IPv6 Infrastructure

A dual-stack infrastructure implements both IPv4 and IPv6. This is the SAP-recommended infrastructure implementation for using SAP ASE as an IPv6-aware server.

SAP applications are IPv6-aware.

IPv6 Support
Platform	SAP ASE IPv6 Awareness	Open Client/Server IPv6 Awareness
Sun Solaris 8 32- and 64- bit	12.5.3a and 15.0	15.7
HP-UX 11i(v1) 32- and 64-bit	12.5.3a and 15.0	15.7
Microsoft Server 2003	12.5.3a and 15.0	15.7
Linux RHEL 3.0	15.0	15.7

Many SAP products that are Open Client/Server-based, such as XP Server, Backup Server, Replication Server, and Open Switch, became automatically IPv6-aware due to the layered Open Client Transport Control Layer (DB-Library-based) which is IPv6-aware for network-socket operations. Open Client products are not IPv6-aware.

For SAP ASE, being IPv6-aware is a complex issue because some third-party components within SAP ASE are not yet IPv6-aware. The functional mechanisms of SAP ASE Enterprise that are IPv6-aware with respect to the supported platforms and versions include:

Connection handler
RPC mechanisms
Job Scheduler task / agent session connection
Network Host API
UDP message support for sybsendmsg
Component Integration Services connectivity
Host / name resolving
XML URL connection handler
Auditing for client address data

These functional mechanisms in SAP ASE do not currently support IPv6, but are scheduled to do so in future versions:

Java support
License Management Server
LDAP driver

By default, SAP ASE is IPv6-unaware.

Before starting SAP ASE for IPv6-aware operations, make sure your infrastructure is correctly set up. Once your operating system is correctly configured, you can configure and enable an IPv6 connection handler by adding an additional DCL entry. A single SAP ASE configuration can typically carry up to 32 connection handler assignments within the DCL.

For example, if you have a site-local setup with two domains administrated under the names:

sybase.com - being responsible for all IPv4 networking applications
v6.sybase.com - being responsible for all IPv6 networking applications

The DCL entry named “SYBASE” on the host “revival” for port 17100 looks similar to:

SYBASE
master tcp ether revival.sybase.com 17100
query tcp ether revival.sybase.com 17100
master tcp ether revival.v6.sybase.com 17100
query tcp ether revival.v6.sybase.com 17100

In this example, when SAP ASE is started with IPv6-awareness, it creates two connection handlers. One listens on port 17100 for incoming IPv4 client connection requests, and the other listens on port 17100 for incoming IPv6 client connection requests.

Note: When you start SAP ASE, set trace flag 7815 to capture and log IPv4 and IPv6 client address connection requests and host and name lookups.