IT-Conductor Latest Automation Features Q1-2022

  

Welcome to the Q1-2022 edition of IT-Conductor latest automation features. As part of our long-term plan to grow our self-service offerings, we have introduced Service Catalog to enable customers to easily create multiple requests for various service bundles. This makes for a faster, more convenient, and more guided service delivery.

We also keep growing our list of automated cloud migration scenarios using IT-Conductor to include HANA and MSSQL automated migration. You can leverage the cloud-agnostic, automation capability of IT-Conductor to automate the migration of your applications and databases from on-premises to the cloud.


Automated Cloud Migration

HANA Migration

The demand for cloud-based data migrations has steadily been on the increase and using an automated approach adds to the benefits provided by IT-Conductor such as efficiency, security, scalability, real-time monitoring, etc. Two options are provided for replicating the HANA database namely Asynchronous Replication and Backup and Restore.

Asynchronous Replication is provided by SAP’s built-in tool itself for continuous data replication. It’s best for mission-critical applications for which minimum downtime is a high priority. The disadvantage of this approach is higher computation, storage, and network capacity with a parallel set of systems, which can cost more during the migration project.

Backup and Restore rely on the backup utility of SAP to create an image of the database which can be transferred to another backup location. It requires fewer resources to perform, making it an attractive option for less urgent use cases. However, all tasks need to be done manually which consume time and human resource.

IT-Conductor has successfully automated the Asynchronous Replication migration procedure for migrating the HANA database to the cloud.

IT-Conductor_Automated_Hana_Migration

Figure 1: Hana Migration Process Definition

Three main activities were identified and implemented for automating the replication of the HANA database. As shown in the figure above:

  1. A terraform activity for provisioning the required infrastructure in Azure. The JSON configuration file can be modified as required for infrastructure deployment.

  2. An Ansible activity that installs the HANA database in the provisioned Azure VM. A form-based execution configuration is provided for inputting the required data for HANA installation.

  3. An Ansible activity that runs the required steps for starting the replication process.

Other cloud migration offerings provided by IT-Conductor include MSSQL Server and Oracle Database Migration.

MSSQL Migration

Automated MSSQL cloud migration is one of the latest additions to our list of cloud migration scenarios. This is implemented using the Backup and Restore method for migrating MS SQL databases through IT-Conductor’s automation functionality.

IT-Conductor_Automated_MSSQL_Migration

Figure 2: MSSQL Migration Process Definition

For automating the migration of an MS SQL database, three primary tasks were identified and implemented:

  1. A terraform operation for provisioning the appropriate infrastructure in Azure, as indicated in the diagram above. For infrastructure deployment, the JSON configuration file can be changed as needed.

  2. An Ansible activity that installs MS SQL database and SAP in the provisioned Azure VM. A form-based execution configuration is used for inputting the relevant data.

  3. An IT-Conductor activity running an MSSQL script that performs the restore of the backup taken from on-premises to the new system in the cloud.

Service Catalog

IT-Conductor offers automation through Service Catalog where several actions can be performed, creating a service request that can be executed at the moment or scheduled for later. Database Administration, Monitoring, and Application Support for SAP Systems are some of the offerings in the Service Catalog.

The Service Catalog is an interface for customers to submit a service request and be guided through the end-to-end process of Service Request Fulfillment.

  • For Application Support, users can install a new App server in their environment.
  • For Database Administration, users can easily lock and unlock any HANA User created in the system.
  • For Monitoring, users can add new systems to be monitored in IT-Conductor.

 

IT-Conductor_Service_Catalog

Figure 3: IT-Conductor Service Catalog

Contact us if you would like to enable these new features in your account or if you would like to sign-up for a trial.

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