A workaround for a forgotten SAP license

A workaround for a forgotten SAP license

Here's a story...

One of my customers wanted to install several SAP XI non-central adapter engines in their DMZ, for connectivity to external business partners. They were looking for one per major business partner and one for the "little guys."

We installed six of these in one weekend, and then realized that we had forgotten the SAP licensing step for one of them!

The new J2EE engine halted due to a licence check failing. It was not listed in the OSS system data for the installation:

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http://service.sap.com/licensekey-->mySAP Business Suite-->installation number).

In attempt to fix this, I tried to log in to Visual Administrator in various ways (I created several 'localhost' connections via the message Server and the "DIRECT to Dispatcher" method), but because it wasn't running properly, it wouldn't let me log on.

I found licensing details via the config tool (...<SID>JC00j2eeconfigtoolconfigtool.bat), but the format of the string didn't make any sense to me (It was probably encrypted, although I did recognize the <SID>). Here's how I solved it:

- I changed the two licensing services (Dispatcher and Server) for the instance_id12345 to manual.
- I stopped and restarted SAP vi the MMC. This got the system running, so I could log on via Visual Administrator.
- I started the licensing service (under Cluster --> Server 0 0_12345) and got the hardware key (as per the licensing PDF available from http://service.sap.com/licensekey).
- This was returned pretty quickly, and I installed it (as per the licensing PDF available from http://service.sap.com/licensekey ).
- I also reset the licensing services to automatic (via the config tool).

This process worked, and just might work for you, too. Hopefully the customer is none the wiser!

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This was first published in November 2005

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