SAP Basis Tech Supports

Symptom

You operate an SAP system with Microsoft Windows on virtualized hardware. The previously available tools and transactions for monitoring an SAP system are insufficient for this purpose.

Other terms

Virtualization, Windows, VMware ESX Server, vSphere, Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008
Reason and Prerequisites

In the SAP transactions that monitor the system configuration, you could not distinguish between an SAP system operating on physical hardware and a system operating on virtual hardware.
If you operate a system on physical hardware, all existing resources are available to the operating system.
If you operate a system on virtual hardware, subareas of the underlying physical hardware can be assigned to the virtual guest operating system.
Since you can assign the physical hardware to several guest operating systems at the same time, there is important information missing about which native resources are available to the virtual system.
Solution

To monitor an SAP system in a virtual environment, you must set up the extended SAP System Monitoring.
The first section of this note lists all of the steps that you must perform for VMware and for Hyper-V. The sections that follow, list the additional steps that are also required for VMware or Hyper-V.

Section 1: Work steps for all virtualization solutions
1. Install the Microsoft runtime environment.
To operate the new data collector, you require C-runtime 8.0 (vcredist_ .exe) from Microsoft.
You find the program under the following link:http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=eb4ebe2d-33c0-4a47-9dd4-b9a6d7bd44da.
Download the installation program for Windows x64 from the Microsoft download page and execute it on each of the virtual machines that are to be monitored.2. Check the Support Package level.
Transaction OS07 was revised to display virtualization-specific data for the operating system environment. Ensure that you have imported at least the following Support Package version into your SAP system:SAP NetWeaver 7.10
Support Package SAPKB71007SAP NetWeaver 7.01 (SAP NetWeaver 7.0)
Support Package SAPKB70102SAP NetWeaver 7.00 (SAP NetWeaver 7.0); transaction OS07N
Support Package SAPKB70017SAP NetWeaver 6.40; transaction OS07N
Support Package SAPKB640233. Check the kernel patch.
To use the new transaction OS07 (OS07N) in Unicode systems, you require at least the following SAP kernel patch levels:Release 7.10: Patch level 119Release 7.01: Patch level 11Release 7.00: Patch level 178Release 6.40: Patch level 2514. Check the version of the operating system collector SAPOSCOL
You can use the command “saposcol.exe -v” to display the version of the collector SAPOSCOL.
Use at least the following SAPOSCOL version that has been enhanced to collect and write virtualization-specific data:
VMware ESX Server 3.x: COLL 20.95 710 – 21.00 NT … patch 143
VMware vSphere: COLL 20.95 710 – 21.03 NT … patch 154
Hyper-V: COLL 20.95 710 – 21.04 NT … patch 158
You can download SAPOSCOL from SAP Service Marketplace at:
http://service.sap.com -> Download -> Support Packages and Patches -> Entry by Application Group -> Additional Components -> SAP Kernel -> SAP KERNEL 64-BIT -> SAP KERNEL 7.10 64-BIT -> SAP KERNEL 7.10 64-BIT -> Windows Server on x64 64bit -> #Database independent -> SAPOSCOL_-xxx.SAR
You can also use this version of SAPOSCOL for SAP releases that are based on kernel 6.40 and 7.0x. If you use SAPOSCOL for these releases, problems might occur during the attachment to the shared memory of the SAP system. To avoid these conflicts, make sure that you start SAPOSCOL before you start the SAP system.
To replace SAPOSCOL, proceed as follows:For SAP systems without an installed SAP host agent (default for SAP systems below SAP Kernel Version 7.10), you must do the following:
Stop the SAP service SAPOSCOL and replace the SAPOSCOL version.
Restart the SAP service SAPOSCOL.For SAP systems with an installed SAP host agent, the following applies:
Stop the SAP service SAPHostExec and replace the SAPOSCOL version.
Restart the SAP service SAPHostExec.5. Check the version of the agent SAPCCMSR.
The agent SAPCCMSR collects the snapshot data delivered by SAPOSCOL and processes them to 24h data.
The required version of the agent SAPCCMSR is provided in Patch Collection 2008/4 (or higher). For information about replacing the agent, see Note 1129577.
Section 2: Additional work steps on VMware
1. Install the VMware Tools.
To use an SAP system on VMware, the data collector SAPOSCOL requires access to the data in the virtualization layer. This data can be retrieved only if the VMware tools are installed in the relevant virtual machine.
For the guest operating system Windows x64, you can install the VMware tools as of the following ESX version only:
ESX Version 3.0.1: Patch ESX-1002082 and higher
ESX Version 3.0.2: Patch ESX-1002086 and higher
For more information about installing the tools, see the product-specific documentation published by VMware.2.VMware vSphere only:Add the VMware installation directory to the Windows system path.
On VMware vSphere, the VMware Guestlib that is required to read the virtualization data is only available in the VMware related subdirectory. Therefore, you must include this path in the Windows system path.a) On your virtual machine, check in which directory the file vmguestlib.dll has been installed. For a standard installation on Windows x64, this is the directory ‘C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware Tools\Guest SDK\lib\win64′.b) Add this path to the Windows system path.
To do so, choose “Control Panel” -> “System”.
In the “System Properties” window, activate the “Advanced” button. Choose “Environment Variables”.
Switch to the “System variables” field.
Scroll to the “Path” variable and choose “Edit”.
In the “Edit System Variable” window, go to the end of the “Variable value” field. Insert the path for vmguestlib.dll. Before the path, note that a ‘;’ closes the previous path.
Choose “OK” to close all windows.3.VMware vSphere only:Activate the host parameter.
To make the configuration and performance data of the host available, you must configure the following parameters:
Host: Misc.GuestLibAllowHostInfo
Virtual Machine: tools.guestlib.enableHostInfo
Configure the host to activate the host accessor functions.
The following configuration of the host allows the transfer of host data to the virtual machine.a) Select the host in the vSphere client window.b) Choose the tab “Configuration”.c) In the list of software options, choose “Advanced Settings”.d) In “Advanced Settings”, choose the window “Misc”.e) Scroll down to Misc.GuestLibAllowHostInfo.f) Set the value to 1.
Configure the virtual machine to activate the accessor functions.
Use the configuration editor in the vSphere client to edit the configuration file of the virtual machine. Shutdown the virtual machine before you use the configuration editor.a) In the vSphere client window, select the virtual machine and right-click on it.b) In the dropdown menu, choose “Edit Settings”.c) Choose the tab “Options”.d) Under “Advanced” -> “General”, open the “Configuration Parameters” window.e) In the “Configuration Parameters” window, insert the following line (or set the value to TRUE if the line already exists):
tools.guestlib.enableHostInfo = “TRUE”

Section 3. Additional work steps on Hyper-V
1. Install the Hyper-V integration services.
To retrieve the data of the virtualization layer, the Hyper-V integration services must be installed as follows:a) On the parent partition (physical host), open the Hyper-V manager and connect to the virtual machine.
In the administration window of the virtual machine, choose “Action -> Insert Integration Services Setup Disk”.b) On the virtual machine, open the Windows Explorer.
Switch to the DVD drive and right-click on it.
Select “Install Hyper-V Integration Services”.2. Check the SAPOSCOL service in the virtual machine.
If you already use the SAP host agent inside the virtual machine, the SAPOSCOL service is no longer available. In this case, no further steps are required.
For all SAP systems based on SAP Kernel 6.40 or 7.0x, where the SAPOSCOL service is installed, you must change the SAPOSCOL user account to LOCALSYSTEM. Otherwise, you cannot access the virtualization-specific data, which is stored directly on the parent partition.
Change the SAPOSCOL user account as follows:a) Open the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services.b) Right-click the service SAPOSCOL, and choose “Properties”.c) In the “Log On” tab, under “Log on as:”, select “Local System account”d) Close all windows with “OK”.3. On the parent partition, set up the user rights.
In the previous step, you configured to start the data collector SAPOSCOL inside the virtual machine as user LOCALSYSTEM. If SAPOSCOL accesses data on the parent partition over the network, it is authorized there as user “NetworkService”.
To ensure that SAPOSCOL can determine the relevant data from the parent partition using WMI, you must provide the user “NetworkService” with rights for the virtual machine that is to be monitored.a) Open the Computer Management Tool with “Start” -> “Administrative Tools” -> “Computer Management”.b) Add the user “NetworkService” of the virtual machine that is to be monitored to the group of local administrators:In the “Computer Management” tab, choose “System Tools” -> “Local Users and Groups” -> “Groups” -> “Administrators”.In the “Administrator Properties” window, choose “Add”.In the “Select Users, Computers, or Groups” window, choose “Object Types” and activate the “Computers” type.Choose “OK” to close the window.In the “Object Names” field, enter the name of the virtual machine with the additional character “$”.Choose “Check Names”, and then “OK” to close all windows.c) Provide the user \$ with the right to use WMI to read data from the parent partition:Open the Server Manager.
Choose “Configuration -> WMI Control”.
Right-click and choose “Properties”.In the “WMI Control Properties” window, choose the “Security” tab.In the “Namespace navigation” window, select “Root -> CIMV2″.
Choose “Security”.In the “Group or user names” window, add the user \$. (Select “computers” as the object type.)
For the newly-created user, select all of the rights in the “Permissions” window, and grant the “remote enable” right.Choose the “Advanced” tab.
To grant this user the rights for all subnamespaces, select “apply to this namespace and all subnamespaces”.