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MattthiasWild
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
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Our new SAP internal SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA (hereafter referred to as “BW on HANA”) has a central role to play in the corporate analytics architecture, e.g. for the combined and integrated planning with BW IP and SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation.

Over the last twelve months this system was part of various Proof-of-Concepts and Ramp-Up projects, now we switch to strict change management and stable operations. But there are two construction sets left for the project team:

  • The landscape has 3-tiers for development, test and production. For adequate deployment management and aligned processes to the main internal business systems ERP and CRM we need at least 4 tiers. In this setup we add a quality system for regression testing between the test and production system.
  • The systems are still running on 1TB single node HANA appliance. This is not sufficient for ongoing operations in 2012. Not in regards to database size and not for the needed high-availability capabilities. A move to a certified scale-out infrastructure is necessary.

Certified environments for infrastructure setups with up to 8TB from various hardware vendors are available. You can get the latest appliance overview at the SAP HANA Test Drive at SAPPHIRE NOW Orlando 2012.

The new SAP internal landscape is using an infrastructure setup certified for 8TB, but starts with 2TB for the development system and 4TB for each of the other tiers. This is the sizing for the current year and we aim to do a quarterly check to be able to increase the setup in time. First to 8TB and then beyond. The following criteria’s was very important for us

  • The infrastructure concept must be designed to scale beyond the current 8TB certification, as this size wouldn’t be sufficient for a corporate system.
  • Advanced failover capabilities for the appliance to support an overall High Availability setup within one data center.
  • Full integration into standard data center processes (e.g. backup, monitoring, …) possible
  • Ready for a Disaster Tolerance setup across two data centers – even if no certification is given yet.
  • Possible SLA’s for business (e.g. Maximum Unplanned Downtime, …) on same level as with classic DB before

It is great to see that several hardware vendors are ready to support this list of requirements for their HANA appliance.

For our system the decision was made to go with a Fujitsu Scale-Out HANA solution based on PRIMERGY servers. Key features in a nutshell:

  • The HANA scale-out infrastructure is designed to have no single point of failure. This means that any failure in the infrastructure – server, storage, network - would be corrected automatically with no or at least minimal downtime.
  • If a server fails the work of the according server will be taken over by a standby node. Optionally even more than one standby node could be configured. 
  • The storage is designed for highest availability – many disks or even a storage controller can fail without stopping operations.
  • Last but not least the complete network infrastructure – NIC’s, cables, switches – is designed to cope with component failures without letting the users even realize that something is broken.

Picture courtesy: Fujitsu

The first tier (SID is BWT) is up and running on the 4TB setup since April 30 and the entire system landscape move will be completed end of June.

For the High Availability setup of the production system (SID is BWP) we will add additional application server, web dispatcher and other components

Important: Go to the latest HANA revision before the move to get maximum support for automated table distribution.

We started with HANA revision 25 and DB-export / DB-import method to move from single node to multi node. At this point in time additional reports and scripts from SAP HANA development were necessary to achieve the best distribution of tables in the target setup. In the future also backup-recovery and automated table distribution will be supported. Please check the revision notes for most current information, or contact your SAP account manager.

Tip: You can find more information for BW on HANA as well at the Experience SAP HANA site.

Get connected at SAPPHIRE in Orlando! Listen to Martin Heisig (@MTHei) at the SAP/Fujitsu Partner-Session on Monday or visit me (@MatthiasWild) at the SAP Runs SAP booth.

Best regards,

Matthias Wild - proud to be part of SAP Global IT where SAP runs SAP.