Installing SAP – What do you need?

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Well, for the small business person, the task of installing SAP can be quite daunting.  Take me for example, when I first tried to install SAP it took me a couple months.  Here’s why:

1.  I had to learn how to use virtual server
2.  I didn’t have CD/DVD’s of the SAP software, so I had to download everything
3.  I didn’t have an appropriate operating system.
4.  I didn’t have the first clue about settings for the SAP installation
5.  Woefully deficient hardware

So, those 4 minor points, made things go a little slower.  Luckily, SAP has provided some Netweaver trial systems that I could use while I figuring this all out.  Well, Step 1 I talked a lot about yesterday, so I won’t go into too much detail.  Just remember, VirtualBox is far better than Virtual Server (in my humble opinion).  Step 2…  This was just time consuming.  Downloading SAP 1 file at a time from service.sap.com was quite an ordeal.  Then to make things worse, I would often encounter an error half way through my installation because one of my downloads was corrupt.
The next thing I quickly found is that SAP can’t run on the standard windows software.  So I had to go get a license for Windows Server.  Initially, I chose 2003 (32 bit) because it was affordable, and for running a 4.7 SR2 system, it worked.  Not a huge deal, but it did require me to start my whole virtual system over again, since I originally installed it with Windows XP (I’m sure many of you are laughing at me right now wondering how the hell did this guy ever make it this far).  Like I mentioned in earlier posts, I learn really wall the HARD way.
Next, my hardware is way underpowered.  I was running off my laptop (I still am today, but I’ve since bought a much better laptop).  So I only had 4GB of memory to run my laptop and my entire SAP system.  Needless to say, an installation would run for 5 days, if it didn’t encounter an error forcing me to start over.  It could be painful, including waking up in the middle of the night, just see if things had failed, so I could start the install again with slightly different settings.

Eventually, it did all happen and my 4.7 system has been happily running ever since…  well, I did learn some valuable lessons about backing up…  but I’ll save that for a another time.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

As always, thanks for reading and don't forget to check out our SAP Service Management Products at my other company JaveLLin Solutions,
Mike

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