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

[JoergWolf]

Last updated: May 1st, 2024

Summary

• The SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance is a pre-packaged SAP S/4HANA system for non-production use cases such as sandboxing, proof-of-concept, scoping, or fit-gap analysis.

• The appliance contains both curated ready-to-use demo scenarios (some based on SAP Best Practices, some freely defined) as well as a separate client with the greenfield activation of SAP Best Practices for all available localizations.

• You can create your own personal system with full administrative rights either hosted in the cloud (takes ~ 1-2 hours) or on your own on-premise hardware (takes ~ 2-3 days).

• For the cloud deployment you need a valid account at a supported hosting provider, currently those are AWS, Azure and GCP. The hosting costs will be charged to your account (typically 3-4 USD per system uptime hour)

• Once you have such an account, the easiest way to start is the SAP S/4HANA trial (SAP licenses are waived for 30 days; only the cloud provider hosting fees apply). An extensive demo guide walks you through sample scenarios with pre-defined users and data sets.

Latest news from May 1st , 2024:
The SAP S/4HANA 2023 (FPS) Fully-Activated Appliance is available:
Direct link to appliance template in SAP CAL / Demo Guides

What is an appliance ?

An appliance is a compressed system image that can be rapidly extracted into a regular system instance by preserving everything that has been configured in the appliance during the development 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 fully-activated appliances, you will find the SAP S/4HANA software (along with some other components, see further below), activations of SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA (incl. technical configuration e.g. for the Fiori launchpad), and prepared demo scenarios with sample master and transactional data.

The delivery infrastructure for appliances is the SAP Cloud Appliance Library (SAP CAL, https://cal.sap.com), and if you browse this site you will see many more appliances besides the SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated appliances.

[Fig 1]: The concept of the SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance

How to use an appliance

An appliance can be consumed in two ways:

1. Within 1-2 hours in a hosted environment, using a cloud provider infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
2. Within typically ~ 2-3 days on your own on-premise hardware that has a supported Linux release installed (everything else will come with the appliance).

Details for option 1 (hosted):As prerequisite, you need to obtain an account at one of the supported cloud providers, and can afterwards bring up your system using the SAP Cloud Appliance Library (SAP CAL, https://cal.sap.com).The registration in SAP CAL and one of the supported hosting providers takes ~15 minutes. The start-up of your personal trial instance (no shared system !) will take ~1-2 hours.An easy entrance into SAP CAL is the SAP S/4HANA 30-day trial with the following characteristics:

• Built-in 30-day test license for SAP S/4HANA and SAP CAL (i.e. no fees to be paid to SAP)

• 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 a question in 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), see here for more details

If you are new to the SAP Cloud Appliance Library, there’s a detailed ‘Quick Start Guide’ on the SAP S/4HANA trial page to get started. This video playlist for SAP CAL will also help to get into the topic.

Details for option 2 (on-premise installation):If you prefer to install the appliance on your own hardware, you can also receive it via download or Blu-Ray disks.The shipment is free of charge, however, corresponding SAP licenses need to be in place (trial licenses are sufficient for delivery). 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 by a partner on behalf of a customer and deploying it on the customer hardware afterwards is not allowed.The following SAP note contains 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 2]: SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance – Consumption Methods SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance

What is the content & scope ?

The scope of the appliance centers around the SAP Best Practices content for SAP S/4HANA and is enhanced by further scenarios. The below walk-through scenarios have been described in detail (see here) but of course you’re free to explore and adapt the system as needed since you have full administrative rights and even access to the Linux operating system.

Overview Pages 
Sell from stock / outbound delivery processing
Accounting & Financial Close
Lease-in accounting
Investments
Universal Allocation
Treasury and bank account management
Overdue receivables
Group Reporting
Plan-to-produce & Demand-driven replenishment
Predictive Material & Resource Planning
Advanced Variant Configuration
Warehouse Inbound From Supplier
Plant Maintenance / Quality Mgmt.
Advanced ATP
Advanced Intercompany Sales
Service / Maintenance / Inhouse Repair
Portolio & Project Management
SAP Master Data Governance
Human Capital Management
Application Interface Framework
Analytics (Smart Business, BI, SAC)
Predictive Analytics
Data Migration
SAP Fiori Rapid Activation
Fiori Situation Handling
Key User & Developer Extensibility
Custom Print Forms
SAP Screen Personas

[Fig. 3] Pre-configured walkthrough scenarios in the appliance

What is technically contained in the appliance ?

The appliance 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
4. MS Windows remote desktop for easy access to the solution

The BI platform and the remote desktop are optional components in SAP CAL (you can opt in/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. 4] Technical components of the SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance

More information & known issues

These blogs (2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020) summarize the known issues and provide fixing hints where available. They 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 any system tasks (be it basis or functional) need to be done by you.

Best and have fun with the SAP S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance,
Joerg

Appendix: Link collection

Direct links to start an SAP S/4 S/4HANA Fully-Activated Appliance instance in SAP CAL, requires a cloud provider account:

• 2023 FPS01
• cal.sap.com to browse for other releases and solutions (see also the CAL documentation)

Blogs with known issues (2023 / 2022 / 2021 / 2020)

Suggested demo walkthroughs

30-day trial: SAP S/4HANA trial landing page (incl. a quick start guide)

Video tutorials (create cloud provider account and launch the appliance in SAP CAL)

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

On-premise download / Blu-Ray shipment process (SAP Note 2041140)

[former_member502479]

Hi Joerg

Thanks for the detailed blog on this , I have a question on the content/demo data is it equvivalent to the standard IDES shipments which we get from SAP service market place ?

[Willie_Lim]

Hi,

The content is different from the IDES.  The scope of the content is centers around the SAP Best Practices  for SAP S/4HANA and is enhanced by further scenarios from other product groups.

 

Willie

[keith_schauer]

 

Do you about availability in AWS GovCloud West ?

[JoergWolf]

Hi Keith,

we don't offer AWS GovCloud.

Is "regular" AWS an option for you ?

Or alternatively, you could install the appliance on your own premises hardware (it's a bit more effort than in the cloud, though).

Best, Joerg

[former_member598476]

Hi thanks for you sharing

[former_member249963]

Hi Willie,

I have a question about IDES / Fully-Activated Appliance.

So, for S/4HANA 1809 On-Premise version, there is No IDES provided, right?

The Fully-Activated Appliance is the only pre-configured On-Premise system the consultants can try and study, if they do not want to choose CAL.

Best regards,

Brad

[former_member187908]

Thanks a lot for the excellent blog!

[saravanan_vengibalakrishn]

Hi Joerg,

 

Does S/4 Hana trial comprise the IBP add-on software components? If yes, are we allowed/access to configure DP agent to connect with IBP.

Regards,

Saravanan VB

[Willie_Lim]

Hi Saravana,

We don't have IBP add-on on the trial system, but  PPDS & GATP of APO  are included in the this S/4HANA trial system.

HANA has the capability of crunching complex algorithms as APO does using live cache and probably that is the rationale for providing APO features like PPDS (Production planning & detailed scheduling) and GATP (Global ATP) as a part of simple logistics running on HANA. Multi-level explosion (MATP) , Location & material substitution, advanced BOP are some of the key features of GATP.

Regards,

Willie

[Willie_Lim]

Brad,

For now, the answer is yes.   You can get CDs for installation option too if you don't want CAL.  see this for detail.

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

 

Willie

[former_member249963]

Thanks Willie,

We have successfully setup the S41809 Appliance system as per the instruction.

 

Cheers,

Brad

[former_member206107]

The blog is really useful. Thanks a lot.

I am a MDG application / functional Consultant. I have few questions.

1. Who does the Model Company content download to a S4 HANA system on HEC ? Is it the BASIS team or HEC Team ?


2. If the existing S4 HANA on HEC is of version 1809 and a new model company content is available for 1809 FPS01, can the new model company content be downloaded ?


3. Can we keep adding / downloading new CAL contents to an already available S4 HANA instance on HEC ?

Thanks,

Arun prabhu S

[mirtapaloto]

Thanks for the blog, very usefull and clear explanation.

Is the "SAP S/4HANA 1809, Fully-Activated Appliance" available in Spanish? Or only English is supported? 

Some customers in Latin America are not confortable working in English, and we might have a restriction to use CAL as a quick start up of the Explore Phase.

Thanks in advance.

[JoergWolf]

Hello Arun,

please check SAP-internally with the HEC team in your region.

There are ways to both deploy Model Companies (to speed up the actual  implementation) as well as the fully-activated appliance (for sandboxing, scoping, PoC, ...).

Best, Joerg

[JoergWolf]

Hello Mirta,

the Spanish language pack is installed i.e. you will see Fiori & SAP GUI in Spanish.

The pre-configured demo scenarios (with sample transactional data in client 100) follow the US localization, but for most cases this won't be a huge derivation from other countries.

If you need more information, please contact me SAP-internally.

Best, Joerg

[r5luga]

Hello, thanks for sharing this information. We have some customer enhancements that are critical to some of the processes to present to our customers. Can we implement those enhancements in this appliance? Its basically some ABAP enhancements.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[JoergWolf]

Hello Luis,

you have full administrative access to all areas of the appliance (it's your own system), so that should be possible.

You might need to install a maintenance certificate, a developer key, ... but this depends on what exactly you want to do and on your contract status with SAP (partner / customer, contract type...).

Best, Joerg

 

 

 

[former_member202507]

Joerg,

Apologies if I’ve missed it but is this appliance the S/4HANA Cloud Single Tenant Edition (STE) or S/4HANA On Prem?

[JoergWolf]

Hi John,

this is the on-premise release of S/4HANA (the 1809 FPS01 fully-activated appliance was just released, see announcement in red at the top of this blog).

Best, Joerg

[WaldemarFal]

Dear Joerg,

 

this is really good stuff – thank you for sharing!

 

I have one question: after a licence contract for S4H has been signed is there any fee to be paid to get the right to take baseline from the Model Company to the development system (like from CAL)? I am asking because can see there is a price on the service market place.

 

I am SAP Project Manager so far it was something not in my focus and talking with many people I can see some projects goes awry and astray exactly in the point of Execute phase with a lack of competence and/or formal alignment to get really in practice the Model Company / Best Practices to development system. (like from CAL or just by import from browser down to SolMan and S4H). If this fails at this stage, then they start with manual clicking and are consequently in big problems!

 

What would you advise? Is there also a kind of note – advice – instruction saying what to do on the formal side to get it smoothly sorted out?

 

Look forward to hearing from you soon!

 

Regards,

 

Waldemar

[JoergWolf]

Hi Waldemar,

the fully-activated appliance is intended as sandbox since it contains settings and features that customers don‘t want/need to have in a DEV system. So it won‘t make sense to copy the customizing as a whole.

If SAP Best Practices are a good fit in a Project, I‘d rather activate them with Solution Builder (for the countries needed) and do manual changes afterwards.

This comes “for free“ I.e. there is no separate fee.

The Model Companies have done this  approach for many industries/LoBs, hence there is a fee if you want to benefit from this knowledge.

Best Joerg

[WaldemarFal]

Thank you Joerg,

 

I see, and exactly it ("The Model Companies have done this  approach for many industries/LoBs, hence there is a fee if you want to benefit from this knowledge.") may cause some troubles.

 

Even if the fees are not big comparing the entire value. if they (teams) discover in Prepare  phase they would use some pieces of Model which comes for a surcharge it is too late to make it fast (to take into the baseline for Explore) due to internal time consuming supply procedures.

 

So I think sales should be aware, suggest to leave in the contract a kind of buffer just in case teams found such a need 🙂

 

Regards,

 

Waldemar

[lucdealethea]

Hi Joerg

really well detailed blog on this 1809 S4H appliance.

We have gone with the CAL option on TRIAL, and subscribed for extension via SAP Store order.

Unfortunately, we never got feedback with Licenses to update dbms or S4H. The CAL Appliance doesn't show up in support.sap.com as Installations under our customer number.

Therefore, we can't really open an incident, and store.admin@sap.com hasn't replied to our recent email yet, increasing the thrill on license expiration on 26.05.2019, while we have a substantial work done on the appliance and several use cases to present early June 2019.

What was wrong in our way to extend the license thru SAP Store via the extension link ?

If you have any insight we would really appreciate and thank you so much in advance.

 

Cheers,

 

Luc.

[JoergWolf]

Hi Luc,

the SAP Store only provides the CAL subscription license, but not the S/4 and HANA license keys.

You would need to get those keys via the regular license page on the support portal.

Do you have an AE / partner manager that you could ask if you encounter problems on that page ?

Best Joerg

[lucdealethea]

Yes, I understand Joerg. We are working on that now.

Still, facing x-csrf-token validation error when invoking POST even in SAP Gateway Client, where it is not supposed to require the fetch first …

example:

/sap/opu/odata/sap/ZBLCK_FIAP_SRV_01/PostHdrSet equals

http://127.0.0.1:50000/sap/opu/odata/sap/ZBLCK_FIAP_SRV_01/PostHdrSet

In strustsso2 transaction
> SSL Server Standard PSE
> missing root CA certificate in this PSE.

With Advanced Rest Client, https://vhcals4hci.dummy.nodomain:44300/sap/opu/odata/sap/ZBLCK_FIAP_SRV_01/$metadata

returns also x-csrf-token validation failed...

How do we proceed with that ? Any suggestion is welcome on how to import it there…

CSRF
The SAP Gateway client also supports you when performing WRITE opera-
tions. Here the cross-site request forgery (XSRF) token that is needed for
such operations is acquired automatically. (This is opposed to the approach
of using a third-party REST client. In that case, you first have to perform a
separate GET request to fetch a XSRF token for any subsequent Update , Cre-
ate , or Delete operation.)

[Andre_Fischer]

You have to use a valid certificate or as a workaround I found that you can set the parameter

login/ticket_only_by_https

back to the kernel default value 0 using transaction RZ11.

This setting will be set back everytime you reboot your server though.

Regards,

Andre

 

[lucdealethea]

Hi  Andre,

that worked for me (login/ticket_only_by_https = 0),

but the other workaround didn't, setting the SICF Gui Configuration ~CHECK_CSRF_TOKEN = 0.

I guess the disadvantage of the Gateway Embedded Deployment is some security features and limitations.

Thanks again for your help,

 

Luc

 

[nitinfatnani]

Hi Joerg

 

Do the activated scenarios focus on a particular country localization or all country localizations have been pre-configured?

For example - if we were to test & demo the VAT scenarios for MENA / UAE?

Is this available?

Is the sample company code for UAE available?

Are we allowed to customize?

 

Your help will be appreciated.

 

Regards

Nitin

[JoergWolf]

Hi Nitin,

the pre-defined demo scripts (i.e. with transactional and master data in client 100) follow the US localization.

The best practices for UAE have been activated in clients 300&400, so you can configure your scenarios there.

Or you add the UAE configuration to client 100 if this is an option.

You have full admin & config Access to the  whole system.

Best Joerg

[nitinfatnani]

Many Thanks Joerg

[hschaefer123]

Hi Jörg,

we will currently start installing FSP02 onPremise and formerly had a lot of issues after changing SID while applying post process.

I figured out internally that a lot of dependencies like GW services -> alias still take care on delivered SID. I think the posttask for this does not take care on all dependencies.

So right now we do not want to change the SID to avoid running into such issues (like error ALIAS HAA not found for service, etc.).

It this a valid approach from your point of view?

Regards Holger

 

[JoergWolf]

Hi Holger,

you mean the aliases in /IWFND/MAINT_SERVICE ?

I need to check with my colleagues on the post-installation tasks, might take a bit due to vacation time.

Meanwhile, you can also try to post this question e.g. in the Fiori / UI forums (if it’s only about Gateway aliases).

Best, Joerg

[Willie_Lim]

Hi Holger and Joerg,

To keep the same SID ‘S4H’ is a great idea and I strongly recommend that.

We used SID ‘S4H’ for many other configurations like the Logical system ‘S4HCLNT100’, Business System ‘S4H_100’, Enterprise Search Connectors ‘S4H100’,  ABAP connections in SM59, and Gateway Aliases setting.  Unless you absolutely have to, changing and testing them could be time consuming and costly.

In case if you still decided to change the SID, here are a list of tasks you should look into:

1. BD54 – logical system definition
2. SCC4 – assign Logical system to clients
3. BDLS - convert logical system in Application System
4. SM59 – adapt the RFC destinations
5. /n/IWFND/ROUTING – Adjust System Aliases
6. STC01 – task id :SAP_ESH_ADJUST_AFTER_COPY  - Adjust ESH connectors
7. STMS – adjust Transport System to the new name
8. STRUST – create new PSE certificates
9. SM37 - Adapt all background jobs
10. SM28 - Run an installation check: Administration System administration Installation Check
11. SM51 - Perform server check
12. RZ10 - Adapt the instances and profiles if needed

Regards,

Willie

[kimhjorth_poulsen]

Hi Supporter

I did a 3-fold mistype of the password. How do I reset the password?

Best regards,

Kim

[JoergWolf]

Hi Kim,

please check the Getting Started guide (linked from your instance page) for available users in the various components. Using one of those you should be able to unlock your user.

Best Joerg

[former_member331810]

hi Joerg

can i install S4 HANA FSP02 on Premise below hardware for trial system

	SAP HANA	SAP ABAP Server	SAP JAVA Server
OS	SUSE 12	SUSE 12	SUSE 12
CPU threads	8	4	2
RAM	128	64	32
Disc	1500 GB	1500 GB	1500 GB
Rack Server	HP Gen 8	HP Gen 8	HP Gen 8

 

[JoergWolf]

Hi B. Gupta,

no, you will need 256 GB on the HANA box (HANA and ABAP can run on the same box then).

Best, Joerg

[carlostol]

Hi everyone!,

Does this system have the following solutions and components?:

 

SAP DSD Mobile for Android (MOBDSDEI 800)

SAP PM Work Manager

 

If don't, can we perform the installation activities of the necessary components on top of this landscape?

 

Regards,

Carlos

[JoergWolf]

Hi Carlos,

no, it doesn't.

You have full administrative rights to the system, so generally speaking you might try to install it (you might need maintenance certificate, though, and of course check vor version dependencies, etc.).

Best, Joerg

[lklim]

Hi Joerg,

Understand that the trial is only for 30 days. I like to ask if there is a possibility of extending the trial beyond 30 days? My customer has operated their SAP environment more than 20 years and have customized it heavily. They are asking for exceptional support to have longer trial.

Thanks.

[peter_benicky]

Hi Joerg,

are you planning to release version 1909 on CAL as well?

Thanks.

[JoergWolf]

Hi Leong,

Yes, this is possible by acquiring a CAL license (easiest via SAP Store https://www.sapstore.com/solutions/99007/SAP-Cloud-Appliance-Library).
Alternatively you can also obtain the appliance for usage on your own on-prem hardware, see https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2041140

For both, they would need at least an S/4 trial license.

I have also replied via SAP-internal email for further questions.

Best, Joerg

[JoergWolf]

Hi Peter,

yes, planned for December.

Best,

Joerg

[lklim]

Hi Joerg,

Yes, noted with thanks 🙂

[PhilMad]

Fantastic news ! Very thankful for this great concept of giving the possibility to deep dive S/4 releases quickly. Kr, Philipp

[former_member457209]

Hello Joerg,

we would like to get S/4HANA 1909 in the CAL which is flagged as a TRIAL. But we also would need to test some processes where we need a developer key.

Is it possible somehow to get a developer key in combination with S/4HANA?

Many thanks in advance!

BR. Denis.

 

[JoergWolf]

Hi Denis,

principally yes, but it depends on your license(s).

Firstly, you would need a CAL subscription license to unlock your trial beyond 30 days: https://calstatic.hana.ondemand.com/res/docEN/96d12c4fb8ff4fd4a61e5dcc55cd16c4.html

And secondly, you need the fitting license (and installation type) to obtain a developer key.

Maybe your partner / customer representative can help to clarify what exactly you need for point 2 ?

Best, Joerg

 

[former_member193885]

Hi Joerg,

This is great news on the release of 1909 Appliance!

Is 1909 Appliance available for On-Premise installation also?

Thanks.

Deepu

[JoergWolf]

Hello Deepu,

yes, this is in the works as well, will take a few more days.

FYI: If you are employed at an SAP partner, DEMO21 for S/4HANA 1909 just kicked off (the appliance is used for this program as well).

Best, Joerg

[S0021072915]

Dear Joerg,

Good day

Thanks for the blog.

as for the following note in your blog :

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

please note that I am a SAP new Client with my license already with me, what to do in order to extend the cal please?

 

kindly help

regards

Mahmoud