Computeknica

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 and higher minor releases
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.0 and higher minor releases
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions

Issue

• What is the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions subscription?
• Does the Red Hat for Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions subscription provide access to Update Services for SAP Solutions?

Resolution

Built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), the RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription offers the following additional components:

• SAP-specific technical components to support S/4HANA, SAP HANA, and SAP Business Applications.
• High Availability solutions for S/4HANA, SAP HANA, and SAP Business Applications.
• RHEL System Roles for SAP, which can be used to automate the configuration of a RHEL system to run SAP workloads.
• Smart Management and Red Hat Insights for lifecycle management and proactive optimization.
• Update Services and Extended Update Support:
  • Update Services for SAP Solutions provides support for specific minor RHEL releases for four years from General Availability.
  • Extended Update Support (EUS) for minor RHEL releases that do not have Update Services for SAP Solutions. EUS provides support for specific minor RHEL releases for two years from General Availability. See the RHEL Life Cycle web page for more information on EUS and Update Services for SAP Solutions.

Note:

• Update Services for SAP Solutions is only provided with RHEL for SAP Solutions. It is not available on any other RHEL products.
• Update Services for SAP Solutions is only provided on specified minor RHEL releases, which may be different from the EUS releases.
• The RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription may be used with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, but it does not include Update Services for SAP Solutions. However, EUS is available on specific RHEL 6 releases, and it can be used under the RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription to allow for easier migration.

Differences between RHEL for SAP Applications and RHEL for SAP Solutions

Red Hat has another subscription offering called RHEL for SAP Applications. For more information on RHEL for SAP Applications subscription, refer to the following kbase article.

SAP-specific technical components

The following table contains an overview of the SAP-specific technical components that are included in the respective channels:

Software components included with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Applications channel

• sapconf (only in RHEL 6.5 and later, and in RHEL 7.x): Provides the automated RHEL system preparation of a server for the installation of SAP NetWeaver, including required packages, kernel parameters, network parameters, and so on. sapconf can be integrated into Kickstart and Red Hat Satellite Server.

• compat-sap-c++ (only in RHEL 6.7 and later, and in RHEL 7.x): Provides additional runtime compatibility libraries required by newer NetWeaver releases. See the Installation of SAP NetWeaver 7.51 and later on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 fails with the message GLIBCXX_3.4.14 not found knowledge base article for more information. These libraries are installed independently of the standard runtime libraries provided by RHEL.

• tuned-profiles-sap (only in RHEL 6.5 and later): Provides the sap-netweaver profile to tune RHEL for running SAP NetWeaver-based applications.

• resource-agents-sap (only in RHEL 6.5 and later): Provides Pacemaker cluster resource agents (SAPDatabase and SAPInstance)[1] to set up high availability for SAP NetWeaver environments. See the Deploying Highly Available SAP NetWeaver-based Servers Using Red Hat Enterprise Linux HA add-on with Pacemaker knowledge base article for guidelines.

• compat-locales-sap: Enables Legacy SAP locales to easily migrate non-Unicode SAP NetWeaver installations from UNIX/Windows to Linux; see SAP Note 187864 for more information. compat-locales-sap also provides additional locales for customers running non-Unicode SAP applications. For example, the de_DE@HPUX locale changes the sorting for German on RHEL to match the sorting on HP-UX to avoid sorting issues as described in SAP Note 952625. As of RHEL 8.0, this package is now part of the AppStream repository.

• vhostmd/vm-dump-metrics: A monitoring daemon and client required by SAP for KVM support; see SAP Note 1400911 for more information. In RHEL 8.0, the vm-dump-metrics package is part of the BaseOS repository and the vhostmd package is part of the AppStream repository.

• Future solutions: All future solutions for SAP applications will be added to the RHEL for SAP Solutions channel. See the datasheet Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions for more information.

Software components included with the Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions channel

• rhel-system-roles-sap (only in RHEL 7.7 Batch Update 3 and later): Provides the automated RHEL system preparation of a local or remote server for the installation of SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver, including required packages, kernel parameters, network parameters, and so on. rhel-system-roles-sap can be integrated into Red Hat Satellite Server and Red Hat Ansible Tower. For more information, please see Red Hat Enterprise Linux System Roles for SAP.
• Scalable File System Add-On (XFS): Provided at no additional cost.
• compat-sap-c++: Provides additional runtime compatibility libraries required by newer NetWeaver releases. These libraries are installed independently of the standard runtime libraries provided by RHEL.
• tuned profiles-sap-hana: Provides the sap-hana tuned profile to tune RHEL for running SAP HANA.
• resource-agents-sap-hana: Resource agents for managing an SAP HANA instance in a pacemaker cluster environment.
• Future solutions: All future solutions for SAP applications will be added to the RHEL for SAP Solutions channel. See the datasheet Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions for more information.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-on

The RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription includes the Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-on. Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability provides all the necessary packages for configuring a pacemaker-based cluster that provides reliability, scalability, and availability to critical production services.

RHEL System Roles for SAP

Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP includes RHEL System Roles for SAP to assist with remotely or locally configuring RHEL, before installing SAP HANA or SAP NetWeaver software.

Smart Management for lifecycle management Add-on

The RHEL subscription includes the Smart Management Add-on. The Smart Management Add-on is required for each Red Hat Enterprise Linux system that you want to manage with Red Hat Satellite. The add-on provides easy management and updates of Red Hat Enterprise Linux systems using Red Hat Satellite.

Red Hat Insights for proactive optimization Add-on

The RHEL subscription includes the Red Hat Insights Add-on. Red Hat Insights analyzes IT infrastructure against Red Hat’s constantly expanding knowledge base to provide real-time assessment for risks related to performance, availability, stability, and security. See the Red Hat Insights web page for details.

Live Kernel Patching

Live kernel patching is also supported as part of the RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription, starting with RHEL 7.6 and RHEL 8.1. See Is live kernel patch (kpatch) supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux ? for more information.

Refer to the corresponding article for registering SAP Applications or SAP HANA system to the Update Services for SAP Solutions:

How to subscribe SAP Applications system to the Update Services for SAP Solutions
How to subscribe SAP HANA systems to the Update Services for SAP Solutions