Leverage the Potential of SAP LaMa

Centralization enables better control over system security, standardization of processes, and reduction of operational costs. In the face of digital transformation and rapidly changing business requirements, centralized management becomes the foundation for flexibility and scalability of SAP infrastructure.

Solutions such as Ansible, Puppet, and Terraform allow for automated infrastructure and application management, offering flexibility in configuration and scalability. In the context of SAP environment management, an excellent complement to such tools is SAP LaMa.

SAP Landscape Management 3.0 (LaMa) is an advanced tool that enables automation and standardization of SAP system landscape management. The solution provides a unified view of the performance of applications and the entire architecture, ensuring transparency. The flexibility of the system allows for the creation of custom extensions to precisely tailor it to unique business needs.

The solution is available in two versions, which provide ready-made solutions for SAP systems – Standard and Enterprise. The Standard version is available as part of a license for another SAP system, while the Enterprise version is an additional paid extension.

The Enterprise version offers, among other features:

• Creating system copies and carrying out PCA (Post Copy Automation) tasks
• Operations of stopping, starting, and restarting SAP environments
• Managing SAP HANA, including in High Availability solutions
• Implementing SAP notes
• Updating SAP kernels
• Updating ST-API/ST-PI components.

The main features available in the Standard version include the ability to start and shut down SAP environments, including HANA, but without support for High Availability (HA).

However, this does not mean that the use of LaMa in the Standard version is limited solely to managing the startup and shutdown of systems. It also enables the creation of automated processes by configuring custom operations, which can be assigned to selected objects such as SAP systems, their instances, or virtual machines, through custom scripts and extensions that do not violate SAP licenses.

Such an approach allows organizations using the Standard version to enhance the functionality of the tool in a way that is tailored to their needs, while maintaining compliance with licensing policies.

An example of using SAP LaMa for an operation not included in the provided solution is the update of Linux operating systems.

Regular updates of operating systems (OS) are crucial in the context of SAP systems as they ensure the stability, security, and performance of the entire environment. Regular updates provide security patches that protect SAP data and applications from threats, which is particularly important in environments processing sensitive information.

The system that we updated using LaMa is SAP Solution Manager. Its landscape includes the development, testing, and production environments. The systems are connected to Uyuni, a central package manager, ensuring version consistency of installed packages across the entire environment. Updates are performed monthly as part of regular tasks scheduled in SAP LaMa.

Below, we present step-by-step instructions on how to prepare a solution that enables an OS update using SAP LaMa.

The first step is to prepare custom operations that will be necessary for performing updates according to the applicable standards. For this purpose, we use the capability of creating scripts registered via SAP Host Agent.  In our case, these included:

• Setting the maintenance mode in the Zabbix monitoring system
• Creating a snapshot of the virtual machine in the VMware vCenter environment
• Refreshing the available repositories
• Performing OS updates
• Restarting the machine.

Thanks to the provided solutions enabling the start and shutdown of the SAP environment along with the database, we do not need to address this aspect at this stage.

The prepared scripts, along with the configuration files, should be propagated on the machines where they will be used. This can be done manually or using a pre-prepared operation that automatically propagates the scripts from the central repository.

In the SAP LaMa web interface, it is necessary to create a definition based on the propagated configuration file and define a custom operation that will use it.

After preparing the operation, an operation template for the selected scenario should be created. The scenario may consist of individual systems or a series of systems that need to be shut down and started in the correct order to ensure the proper operation of business functions. Templates are created using intuitive tiles that represent operations assigned to the selected objects.

The next step is to schedule regular updates. The Scheduler provided in the solution allows for scheduling recurring calls for each of the templates created earlier.

The tool enables:

• Setting the date and time for the start of the first operation
• Defining the frequency at which the template should be called (hourly, daily, monthly, annually)
• Setting the date and time for the end of the operation to finish the recurring task execution after this time.

When scheduling recurring template calls, LaMa also offers the ability to configure notifications to inform administrators about the results of the operations.

This allows for quick responses to any issues that may arise during the scheduled process.

In the presented case study, SAP Landscape Management 3.0 significantly simplifies the process of updating operating systems in the SAP environment.  Thanks to the ability to automate tasks, create custom operations, and schedule them, administrators can more effectively manage their systems, ensuring that they are continuously up-to-date and secure. However, this is just a small part of the full potential of this tool.

The potential of LaMa goes far beyond just automating operating system updates, offering a wide range of features for managing SAP systems that can be tailored to individual needs. The ultimate boundaries of its applications depend on creativity and the ability to develop and adapt the tool to the specific requirements of the organization.