Configuring Delayed Auto-Upgrade of SAP Host Agent to Avoid Network Bottlenecks

Within large installations, it normally makes sense to use one single share where the content of SAPHOSTAGENT<SP-version>.SAR is extracted regularly.

Context

With this configuration the simultaneous upgrade of many machines is very easy. Unfortunately, if all machines start to access a single network share, it could result in a network bottleneck, and in case of a restrictive firewall configuration, to a complete outage.

To avoid this kind of problem, for large landscapes you can additionally create a configuration file within $DIR_NEW, containing the maximum time range of an upgrade. In this case the various saphostexec processes of the different machines will plan the upgrade in a random way within a well defined time window.

Procedure

Create a file in $DIR_NEW called .delay.

The format of the file is as follows: <Value1> random- <Value2> :

<Value1> represents the number of minutes after an auto-upgrade is checked, and <Value2> the maximum value of minutes after which the auto-upgrade is started.

The real upgrade delay value in minutes is given by: Delay = <Value1> + <randomValue> *<Value2>

Example
500

Auto-upgrade checks the version of the file contained in $DIR_NEW every 500 minutes.
<Value2> is optional and could be omitted.

Example
500random500

Auto-upgrade checks the version of the file contained in $DIR_NEW every 500 minutes.

Once the version of SAP Host Agent contained within $DIR_NEW is newer, the upgrade will be started within the next 500 minutes. The exact time when the upgrade is started is a random value between 1 and 500 minutes.