Correctly Handle Failover Management
Managing all the various moving parts related to failover management can be complex. This is why it makes sense to use a clustering software that is application-aware. Meaning, they are designed to address the specific requirements of individual applications, services, and processes. One such software, SIOS LifeKeeper, accomplishes this using application recovery kits (ARK) to help automate and manage many aspects of the process.
These ARKs are designed to protect those components and help you automate the configuration and the deployment of the protection. For example, a SAP recovery kit is specifically designed to monitor and protect ASCS and the enqueue server, in addition to other SAP-related services. It verifies that SAP and its core functions are running and that file shares and NFS exports are available. And, very importantly, it also ensures that your databases are mounted and available. There is a similar ARK designed specifically for SAP HANA databases.
One of the key pieces of intelligence built into the SAP recovery kit addresses one of the best practices around running S/4HANA—namely, that you don’t want to be running ASCS and ERS on the same cluster nodes if you can avoid it. The ARK has the intelligence to ensure that those pieces are always running on different cluster nodes.
Ultimately, APK solutions help to protect the entire stack of your SAP environment. This is because it looks at not only SAP as an application, but at the associated databases and the network. Importantly, with those recovery kits, no scripting is required—they work out of-the-box to simplify the set-up and management.
If applied intelligently, these approaches should ensure that a SAP HANA database operating within the AWS environment can achieve the maximum possible uptime.