This article is a follow-up to a series where I provide a concise, pragmatic overview of the steps involved in deploying the required infrastructure for installing your first SAP system in the cloud. This post summarizes the tasks that are typically performed once a fresh virtual machine has been deployed.
The virtual machine is up and running now, we are close to having everything ready, but not yet 😊 The most important task once our virtual machine is ready is of course to install SAP – as mentioned in the introductory post, the aim of this article was to give you an overview of the steps required to deploy infrastructure using Microsoft Azure, SAP installation is therefore not covered, but if you want to proceed with SAP installation, I suggest you visit the Azure Centre for SAP solutions.
From the infrastructure readiness point of view, these are some of the tasks that we typically perform after deploying a virtual machine:
- Check connectivity. Adjust firewall rules or network security groups as required.
- Update Operating System with the latest patches. Preferable, integrate the new system into your solution for patch management – this will allow scheduling patching at regular intervals, honouring maintenance windows and ensuring servers and applications are working as expected after upgrades.
- Enable Azure Diagnostics and create Alerts.
- Mount NFS shares.
- (Obviously) Install SAP!!
- Enable backup, both for the virtual machine and, if applicable, for the Hana database.
- Cost control. Look closely into how much is your monthly spending, balance it with your performance requirements and make adjustments where required.
Closing note
So what is next? the life of a cloud systems engineer is to ensure that newly deployed systems deliver the required performance, resolve incidents when they occur, and constantly look for improvements such as cost, upgrading to newer/better Microsoft SKUs, regular security assessments, etc. Take a look at the Azure Advisor Overview, and if you are interested, also check out the Workbooks Gallery on the Azure Advisor Azure Portal.
- Note: The intention of this article has been to summarise information available on the Microsoft and SAP sites – if you find a mistake, it is mine, please contact me if necessary, and always check the links included in this text as they are the “authoritative reference”.
If you’re unsure about what to do next, please refer to the SAP Workload Planning and Deployment Checklist | Microsoft Learn.
