No Support for Win NT & Hardware : Help Required

[Former Member]

Dear All,

Couple of years ago we had about 5 to 6 different SAP Production Systems for different Strategic Business Groups. These SAP Servers run SAP 4.0B with Oracle and Windows NT. Now our Company has a single Server and all locations logon to this Server.

Our problem is, we still need to support the old SAP Servers since the data residing on them is still used by our Design and Finance personnel. The Hardware vendors are not supporting the Servers and also there is no support for Windows NT from Microsoft. We are unable to procure new hardware since the software which we have is 4.0B and can be installed only on Windows NT.

If anyone of you are in a similar situation could you tell us the options available for us to run these Server for the next couple of year from the Basis point of view ?

Your opinions will be highly appreciated.

Thank you !

Regards,

Shrinivas Shukla

SAP BASIS TEAM

[Former Member]

Hi,

Why you say you can not buy new hardware? Of course you can, just buy any Intel based hardware with all the redundancy you need and install NT 4.0. It is an OS based on Intel and it is 32 bits. Any Xeon or P4 based server can be used to install NT 4.0.

Hardware is the major point of failure so I would get new hardware to be sure I won´t have more probabilities than usual of getting down because an old disk fails.

Then do a homogeneous system copy and keep working with the systems.

Good luck,

[markus_doehr2]

Why you say you can not buy new hardware? Of course you can, just buy any Intel based hardware with all the redundancy you need and install NT 4.0. Any Xeon or P4 based server can be used to install NT 4.0.

It´s not that easy.

If course you can buy new hardware but most vendors will not deliver drivers (processor drivers/HALs, drivers for graphic cards and SCSI controllers, Fibrechannel HBAs etc.) for NT 4.0 since its support is LONG gone.

NT 4.0 on P4 has timing problems since the OS does not deliver a HAL for that CPU generation. Of course, all that can "somehow" be done/circumvented but in case of a real problem you´re on your own.

It is an OS based on Intel and it is 32 bits.

Also but not exclusively

NT 4.0 ran also on ALPHA/AXP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Alpha) and some early version ran on PowerPC but was never released my MS as an official port.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Can we install Windows NT 4.0 by using VMware on any one of the new 64bit Intel Servers and then install SAP 4.0B and Oracle ? Has anyone done this ?

Would appreciate your opinions.

Regards,

Shrinivas Shukla

SAP BASIS TEAM

[markus_doehr2]

It´s even better - you can MIGRATE the instance to the VMWare (ESX Server). We just did that yesterday with an old application that needs NT 4.0 also. After a bit of tweaking with the network it is running as before.

And yes, you can install NT 4.0 on VMWare, the hypervisor will make sure it works.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are planning to install VMware and then install WinNT. Will i have to do a homogeneous system copy ? My plan is to install 4.0B on the new instance and then just restore the backup from the other server.

Your suggestions on this are welcome.

Regards,

Shrinivas Shukla

[markus_doehr2]

We are planning to install VMware and then install WinNT. Will i have to do a homogeneous system copy ? My plan is to install 4.0B on the new instance and then just restore the backup from the other server.

Yes - that´s a good idea.

Make sure you use NT 4.0 Servicepack 6a, lower SPs are not supported (the VMWare drivers don´t work with older).

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Suppose, i successfully install SAP 4.0B with VMware and WinNT will SAP provide me with the new License Key to run on the new hardware ?

All those persons who have done the above kindly express your views.

Regards,

Shrinivas Shukla

[Former Member]

as long as you are paying for the license fee then there should not be a issue for SAP to provide a new license.

cheers,

-Sunil

[markus_doehr2]

> Suppose, i successfully install SAP 4.0B with VMware and WinNT will SAP provide me with the new License Key to run on the new hardware ?

4.0B is still in the dropdown list to get new licenses - so I assume yes. In any case you can open an OSS call and ask if they will provide you with a new license.

Markus

[markus_doehr2]

I could imagine two approaches:

- install NT 4.0 (or Windows 2000) in a virtualized environment (e. g. VMWare) and run your system there using Kernel 40B_EXT. Since those old versions are not that resource hungry it should be easily be possible to run them all on one bigger box

- use a different OS on the same hardware (such as Linux) which is not that hardware bound as Windows (missing drivers for new servers)

Markus