SAP BASIS: SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management FAQ

What is SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management (LVM)?

SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software is a management tool that enables the SAP basis administrator to automate SAP system operations including end-to-end SAP system copy/refresh operations
The software is shipped as an add-on to SAP NetWeaver 7.3 (Application Server Java) and is available in two additions: Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition.

Is LVM a licensed product? If yes, how does the licensing model work?

Yes, SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software is a licensed product and the product is available in two editions: Standard edition and Enterprise edition.
Standard edition is available to all SAP customers with at least one active SAP application license and has no license cost associated with it. The customer will have to obtain a license for Standard Edition but, do not have to incur any additional cost..
Enterprise edition is available to all SAP customers as a separately licensed product. Please contact your SAP Account Executive or Sales Representative for further details.

Is the license model going to change with the next version of LVM ?

No, there are currently no plans to change the license model of LVM

What is the value proposition of LVM and what are the business benefits ?

Value Proposition

With SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software (LVM), you can simplify and automate the management and operations of your SAP systems running on traditional, virtual or cloud infrastructures.

Business Benefits

Greater operational continuity through centralized management, visibility and control of your entire SAP landscape using a single console.
Reduced time, effort and cost to manage and operate your SAP systems through automation of time-consuming basis administration tasks.
Increased operational agility through acceleration of application lifecycle management operations and fast response to workload fluctuations.

Does (LVM) replace SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller (ACC)?

No, SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software (LVM) is a new product which is generally available for SAP customers since June 2012. The new product is positioned as a management tool for SAP basis administrators and inherits all the ACC capabilities in addition to offering more advanced automation capabilities such as, end-to-end automation for SAP system clone/copy/refresh operations, automatic capacity management for SAP systems, landscape reporting and landscape visualization etc.

All customers using ACC have the option to move to the Standard Edition of LVM without paying any license fee. The Standard Edition includes all the ACC capabilities and more. ACC 7.3 is the last release of that product and no new feature development is planned. Customers can continue to use ACC. However, we do recommend switching to LVM.

I am an existing ACC customer, how will I be supported in the future and how can I make the switch to LVM?

ACC customers can continue to use the product and will be supported as part of their ongoing SAP NetWeaver support. However, we strongly recommend switching to SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management (LVM) as it has taken over and continue all use cases from ACC.
Switching from ACC to LVM is really simple and straightforward. All you have to do is export your existing ACC system configuration using export/import functionality in ACC and import it back into the LVM system using the same export/import feature available in LVM. As a best practice, SAP recommends installing a fresh LVM system and migrating the configuration from ACC to the new LVM system as explained above.

When will the next version of LVM be released ?

LVM 2.0 is GA since Oct. 21, 2013
For upcoming releases, please refer to our Roadmap presentation.

Are there any prerequisites for using LVM ?

Yes, there are certain prerequisites for using LVM as it consists of several software components.
The LVM software itself is shipped as an add-on to SAP NetWeaver (Application Server Java) and the minimum requirement is SAP NetWeaver 7.30 SP03 or higher (Application Server Java – “basic” usage type). Please check SAP Note 1527538 for further details.
Depending on the product edition that you are using (i.e. standard or enterprise edition) and the product functionality that you would like to use, there are certain additional components required.
The minimum dependency for managed systems is the SAP Host Agent, which must be running on each managed host (both SAP as well as non-SAP systems require SAP Host Agent for them to be managed via LVM).

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For further information on virtualization, storage or other infrastructure dependencies, please check the collective SAP Note 1527538.

You can find an overview of current Partner integrations with LVM 1.0 here.

You can find an overview of current Partner integrations with LVM 2.0 here.

If your Infrastructure is not listed in the SAP Note 1527538, please contact virtualization@sap.com for help.

How do i size my LVM installation/Is there a sizing Guide for LVM ?

We have released a sizing guide for LVM here.

You can find it at the Service Marketplace alias Sizing -> Sizing Guidelines -> SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management

What key functionality does LVM standard edition offer?

Start/Stop/Relocate
Mass operations
Validations
Task planner
AS (un-)installation
Basic dashboards
Virtualization integration
Inter-system dependencies
Extensibility (custom operations/hooks/services)
Fine granular access control

What key functionality does LVM enterprise edition offer?

All features in LVM standard edition, plus the following:
Advanced Dashboards
Reporting
Performance monitoring
System clone / copy / refresh
Automatic capacity management
Landscape visualization

For further details, please refer to slide 42 of the Roadmap presentation.

What is the relationship between SAP Solution Manager and LVM? Are there any dependancies between these two products?

SAP Solution Manager addresses Application Lifecycle Management for SAP systems (ALM). SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management software enables running SAP systems on virtualized and cloud infrastructures and addresses infrastructure layer complexities. In addition, SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management provides additional capabilities such as a framework for automated system copy/refresh and automatic capacity management which deal with the complexities of both the infrastructure and the applications through a single tool.

Can I run LVM as an add-on to the SAP Solution Manager Java instance ?

No, this is not possible. LVM runs as an add-on on top of SAP NetWeaver 7.3 (Application Server Java) and the minimum requirement is SAP NetWeaver 7.30 SP03. Since, the latest release of SAP Solution Manager (i.e. SAP Solution Manager 7.1) runs on an earlier release stack of the Application Server Java Furthermore, even if this technical restriction is resolved in future, we would not recommend running LVM and SAP Solution Manager instances on the same host as part of best practices. Running both of these systems in the same host may cause performance degradation and moreover, in case of a system performance issue, it would become very difficult to diagnose and troubleshoot the root cause.

Does LVM integrate with SAP Test Data Migration Server (TDMS) ?

No, currently there is no standard integration available between LVM and TDMS. However, TDMS compliments the use case of LVM and could be used in parallel to LVM. . TDMS offers data extraction of SAP business data and data scrambling which can be executed on SAP system copies that have been produced via LVM. Currently, we are evaluating various integration scenarios between LVM and TDMS and if something is available in future, we will update the product roadmap and communicate the same to our customers. We are looking into extending the SAP system copy workflow in LVM so that TDMS could be triggered as an optional step in one of the future releases of LVM.

Can I manage and monitor non-SAP Systems with LVM? If yes, what functionality is provided by LVM for management of non-SAP systems?

Yes, LVM supports the management and monitoring of non-SAP systems and applications and this capability of LVM is called “custom services”. Technically, any application that can be detected as a service running an operating-system can be detected and managed by LVM
LVM provides the following functionality for non-SAP systems (some examples of typical non-SAP systems would be middleware systems like Tibco/Biztalk, non-SAP data warehousing solutions etc.):.
Performing basic monitoring and management of non-SAP systems such as, starting or stopping a system, collecting basic monitoring data such as CPU usage, memory usage, running state etc.).
Performing mass-operations on non-SAP systems such as, mass-start or mass-stop).
Configure Inter-System Dependencies (ISD) between SAP and non-SAPsystems: http://help.sap.com/saphelp_lvm10enterprise/helpdata/en/4e/43582d6bd11ecfe10000000a42189b/content.htm\\

Does LVM support management of SAP Sybase based systems?

Yes. It is possible to manage SAP Sybase ASE based systems with LVM 1.0 SP5 onwards - including SAP System Copy operations. This requires the latest version of System rename. (system rename SP02 part of SAP SL Toolset)

Does LVM support management of SAP HANA based systems?

Yes. It is possible to perform the basic operations (start/stop/monitor) for SAP HANA systems with LVM 1.0 SP04 onwards.

What are the steps that are automated by the Post Copy Automation functionality ?

System Refresh:

Initial Consistency Check
Check for BW system
ALE Configuration
ALE Customizing
Archiving
Batch Jobs Configuration
Batch Server Groups
CCMS Configuration
CCMS History
Customer defined Tables
DBACOCKPIT Configuration
Operating System Commands
Cross-Client File Names/Paths
Licenses
Logon Groups
Operation Modes
Printer Config / Spool Cleanup
System Profiles
RFC Connections
Inbound qRFC
tRFCqRFCConfig
SAPConnect
SLD Data Supplier Configuration
SCOT Configuration
SICF Configuration
SLD Access Data Configuration
Update Program Server Groups
STRUST Configuration
Last Transport Request Number
TMS QA Configuration
Users (all, selected clients, exclude)
Development Versions
Virus Scan Definitions
Web Service Configuration

Initial System Copy:

Cleanup of ABAP Basis Tables
Cleanup of Batch Jobs
Cleanup of DBA Cockpit Configuration
Cleanup of RFC In / Outbound Queue
Cleanup of SAPConnect
Cleanup of Spool Requests
Cleanup of TRUST Manager Config
Configuration of Standard Jobs
Scheduling in DBA Planning Calendar
Configuration of MSSQL
Configuration of Licenses
Configuration of Logon Groups
Configuration of System Profiles
Configuration of Operation Modes
Configuration of Secure Store
Configuration of Spool, TMS
Schedule of job RDDIMPDP

You can check out the details in your ABAP system by opening the Task List editor and browsing through the system copy / refresh lists, once your system is on the minimum SP level (see note).

For Java Systems: System Refresh:

RFC destinations
Security configuration (SSL key store, ticket key store)
User management handling

Initial System Copy:

RFC destinations
Security configuration (SSL key store, ticket key store)
TREX property setting
SLD configuration (SLD CIM client, SLD HTTP configuration)

SAP Notes:

System Rename for SAP - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1619720
Post Copy Automation - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1614266
SAP System Copy approach - https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1767253

Which stacks are supported by LVM for End-to-End automated system clone/copy/refresh (including System Rename and PCA) ?

	End-to-End Clone	End-to-End Copy	End-to-End Refresh
ABAP Stack	Yes	Yes	Yes
Java Stack	Yes	Yes	Yes (workaround with manual steps available, see sectionJava System Refresh Workaround below)
Dual-Stack	Yes	No (see section Notes on Dual-Stack below)	No (see section Notes on Dual-Stack below)

NOTE: See SAP Note 1527538 for details on which SAP NetWeaver versions are supported.

Java System Refresh Workaround

User & passwords need to be manually exported and imported – for more information, see SAP Note 1807150

Notes on Dual-Stack

Mandatory dual-stack systems (such as SAP NetWeaver Process Integration or SAP Solution Manager) are not supported by system copy/refresh of SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management today.

For optional dual-stack systems (such as SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse systems with BI Java), see the following best practice to use SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management for copying or refreshing them:

· General recommendation: use the dual-stack split procedure to change the layout of your optional dual-stack systems to single stack

· SAP communicated to discontinue optional dual-stack systems with higher releases than SAP NetWeaver 7.31 and SAP Business Suite 7i2011. As a result, by splitting your optional dual-stack systems, you are prepared for future updates/upgrades to releases that do no longer support optional dual-stack (such as to SAP NetWeaver 7.40). You profit from the benefits that single stack deployments offer, such as higher flexibility, availability and scalability. Customer feedback shows that the dual-stack split procedure is easy, fast and reliable. For more information, see the dual-stack page in SAP Community Network at:http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-25162.

· After the split, you can profit from all the benefits SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management is offering in the area of system copy and system refresh, as outlined in SAP Note 1527538.

· Reasonable alternative: un-install and re-install the Java stack of dual-stack SAP NetWeaver BW systems

· If you are using the Java stack of a dual-stack SAP NetWeaver BW system for BI Java only, it might be a reasonable procedure to un-install the Java stack and perform a new installation of a stand-alone BI Java system from scratch. For more information, see the SAP NetWeaver BW landing page in SAP Community Network at: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-785 .

· After the un-installation, you can profit from all the benefits SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management is offering in the area of system copy and system refresh, as outlined in SAP Note 1527538

· Possible exception: stay with dual-stack systems

· If you decide to keep the dual-stack layout for your optional dual-stack systems, you cannot profit from the benefits SAP NetWeaver Landscape Virtualization Management is offering in the area of system copy and system refresh as of today.

What about post-copy automation for AS Java systems?

For details, see the document FAQ - Java Post-Copy Automation.

Where can I get further information?