How to Test & Update SAP Analytics Cloud Agent

[VijayetaSharma]

Introduction:

In this blog post I will share a simple yet very important task of Administrators - Update and maintain latest version of Cloud Agent.

Although SAC is a very low maintenance (from infra point of view), administrators do required to update, trouble shoot bugs from time to time.
I am planning to release couple of interrelated blog posts showcasing my journey of using Analytics cloud as a Analytics developer and as an Analytics Administrator.  I will try to focus on topics like issues faced, maintenance, administration, lessons learned and my over all thoughts on SAC as a product.

I will be consolidating these blog posts in chronological order, for easy reference and to set narrative to "my SAC journey"..

Where SAP Analytics Cloud Agent fits in under grand schema of SAC On-premise setup:

Courtney - help.sap.com

 

A combination of SAP Analytics Cloud Connector and Analytics Cloud Agent is required to connect systems that accept proprietary protocols for communications (like SAP BW, SAP ERP etc). This setup on customer network is required for data acquisition from on-premise system to SAC. Now there may be additional custom setup requirement in source system (BW, ERP..). This depends ng upon source system type and version (shown on above diagram).

Prerequisite:

Assumption is Source system customization (CORS setup; if required),  Cloud Connector, Agent installation (SAP Analytics Cloud Agent Simple Deployment Kit) and SAC Datasource setup (on-premise Datasource) is already in place. You are only looking to update and test new version of SAP Analytics Cloud Agent.

Note: Cloud agents are released every bi-weeks, with bug fixes and updates. Though it is not mandatory to update your system bi-weekly.

Testing Strategy:

If you setup (SAC environment) is like mine - where you do not have separate SAC QA environment, you can setup a separate host for Cloud Connector and Agent testing. Then connect both version (Prod and QA) to same SAC tenant.
This way you can use the testing host to carryout integration testing of new Agent releases and keep Prod setup independent.

Check Cloud Agent Version:

http://localhost:8080/C4A_AGENT/deploymentInfo
Replace "localhost" with server name (where Cloud Connector and Agent are deployed). Leave the URL as is, if you are check version from within host server. Use credential maintained under \Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\conf\tomcat_users.xml

Update Cloud Agent:

Login to Server hosting Cloud Agent and Connector.

Stop Tomcat services.

Delete \Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\webapps\ and any sub-folders and files. (Keep a backup of C4A.war file and folder, in case we need to restore.

Download latest version of Cloud Agent from SAP Support Portal > By Category > SAP Cloud Solutions > SAP Analytics Cloud Conn 1.0 > SAP Analytics Cloud Agent

Or from https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter

Unzip downloaded content

Copy C4A_AGENT.war file and paste it under \Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 8.0\webapps\

Restart Tomcat : the agent will automatically deploy when Tomcat is restarted. Check for new folder created in the same directory adjacent to C4A file.

There are ton of information already available on first time setup and installation. I will try the latest simple deployment kit and share my findings if, I encounter any issue or notice substantial difference.

Conclusion:

Updating Cloud Agent is fairly simple and straight forward process. Although testing is comparatively time consuming step. There are times when we gain substantial improvement (performance or functionality or both) with new version. Although some time we may encounter bugs out of the blue. Over all its the responsibility of System Admin to test Cloud Agents for deployment.

Supporting Resource:

https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter

help.sap.com

Disclaimer:

The observations that I am sharing in my blog posts and the information I am presenting are collected in a careful manner by myself with the help of my fellow colleagues. However, they are not “official” guidelines released by SAP. Also, the information can be outdated as the platform is developed further. So I personally cannot guarantee for the correctness of everything I am writing about in these articles and I do not speak for SAP when I am giving you recommendations.

[ash_123]

Are there any requirement to update cloud connector and JCO?

[VijayetaSharma]

There are times when you may need to update JCO and / or Connector. We recently had to update both to troubleshoot a data import issue to SAC. Although I dont think the update and upgrade is too often like Agent.

[ash_123]

Is there any official guideline on when to update JCO and Cloud Connector?

[VijayetaSharma]

Keen an eye on SAC alerts (top right corner), beside you can visit SAP Support portal from time to time to check for update and read though the changes. If required test them on a QA env before deployment.

[ash_123]

Thanks!

[tom_beutin]

What's a proper integration test scenario for the cloud connector agent? I'm looking for something end-to-end, i.e. file access tests by using the REST API. Automated variant preferred...

[former_member645537]

vijayeta.sharma The direct link to software center will be this one - https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/softwarecenter.

From Help Portal it's not that easy to find it.

Best,
Hanna

[VijayetaSharma]

hanna_mazurkevich thanks!

I added direct link as well.

Regards,

Vijayeta

[ColmC]

Hi Vijayeta,

My original installation was completed using the SAP Analytics Cloud Agent Simple Deployment Kit.

Do SAP recommend using a newer version of the Kit to upgrade all components or is it Ok to just upgrade the Agent as you outlined above?

Thanks,

Colm