklist here.

Non-production phase

In this phase, we deploy non-production SAP systems on Azure. This deployment should include development systems, unit testing systems, and business regression testing systems. You can read the checklist here.

Production preparation phase

In this phase, we deploy production SAP systems on Azure. We incorporate lessons learned & experience from the non-production phase. If migrating we upgrade SAP systems & prepare for data transfer between our current SAP instance location & Azure. You can read the checklist here.

Go-live phase

In this phase, we utilize the playbooks from our earlier phases. We execute the steps that have been tested & practised in earlier phases. In this phase, we freeze all changes in processes and configurations. You can read the checklist here.

Post production phase

The phase is post production and includes monitoring the deployment, operating & administering the systems. You can read the checklist here.

 

References

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/sap/sap-deployment-checklist

Preface – This post is part of the SAP on Azure series.

Introduction

SAP and Microsoft have a 25 years of partnership. Microsoft Azure provides end to end support for both SAP on Premise and SAP HANA Cloud. In this article we will try to explore the types of SAP on Azure Projects.

SAP on Azure Projects

SAP Projects on Azure are divided into two types, i.e.:

• Migration
• Greenfield

These two types of projects are for a client who is either existing old client or a new client of SAP. Based upon their need they can choose the project. By choosing project, it doesn’t mean that the client need to go and order these types, but it is there to identify the type of infrastructure and services related to the type of SAP project.

Types of SAP on Azure Projects

Migration

This is the most common type of SAP on Azure Projects. This is typically migrating an on-premise instance of SAP (typically ECC) to SAP HANA Cloud or S4HANA.

Greenfield

This is the type of SAP for the industries that do not have currently SAP, but wants to start with SAP in the Cloud. It means it is a fresh implementation of SAP.

You can read more about the projects of SAP on Azure here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/sap/sap-supported-product-on-azure

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/workloads/sap/sap-deployment-checklist

Preface – This post is part of the SAP on Azure series.

Introduction

With cloud and GitHub, every IT company is now capable to deliver high quality product in small duration. But as the development and product gets complex, it gets important to manage the Build and Release of the product via a software tool. Among available tools, Azure DevOps is the best tool for CI/CD. As the demand for this tool is increasing, so is the requirement for new resources. In this article we will discuss the most common interview questions asked regarding Azure DevOps including the SAP deployment over it.

Azure DevOps Basic Interview Questions

1. What is DevOps?
2. What is the need of DevOps?
3. Explain the process flow of DevOps.
4. Name the popular DevOps tools for Continuous Deployment and Continuous Integration.
5. What are Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment features? How they can be implemented?
6. What are Continuous Testing and Continuous Monitoring features? How they can be implemented?

Azure DevOps Basic Interview Questions

1. What is the difference between Azure DevOps Services and Azure DevOps Server? Which one should we choose?
2. What is Azure Repository? How a branch is created?
3. What is the concept of Branches in Azure DevOps?
4. How to add security in branches of Azure DevOps?
5. How to create a pipeline in Azure DevOps?
6. How to debug errors in Azure DevOps build and release?
7. Explain the concept of cherry pick.

Azure DevOps Scenario based Interview Questions

1. If you need to deploy a particular commit from Development directly into Production, how will you do that?
2. You are asked to cherry pick a particular commit, while doing that it failed on Azure DevOps. What will you do if Cherry pick fails on Azure DevOps?
3. If a small change is causing issue in cherry pick, what alternative you can use apart from manual cherry pick?
4. If a lot of bugs are there in Quality system and a lot of new development is going on Development system, then how will you proceed with deployment of both bug fixes and new feature deployments?
5. If a stable build needs to be kept aside for Demo/POC version, how can it be done?

SAP on Azure DevOps Interview Questions

1. Explain the process flow of DevOps in terms of SAP.
2. Explain the SAP Cloud Environment.
3. How SAP in configured on Azure DevOps?
4. How a SAP failed deployment is debugged in Azure DevOps?
5. How to deploy builds to SAP Cloud Platform manually via command line.
6. Explain the concept of Global Account, Sub-accounts, space and Org in SAP Cloud Platform.
7. How we can partially deploy DB in SAP Cloud Platform?