Using the Pure Storage SAP HANA Toolkit

Configuration Files 

/opt/purestorage/saphana_toolkit/cfg_files/configurations.json

This file contains the preset configuration recommendations for each of the operating systems which support SAP HANA. Present configurations are formatted as follows:

Applying best practice recommendations

Depending on if the system is identified to be a virtual machine or a bare metal server – different settings are applied. 

• If the system is a virtual machine , then device-mapper and udev rules are not set – instead the IO scheduler and global elevator is set for the bootloader (reboot required).
• If the system is bare metal then the appropriate device-mapper configuration and udev settings are applied , along with the IO scheduler (IO scheduler changes require a reboot).
• It also checks if the required settings are present so as to avoid unnecessary changes.

To run the configuration check execute the following:

ps_saphana_cfg_check

This is an example of the configuration check being run on a system. The following changes are checked for , prompted for and changed:

• IO Scheduler changed for SCSI devices.
• IO scheduler changes for Device-Mapper devies.
• Multipath and udev (device rules) configurations applied.
• Due to an IO scheduler change the bootloader is rebuilt and the user prompted for a reboot. 

For device-mapper configuration changes only the section pertaining to Pure Storrage FlashArray is changed. 

devices {
       device {
               vendor                "PURE"
               product               "FlashArray"
               path_selector         "queue-length 0"
               path_grouping_policy  group_by_prio
               path_checker          tur
               fast_io_fail_tmo      10
               dev_loss_tmo          60
               no_path_retry         0
               hardware_handler      "1 alua"
               prio                  alua
               failback              immediate
        }
}
blacklist {
        wwid    INTEL_SSDSC2BB300G4T_PHWL451300NZ300PGN
}

devices {
  device {
        vendor                "PURE"
        product               "FlashArray"
        fast_io_fail_tmo      10
        path_grouping_policy  "group_by_prio"
        failback              "immediate"
        prio                  "alua"
        hardware_handler      "1 alua"
        max_sectors_kb        1024
    }
blacklist {
        wwid    INTEL_SSDSC2BB300G4T_PHWL451300NZ300PGN
}

Example creating an application consistent storage snapshot on the local scale up instance

No password arguments are provided which then causes a prompt to show for each required.

HANA:~ # create_scaleup_snapshot --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.53 --flasharrayuser pureuser
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
Volume Snapshot serial number : 723EC7B5B427453E000134CD
Confirming storage snapshot with SAP HANA Backup ID : 1610720058079

The Storage snapshot is created and visible within SAP HANA Studio: 

In the FlashArray web user interface it can now be seen that the storage snapshot is present with the appended Snapshot ID.

Example creating an application consistent storage snapshot on a remote virtualized vVol scale up instance

No password arguments are provided which then causes a prompt to show for each required.

HANA:~ # create_scaleup_snapshot --hostaddress vhana05.soln.local --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.50 --flasharrayuser pureuser
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
The volume has been detected to be a virtual disk but no vCenter credentials have been supplied to further parse the request
Abandoning storage snapshot with SAP HANA Backup ID : 1610719220924

HANA:~ # create_scaleup_snapshot --hostaddress vhana05.soln.local --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.50 --flasharrayuser pureuser --vcenteraddress erebus.soln.local --vcenteruser Administrator@vsphere.local
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
Volume Snapshot serial number : 8488B6DAC70F42A20001A482
Confirming storage snapshot with SAP HANA Backup ID : 1610719444661

The Storage snapshot is created and visible within SAP HANA Studio:

In the FlashArray web user interface it can now be seen that the storage snapshot is present with the appended Snapshot ID:

Example creating a crash consistent storage snapshot on the local scale up instance

HANA:/hana/shared # create_scaleup_snapshot --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.53 --flasharrayuser pureuser --crashconsistent
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
Crash consistent storage snapshot SAPHANA-SH1-CrashConsistency.1 created

As the snapshot is created without any application awareness, there is no entry in the SAP HANA catalog for it. 

As seen in the FlashArray web user interface a Protection Group is created for the instance and the relevant volumes are added to it before being a snapshot is created. 

Creating storage snapshots for Scale Out deployments 

Using the create_scaleout_snapshot utility application consistent and crash consistent storage snapshots can be created. The following behaviors should be noted when using this process.

• Application consistent storage snapshots are created for only the SAP HANA data volumes attached to the relevant worker host at that point in time. 
• The storage snapshot for each data volume will have the SAP HANA Backup ID and worker host name appended to its name for recovery purposes.
• Crash consistent storage snapshots will add the data and log volumes to a protection group with the instance system identifier (SID) appended for traceability purposes. If two systems with the same SID exist in the same landscape on the same FlashArray then Crash consistent storage snapshots should only be created of one of them. 
• It is possible to create storage snapshots of SAP HANA virtual machines on VMware but only if the data and log volumes are located on a vVol datastore. 

SELECTHOST FROMM_LANDSCAPE_HOST_CONFIGURATION WHERE NAMESERVER_ACTUAL_ROLE = 'MASTER'

The following arguments are used with the create_scaleup_snapshot utility 

Example creating an application consistent storage snapshot on a Scale Out instance using vVols

vHANA01:~ # create_scaleout_snapshot --hostaddress vhana01.soln.local --domainname soln.local --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.50 --flasharrayuser pureuser --vcenteraddress erebus.soln.local --vcenteruser Administrator@vsphere.local
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
Creating storage snapshot for mount point : hanadataVHAmnt00001 on host : vhana01.soln.local
Creating storage snapshot for mount point : hanadataVHAmnt00004 on host : vhana02.soln.local
Creating storage snapshot for mount point : hanadataVHAmnt00003 on host : vhana03.soln.local
Creating storage snapshot for mount point : hanadataVHAmnt00002 on host : vhana04.soln.local
Confirming storage snapshot with SAP HANA Backup ID : 1610723655368

The storage snapshot will be visible in SAP HANA studio as shown below. 

Each SAP HANA data volume should also be shown to have a storage snapshot with the SAP HANA Backup ID appended to it.

Example creating a crash consistent storage snapshot on a Scale Out instance using vVols

vHANA01:~ # create_scaleout_snapshot --hostaddress vhana01.soln.local --domainname soln.local --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.50 --flasharrayuser pureuser --vcenteraddress erebus.soln.local --vcenteruser Administrator@vsphere.local --crashconsistent
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required):
Crash consistent storage snapshot SAPHANA-VHA-CrashConsistency.1 created

All of the log and data volumes will be added to a new protection group and a snapshot created of it. 

Example Recovering local SAP HANA Scale Up Instance 

HANA:~ # recover_scaleup_snapshot --databaseuser SYSTEM --operatingsystemuser root --flasharray 10.21.227.53 --flasharrayuser pureuser --sidadmpassword Osmium76
Database Password:
Operating System Password:
FlashArray Password:
vCenter Password (Leave blank if not required): 

The SAP HANA Catalog is queried for all of the recovery points it is aware of (only for data snapshots).

Once a catalog ID is selected the relevant FlashArray is queried to check if the storage snapshot is present. 

If recovery is selected to proceed the SAP HANA instance is shut down and the relevant recovery method is performed.

Once the new volume has been attached to the host, the SystemDB and tenant databases are recovered.