Sap Server movement from physical to virtual(p2v)

[Former Member]

Hi all,

We currently have two older versions of R/3 running 4.6c and 4.7ee, both IDES versions.

These versions have been out of support for some time.

We have these instances running for reference purposes. We have new versions of R/3 ECC 5.0, 6.0

also running in our company. All these versions of R/3 are IDES.

Our Windows administrators are of the opinion that servers on which the instances 4.6c and 4.7ee are running are very old,

and spares are hard to find. So they want to move these instances from a physical environment to a virtual environment.

I have read through the Note: 1409608.

It says,

SAP does not support SAP systems that are installed on Windows 32-bit 
in a virtualized environment. If you plan to migrate your SAP system that is running 
on native hardware on Windows 32-bit to a virtualized environment
on Windows 64-bit, it might be necessary to upgrade the SAP system to a higher release.
For these configurations, SAP recommends to migrate the SAP system to Windows x64 first 
and then upgrade the SAP system.

Now, I don't think is it quite possible to upgrade 4.6c and 4.7ee to 64 bit.

License keys on windows are based on SID, Hostname, MAC address of the network card. 
If we make sure that the MAC address is the same and 
that its at the same place as before(sequence of multiple network cards is the same), 
we can still Use the old license.

Our Windows guys say its very hard to retain the MAC address, they can try it.

So with these old versions of R/3, how can we keep them running, if they have to be moved from Physical to virtual,

as license keys and installation software is hard to get.

Regards,

Vishnu.

[markus_doehr2]

> We currently have two older versions of R/3 running 4.6c and 4.7ee, both IDES versions.

> So with these old versions of R/3, how can we keep them running, if they have to be moved from Physical to virtual,

> as license keys and installation software is hard to get.

The note is talking about production instances; since IDES systems are reference systems and are not used in a productive manner you can migrate them to a virtual environment if you have an extended maintenance contract to get installation media and licenses. If you don't have that contract you won't be able to migrate them.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Thanks for your reply.

We don't have a extended maintenance contract with SAP. So, getting the installation media and licenses

is not possible.

Is there no other way of migrating these server to a virtual environment and keep them running?

If the hardware fails do we have shut these instances down?

Kindly, Let me know your thoughts.

Another question that I have is, if the servers are being moved from one location to another location, how does

this effect the SAP installation? What are the important things that need to be take into consideration?

If you could point me to a note or a link, it would be helpful.

Regards,

Vishnu.

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

About the movement of servers from one location to another, below are questions that I had for our windows admin,

responses are also mentioned.

Are we going to use the same host name&IP? 
IP will change, hostname will not change.
Are these servers will be on same physical hosts or different?
For one server will change the underlying vmware host, the rest will remain the same.
Will there be a change in the Hardware key? 
For one Server, the MAC address will definitely change(vmware host).
Will there be any change in the DNS? 
No.

Based on the responses from our Windows guys, the movement of these servers to a different location

should not effect the SAP installations in any way.

B'cause the hostname doesn't change, hardware key is not effected as there is no OS installation.

Kindly let me know your thoughts.

Regards,

Vishnu.

[markus_doehr2]

> Based on the responses from our Windows guys, the movement of these servers to a different location

> should not effect the SAP installations in any way.

> B'cause the hostname doesn't change, hardware key is not effected as there is no OS installation.

According to

Note 174911 - Determining the hardware key (customer key)

there is a chance that the key is not valid after the migration.

I'd open an OSS call and ask if it's possible to get a new key since those installations are only IDES systems and not used productively.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

Thanks for your reply. Would open an OSS call.

I have looked at the note mentioned by you, and since our OS is windows, I thought the below statement

holds good in my case. From the note I have also deduced that for Windows, licenses are based only on the Hardware Key.

Am I wrong in assuming this?

Only Windows uses a hardware key that does NOT depend on the hardware. 
A new installation of Windows definitely causes the hardware key to change.

I have also looked at note 793649, which says Hardware key changes only when,

1. Formatting the machine and reinstalling Windows.
2. When changing the computer name.
3. When changing the domain (it will not change back when returning to the previous domain).

Regards,

Vishnu.