This document is aimed at SAP system administrators who have carried out SAP system copies manually and would like to automate this activity with ALPACA. The intended goal of combining NetApp Snapshot and FlexClone technologies, orchestrated by NetApp SnapCenter, with ALPACA workflows is to reduce the duration of fully automated SAP system copies.

The term SAP system copy is often used as a synonym for three different processes: SAP system clone, SAP system copy, and SAP system refresh. It is important to distinguish between these operations, because the workflows and use cases differ.

Even though these are three different use cases, the data management process stays the same. All three uses cases use the same underlying data management technology—NetApp Snapshot and FlexClone.

The overall solution consists of these main components:

The following image shows the ALPACA server, the NetApp SnapCenter server, the NetApp storage system, the SAP source and SAP target systems, and how everything is integrated. The goal is to make the integration as flexible as possible by using the SnapCenter REST API to ensure maximum reuse of configuration work that has already been done inside exiting components.

There are several scenarios in which data from a source system must be made available to a target system for testing or training purposes. These test and training systems must be updated regularly with data from the source system to make sure that testing and training are performed with the current dataset. These system refresh operations consist of multiple tasks on the infrastructure, database, and application layers, and they can take several days, depending on the level of automation.

To speed up operations, automate tasks, and eliminate human error at the infrastructure, database, and application levels, you can use ALPACA Workflows. Instead of restoring a backup from the source system to the target system, which is time consuming and involves high resource consumption, this integration uses NetApp Snapshot and FlexClone technologies. All the tasks required to spin up a database are completed in minutes rather than hours. The time required for the cloning process does not depend on the size of the database; therefore, even very large systems can be created in just a few minutes. ALPACA further reduces run time by automating tasks at the operating system and database levels as well as on the SAP postprocessing side.

THe following image shows possible operational efficiency improvements when you use automation.

The actual integration of SnapCenter in an ALPACA workflow consists of using shell scripts to access the NetApp SnapCenter REST API. This REST API-based integration creates a Snapshot copy of the SAP source system, creates a FlexClone volume, and mounts it onto the SAP target system.
Storage and SAP administrators know how to develop scripts that are triggered by SnapCenter and executed by the SnapCenter agent to automate recurring daily operation tasks. This loosely coupled architecture, which triggers SnapCenter tasks via shell scripts, enables them to reuse their existing automation procedures to achieve the desired results faster using ALPACA as a workflow engine for end-to-end automation.