System hibernation for SAP BTP ABAP Environment (aka Steampunk) is available since August 28th, 2023. This blog post explains how this feature works and what are the required prerequisites. To benefit from the intended cost savings, we recommend to plan a potential usage and to fulfill the prerequisites.
What is the purpose of system hibernation?
Before the introduction of system hibernation, there was no option to suspend or to stop a Steampunk system if it is not used. The deletion of the system is only an option, if the stored data in the SAP HANA Cloud instance is not needed anymore. As a consequence, there was no option to reduce the costs for temporarily unused systems. The new feature allows to stop and (re-)start the system without the deletion of the corresponding SAP HANA Cloud instance. This might be helpful, for example:
- To stop development systems outside of working hours and during the weekend
- To stop correction systems (for the productive codeline) outside of correction activities
- To stop test systems outside of test activities
- To stop custom code analysis system when analysis is done
- To stop production systems before go-live
What is the impact on costs?
The costs of a Steampunk system are calculated based on two infrastructure metrics:
- ACU (ABAP Compute Unit) - Runtime Memory in 16 GB Blocks
- HCU (HANA Compute Unit) - Persistent Memory in 16 GB Blocks
The minimal setup for a Steampunk system is 1 ACU + 2 HCUs.
A stopped system requires only SAP HANA Cloud backup storage and disc space, but no ABAP Compute Units. The remaining infrastructure costs are:
| Metric | Costs for a stopped system |
| ACUs | 0% |
| HCUs | 12,5% |
In case of consumption-based contracts, total costs for a stopped minimum system are reduced to less than 5%. Refer to the relevant metrics and current unit price per hour in the SAP Discovery Center.
The mentioned cost reduction is only achievable in case of consumption-based contracts. You can find a concrete example of a cost reduction calculation for customers in this blog post.
Be aware, that SAP operations (re-)starts and stops a system automatically to perform lifecycle management events like upgrades and patches (refer to this blog post) if the system was stopped before. SAP operations ensures that the Steampunk release of the systems remains up-to-date even for stopped systems. The required uptime for the lifecycle management events is considered as a started system.
What are the prerequisites?
A consumption-based contract, like CPEA or Pay-As-You-Go, is not a technical prerequisite. But in case of a subscription based contract you cannot benefit from any cost savings.
How can I stop and start a system?
You need to use the Landscape Portal. Please notice, that you need to subscribe the Landscape Portal in a subaccount for region cf-eu10, independent of region of the Steampunk system. You can manage all systems for all regions within the same BTP global account using the same Landscape Portal instance. The Landscape Portal is part of the Steampunk product. There is no additional license required and there are no additional costs to use the Landscape Portal.
Open the new app Manage System Hibernation, select the respective system, and choose Stop, Start, or Schedule Stop/Start:
Landscape Portal app: Manage System Hibernation
The app provides also a calendar of the scheduled activities. For more information, refer to the documentation of the app.
How does it work for free tier systems?
A free tier customer can stop and start the Steampunk system manually. The feature Schedule Stop/Start is not supported.
All free tier systems are stopped automatically each night (time zone of the respective data center). To use the free tier system again, start the system as explained in the previous section.
Accessing a stopped system
If you try to access the SAP Fiori Launchpad of a stopped system, you are getting the error message "The system is currently stopped". To start the system again, you need open the Landscape Portal, open the Manage System Hibernation app, select the respective system in the list, and press Start. An http request to the system does not start the system automatically.
Summary
The feature to stop and (re-)start Steampunk systems is an option to save costs significantly in case of consumption-based contracts.
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