SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance: Create your SAP S/4HANA 1709 system in a fraction of the usual setup time

[JoergWolf]

Update Decembrer 12th, 2018:
The SAP S/4HANA 1809 Fully-Activated Appliance is available: blog / direct link

If you are a short-fused reader or have no time

The SAP S/4HANA 1709 fully-activated appliance in a few bullets and 60 seconds:

• The appliance is a pre-packaged software bundle that contains an SAP S/4HANA 1709 system with pre-configured SAP Best Practices and demo scenarios. It is the successor of the SAP S/4HANA 1610 fully-activated appliance, however, it has been set up as a new installation.


• It can be rapidly brought up as your personal instance with administrative rights either hosted (takes ~ 2 hours) or on your own on-premise hardware (takes ~ 2 days). Typical use cases are sandboxing, proof-of-concept, and scoping/fit-gap analysis.


• You can create your personal instance using the SAP Cloud Appliance Library > Create Instance. This requires an account for SAP CAL (free sign-up) and a valid account at a supported hosting provider (video tutorials can be found here).
  The homepage of the SAP S/HANA 30-day trial also points  to the SAPS/4HANA 1709 fully-activated appliance, including a demo guide with proposed sample scenarios.


• New since May 15th, 2018: SAP S/4HANA 1709 FPS01 is released as separate solution in SAP CAL (link to solution). New features include SAP S/4HANA for Customer Management 1.0, Production Planning / Detailed Scheduling, SAP Best Practices activated for 23 additional countries in the reference client 300, and various minor additions&fixes.

More details needed ? Read on…

 

Note: This blog (text, screenshots) mostly references the SAP S/4HANA 1709 (SP00) version of the fully-activated appliance. In the appendix, you will find links with information for the FPS01 version.

What is an appliance ?

A (software) appliance is a compressed system (think of it as a large .tar or .zip file) that can be rapidly extracted into a regular system instance by preserving everything that has been configured in the appliance during the build phase of it,
This makes it an ideal medium for pre-configured systems e.g. for sandboxing, proof-of-concept or scoping/fit-gap purposes.

In the SAP S/4HANA 1709 fully-activated appliance, you will find the SAP S/4HANA software (along with some other components, see further below), the fully-activated SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA 1709 (incl. technical configuration e.g. for the Fiori launchpad), and prepared demo scenarios with sample master and transactional data.



[Fig 1]: SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance – Concept

 

How can the appliance be consumed ?

The appliance can be consumed in two ways

1. In a hosted environment (using cloud provider infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) with the SAP Cloud Appliance Library (SAP CAL) as bridge into the hosting providers.
   Setup time is ~ 2 hours, and the easiest way is to use the SAP S/4HANA 30-day trial.


2. On dedicated on-premise hardware that has a supported Linux release installed (everything else will come with the appliance). Pure setup time is ~ 2 days.

Details for option 1 (hosted):
If you are already experienced with the SAP S/4HANA 1610 appliance/trial, you will find it easy to use the new appliance release since the ‘mechanics’ are the same as before:

• Built-in 30-day test license for SAP S/4HANA and SAP CAL (free of charge for the supported trial scenarios during that time)


• Hosting provider fees are charged to your hosting provider account (~ 3-4 $ USD per uptime hour, depending on provider and data center region).


• Support via asking the SAP CAL community


• Possibility to extend the 30-day trial phase by acquiring an SAP CAL subscription license  (requires a valid SAP S/4HANA license as well)

If you are new to trials in SAP Cloud Appliance Library, there’s a detailed ‘Quick Start Guide’ on the SAP S/4HANA trial page to get started. Registration in SAP CAL and one of the supported hosting providers (AWS, MS Azure, (GCP) takes ~15 minutes, start-up of your personal trial instance will take ~2 hours.

This video playlist for SAP CAL will also help to get into the topic.



[Fig 2]: SAP S/4HANA 17090 – 30-day trial summary

 

Details for option 2 (on-premise installation):

You can receive the trial appliance for installation on your own on-premise hardware either via download or via shipment of 3 Blu-Ray discs (the appliance size is ~ 100 GB).

The shipment is free of charge, however, corresponding SAP licenses need to be in place. The installation of an appliance differs from a “regular” SAP installation, we therefore recommend to have this done by SAP Consulting or an experienced SAP partner, however, customers can also do it on their own and will receive support from SAP.

Ordering of the discs/download by a partner and deploying it on customer-site afterwards is not allowed.

The following SAP note contain more information on the ordering process (it is valid for customers and partners).

• Ordering process for on-premise installation of SAP software appliances (2041140)

[Fig 3]: SAP S/4HANA 1709 Appliance – Consumption Methods

 

The following chart summarizes the deployment options and the needed license / cost drivers for each option.



[Fig 4]: SAP S/4HANA 1709 Appliance – License & Cost Drivers

 

What is the content & scope ?

The scope of the appliance centers on the SAP Best Practices content and has been extended compared to the 1610 release.
It covers the below ‘walkthrough’ scenarios that are explained in detail in an extensive demo script on the SAP S/4HANA trial homepage.(the demo script will be available shortly there).

• Order-to-cash


• Revenue recognition


• Financial closing


• Plan-to-product (incl. EWM)


• Migration Cockpit (for data migration into SAP S/4HANA)


• Fiori Custom Fields


• Custom Forms


• BI platform reports


• SAP Screen Personas


• NEW with the FPS01 appliance: Customer Management ("CRM add-on"), Detailed Scheduling, Demand-driven replenishment

But of course, you’re free to explore and adapt the system as needed (and covered by the terms&conditions of the trial) since you have full administrative rights and even access to the Linux operating system.



 



[Fig 5 a&b]: SAP S/4HANA 1709 suggested demo walk-throughs

 

What is technically contained in the appliance ?

Technically, the trial consists of four virtual machines that are automatically bundled into one solution instance:

1. SAP S/4HANA (the core ABAP backend incl. the SAP HANA database)


2. SAP NW JAVA with Adobe Document Services (for forms and output management)


3. An SAP BusinessObjects BI Platform for display of pre-configured BI reports


4. MS Windows remote desktop for easy access of the trial system

The BI platform and the remote desktop are optional components in SAP CAL (you can opt out of the deployment in the advanced mode of the SAP CAL instance creation) and are also not shipped to customers for the on-premise installation.




[Fig. 6]: Software components of the appliance and virtual machines (note: FPS01 in addition contains the add-on for "SAP S/4HANA for Customer Management 1.0")

More information & known issues

More information can be found in the link collection in the appendix below.

This blog summarizes the known issues and provides fixing hints where available. It will be continuously updated.

One important note at the end:
Once you have created an appliance instance (be it hosted or on-premise), it behaves like a regular on-premise system. And this means that SAP cannot access or patch your appliance instance, thus system tasks need to be done by the person who created the instance.

Best and enjoy the SAP S/4HANA 1709 appliance,

Joerg

 

Appendix: Link collection

 

Software appliance in general:

• Direct link to start an instance in SAP CAL (requires a cloud provider account): SP00 / FPS01


• Suggested demo walk-throughs for the SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance: SP00 / FPS01


• Quick start guide how to create an instance in SAP CAL


• Video playlist how to create AWS/Azure/GCP accounts and launch the appliance in SAP CAL


• Overview presentation for the SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance


• Blog with known issues in the appliance (constantly updated)


• SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA 1709 (detailed configuration guides, test scripts, ...)


• 30-day trial: SAP S/4HANA trial landing page (including quick-start and demo guide)

 

On-premise download / Blu-Ray shipment:

• Central SAP note for all appliances incl. the SAP S/4HANA 1709 appliance
  (2041140, containing information for on-premise ordering process and installation)

 

SAP CAL information

• SAP CAL starting page


• SCN Community for SAP CAL (also for support for CAL issues)


• How to acquire an SAP CAL subscription (and other CAL information)


• For SAP employees only: How to get an SAP-internal CAL account and attach it to your cost center

 

[former_member208609]

Awesome blog on an awesome topic !! Thanks much ! One small content/hint  if you allow, the pictures are difficult to read within the blog, but very clear once download to computer via "Save picture as"  (I tested on Fig 4 )

Best regards

Renaud

[JoergWolf]

 

Hello Renaud,

thanks for the nice comment.

Wrt. the images, in Chrome and Firefox you can open them in a new browser tab. In IE, this option seems to be greyed out - not sure if there's a hidden feature to enable this.

The overview presentation (link list at the end of the blog) contains these images as well.

Best,

Joerg

[former_member197914]

Nice blog..

How can i download configurations?

 

[JoergWolf]

Hello Mr. Putin ;-),

please see https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/BP_OP_ENTPR for the description of the Best Practices (test scripts, configuration guides).

The automated content (to be activated via SAP Solution Builder, TCode /SMB/BBI) is referenced in SAP Note 2446206.

Best, Joerg

[Former Member]

Hello Joerg Wolf,

Nice blog and very helpful explanations with material.

with best regards,

Rao

 

[jainvicks]

Thanks, Joerg,

Great Blog.

This is absolutely true Cloud Approach SAP has developed for 1709. Congratulations.

I have activated the S/4 1709  using AWS Amazon - it took 65 minutes starting with S login to S/4 1709 - SAP GUI Login.  No Help Needed and very simple to activate. Performance is also great till now. I have a team of 25 consultants using the Trial instance and it is working fine. The system comes preconfigured with sample data. "Kind of Old days - IDEAS system reinvented on Cloud"

Well done.

Best,

Amitabh

[former_member193885]

If we have S/4HANA licenses can we extend the trial by applying to the instances?  Or do we still need CAL licenses in addition to the S/4HANA, HANA and BIP licenses?

 

[JoergWolf]

 

Hello Deepu,

if you use the appliance longer than 30 days, you need a CAL license (subscription) as well.

It can be purchased via the SAP Store: https://www.sapstore.com/solutions/99007/SAP-Cloud-Appliance-Library

Best, Joerg

[former_member193885]

Hi Joerg,

 

Do you know when will S/4 HANA 1802  appliance be available in CAL or On-premise installation?

Thanks.

[JoergWolf]

 

Hello Deepu,

 

1802 is a public cloud release of SAP S/4HANA and will never be available in the SAP CAL, since CAL is about on-premise software hosted in cloud providers (small but significant difference).

Best,

Joerg

[former_member21313]

Hi !

Is the Fully Activated Appliance akin to Demo21 1709 ?

Thanks !

[JoergWolf]

Hello Rakesh,

yes, the DEMO21 system uses the S/4HANA fully-activated appliance.

There might be minor differences (e.g. a different HANA revision or in some integration scenarios).

The FA appliance can of course also be consumed via cloud providers where you quickly can bring up another instance if you need one.

Best Joerg

 

[snakane]

Hello,

Two questions:

• Is S/4HANA 1805 fully activated appliance planned to be available for on-premise installation? If so when?


• Is it possible to upgrade S/4HANA 1709 fully activated appliance on-premise to version 1805?

Regards,

Shirley

[JoergWolf]

Hello Shirley,

1805 is a release of the S/4HANA public cloud.

However, the appliance is based on on-premise releases, and provisions them in a cloud provider where you can create your own private instance.

Hence, 1805 will not be available as SAP CAL appliance (neither net-new nor upgrade).

The next on-premise release is planned for 1809, and we also intend to provide a fully-activated appliance for it.

Best, Joerg

 

[vaciliberti]

Hi Joerg,

My company, Reliability Dynamics, develops SAP Add-on solutions.  We would like to use the SAP S/4HANA 1709 AWS-hosted 30-day trial to import and test an Add-on for Plant Maintenance.  Can the 30-day trial be used for that purpose?   Also, is ABAP code development permissible?

Thanks, Tony

[JoergWolf]

 

Hi Tony,

apologies for the late response (vacation & business travel).

You can install add-ons and also create ABAP code, however, you might need to install a maintenance / developer key in the sytem for it.

For such longer-lasting PoC activities, the CAL subscription (beyond 30 days) or an on-premise installation on your own hardware (see blog above) might also be options.

Best, Joerg

[julieplummer20]

Hi Jörg, This looks really good.

Why is it not listed with all the other dev-relevant CAL appliances / downloads:

https://www.sap.com/developer/trials-downloads.html 

?

Would be easier to find ;-).

Best wishes Julie.

[Former Member]

Hi Jorg,
Quite useful information. Our organization is moving from Oracle ERP to SAP S4 . As part of new application architecture we need to learn and master in:

HCI --> Integration platform between Different SAP system (e.g successfactor, Ariba,S4) , How we can get a sandbox to get hands on HCI. In cal , we can see https://archive.sap.com/documents/docs/DOC-56411 we can use oData service. can you please guide us with a documentation how we can establish connection from Hana Development tool. I have access to Hana Cloud Cockpit and deployed a simple HTML5 application. I have access to HANA DB as well from google cloud platform.

[vaciliberti]

Hi Joerg,

I am getting a system error in my S/4HANA 1709 FPS01 fully-activated appliance (30-day trial SAP CAL on-premise).  Is there any way to get SAP CSS to take a look?

Thanks,

Tony



 

[marian_harris]

Hi Tony, For 30-day free trial systems, CSS support would not be able to assist. Can you share more details on what triggered the syntax error? Were you executing a specific SAP transaction code, report, or Fiori app?

[vaciliberti]

Hi Marian,

I was uninstalling an SAP Add-on, using transaction SAINT.  I solved the problem by terminating the instance in question and creating another instance.

I just want to say I am _very_ impressed with SAP CAL.

1\ It takes only one hour to set up a fully-functional SAP S/4HANA instance.

2\ System response is very good (ten minutes to install/install an SAP Add-on).

Thanks,

Tony

[marian_harris]

Thanks for the feedback Tony. Whenever SAP CAL has a solution available for a SAP product that a customer or partner wants to get hands on with, it provides such a strong benefit so quickly. Our own team focuses on the S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance and we also have the option for downloading the image and installing on your own hardware, but nothing beats getting a system up and running in literally 45 min to 2 hours.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I want to study the user administration (various types of users, roles, groups, provisioning etc) and related API for SAP application. Will my requirement be satisfied with this instance?

And can you please tell me on which linux flavor this application will be installed so that I can estimate the cost for my cloud provider?

[JoergWolf]

 

Hello Rajnandini,

you have full access to user transactions (SU01, BP, ...) if that satisfies your needs.

The fitting Linux flavor is automatically selected by the Cloud provider when you create the instance via cal.sap.com (there you will also get a cost estimate, typically 3-4 USD per uptime hour, depending on provider and region). In the advanced mode of the instance creation, you can opt out of remote desktop and BI platform which will roughly save ~ 1USD in your hourly costs).

Best, Joerg

[Former Member]

Thank you Joerg. I have few more question as below

1. Will the two applications, SAP GUI and SAP studio be installed on the vm created for Windows Remote Desktop, pre-configured to access SAP software and database?


2. If yes, if we opt out of installation of Windows Remote Desktop, will these two applictions, SAP GUI and SAP studio, be not installed/available?


3. As I want to study the user administration - all types of CRUD operations supported for user, group, role etc. Does this trial instance supports all such operations which are supported by the licenced SAP software?

[JoergWolf]

Hi Rajnandini,

SAP GUI and HANA Studio (i.e. the Eclipse plugins for HANA and ABAP development if you mean this) are pre-installed on the remote desktop.

If you opt out of it, you will need to install them on your laptop (and configure the connection into the S/4HANA appliance).

Re. 3.: You have full access to transactions for administering users, roles, profiles, ... so I would assume that you can do your tests.

Best, Joerg

[MarcelRabe]

Hi Joerg,

 

now that S/4HANA 1809 is released do you know when a fully-activated appliance will be ready in HEC with this release?

Thanks

Marcel

[JoergWolf]

Hello Marcel,

the S/4HANA 1809 fully-activated appliance is scheduled for December in SAP CAL (= SAP Cloud Appliance Library).

For a usage of such an appliance in SAP HEC (= SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud), please check with your SAP HEC represenatative for options.

Best, Joerg

[Navdeep_Singla]

Hi,

We are facing an issue with DB rename while installing 1709 FPS1 appliance.

 

After DB dvds extraction HDB is not starting with below errors.

 

************************************************************************************************************************************************

Renaming System...

SAP HANA Lifecycle Management - Database Rename  2.1.38

Renaming instance...

Stopping system...

All server processes stopped on host 's4hanaserver'.

Stopping sapstartsrv service...

Removing sapservices entry...

Updating system configuration files...

Renaming instance...

Creating sapservices entry...

Starting service (sapstartsrv)...

Starting instance HDB (HDB02) on host 's4hanaserver'...

Starting 11 processes on host 's4hanaserver':

Starting on 's4hanaserver': hdbcompileserver, hdbdaemon, hdbdiserver, hdbdocstore, hdbdpserver, hdbindexserver, hdbnameserver, hdbpreprocessor, hdbscriptserver, hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine

Starting on 's4hanaserver': hdbdaemon

Renaming SAP HANA instance failed!

Renaming master failed!

Renaming of SAP HANA Database System failed.

Value 'register_rename_system' is invalid. Please use one of: add_host_roles, add_hosts, check_installation, configure_internal_network, configure_sld, extract_components, print_component_list, remove_host_roles, rename_system, uninstall, unregister_system, update_component_list, update_components, update_host

Rename System failed

Error occurred while executing SAP HANA Database System rename (hdbrename)

Renaming SAP HANA instance failed!

Renaming master failed!

Cannot start instance HDB (HDB02) on host 's4hanaserver'

Start instance 02 on host 's4hanaserver' failed.

FAIL: process hdbdaemon HDB Daemon not running

Check the log file for SAP HANA Database error messages

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************

Deamon_server trace file:-

 

000001/RestoreGUID=00000000-0000-19720306-084436-2e00000000]

[14586]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:52:23.008681 f NameServer       TREXNameServer.cpp(03865) : no master nameserver found -> stopping instance ...

[14586]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:52:23.008986 e Basis            TREXNameServer.cpp(03897) : Process exited due to an error via explicit exit call with exit

code 1 , no crash dump will be written

[14552]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:52:23.009221 f Service          TrexService.cpp(00605) : Delaying shutdown indefinitely as abort is in process.

[15922]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:56:44.126791 f NameServer       TREXNameServer.cpp(03865) : no master nameserver found -> stopping instance ...

[15922]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:56:44.127059 e Basis            TREXNameServer.cpp(03897) : Process exited due to an error via explicit exit call with exit

code 1 , no crash dump will be written

[15893]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-21 15:56:44.127455 f Service          TrexService.cpp(00605) : Delaying shutdown indefinitely as abort is in process.

[9866]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-22 12:50:56.691525 f NameServer       TREXNameServer.cpp(03865) : no master nameserver found -> stopping instance ...

[9866]{-1}[-1/-1] 2018-10-22 12:50:56.691803 e Basis            TREXNameServer.cpp(03897) : Process exited due to an error via explicit exit call with exit c

ode 1 , no crash dump will be written

 

***************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

As per SAP Note 2080933 nameserver.ini has to be created.

 

Upon checking it was found that landscape.id file is 0 KB size after extraction.

 

s4hanaserver:HDB:hdbadm /hana/data/HDB/mnt00001/hdb00001 27> ls -ltr

total 5898244

-rwxrwxrwx 1 1004 sapsys          0 Jun 12  2017 __DO_NOT_TOUCH_FILES_IN_THIS_DIRECTORY__

-rwxrwxrwx 1 1004 sapsys          0 May  3 12:33 landscape.id

-rwxrwxrwx 1 1004 sapsys 6039797760 Oct 21 15:48 datavolume_0000.dat

 

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

can you please check and suggest how to resolve this issue.

 

Regards,

Navdeep

[PhilMad]

Hello, Will there be a version 1809 as well and if so, when is it planned to be released ?Thanks, Philipp

 

[JoergWolf]

Hi Philipp,

the fully-activated appliance for S/4HANA 1809 is planned for CW50 or 51.

A "plain vanilla" 1809 appliance (no business processes, no demo data) is planned for November, please check regularly on cal.sap.com.

Best, Joerg

 

[PhilMad]

Hi Jörg, Many thanks for the quick reply. Have a great start into this week. Cheers, Philipp

 

[Former Member]

Hi Joerg,

I have AWS VPC set up. And I would like to have above free trial instance installed within that VPC. How do I configure my AWS account within a VPC on SAP cloud appliance library or is the trial instance only works with public cloud?

Regards,

Rajnandini Ranbhare

[JoergWolf]

 

Hello Rajnandini,

please post this question as separate topic in the CAL community:

https://answers.sap.com/questions/metadata/24005/sap-cloud-appliance-library.html

Best,

Joerg

[markus_beck]

Hi Joerg,

do you have some informations for the on premise installation on own hardware?

Minimum RAM, Number of Cores, SSD Size, ...?

I would like to use this for developing an ABAP-Add On.

Maximum number of user = 5.

 

best regards,

Markus

 

 

[JoergWolf]

Hi Markus,

the recommended settings are listed below (can also be found attached to note 2041140 in document "First_Steps...").

Best, Joerg

Hardware Requirements

The SAP S/4HANA software appliance needs to be installed on fitting hardware that runs a pre-installed Linux operating system.

Please see the SAP PAM (Product Availability Matrix, http://support.sap.com/pam) for supported operating systems (typically, recent SLES or RHEL releases are supported).

As recommended default configuration, please prepare the following hardware (only x86_64 servers are supported, no Power hardware) and install the respective Linux operating system on it. For a detailed sizing, please refer to http://www.sap.com/sizing.

SAP HANA		SAP ABAP Server		SAP JAVA Server
OS	See SAP PAM		See SAP PAM		See SAP PAM
CPU threads	16		8		8
RAM	384 GB (256 GB min. *)		16 GB		42 GB
Disc	800 GB		100 GB		100 GB

[markus_beck]

Hi Joerg,

thank you for your input.

Right now we have for ABAP AddOn development a single installation (MS SQL Server and ABAP Server in one Win 2012 R2) of ECC 6.0 EHP7. For this we have 4 Threads, 8 GB RAM, 500 GB Disc. And this systems runs quite fast.

To me it looks like the sizing recommendations are for a productive environment.

The question for me is what will happen if we try to install on hardware with lower resources?

Will the installation abort or is the system not as performant as expected?

And which resources are more important, the RAM or the Threads?

For AddOn Development we need more than one system. We need at least 2 systems - better would be 3. So we try to find a solution how we can reduce the hardware costs for the S/4 dev. systems.

Of course for temporarily required system (like QA, Patches, ...) we have in mind to use a S/4 in the cloud. But for daily required systems we would like to install it on own hardware.

best regards

Markus

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[keesbond]

Hi Joerg.

 

I want to activate an SAP instance for our developers to learn to access SAP instances via Eclipse and can't figure out if:

SAP S/4HANA 1709 Fully-Activated Appliance

is the way to go.

Some questions:

I understand there is a trial period. What do we have to pay after the trial period has ended.

Can I disable the BW solution.

Can we later on connect a Solution manager instance to this instance as well.

Best regards, Kees

[JoergWolf]

Hi Kees,

for the license fees, please see Fig 3 in the blog above for an overview. After the 30 days, you will need to pay the hosting fees (~3-4 USD/EUR per uptime hour) and will require a subscription to SAP CAL (list price currently ~ 750 EUR per month).

An S/4HANA (trial) product license is also needed, to be checked for your individual situation (customer/partner,...).

The BW is embedded into the appliance (it's not a separate BW hub if you mean that), you could disable it in the customizing but not sure why you would want to do this ?

Solution Manager technically can be connected, however, you need to make sure that the network connectivity into the cloud provider works.

And last not least, I recommend to look at the 1809 release instead of the older 1709 release: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/12/12/sap-s4hana-fully-activated-appliance-create-your-sap-s4hana-1809-sy...

 

Best, Joerg