SAP Start/Stop

[Former Member]

Hello All,

We are using HP-UNIX & Oracle 10.2 for our ECC 6.0 System.Our Database team has scheduled offline backup daily at 8 pm but we stop/start ECC 6.0 only on every Tuesday by crontab Scripts to stop/restart sap system before/after backup.For Other days we do not stop the application.My question is whether we need to stop/start ECC 6.0 every week once??Is there any recommendation from SAP that application should be stopped/start once a week/month??

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

Is the database backup scheduled at 8:00 PM daily from now-onwards because offline backup can't be executed if the SAP application is up and running. I suppose you are talking of online backup and if the backup which has been scheduled at 8:00 PM is online you don't need to bring down SAP application.

Moreover offline backup is not required daily, planning the periodicity of offline backup depends on the volume of business transactions that take place daily. General recommendation is to schedule offline backup is once a month but it's a strict practice.

Regards

Sourabh Majumdar

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Sourabh & Oliver Please check the below link before you comment further..

http://help.sap.com/SAPHELP_NW70EHP1/helpdata/EN/b4/2ce684eeb3d848b734df139e3e0f6c/content.htm

The SAP System does not have to be shut down for an offline backup..

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

It is technically not required to stop the SAP instance. But SAP will not be operative as the database will be offline.

There is no recommendation as such that the SAP systems should be restarted at a particular interval.My question is why do you restart the instance once every week ?

I have seen SAP systems operating continuously for years without any issues. Do you have any performance issues for which you are taking a restart every week ?

Cheers......,

Raghu

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Raghu you are absolutely right..We really do not have any performance issues at present..Is there any Note in SAP which recommends that SAP systems should be restarted at a particular interval like every week??

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

As for as my knowledge - NO.

Its fine if you restart once in a week if you have downtime available with you but not required. Many systems run continuously when the planned downtime is not acceptable. Unplanned downtimes cannot be avoided due to many reasons.

Even for Offlice backups, many customers use DR site as a backup.

Hope this info helps....

Cheers....,

Raghu

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

As for as my knowledge - NO.

Its fine if you restart once in a week if you have downtime available with you but not required. Many systems run continuously when the planned downtime is not acceptable. Unplanned downtimes cannot be avoided due to many reasons.

Even for Offline backups, many customers use DR site.

Hope this info helps....

Cheers....,

Raghu

[JPReyes · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

This is more a cliche that a best practice... a well tuned SAP system does not require restarts and can run for long periods of time without interruption. That said lots of people like restarting their systems cleaning the buffers can sometimes improve performace (at least initially)... anyhow in HA scenarios this practice is not common for obvious reasons so its really up to you.

Regards

Juan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Raghu other than ECC 6.0 around 10 applications are running on the server where ECC 6.0 is installed..We are restarting ECC 6.0 every week for the effective utilization of available memory..Please confirm me If I am correct.3 More SAP Instances are running on this server.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Juan other than ECC 6.0 around 10 applications are running on the server where ECC 6.0 is installed..We are restarting ECC 6.0 every week for the effective utilization of available memory..Please confirm me If I am correct.3 More SAP Instances are also running on this Unix server..

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Ashley,

Its really difficult to give any suggestions on the below. You being the owner of the systems, need to analyse how much memory is being utilised.

Moreover, Productive systems will be standalone...I mean only one SAP instance per server. If its a QAS and DEV system, there will not be live data load on the system, so it should be fine....

If its a Productive system, then you may need to analyse the statistical data of memory to actually conclude whether you need a restart to free up buffers....

You cannot arrive at any decision without analysiing the memory utilization levels on a regular basis.

Cheers....,

Raghu

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

It still does not make any sense to keep SAP started during an offline backup but everyone does as he likes it.

What happens if a user tries to use SAP during the offline backup or if an external system tries to call a SAP web service ?

PS: You can also stop SAP during an online backup if you like. It works perfectly...

Regards,

Olivier

[JPReyes · Accepted solution]

I have to say that I like my offline backups with the system offline :-D, I agree with Olivier.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Oliver If I have 10 applications running on the same unix box along with SAP how I will manage the bufferes & the memory??My question is in HP-unix If 10 applicatiopns are running along with SAP Instance whether it is advisable to shut down SAP Instance to clean the buffers and clear the memory??

[JPReyes · Accepted solution]

I believe people has repeted the answer to your question in more then 1 occation.... Is up to YOU!... theres no rules written about it... theres no harm on shutting down the system or leave it running.... now I believe that if you require an offline backup once a week then scheduling a downtime for the system is adviceable.

That said... I don't think shutting down the system represent a particular benefit resource wise to the other 9 applications running on your box.

regards

Juan

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Ashley,

> If I have 10 applications running on the same unix box along with SAP

This is the problem : SAP software is not the kind of application for which you share a single server with 10 other applications...

You will get a lot of trouble and management contraints.

For example our policy for high availiability SAP R/3 system on Windows (MSCS cluster and 7 app servers) is to have an online backup every night (SAP running) and a stop and restart saturday night.

The restart is kept to be able to change system parameters without having to plan a down time.

Regards,

Olivier

Edited by: Olivier CHRETIEN on Feb 19, 2010 11:40 AM

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Juan you like it because everyone follows it or there is any specific reason??

[Former Member]

Hi Ashley,

First of all answering to your first question

"My question is whether we need to stop/start ECC 6.0 every week once??Is there any recommendation from SAP that application should be stopped/start once a week/month??"

This has already been answered by couple of people. There is no recommendation regarding restarting the SAP system. This depends upon your IT infrastructure/ the memory and buffer usage.

You are really in a very good position to restart the SAP system daily, since you Database is going down for offline backup, there is no point in keeping the SAP System up. Reference to your below concern on the same recommended by some

"If I have 10 applications running on the same unix box along with SAP how I will manage the bufferes & the memory??My question is in HP-unix If 10 applicatiopns are running along with SAP Instance whether it is advisable to shut down SAP Instance to clean the buffers and clear the memory??"

Are these 9 Application infacing with SAP, Secondly, If I have understood right, you have the concern that shuting down SAP will may have impact on the memory being used by other 9 application. Please note that OS manages your memory. This is a starter concept that the OS allocates seprate segment of memory to every application. So shuting down SAP will only clear up the buffer & memory which was allocated to SAP only, so your rest of the application will remain intact.

Lastly, why are you not following the SAP recomendation for keeping the SAP system in a clean environment not with another 9 applications on the same system.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Sanujit

[Former Member]

Hi,

Are you telling us that you do a daily offline backup without stopping ECC6 ?

This does not make sense to me. Don't you mean online backup ?

Regards,

Olivier

[p330068]

Hi Ashley,

It depends upon your System landscape infrastructure.

It is better to start/stop your ECC6.0 once in every week for performance perspective.

Thanks

Arun