Reducing the install time of an SMD agent

[bxiv]

Ever have a time when the business decides to purchase another piece of software from SAP, lets say APO aka SCM, and you have the following landscape requirements:

Dev

1 LiveCache server

1 App server (MS, & Diag)

1 new instance on the DB server

Quality

1 LiveCache server

2 App servers (Diag only)

1 new shared clustered resource (MS) (SMD agent set to virtual and will pick up new instance)

1 new instance on DB server (SMD agent set to virtual and will pick up new instance)

Prod

2 LiveCache servers

4 App servers (Diag only)

1 new share cluster resource (MS) (SMD agent set to virtual and will pick up new instance)

1 new instance on DB server  (SMD agent set to virtual and will pick up new instance)

So we have 11 systems that need SMD agents, which could equal half a day being dedicated to just installing software.  After about 4 servers I decided it was time to build a better way to "get 'r dune!".

So how to go about making this easier, you will have to go through at least 1 installation (730 SP02 & SP03 can use this method).  Once it is completed you will need to find the inifile.xml that is used to pick up the installation if its interrupted (this is the Run new option/Continue with old option).

Windows location:

C:\Program Files\sapinst_instdir\SMD_NW730\INSTALL\STANDALONE\SMD\INST

Linux\Unix location (guessing, environment is Windows based):

/tmp/sapinst_instdir/SMD_NW730INSTALL/STANDALONE/SMD\INST

Now that you have your inifile.xml and you have completed a successful SMD install (I suggest mangaing the manually installed agent, just to ensure your xml file is generated correctly).

Place the initfile.xml into the following location (SMD.73.64 is what I place the install files in when I unsar'ed the installation):

SMD.73.64\SMD730_00_IM_WINDOWS_X86_64\NW07\WEBAS\IND  ( <-- As you can see Windows installation, don't forget to account for this)

Now copy the SMD.73.64 folder to the next system, when you run through the install, all options are automatically populated so you just need to click Next about 6 or 7 times and wait for the installer; I would say it takes around 2 mins when I need to install new agents.

Caveats:

• Haven't been able to figure out how to have the initfile.xml puplate the "Domain of current user", 1 radio button click doesn't bother me, but if someone knows or figures out the value, feed back welcome!
• 730 SP02 has a screen to verify the installation media, I always ensure to run it on the Windows D drive, your mileage may vary.  730 SP03 does not ask to verify the installation files, I recommend SP03 as would SAP if they are new installs.
• Host names are populated automatically, so there should be no need or concern that the manual install will carry that over; if it does I believe I did a find and replace of the hostname with nothing to have it fail back to querying the hostname.
• I have done this with 32 bit and 64 bit SMD agents and have not run into issues or problems; but if your mileage varies let me know!

Another consideration if you think this is useful for installing the SMD agents for SolMan management, consider when you have to install SMD agents for robotic Enduser Experience Monitoring (EEM) purposes and have to install 10 to 25 agents in different geographic locations.

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