The following document references the most important guides and tutorials for creating, running and operating the AS ABAP 7.4 trial instances provided as virtual appliances by the SAP Cloud Appliance Library. For questions and feedback regarding these SCN trial editions please post a message in the corresponding ABAP trial thread.
Prerequisites
- To get familiar with the virtual private cloud concept of Amazon we recommend to watch this video tutorial [15min] or to read the step-by-step guide Getting Started with Amazon VPC.
- To get to know the basic concepts of the SAP Cloud Appliance Library providing access to the virtual appliances please read the SAP CAL FAQ document or visit the SAP CAL landing page on SCN.
Tutorials and Guides
- This step-by-step tutorial shows you how to set up a virtual private cloud (VPC) with VPN access on AWS (Amazon Web Services) and launch your trial instance into the private subnet of this VPC.
- Watch the following video tutorial [5min] to learn how to get and set up an AS ABAP trial instance in your SAP Cloud Appliance Library account:
- For detailed information about how to set up your local environment and your local clients and how to connect to your ABAP trial instance you can watch the following video tutorial:
- Alternatively, take a look at the corresponding user guides for the different trial variants:
- Getting Started with AS ABAP 7.4 SP03 on SAP HANA [PDF]
- Getting Started with AS ABAP 7.4 SP02 on SAP MaxDB [PDF]
Frequently Asked Questions
Which countries does the SAP Store currently support, in other words grant me access to these trial editions?
Unfortunately, access to these virtual appliances is limited to all countries supported by the SAP Store. Thus, the currently supported countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Isreal, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Portugal, Romania, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Philippines
Is it completely free to use the trial editions of these virtual appliances?
To be precise: SAP offers you to instantiate and run these virtual appliances using the SAP CAL test drive center completely for free (according to the terms and conditions). But you have to pay the charges of your cloud service provider hosting these trial instances (without any involvement of SAP).
Do the different trial variants have an impact on the charges of my cloud service provider?
Yes, as an AS ABAP on SAP HANA trial instance requires more virtual CPUs and memory than an AS ABAP on MaxDB trial instance you should use the appropriate instance type/size recommended by the instance creation wizard. This has an impact on the charges of your cloud service provider as shown in the cost forecast of your SAP CAL account.
Ok, but how do I find out what my cloud service provider charges for these trial instances?
You have two options:
a) The instance creation wizard of the SAP Cloud Appliance Library offers a detailed cost forecast (you could still cancel the creation process).
b) You can take a look at the Amazon EC2 price list for the recommended instance types: x2.4xlarge (AS ABAP on SAP HANA), m1.large (AS ABAP on SAP MaxDB)
So how do I run these trial instances cost-effectively on AWS?
Hosting the trial instances on AWS comprises EC2 services (Elastic Compute Cloud) and EBS services (Elastic Block Store). If you suspend the trial instance there are no costs for EC2 services anymore, but still low costs for EBS services. If you terminate your trial instances, there are also no costs for EBS services anymore. Thus, we recommend to use the 'activate and suspend manually' option, which is part of the instance creation wizard or available within the properties of your existing instance. To be on the safe side, you can also activate a billing alarm in your AWS account.
How often do you plan to update the trial editions of these virtual appliances?
We plan to offer a new virtual appliance for every major release and enhancement package of AS ABAP. But we are not going to build and publish new trial appliances for every upcoming support package - maybe some major/important ones.
The virtual appliance has been updated, what does this mean for me?
Your existing CAL test drive center subscription is still valid and all created instances remain unaffected. Only if you create a new instance the latest version of the AS ABAP 7.40 trial edition will be instantiated.
What's the difference between public network access and corporate network access in the instance creation wizard?
In simplified terms, with the public network option you get a public IP address to directly access your trial instance (no VPN required) with all implications on privacy and security. With the corporate network option you get a private IP address from the IP address range of your Virtual Private Cloud. For more information please consult the EC2 user guide.