Full Support for SLES 12?

[Former Member]

Hi

maybe some of you are in a similar situation:

We are running SAP Systems on SLES11.3 for vmware which will go out of maintenance around december 2015.

The best approach for us would be to go for SLES12.

Until mid this year SLES12 was not supported by SAP resp. by all software vendors.

Today I saw in PAM that SLES12 is supported for NetWeaver Kernel 7.42, which is fine.

However, we also have other SAP systems based on NW 7.00 (Kernel 7.2x), SAP ContentServer (6.5 on MaxDB 7.9), WebDispatchers, Solution Manager 7.1 and so on, which are - according to PAM - not supported, at least as of now.

Will there be an official SAP support for the latter products on SLES12? When can we expect this? End of year is coming closer and upgrading SLES is easy, but must also be planned ahead.

Regards

Michael

[fabian_herschel · Accepted solution]

Do you only plan to update teh SLES for the NetWeaver application servers? Or do you also plan

to place the database on SLES12? In the latter case which database are you using? Depending on the components we could find the optimal next SLES Version. Either SLES 11 SP4 (or SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP4) or SLES 12 (or SLES for SAP Applications 12).

As fast as I remember for new OS products (not only SLES12) SAP decided not to validate all older product versions. If I remember correctly the "cut" was NW70. Means older versions where not re-validated and NW70 and newer have been re-validated. If needed I can try to figure that out in detail.

On the other hand also the Databases needed to be re-validated and there we also need to check the database products and versions. I have seen that the SAP ContentServer has a MaxDB. Do you have other databases or other DB versions?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

We have central systems, not distributed ones.

So there's always a database installed with NetWeaver on the same host. We use mainly MaxDB 7.9 (only one Oracle 11.2.03 which can easily be upgraded to Oracle 12).

Of course, as we have to invest in SLES, we want to buy only one version and don't want to mix 11.4 and 12 within our landscape. How about the standard vendor support for 11.4 compared to 12? When will support end for both?

in regard to validation: I thought OS support mainly depends on the SAP kernel version, not the NetWeaver release. The "oldest" NetWeaver we have is a NetWeaver 7.00 for ERP 6.00, we can easily update the sap kernel if required. However, as the current solution manager 7.1 is based on NetWeaver 7.02 it's hard to believe there's no validation for nw70x based systems. Please clarify if possible. In my opinion an official statement (PAM like) must exist.

As said, all databases we run are MaxDB 7.9, used for nw7.0x up to nw74, additionally we run WebDispatcher 7.42 and saprouter on separate sles11.3 hosts.

a side question: where's the benefit (and maybe price difference) of SLES for sap applications?

[fabian_herschel · Accepted solution]

One problem here is the certification of Oracle12 - this is still pending for SLES 12.

I do not want to copy and past data from web sites, so may I link you to the SUSE web site for information about support length of SLES 11.4 and SLES 12:

https://www.suse.com/lifecycle/

What do you mean by "standard vendor support" - Do you mean the lifecycle or do you mean which

hardware of hardware vendors are supported? The first is answered with the above link, the latter could found in the YeS database.

Regarding your question about "in regard to validation: I thought OS support mainly depends on the SAP kernel version, not the NetWeaver release. The "oldest" NetWeaver we have is a NetWeaver 7.00 for ERP 6.00, we can easily update the sap kernel if required. However, as the current solution manager 7.1 is based on NetWeaver 7.02 it's hard to believe there's no validation for nw70x based systems. Please clarify if possible. In my opinion an official statement (PAM like) must exist."

SAP always validates products against products. In the validation some product families could be tested together, so you also find NW 7.x in the pam and not always all products based on NW 7.x.

For the other question about the "minimum NW/SAP Kernel vserion" - yes this must be also shown in the PAM - give me some time to figure out, what has been tested in the validation (so far).

[fabian_herschel · Accepted solution]

Just as en example: In The PAM I find the following combination as released:

MaxDB 7.8 64bit / SLES 12 X86_64 / SAP Kernel 7.21 EXT 64bit  (valid from 31.08.2015)

So NW 70x was tested in the validation and you need to check, if your explicit combinations are valid in the PAM. I could not replicate the PAM here - its far to complex

Hope that helps a bit.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your hint.

To be honest, I only looked for Solman 7.1 ABAP Stack, NetWeaver 7.4 ABAP, ERP 6.0 and ContentServer 650 based on MaxDB. Among these product versions only NetWeaver 7.4 ABAP is supported on SLES12 with 742 Kernel.

Maybe I also filtered for Kernel 7.22_EXT when looking for NetWeaver 7.00 PAM - it seems a bit strange that the latest Kernel (722_EXT) is not supported with SLES12 (Status: planned), but Kernel 721_EXT is.

In general, I conclude the following general statement when looking at the PAM:

The combination of MaxDB 7.9 with Kernel 7.21_EXT or 7.42 is supported on SLES12.

Interpreted widely (on my own risk!), this combination should also be valid for Solution Manager 7.1 ABAP+JAVA, and ContentServer (as a "simple" apache plugin) on MaxDB 7.9 should also work. WebDispatcher and saprouter (as they're part of the kernel) should work. Leaves me with doubts in regard to TREX 7.1...

Nevertheless, thanks for your help. I think my question is answered.

[fabian_herschel · Accepted solution]

> Interpreted widely (on my own risk!), this combination should also be valid for Solution Manager 7.1 ABAP+JAVA, and ContentServer (as a "simple" apache plugin) on MaxDB 7.9 should also work.

You can even reduce the risk a bit, if you check for the NW Java. Maybe you could also open a SAP ticket if you stay still unsure with your specific workload.

For a productive workload I would never interpret the PAM widely because if you run into trouble you could be very alone, if the PAM claims not to support your combination (I did not checked that in detail, just referencing your own query in PAM).

[fabian_herschel · Accepted solution]

Could you mark the thread as answered? Then it does not geht old-aged on the "not answered thread list" in the SAP-Linux SCN place. Thanks.