SAP HANA Support: New Features

    In-memory DBMS SAP HANA and its applications are becoming increasingly popular among companies. And this growth prompts developers of infrastructure solutions for SAP HANA to offer the most convenient and profitable solutions for customers. Today we talk about the options offered by Fujitsu.

    Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 3800B

    Not just appliance


    Fujitsu, as a global SAP technology partner, offers customers three options for building infrastructure. In addition to the classic pre-configured and tested hardware and software systems (appliance), these are solutions based on the Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI) approach, which involves the customer independently assembling such a solution from SAP certified components, as well as the integrated FlexFrame for SAP Landscapes solution, better known as FlexFrame Orchestrator

    New servers and storage


    Over the past months, changes have been implemented regarding, first of all, server hardware support. As you know, on July 11, Intel introduced a new processor platform for servers called Skylake. Along with this event, Fujitsu announced the release of an eight-processor rack server PRIMEQUEST 3800B, which received certification for working with SAP HANA. Accordingly, the use of the new server allows customers to deploy S4 / HANA or SAP Business Suite platform with up to 12 TB scale, or with SAP Business Warehouse on HANA scale up to 6 TB within one server. Compared with the capabilities of the previous generation servers, the numbers have increased one and a half times, because SAP allows you to use more RAM on the server, where a more powerful processor is installed.

    Fujitsu's second Intel Skylake-based four-processor PRIMERGY RX4770 M4 server also received similar certification at the end of October. The customer can use these products not only as a ready appliance, but also as a platform for building his own hardware system using the TDI model. As for dual-processor servers based on the Intel Skylake platform, they have not yet received support from SAP, so Fujitsu plans to continue offering its customers dual-socket machines of the previous generation.


    Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX4770 M4

    Changes have also occurred in the segment of storage systems used in TDI projects. They touched certification. So, the entire line of All-Flash storage arrays, including ETERNUS AF250 and ETERNUS AF650, as well as the new storage for medium and small businesses ETERNUS DX200 S4, received certification. Thus, Fujitsu's portfolio already has a full range of storage arrays for working with SAP HANA.

    Options for co-hosting SAP HANA systems on a single server




    As more and more SAP applications begin to use SAP HANA as the main DBMS, more and more SAP HANA DBMS instances appear in the landscape and, as a result, there is a desire to combine several instances on one physical server.

    There are a number of options for hosting several systems based on SAP HANA on the same server. The first variant of MCOS involves placing several HANA variants in one instance of the operating system. Moreover, it can be both productive and unproductive systems. The next variant of MDC provides for the placement in a single HANA instance of several isolated containers for various SAP systems. The third placement option involves the use of virtual machines. Of the hypervisors on the market, SAP only supports VMware. Unfortunately, the deployment of virtual machines with SAP HANA on servers running Intel Skylake processors is not yet supported. But in the case of the servers of the previous generation, VMware support from SAP will be available without restrictions. Moreover, restrictions on the number of installed virtual machines on one server are reduced - up to 8 machines for productive systems and an unlimited number of machines for non-productive systems. All this opens up a number of new opportunities for the customer, and allows us to build fairly complex solutions.

    Separately, Fujitsu offers customers a special option for supporting HANA systems. We are talking about allocating physical partitions on the PRIMEQUEST 2800E3 and PRIMEQUEST 3800E servers (the release of which is scheduled for November this year). On an 8-processor server, you can allocate up to four isolated partitions. In fact, this means that there are four hardware independent servers in the same machine. This placement option is also supported by SAP.

    Advanced FlexFrame Orchestrator


    Updates also touched on FlexFrame for SAP Landscapes (FlexFrame Orchestrator). They are associated primarily with the release of new hardware solutions. In addition, the release of new software packages will also expand the capabilities of this product. Four new packages are currently available.

    One of these packages, called Automatic Fast High Availability for HANA System Replication, automates the process of switching from a primary server to a backup server when using HANA System Replication. The second Holistic Monitoring for SAP Basis Team package allows for advanced monitoring of not only the hardware, but also the software part of SAP systems. It provides customer IT professionals with a detailed picture of the state of infrastructure and applications. The third Connector for SAP LaMa Integration suite automates the integration of infrastructure built and managed by FlexFrame Orchestrator with SAP Landscape Management (LaMa). Thus, all the necessary settings in SAP LaMa are not done manually, but in an automated mode. Finally, the fourth Integrated and Automated Backup & Recovery is designed to integrate backup and recovery processes between SAP and the storage system itself. It allows you to automate the backup process at the snapshot level, check the integrity of copies, as well as clone SAP systems.

    A few years ago, pre-configured hardware solutions (appliance) were the only support option that third-party developers could offer for customers introducing new products based on SAP HANA or migrating to a new platform from previous generation systems. Today, this spectrum has expanded significantly. At the same time, to work with HANA, high competence of specialists is required either on the part of the customer, or on the part of the vendor or system integrator conducting this project.

    Fujitsu has both global and local competencies in choosing the most optimal equipment option and placement options for HANA-based systems. More details about all updates to Fujitsu's products for working with SAP HANA will be available at the new webinar, which is scheduled for November 2017 (follow the announcements in our blog).

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