SAP HANA Resource Hierarchy Administration

*Important Note: Unless otherwise noted in this guide, all administrative tasks for a LifeKeeper-protected SAP HANA Database should be performed through LifeKeeper. Performing administrative actions such as stopping the database or disabling SAP HANA System Replication outside of LifeKeeper while the SAP HANA resource is Active/ISP in LifeKeeper will result in LifeKeeper taking action to place the database back into its expected running state.

Switchover of the SAP HANA Resource

When a switchover of the primary database instance is initiated, the SAP HANA Recovery Kit performs the following steps:

• The database instance is stopped on the previous primary node

• A takeover of SAP HANA System Replication is executed on the new primary node (i.e., the previous secondary node)

• The new secondary node (i.e., the previous primary node) is re-registered as the secondary SAP HANA System Replication site

• The database instance is started on the new secondary node

If a message similar to the following:

ERROR:hana:restore:HANA-SPS_HDB00:136266:The resource HANA-SPS_HDB00 protecting SAP HANA database HDB00 is not in sync. To protect the data LifeKeeper will not restore the resource on $me. Please restore the resource on the previous source server to allow the resync to complete.

is displayed while bringing the SAP HANA resource in-service, this means that SAP HANA System Replication was not in-sync when the primary database instance was stopped. Therefore data may exist on the primary database server which has not yet been replicated to the secondary database server. For this reason, LifeKeeper will not allow the secondary server to take over the primary replication role. The recommendation in this scenario is to bring the SAP HANA resource hierarchy back in-service on the previous primary server and allow the resynchronization to complete.

If the previous primary server is down and cannot be recovered, the SAP HANA resource can be forced online on server where the data is out-of-sync, but this will result in a loss of all data that has not yet been replicated from the previous primary server. If it is determined by a database administrator that this data loss is acceptable or unavoidable, the out-of-sync data flag can be manually removed with the following command:

/opt/LifeKeeper/bin/flg_remove -f ‘!HANA_DATA_OUT_OF_SYNC_<Tag>’

where <Tag> is the SAP HANA resource tag name in LifeKeeper (e.g., HANA-SPS_HDB00). After removing the out-of-sync data flag, reattempt the in-service operation for the HANA resource. Once brought in-service, the database will take over the primary SAP HANA System Replication role and all data on the previous primary server that has not been replicated will be lost. Once the previous primary server is repaired and brought back online, it will be registered as the secondary system replication site and the database will be restarted as the replication target.

Stopping the SAP HANA Database

When the SAP HANA resource is taken out of service in LifeKeeper, only the primary database instance is stopped. The secondary database instance is kept running to minimize downtime during switchover or failover of the HANA resource hierarchy.

Stopping all SAP HANA Databases (Maintenance Mode)

When this option is chosen the primary HANA resource is taken out of service and all of the HANA database instances in a HANA resource cluster will be stopped. This option must be executed with utmost care, as it brings the possibility of a quick failover/switchover to the backup machine. Note: This option should only be chosen in the event that the secondary database instance must also be stopped (e.g. during the maintenance window).

To use this option perform the following steps on HANA resource hierarchy:

1. Right click either on HANA resource under the left hand panel or an in-service server and choose the option Out of Service – Stop HDB on All Nodes.

2. Verify the HANA resource and follow the instructions given in the dialog box. Click on Stop All SAP HANA DBs to start the process.

3. Once the process finishes, click Finish to complete the process.

4. The final state of SAP HANA resource will appear as shown below:

5. Once all of the maintenance activities are complete, bring the SAP HANA resource hierarchy in service on the last primary system.