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Introduction

Recently, we have recorded a number of new videos for the SAP HANA Academy to help you get started with SAP HANA on the Microsoft Azure public cloud environment.

The full playlist can be accessed here:

* Getting Started with SAP HANA on Microsoft Azure

This blog will be part of a series:

* Getting Started with Microsoft Azure (this blog)

In this blog, I will provide some references and background information for the first four videos in the series.

SAP HANA Academy – Getting Started with SAP HANA on Azure (YouTube Playlist)

Marketplaces

All cloud providers offer some sort of marketplace with solutions, that is, a virtual machine template with software pre-installed and post-configured. Typically, these solutions will save you a lot of time.

For cloud-based hosting of SAP HANA, marketplace solutions are available for

* Google Cloud Platform (GCP: see Getting Started with Google Cloud Platform)
* Amazon AWS
* Microsoft Azure

SAP also provides such a marketplace and it’s called the SAP Cloud Appliance Library (CAL).

Using CAL is very easy. Last year, I posted a blog about Running SAP HANA Express in CAL where this is demonstrated.  At the time, SAP HANA, express edition was just released and I used AWS as the cloud provider. Today, we can also – and just as easily – use Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure as providers. Support for Azure dates back to 2014. Support for GCP was added just recently.

Obviously, you are not limited to running a 32 GB express edition in the cloud. For example, on Azure, Microsoft offers units that have up to 960 CPUs and 20 TB memory – see SAP HANA (Large Instances) overview and architecture on Azure.

Before we get into that, let’s first focus on the SAP HANA, express edition solution from CAL. As each cloud provider implements virtual machine deployment, network security groups (firewall), and disk provisioning slightly different, this also adds a bit of complexity if you have to manage and work in all these cloud provider environments. SAP CAL takes care of this complexity and makes all the necessary API calls to provision your HANA system as both required and desired.

For more information, see

* SAP on Azure
* SAP HANA on Azure
* SAP HANA, express edition – SAP Developer Center
* SAP Cloud Appliance Library

1. Create Azure Account in CAL

In the first video, we create a CAL account for Microsoft Azure as a cloud provider. Again, very easy. All you need to do is link your Azure subscription using a Wizard. Takes a minute, if that.

Microsoft currently offers free Azure trial accounts (with a $200 credit)

* Create a free Azure account

Microsoft Azure > Subscriptions

SAP Cloud Appliance Library > Accounts

 

Video Tutorial: Getting Started with SAP HANA on Azure: Create Account [2.0 SPS 02]

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_lubRiGKiw

2. Create Instance

In next video tutorial, we show you how you can create an instance of the SAP HANA, express edition solution in CAL with Microsoft Azure as the cloud provider account.

Initially, this has very little to do with Azure as the steps will be exactly the same when using the Google Cloud Platform or AWS. However, once the instance has been created, we switch to the Microsoft Azure Dashboard to view what resources have been added as a result and how they can be configured. In particular, we will focus on the Network Security Group (Access Points in CAL), which defines the firewall configuration for our instance.

Microsoft Azure > All resources

Microsoft Azure > Network Security Group

Video Tutorial: Getting Started with SAP HANA on Azure: Create Instance [2.0 SPS 02]

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XcxWleXypw

3. Access Points (Firewall)

In the third video, we zoom in on those access points and discuss the security aspects and default port assignment in SAP HANA with the express edition as an example but it would be similar for any other SAP HANA edition.

Some of the access points discussed include

* TCP 22 for SSH (Windows PowerShell)
* TCP 1128/29 for SAP host agent
* TCP 313/14 for the SAP Start Service
* TCP 330 for SAP HANA XS Advanced model
* TCP 43/80 for SAP HANA XS Classic model

The great number of ports opened for SAP HANA XS may come as an (unpleasant) surprise. Using hostname-based routing, only a single port would be opened so this will depend upon how XS is setup.

For more information about this topic, try our not-so-serious

* XS Exam Quiz – by the SAP HANA Academy

PowerShell SSH connection

SAP Host Agent connection

SAP Start Service connection

XSA Controller connection

CAL > Access Points for SAP HANA, express edition

Video Tutorial: Getting Started with SAP HANA on Azure: CAL Access Points [2.0 SPS 02]

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpKVDP3ldgU

4. SAP HANA, express edition on Azure Marketplace

Using SAP’s CAL to create an instance is easy because a lot of configuration options (read complexity) have been left out. However, there may be times when you need to do some fine-tuning. For this, you would have to switch to your Azure portal.

Also, using CAL is not for free and maybe you are fluent in Azure and have no business in AWS or GCP.  In this case, using the solutions on the Azure Marketplace directly will make more sense.

For the fine print about using CAL, see the FAQ on

* SAP Cloud Appliance Library Community

In this fourth video, we create – once again – an SAP HANA, express edition instance, this time using the solution in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.

It is not exactly rocket science, yet. In fact, it is a 4-step wizard approach (this is Microsoft, after all)

* Provide the basics: solution (VM) name, username, password (or key), and resource group
* Accept the recommended virtual machine size (or adjust as desired)
* Configure optional features (or not)
* Agree with terms of use (if you agree, of course)

However, at each step, you will have a range of options to fine-tune your instance, providing much more control as compared to using SAP CAL.

For the step-by-step tutorial by Lucia Subatin on SAP Developer Community, see

* SAP HANA, express edition – Getting started with the Marketplace on Microsoft Azure

Microsoft Azure Marketplace > SAP HANA, express edition

Microsoft Azure Marketplace > SAP HANA, express edition > Step 2. Size

Video Tutorial: Getting Started with SAP HANA on Azure: Azure Marketplace [2.0 SPS 02]

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NwQNw6gOps

References

For more information see:

SAP HANA Academy Playlists

* SAP HANA Express
* Getting Started with SAP HANA on Microsoft Azure

SAP

* SAP Cloud Appliance Library
* SAP Cloud Appliance Library Community
* SAP HANA, express edition – SAP Developer Center

Microsoft

* SAP on Azure
* SAP HANA on Azure
* Create a free Azure account
* Microsoft Azure | Dashboard
* SAP HANA, express edition (Server + Applications) solution for the Microsoft Azure Marketplace
* SAP HANA (Large Instances) overview and architecture on Azure

SAP Blogs

* SAP on Microsoft Azure – SCN Wiki
* Running SAP HANA Express in CAL – by the SAP HANA Academy

SAP Developer Tutorials

* SAP HANA, express edition – Getting started with the Marketplace on Microsoft Azure

SAP Notes

* 1380654 – SAP support in public cloud environments
* 2015553 – SAP on Microsoft Azure: Support prerequisites
* 2316233 – SAP HANA on Microsoft Azure (Large Instances)

Thank you for watching

The SAP HANA Academy provides technical enablement, implementation and adoption support for customers and partners with 1000’s of free tutorial videos.

For the full library, see SAP HANA Academy Library – by the SAP HANA Academy

For the full list of blogs, see Blog Posts – by the SAP HANA Academy

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Online backup sites seem to be popping up all over the place lately. All of them have similar features and promises of completely restoring your PC in case of an accident or emergency. It’s no wonder why this is such as huge industry today since having a computer in your household has almost become a commodity.

Even businesses are practicing data warehousing to optimize their daily operation.

If there is one thing for certain in this life it’s that you never know what’s going to happen. You can plan for the best but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. It’s better to plan for the worst and hope for the best when it comes to your data. There could be all sorts of accidents or theft happen and you would lose everything on your PC if it wasn’t backed up somewhere. It’s always best to have some form of backup.

Well, I’m pretty sure there any kinds of physical backup such as external drive, CD or even by using pen drive are good enough to go.

But what if a fire breaks out or flood damages out of a sudden? Not to mention thievery.

Keeping a backup off site is a better idea and you can keep a copy in another location just in case something happens. That’s what it called Cloud Storage.

A lot of the problem with users backing up their computers is they only think about it when something goes wrong. At the worst possible time because then they may not be able to retrieve the data. You need a solution that will do this for you automatically so you don’t have to worry about remembering it.

There are some companies that allow you download a file onto your computer then run a program that automatically updates your backup at an online location. The backups are usually encrypted and secure so your data will remain safe even in transit. Plus if a disaster happens, you simply log into your online backup account and download their software to restore your computer. You won’t need to worry about it again. The costs of these services vary, but some are around $60 per year depending on what sort of capacity and options you would like. Remember it’s always best to backup before you have any problems in order to keep your data safe.

As the Internet gets faster and computer users store more and more valuable information on their PCs, online backup services have taken off as a secure way to back up data. They’re extremely beneficial to virtually every type of computer user, and if you don’t already have a backup solution, there’s really no better way.

Take a look at a these 4 solid reasons to use an online backup service for your data backup.

* Its automatic. Most online backup services use a proprietary program that runs constantly in the background on your computer. They can be set to back up data once a day, multiple times, or whenever key files are changed. Since the backup is regulated by the program and not by the user, it avoids user error that can cause data loss–i.e., forgetting to back up before a hard drive failure or other catastrophe. You need to make sure that the program is properly set up, but after that point, data is backed up on a perfectly regulated schedule.

* it’s remote. Since data is backed up to a storage server (owned by the company that puts out the data backup software), you don’t have to worry about floods or other natural disasters that would destroy your backup copies if you used a more conventional method of data backup. Many online data backup customers worry about something happening to the actual servers, but usually companies run several servers and use RAID 5 configurations which make data loss at the server end all but impossible.

* it’s cheap. Many online data backup services charge $5 a month–pCloud even offers some free data backup. External hard drives, in contrast, often cost $100 or more, and don’t offer the same backup security as the online services. As far as bang for your buck goes, online data backup services are clearly worth the cash if you need to back up data and you’ve got a fast Internet connection.

* it’s secure. Most online data backup services (but not all) use extremely secure encryption, so if someone gets a hold of your data via the website’s server, they can’t get into it unless they’ve got your password. Note that this means that you can’t get into your own backed up data too without a password, so be sure to keep your password backed up in case you ever need to restore from a backup session.

Do you use an online backup service? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. http://bit.ly/2Ce1XBA #SAP #SAPCloud #AI