Rebooting your User Interfaces with SAP NetWeaver Gateway

Posted by John Moy Oct 5, 2012

A couple of months ago I was invited to speak at the SAP Australia User Group (SAUG) annual summit on the topic of 'How SAP NetWeaver Gateway can deliver you the user interfaces you've always wanted'. I've felt strongly that the idea of what SAP NetWeaver Gateway represents is important, yet not well understood by many on-premise SAP customers.

To explain this, lets first understand a significant challenge which in my opinion most on-premise SAP customers deal with today. In my mind, that challenge is that of keeping up with the latest consumer-grade trends in user interfaces and usability (such as, but not limited to mobile). In fact, I would suggest that this challenge rates higher with most customers than dealing with in-memory or cloud. We've heard it time and again ... like a broken record ... consumer user interfaces and technologies are far outpacing the rate of innovation by traditional enterprise vendors (not just SAP) and that is creating escalating user angst, and something which IT departments are finding it increasingly difficult to deal with. Traditionally, user interface technologies delivered by SAP (and other traditional ERP vendors) have been tightly coupled to the underlying platform. Which means this ... if you want the latest and greatest user interface elements from SAP, you typically in the past needed to UPGRADE your core SAP system ... and that's something which most organizations cannot stomach more than once every couple of years. On the other end, think about consumer technologies such as smartphones, or internet-enabled TVs, or new browser versions released to the market - in the past few years these technologies have accelerated their innovation cycles. A consequence of this is the rate at which we upgrade the OS on our smartphones (once every 6 months or less), versus how often we upgrade our SAP systems. It is demonstrated in the challenges SAP faces in keeping up with browser support (eg. Chrome) for those UI technologies which are delivered inside-out from within the core (eg. Web Dynpro).

This brings me back to the concept of pace layering. Pace layering (or shearing layers) is an architectural principle whereby you design for the various layers in your system to move based on the different rates of evolution. So, the core SAP business logic layer is relatively mature (after decades of evolution) and you hopefully don't need to mess with that too often. However, we know that the user interface layer is in need of very rapid evolution to keep up with the escalating demands of end users, and end-user client technologies.

So how does SAP NetWeaver Gateway support this concept of pace layering? By enabling business logic and data from SAP to be exposed in a simple, lean and client-agnostic manner. That means you can write a website today which interacts with data from your SAP system using Gateway services, and tomorrow you can write a mobile app over the top of the very same Gateway services without needing to make any further changes to the SAP system. The following diagram illustrates this concept ...

Of course, writing custom UIs over the top of SAP is not typically in the DNA of SAP customers. And no organization would seek to re-face every SAP business process or screen. There is a cost to this (although SAP seeks to mitigate costs by providing libraries and code generation tools for various client-side technologies). But there is a subset of use cases for which it might make sense to do this. These are the scenarios which might span a broad spread of casual users, which are commonly used, and for which you really would benefit from a zero training user interface. They are the scenarios which you might choose to embed in your corporate intranet, or onto a mobile device, or a kiosk. Think scenarios such as 'Leave Request', or 'Time Entry'. When considering the cost of re-facing a key transaction, consider this ... what is the price of training your casual users to use old SAPGUI screens? What is the price of users turning to 'shadow IT' solutions and thereby bypassing your SAP processes and business rules?

Lets take an example scenario .... you currently have a website with specific styling and you wish to elevate SAP data into that site. As an example I chose to build a simple proof of concept by exposing a OData channel Gateway service querying SAP transaction codes (yes, not a great use case - but the best I could do against a Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway system which I had installed on AWS). Here is a screencam ...

Then, suppose you subsequently also need a mobile app to access the same data. You want an easy to use mobile web app to do that, but you don't want to upgrade or even patch your SAP system to obtain the latest available user interface ('inside out'). Instead you simply build a user interface over the top of the same Gateway service ('outside in') which you previously enabled for the website, without needing to touch your SAP system. This is an example of pace layering. Here is a screencam ...

To illustrate for the technically minded, in both of the demos above, when selecting a transaction code (for the detail view) the following request is sent from the client (in example 1 from the website, and in example 2 from the mobile app) ...

HTTP 'GET' REQUEST SENT FROM CLIENT TO SERVER:

http://<gateway server>:8000/sap/opu/odata/sap/Z_TCODE_SERVICE_MOY/TCodeCollection(transactionCode='SE80')?$format=json

And the response returned is as follows ...

RESPONSE FROM SERVER:

{

"d": {

"__metadata": {

"uri": "http://<gateway server>:8000/sap/opu/odata/sap/Z_TCODE_SERVICE_MOY/TCodeCollection('SE80')",

"type": "Z_TCODE_SERVICE_MOY.TCode"

},

"transactionCode": "SE80",

"program": "SAPMSEU0",

"screen": "0000",

"transactionDesc": "Object Navigator"

}

Note how lean the above JSON-formatted response is. In fact it is only 256 bytes. That is important when sending data over low bandwidth networks (eg. mobile networks). Lean data feeds translate to better response times, and improved usability. It is also why these days I prefer JSON feeds over XML (which can suffer from tag 'bloat').

Each of the above examples took only a few hours in an evening to build. Imagine what you could accomplish with skilled mobile, web or other UI developers with your key high usage data and business logic exposed through SAP NetWeaver Gateway. It should be noted that the use cases for SAP NetWeaver Gateway are not limited purely to user interfaces, however that is the focus of this blog.

So, what does SAP NetWeaver Gateway deliver? In my mind, and in the context of this blog, it is an enabler for pace layering in a world when user interfaces and user expectations are evolving at a rapid pace, above our stable and mature on-premise ERP installations.

If you would like to see the full slide deck from my SAUG Summit presentation on SAP NetWeaver Gateway, it is available here. If you would like to trial your own user interfaces on top of a SAP NetWeaver Gateway system, you can access the online demo system provided by SAP here, or install a pre-packaged trial on your local system here, or if you prefer you can install a trial version in the cloud (useful for trialing mobile scenarios to your smartphone) on Amazon Web Services via my blog series here.

Installing Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04 with ABAP 7.02 on AWS - Part 3

Posted by John Moy Jul 19, 2012

This blog post follows Part 1 where we established a basic Windows 64-bit instance on Amazon's Elastic Compute service, and Part 2 where we prepared the environment and downloaded the SAP Trial software.

Now we will actually proceed with the installation, continuing on after step 47 in Part 2 ...

Step	Screenshot
48. Commence installation of ABAP Server From your unpacked installation files on the instance D: drive, navigate through the folders as follows ... NWABAPTRIAL70211_64_GW204 -> SAP_NetWeaver_702e _Installation_Master -> IM_WINDOWS_X86_64 Double click on the file 'sapinst'
49. Installation of ABAP Server Within the software delivery tool, select the Central System option. Press the 'Next' button
50. Installation of ABAP Server You will see the warning shown in the image to the right. Press OK. SAPInst immediately logs you off, causing your Remote Desktop session to disconnect. Log back in via Remote Desktop, and the installation will automatically continue.
51. Installation of ABAP Server Accept the license. Press the 'Next' button.
52. Installation of ABAP Server For the Java Runtime Environment, specify the path to the JRE which you installed from Part 2 of this blog series. Press the 'Next' button.
53. Installation of ABAP Server Specify a Master Password for your system. Press the 'Next' button.
54. Installation of ABAP Server You will see a warning 'Your system does not meet some prerequisites ...'. The reason is that the Swap Size for your service is not as large as desired. You can ignore this warning, as the installation will still proceed successfully. Press the 'OK' button.
55. Installation of ABAP Server On the parameter summary screen, review the settings and check to ensure the target drive for the MaxDB database is the D: drive. Press the 'Next' button.
56. Installation of ABAP Server Your installation will commence.
57. Installation of ABAP Server After approximately 45 minutes (assuming you originally provisioned a 'High' instance), you should see the success message shown in the image to the right. Press the 'OK' button.
58. Installation of SAP GUI Here we can also install the SAP GUI on the Windows Server itself. Execute the installer for this which you unpacked in Part 2. Select all default options and proceed through the installation wizard until the installation completes.
59. Logging into the ABAP Server Your SAP GUI should now be installed, and the SAP ABAP server should be running by default, after the installation. Launch the SAP GUI, and create a new system entry as per the image to the right.
60. Logging into the ABAP Server Log into the server with the following default credentials .. Username: bcuser Password: minisap

Congratulations! You now have a running SAP NetWeaver ABAP 7.02 + Gateway 2.0 SP04 system. Because of the ports we have opened in the course of this blog, you should be able to connect from your local machine.

*** IMPORTANT: To proceed with using the NetWeaver Gateway components, you will need to activate and configure the SAP NetWeaver Gateway component. Follow the steps in this blog by Andre Fischer to do that. ***

Useful links are as follows ...

General Documentation for SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04

What's new with SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04 (note that this release includes support for JSON)

SAP NetWeaver Gateway Developer Guide

SAP NetWeaver Gateway Cookbooks and Tutorials

Some other housekeeping matters ...

Topic	Screenshot
Registering as a Developer To register as a developer, simply attempt to create anything in ABAP (via SE80) and use the following key for user BCUSER ... 14421119653247674476
Securing your ABAP Server You can take some basic actions to tighten the security of your ABAP server. Since we chose to open the ports for SAP GUI access from the outside, it is prudent to change the standard password for the BCUSER account in case anyone stumbles across your running server. Note that the SAP* and DDIC user accounts will have the password chosen by you as the master password in step 53, so they should not be accessible to strangers. I don't purport to be a security expert, so if anyone has any further advice here, feel free to add it in the comments.
Stopping your ABAP Server Whenever you finish working with your ABAP server, be sure to remember to STOP your ABAP server from the sapmmc console BEFORE you stop your AWS instance. To stop the server, right-click on the green NSP icon and select 'Stop'. The next time you access your instance, you will need to remember to 'Start' it again.
Changing the Instance Type After the installation is complete, you no longer need to retain a 'High' Instance Type. You can downgrade this to a Medium instance, as the AWS fees are lower. The ABAP server will start and operate fine with a Medium instance. To do this, your AWS instance must be stopped. Right click on it, and select the option 'Change Instance Type', then select m1.medium

Don't forget to stop your AWS instance from the AWS management console when you are not using your instance, to limit your fees (and as indicated above, don't forget to stop your ABAP server first).

I hope this blog series assisted you in establishing your SAP NetWeaver Gateway server in the cloud. Don't forget, this is a trial ABAP server, so you can also use it in the same manner as any basic ABAP server. This means you can also use it to refine your skills with Web Dynpro ABAP, Floorplan Manager etc.

Addendum: Fellow SAP Mentor Sascha Wenninger has also posted an accompanying Part 4 to this series, which describes in detail how to assign an Elastic IP to your AWS instance, so you can continue to reference it with a consistent IP address.

Also see this excellent blog by Paul Aschmann who describes how to connect your new trial NetWeaver Gateway instance with the ES Workplace ERP system.

Installing Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04 with ABAP 7.02 on AWS - Part 2

Posted by John Moy Jul 19, 2012

In Part 1 of this blog series, I outlined the steps necessary to establish a basic Windows 64-bit instance on Amazon's Elastic Compute service. In this part I describe the steps necessary to prepare the environment as well as to download the latest Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04 with NetWeaver ABAP 7.02.

Here, we continue on after step 24. in Part 1 ...

Step	Screenshot
25. Start your AWS instance and log in to it using Remote Desktop If at the end of Part 1, you stopped your AWS instance, log back into the AWS Management Console and start your instance from the instances page by right clicking on your instance and selecting the 'Start' option. It will take about 30 seconds to start the instance. When it displays as 'Running', select the instance and from the instance details page, copy the Public DNS contents into your Remote Desktop client, and log in as an Administrator (hopefully with the password you reset from step 22. in Part 1)
26. Assign a short HostName Unfortunately the hostname generated by AWS is too long for the SAP installer (see OSS Note 611361). So we must firstly reduce the length of it. From the Windows server, select Start -> Computer -> System Properties
27. Assign a short HostName Next to the 'Computer name' field, select the 'Change settings' option
28. Assign a short HostName Enter a computer description, then press the 'Change' button
29. Assign a short HostName Overwrite the computer name to be 'sapnwgw'. Then press the 'OK' button.
30. Restart the instance The instance will ask you the restart the computer. Press the 'Restart Now' button. Your Remote Desktop session will immediately terminate.
31. Amend Windows Firewall settings Log back into the instance. Now we will open ports in the Windows firewall to enable communications for SAPGUI and HTTP traffic from outside the instance (eg. from your smartphone). Whilst we configured the applicable ports within AWS in Part 1, we still need to configure the internal firewalls within the Windows operating system here. From the Windows start menu, navigate to Start -> Windows Firewall and Advanced Security. Select 'Inbound Rules', and then the option 'New Rule'.
32. Amend Windows Firewall settings For 'Protocol and Ports', select 'TCP', and enter the specific local ports '3200, 8000'. Press the 'Next' button. For the remainder of the wizard, accept the default options. Give the rule a name such as 'sapnwgw' and finalise the wizard by pressing the 'Finish' button.
33. Change IE Security settings Launch Internet Explorer on the instance. One thing we find with IE on a Windows 2008 Server is that it is practically unusable with the security settings in place. We will firstly relax these settings, then from IE download Firefox and use that thereafter. When you first launch IE, you will see a pop-up offering to 'Use recommended security and compatibility settings'. Select the 'Ask me later' button. Within IE, navigate to Tools -> Internet Options -> Security -> Custom Level
34. Change IE Security Settings Under the section 'Downloads', for the option 'File download', select 'Enable'. Under the section 'Scripting', for the option 'Active scripting', select 'Enable'. Then press the 'OK' button. Internet Explorer displays a warning asking you if you are sure you wish to make these changes ... select 'Yes'.
35. Install Firefox browser From Internet Explorer, download and install the latest version of the Firefox browser. When asked whether you wish to import settings from Microsoft Internet Explorer, select the option 'Don't import anything'. After Firefox is installed, close Internet Explorer.
36. Download 7-zip From the Firefox browser, navigate to the following web URL http://7-zip.org/download.html Select to download the option for 64-bit Windows. This is a free download.
37. Download Java SE 5 JRE The SAP installer which we will use later will need a Java 1.5 JRE (note that Java 6 and above are not supported by the installer). Firstly, if you don't already have an Oracle Web account, you will need to sign up for a free one here ... https://login.oracle.com/mysso /signon.jsp Then, from the Firefox browser, navigate to the following web URL http://www.oracle.com/technetwork /java/archive-139210.html Select the option 'Java SE 5'
38. Download Java SE 5 JRE Select the latest available Java SE 5.0 Runtime Environment.
39. Download Java SE 5 JRE Accept the license agreement, and then select to download: Windows Offline Installation - jre-1_5_0_22-windows-i586-p.exe You will be asked to enter your Oracle Web account credentials. Then with the pop-up window select to 'Save File'
40. Download SAP Trial software Using Firefox, navigate to the following URL ... http://bit.ly/LVMAB9 Log into SCN, then you will be directed to a SCN Software Download page. Here we will download both the SAPGUI and the latest SAP NetWeaver Gateway Trial. Read the license agreement Then select 'SAP NetWeaver ABAP Trial 7.02 SP11 WinGUI' and press the 'I Agree - Download Selected File' button. NOTE: One reason we use Firefox here is that I was never able to get IE on this server build to successfully download the software. Special thanks to Jason Scott who provided me with this solution. Even when using Firefox, I have on occasion received an error 'Unfortunately we have trouble completing your download request ...'. I cannot explain this, because it is intermittent. For instance, the last time I received this error, I tried again the next day and it worked perfectly.
41. Download SAP Trial software Next select 'SAP NetWeaver ABAP Trial 7.02 SP11 Win 64 bit Version with Gateway 2.0 SP04' and press the 'I Agree - Download Selected File' button
42. Confirm downloads and transfer to D: drive At this stage your downloads should look somewhat like the image on the right. These are by default saved against your C: volume. As space on this volume is valuable, MOVE these files to your D: volume.
43. Install 7-zip From the D: volume, execute the installer for 7-zip by double clicking the file 7z920-x64. In my case I chose to install onto a directly on the D: volume.
44. Install JRE 1.5 From the D: volume, execute the installer for Java Runtime 1.5. In my case I choose the 'Typical Setup' option.
45. Unpack SAP GUI installation files Open the 7-zip File Manager via the Windows Start Menu. Select the file NWABAPTRIAL70211_64_GUI.rar and press the 'Extract' button. Ensure that you select a folder in the D: drive to extract the contents to.
46. Unpack SAP ABAP Gateway Trial installation files Open the 7-zip File Manager via the Windows Start Menu. Select the file NWABAPTRIAL70211_64_ GW204.rar and press the 'Extract' button. Ensure that you select a folder in the D: drive to extract the contents to.
47. Check unpacked installation files At this stage your Unpacked SAP installation files should appear as per the image to the right.

At this stage, you are ready to commence the installation. The steps for that are outlined in Part 3.

Installing Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 SP04 with ABAP 7.02 on AWS - Part 1

Posted by John Moy Jul 16, 2012

Recently, SAP released a clean (non-virtualized) installation of a Trial SAP NetWeaver Gateway 2.0 with ABAP 7.02 SP11 for Windows 64-bit on SCN. This is basically a classic trial ABAP (NSP) system, with the addition of NetWeaver Gateway components pre-installed. I thought it would be a good opportunity to install this on Amazon's AWS EC2 (Amazon Web Services Elastic Compute) infrastructure-as-a-service in the cloud. After all, a Gateway instance in the cloud brings with it opportunities to test out any number of client consumption approaches, including mobile and non-mobile use cases, outside the confines of one's own home network.

A short note - It is well known that last year SAP made available a Trial Version of SAP NetWeaver Gateway in pre-packaged virtualized containers (both in VMware for Linux and Hyper-V for Microsoft Windows). However to my understanding you cannot run these directly on an AWS EC2 instance unless you do some sophisticated extractions which are beyond my abilities.

I've never been comfortable in the area of SAP installations, even though I've installed my fair share of trial ABAP and Java servers on local machines in the past decade. But as a developer you need to cross this bridge every so often in order to get up and running to try new things. I was personally interested in having a NetWeaver Gateway instance in the cloud which I could connect my iPhone to. Interestingly, another SAP developer Jason Scott who works in Western Australia by coincidence attempted the same installation on the same weekend. Via Twitter, we found that we both hit the same hurdles with the installation. Therefore I resolved that the community might benefit from our shared experiences so as to make it as painless as possible for those who follow the steps in this blog.

Also I should acknowledge some key resources which I leveraged as part of the installation. People have been writing blogs about AWS installations for many years (including in-depth ones by the real experts such as Martin English and Chris Kernaghan), but for this exercise the ones I referenced most often were these ...

Installing the 7.02 ABAP Trial System (NSP) in an Amazon AWS instance - Part 1 by Steve Rumsby

(This is an excellent resource - in some ways this blog here is an update to the steps posted in Steve's original blog for setting up the instance)

Step by Step Installation Guide for SAP NetWeaver AS ABAP 7.02 SP6 32-bit Trial Version by Faisal Altaf

(This blog basically covers off the steps from where Steve's blog ends)

Implementing SAP Solutions on Amazon Web Services

(An 'official' document which is essential pre-reading, although this document pertains to proper SAP instances, not the trial ABAP version which we install here)

Charges

Before commencing, familiarise yourself with the Amazon charges for this service. Basically you need to pay for your Windows Usage on the Elastic Compute (EC2) service only for the hours that your instance is running. Additionally, you will need to pay ongoing costs for your persistent storage using the Elastic Blog Store (EBS) service.

Here is an approximate cost (based on pricing as at 1 July 2012 - see website for updates)

Service	Pricing
1 x Standard On-Demand Instance - Medium	Window Usage - $0.23 - $0.25 per Hour (depending upon selected Region)
1 x Amazon Elastic Block Store - 90GB (30GB + 60GB)	$0.10 - $0.19 per GB-month of provisioned storage (depending upon selected Region) + charges per 1 million I/O requests (unlikely to be an issue for a Trial ABAP)

Service

Pricing

1 x Standard On-Demand Instance - Medium

Window Usage - $0.23 - $0.25 per Hour (depending upon selected Region)

1 x Amazon Elastic Block Store - 90GB (30GB + 60GB)

$0.10 - $0.19 per GB-month of provisioned storage (depending upon selected Region)

+ charges per 1 million I/O requests (unlikely to be an issue for a Trial ABAP)

There are additional charges for internet data transfer, elastic IP addresses etc. Check the website. Given that we are dealing with a Trial instance it is unlikely that these additional charges will be significant.

When looking at these charges, the most significant is for the on-demand instance itself. If you leave it running permanently the costs will add up. However if you simply start the instance when you are working on it, then stop it when it is not being used, you can keep the costs reasonable.

Steps

Step	Screenshot
1. Create a new AWS account via http://aws.amazon.com/
2. In the AWS Management Console, select the EC2 (Elastic Compute) tab
3. Select the most appropriate Region to create your instance (in my case I chose Asia Pacific Singapore because it has the lowest latency to where I reside).
4. Select the Launch Instance button
5. From the Request Instances Wizard, select Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Base (64 bit)
6. Select the Instance Type as 'Large (m1.large, 7.5GB)'. For the 'Launch Instances' section select an Availability Zone (any choice should suffice - but note down which you choose). Leave all other options as defaulted. Note that during the installation we will use a large instance to expedite the process, however after the installation we can downgrade to a medium instance, hence keeping ongoing charges low Press 'Continue'.
7. In the 'Advanced Instance Options' window Select the 'Termination Protection' flag. This prevents you from accidentally terminating (destroying) your instance. You can still terminate it (when you have finished working with the Trial), but you will be forced to uncheck this flag first. I learned the hard way that this should always be selected to prevent accidental deletions of instances. Leave all other options as per their default values. Press 'Continue'.
8. For the tags section, simply add the value 'SAP ABAP7.02 + Gateway 2.0 SP04' for the tag 'Name'. This simply gives your instance a visible name - you can change this later if you wish. Press 'Continue'
9. At the 'Create Key Pair' step, enter any name for your key pair (eg. mykeypair) and press the 'Create & Download Your Key Pair' link. This will download a file which you will need later to connect to your AWS system via your local machine. Press 'Continue'
10. At the 'Configure Firewall' step, you can accept the suggested new Security Group name of 'quick-start-1', or alternatively change it to whatever name you wish. What is important is to add the TCP ports 3200 and 8000 by typing them in and pressing the 'Add Rule' button in turn. Opening port 3200 enables communication via a SAPGUI on your local machine, and opening port 8000 enables web communication with the SAP Internet Communication Manager (ICM) to invoke Gateway services from outside your instance. If you leave the Source as 0.0.0.0/0 it means ANY external IP address can access this system via those ports. Also ensure that TCP port 3389 is included as you need that open to connect later via Remote Desktop. Press 'Continue' IMPORTANT NOTE: The setup here results in quite an open system which will allow you to later connect devices such as smartphones to your Trial instance. However, from a security perspective you would presumably apply more stringent controls for a Productive system.
11. At the 'Review' step, press the 'Launch' button. You will see a window with the text 'Your instances are now launching'. Select the option 'View your instances on the Instances page'
12. You should see your instance in the Instances page. Within 30 seconds the instance should appear as 'Running'.
13. Next we need to allocate additional disk storage to this instance to accommodate the ABAP system. Select the option 'Volumes' under ELASTIC BLOCK STORE
14. Here we create a volume (D drive) for our instance. First, press the 'Create Volume' button at the top of the 'EBS Volumes' canvas. For the window that appears, select the size as 60GB, and the availability zone which you selected in step 6. Press the 'Yes, Create' button.
15. You will now see two rows in the EBS Volumes area. One which is 30GB was originally provisioned as part of your new instance - this is effectively the 'C:' drive. The other which is 60GB appears with state 'available' - we want this to become the 'D:' drive for our instance. Right click on the available 60GB volume and select 'Attach Volume'.
16. In the popup window 'Attach Volume', select the instance you created. Leave other fields defaulted. Press the 'Yes, Attach' button.
17. At this stage it may take a few minutes for the new volume to register as attached to the new instance. To see that the volume is attached, navigate back to the Instances page, click on the instance you created and you should see two entries (sda1 and xvdf) in the details pane against the field 'Block Devices'. NOTE: I have on occasions found that I needed to stop and start my instance to get the new volume to 'attach'. Be patient and cross your fingers.
18. Next we need to retrieve the initial Windows password for the new system. It takes a while (sometimes as long as 15 - 30 minutes) for this to be generated for you. Right click on your instance in the instance page, and select the option 'Get Windows Password'. If you receive a popup saying that it is 'not available yet', wait a while longer and try again.
19. You will see a popup window 'Retrieve Default Windows Administrator Password' Using a text editor (eg. Notepad), open the key pair file you downloaded in step 9. Copy the ENTIRE contents of this file, and paste it into the 'Private Key' field as shown in the image shown here. Press the 'Decrypt Password' button.
20. You will be presented with the initial Windows password for your new instance. Note down both the computer address, and the password.
21. Launch a windows remote desktop client from your local machine. Windows machines should have it available in the Accessories folder of your start menu. If you have a Mac (as I do), you can download a free Windows remote desktop client here. Insert the computer name you retrieved from step 20, then for user Administrator enter the password from step 20. Enter 'OK' in the remote desktop client to login.
22. If you have made it to this step, you should now be logged into your newly provisioned Windows Server. At this stage, you SHOULD change your password. From the Windows start menu, select Start -> Windows Security. Then select the option Change Password, and enter an appropriate new password.
23. Congratulations. You now have provisioned a new Windows Server in the cloud for your ABAP Trial installation.
24. If at this stage you wish to take a break, you can stop your instance by right-clicking your instance in the AWS instance page and selecting the 'Stop' option. This will ensure you will not incur any unnecessary charges for the running instance (note however that you will incur ongoing charges for the disk storage which you have provisioned). You will be automatically disconnected from your Remote Desktop session when you stop the instance. Note that when subsequently starting your instance at a later stage (right-clicking on the instance and selecting the 'Start' option, you will need to look in the details pane for the instance and copy the generated computer address to use in your remote desktop session. This address may differ from the one you had used earlier (you can avoid this problem by subsequently assigning an elastic IP address - Part 4 of this blog series, by fellow SAP Mentor Sascha Wenninger outlines how to accomplish this).

In Part 2 of this blog series I outline the steps necessary to prepare your running Windows Server for the ABAP Trial installation, downloading the necessary installation files, and in Part 3 I cover the actual SAP installation itself.