DISCONTINUED - RIP: Free/Eval copy of Replication Server and Data Assurance products !

[Mark_A_Parsons]

update (29 Nov 2021):

tl:dr

Along with quietly discontinuing the ASE Express Edition, SAP has now quietly discontinued public access to the trial version of Replication Server.

Details ...

A few months ago the download link on the Replication Server Trial page disappeared. Repeated requests (via the 'Contact Us' link) as to the status of the missing download link remain unanswered.

A recent Q&A - How do I get a trial version of Replication Server? - highlighted this issue and, unfortunately, the answer from SAP was that we need to have a support contract (ie, have a S-user account).

Obtaining more details required submitting the Improvement Request: reinstate download link for trial version of Replciation Server and after a week we finally got some details:

• The trial provided was only SAP Replication Server 15.7, which has reached EOMM and been removed.


• An installation of current SAP Replication Server 16.0 will activate as a 90-day trial if no license is provided.


• For all other questions or to arrange a trial for non S-users please use the 'Contact Us' link on the trial page.

If anyone opts to use the 'Contact Us' link, let us know if you (ever) get a response eh.

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original post (28 Apr 2017):

Christmas has come early (or a bit late?) this year!

SAP has (finally) made available free/eval downloads of the SAP/Sybase Replication Server (SRS) and Data Assurance (DA) products.

Where'd they hide 'em?

Didn't see the announcement? [Neither did I and I've been waiting since the beginning of the year for said announcement.]

Can't find the downloads when searching sap.com? [Hey, we're talking about the sap.com search engine ... did you really think it'd be *that* easy to find the downloads?]

Just head on over to the Sybase Replication Server SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) landing page.  [Silly, did you really think a SRS download would be available from the SRS landing page? *tsk* *tsk* *tsk*]

On the ASE landing page, under the 'Featured Content' section, should be a small blurb titled 'Evaluate SAP Replication Server Premium Edition now'.

Clicking on the Download an evaluation link will take you to a registration page where you're prompted for a few pieces of info and given the choice of downloading the Windows (*.zip) and/or Linux (*tgz) version of SRS.

NOTE: While on the ASE landing page I'd recommend you click on the Read more in the Quick Start Guide link to download the Quick Start Guide (PDF). [You'll need this for the instructions on how/where to download a 1-yr eval license.]

UPDATE: 27 Aug 2020: edited to take into account SAP's ongoing attempts to make finding anything on sap.com as hard as possible (eg, the above, previously posted links no longer work).

Go to SAP Replication Server Trial. Click on the Register for Free button, choose the Linux or Windows download option, and save the download file to your local computer.

NOTE: While on the the SRS Replication Server Trial page I'd recommend clicking on the Quick Start Guide for more details on the SRS Trial download. Somewhere in that PDF should be instructions for generating a 1-yr eval license @ https://go.support.sap.com/minisap/#/minisap

OK, but what are the limitations?

On the registration page you're presented with the following goodies:

• free for use in any non-production environment

• unlimited engines, memory, users and database size

• runs on Windows and Linux

• 90-day evaluation period can be extended for 1 year

Hmmm, that first bullet (free for non-production) sounds like an opportunity to spread a little bit of Christmas cheer to the accounting department ... no more licensing fees for our non-production copies of SRS! [Make sure you read the fine print in the license agreement : you get no support with this product/license, so probably a good idea to make sure the bean counter doesn't cancel all of your SRS support contracts eh.]

As of this writing, the download files contain a full blown copy of the SRS 15.7.1 SP305 release. [No idea if SAP will update the downloads as newer versions of SRS are made available; so 'nother good reason to maintain some level of SRS support if you want to make sure you can download future versions of SRS.]

Licensing

I had problems getting a sample repserver to come up on the '90-day evaluation' (aka graced) license. [Operator error? ymmv]

Once I generated a 1-yr eval license (see section 4.6 of the Quick Start Guide for instructions on where/how to generate said license) my sample repserver started up just fine.

The license type is LT=EV; which appears to be similar to the SR license type, ie, a single license covers an entire host regardless of the number of cpus.

A look at the actual license file shows the following options are included with the EV license:

• REP_SERVER - basic features

• REP_ASE - ASE support

• REP_EC_HANA - express connect for HANA (as RDB)

• RAH_SERVER - repagent for HANA (as PDB)

• REP_RTL_IQ - real time loading for IQ (as RDB)

• REP_HVAR_ASE - includes the Advanced Services Option (ASO; covers a bunch of performance enhancements for SRS internals/threads), and support for Multi-Path Replication

• REP_DATA_ASSURANCE - Data Assurance (DA) license

That's a *TON* of features ya don't get with the plain vanilla repserver license! [Obviously if you plan on going into production with some of these options you may find yourself having to shell out some of that money you saved - from cancelling non-prod licenses - to support your new production habit options.]

This particular license has the hostid (supplied during license generation) embedded in the license body, with the net result being the license has to be installed locally (either as 'unserved', or 'served' by a SYSAM server running locally) on the machine where the repserver (or DA server) will be running. [You won't be able to use the license if it's installed as a 'served' license on another machine in the network ... I know ... I tried and the repserver rejected the 'served' license.]

SAP/Sybase Replication Server (SRS)

I've got a linux virtual machine running a handful of RS 15.7.1 SP304 repservers (mix of 'unserved' and 'served' CP license files; mix of ASE/RSSD and eRSSD; basic REP_SERVER/REP_ASE options).

I was able to successfully start all of these repservers, each one checking out a single EV license (obviously they came up with a message that the EV license will expire in 1 year).  So the SYSAM/EV license appears to function like a normal SYSAM license.

NOTE: The virtual machine is configured with 3 cpus; under my older licenses each repserver would check out 3x CP licenses.

I was able to successfully run a battery of functionality tests (table-level, WS, MSA) against my SP304 (and a single SP305) repservers using the EV license.  So there doesn't appear to be any issues/limitations with basic SRS functionality.

I don't have access to any IQ or HANA servers so I'm not able to comment on the related options. [I don't have any reason to expect they won't function properly.]

Multi-Path replication works as expected. [Ran several tests ... object-level/MSA replication across alternate paths as well as a dedicated route ... WS replication using alternate logical connections.]

As for the other ASO options (related to internals/threads)... no problems making some test config changes. [Primary objective was to test functionality and verify no failed commands due to licensing issues.]

Data Assurance (DA)

A little bit of background for those not familiar with DA ...

SRS comes with a (OS-level) utility called rs_subcmp which can be used to compare schemas and data sets between a source and replicate table. Unfortunately rs_subcmp is quite limited in its abilities, especially when it comes to dealing with data sets larger than ~1 GB in size.

With SRS 15.2 (or was it 15.1? *shrug*) Sybase/SAP introduced the Data Assurance (DA) product, a java-based application that also compares schemas and data sets but without many of the limitations of the rs_subcmp utility. [I've previously posted a few blogs about my DA experiences - see link below; DA simply blows rs_subcmp out of the water when it comes to data set comparisons.]

So why not just replace rs_subcmp with DA?  rs_subcmp is free ... DA is not free (at least not for standalone purchases of SRS ... until now).

DA downloads ...

While the DA product is a standalone product (it doesn't not rely in any way on ASE, SRS or any other SAP/Sybase product), it is (still) distributed as part of the SRS product distribution; net result is that in order to download the DA product you must download the SRS product.

Once you've extracted the SRS product, you can find the DA installation under the da_installer subdirectory.

NOTE: DA is typically given the same version number as the SRS version it's distributed with. In this case we're talking about DA 15.7.1 SP305.

NOTE: SAP (still) isn't marketing DA as a standalone product; net result is that DA does not have its own product landing page, nor even an official 'SAP Data Assurance' tag. [go figure!]

So, when you download the SRS Premium Edition you also get a copy of the DA product.  And as mentioned above re: licensing, the EV license includes support (REP_DATA_ASSURANCE) for the DA product.

DA functionality ...

For a quick test I didn't bother installing the DA product that comes with the SRS Premium Edition download ... I've already got access to a DA 15.7.1 SP304 installation. [I've got my DA server running on the same linux virtual machine as the repservers - mentioned above.]

I had no problems starting my SP304 DA server on the EV license. [Running license shows a valid license with an expiration date in 1 year.]

I was able to successfully run a series of tests (create/run/drop connections/comparesets/jobs) with my DA server so, again, no apparent issues/limitations with the DA server license.

Additional links

ASE landing page

SAP Replication Server Trial

SRS Premium Edition Quick Reference Guide

SRS Premium Edition Registration and Download page

Data Assurance (DA) related blogs

[former_member89972]

Cool Mark.

Quiet a good news huh !!  So taking it in slowly !!

Almost for a year now , I have been struggling to get  ASE => RS => HANA  (for a POC, all on AIX) working for lack of help from SAP on licensing.

Hope to cobble it together now -- if I can -- using this new EVAL stuff .

Thanks again

Avinash

[Former Member]

Thanks for sharing

[former_member628057]

Hi Mark,

 

Yes, I too downloaded the same. But not sure how to proceed further , I need to built ASE to ASE setup in my personal Laptop for study & personal hands on purpose.

 

Can you or any one suggest me here, I have 8 GB Ram laptop with Window/Linux (Ubuntu).  How can be setup , do I will need VM , how , where & how can I install 2 ASE along with SRS on same machine.

 

Regards

Sukriti