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Standby DB for SAP portal (portal DR)

Former Member
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We have a sap portal running 7.02.  My requirement is to have a poral DR setup.

Current Scenario

Running portal in Cluster setup with Oracle Rac (3 node)

Another 3 node cluster available for disaster recovery landscape but the hostanames are diffrent. So my PROD portal hostname is sapEPCI but DR hostanme is sapepcidr.  That is stopping me from connecting SAP to DB as hostanames are stored in DB as well as file system in portal.

How to achieve a DR setup in standby mode (oracle db) for sap portal when I am changing hostnames?

Do I need to use a application sync software to depoly new changes in DR setup? 

BTW : all my Abap instances are working with this DR setup as ABAP has nothing in file system.

Your early reply is really appreciated.

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (4)

Answers (4)

Former Member
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Hi Joshi,

With your current DR Portal, it is still possible to bring it up and test. You just need to trick it using Option #2 which I indicated

1. In DR server (sapEPCIDR), modify %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add an alias pointing virtual IP of sapEPCI (PROD) when bring up DR database, and DR Portal

2. For any PC which involves in the test, modify its etc\hosts files as well. If you are testing with 3 PC, then needs to modify etc\hosts in 3 machines

This way, you can bring up the DR environment to let users test. However, you still need to schedule a DNS C record change once a while to proof to users that the DR architecture works, as well as DR dry run for the technical team

Former Member
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Hi,

I think Joshi may try this - I'm just wondering if there will be no problems with browser certificates, when application servers name is "sapepcidr" and URL-hostname is "sapepci".

I had problems with this when using ABAP ICM and JEE PI, so I thought it would be the same for portal environment.

Regards,

Peter

Former Member
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Your standby database setup seems to be working, according to some interactions posted. Therefore, your subject line is misleading.

Anyway, your real question is how to configure a SAP Portal DR with Oracle standalone DR database, correct me if I'm wrong.

I will skip the Oracle DR database, and answer about Portal DR directly. Three options:

1. You need a C record (alias) in your DNS as you suggested, which will point to Portal DR server and requires to shutdown production, i.e. sapEPCI. This will be a global setting which visible/affect all users. Portal is very much static for its virtual hostname (FQDN)

2. Modify %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and add an alias pointing virtual IP of sapEPCI (PROD) when testing DR. This need to modify the DR server (sapEPCIDR) and any PC which involves in the test. If you are testing with 2 PC, then needs to modify etc\hosts in 3 machines. This will be isolated to local machines only and not global

3. Re-install SAP Portal DR with virtual hostname of PROD server (sapEPCI) with an alias in etc\hosts or DNS server. This will be the most compatible approach, but time consuming

Option 1 and 2 may not work, but these are the options I can think of without re-installing

When designing high availability, one needs to think of whether the PROD and DR can bring up at the same time or not. If both can bring up simultaneously, then the DR cannot use virtual hostname of PROD as it will affect existing PROD (DR will interact with PROD instance as the network traffic is sending across there, and not itself). If only one can be up at one time, then install SAP using the virtual hostname which is identical will work

Former Member
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Here is the method I may follow.

1. Install seperate portal on Standby node with different host name. so both names will be live in DNS.

2. Configure it fully like PRD

3. Break the db and configure the Data guard.

4. Whenever I deploy new patches to portal sync the SDM directory from PRD portal  to standy portal.

5 Test and hope it should work.

Do you guys see any flaw?

Former Member
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Hi Joshi,

I am using ehp1 sap netweaver 7.3

Oracle 11.2 DB

Solaris  5.10

In 7.3 as there is no SDM can you please suggest me which directories of production should be in sync with that of DR?

Kind Regdars,

Pandu

Former Member
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To solve this we always worked with logical hostname scripts (in your case: sapepciv).

We used a logical hostname script we were able to startup and shutdown on both database hosts. During startup the script checked if "ping sapepciv" is successful (=> primary node active with logical name). If not it bound the logical name sapepciv to the local host.

During normal operation, script was active on primary server. This host was available as sapepciv.

In case of DR (primary server down), script was activated (manually or automatically) on backup server.

SAP is to be installed with this logical db host name only, there should be no entry of physical db hostname anywhere.

This way it worked fine for us.

Former Member
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Yes I am using logical hostnames not physical. Sapepci and sapepcidr both are logical names.

I am thinking of creating a c record in dns as alias and stop the real prd to test with sapepcidr. Will that work?

Former Member
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Maybe, but then you spread your HA concept through database layer, operating system layer and network dns layer. Don't know if this is well maintenable?!

If sapepci already is a logical name (not bound to a physical machine), why not switch it to the backup server(s) in case of DR?

Which technical approach did you use then implementing the logical name? Isn't it possible to switch it automatically in case of failure?

Former Member
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The logical names are used only for SAP instances.  The client does not want to move the logical names to DR server for the reason that they will also do DR Test every year or some different machine. And it that case we cannot switch the logical name. Then we have to shutdown the logical name, that means no availability of portal in PRD.

Former Member
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Okay,

just to re-consider: In portal environment imho you would have a hard time working with an instance installed as "sapepcidr", which is resolved as "sapepci" in DNS or local hosts-file.

Every portal generated URL will contain sapepcidr, as this is the was it's installed.

From my point of view you have two options:

- in DR case, work with DR-instance with its correct name sapepcidr (switch every client to this new URL)

- reinstall DR side with sapepci hostname and put it offline during normal operation

Regards,

Peter

Former Member
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reinstall DR side with sapepci hostname and put it offline during normal operation  >>

Yes that was my original solution. But Client is still not convinced why we cannot use different host name for portal when we can use it for abap.

I am convincing them, lets see. Hope they agree to keep same hostnames.

Former Member
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Hi,

from my point of view it would be a possible approach to use (custom or 3rd party) software to perform log-shipping and log-apply to DR side.

Question is, what was your original intention?

Regards,

Peter

Former Member
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We have log shipping from Oracle Data guard. But my main problem is after changing host names from ci to cidr portal will not come up due to hardcoded hostnames.  The  DB i was able to open without any problem but still java did not connect until i change manually at 2 places in configtool  And I left many places the same old value.  How to achieve this so that when I change hostnames the dr is setup in such a way that it should be able to connect to db.