Can we use vmware to install HANA?

[Former Member]

Is there any documentation you are aware of that tells if vmware is ok or not?

Maybe we can split this into two questions;

1) in production

2) in test and demo environment

Cheers

Tansu

[former_member193518]

For anyone finding this thread.  You can run HANA on VMware now.

If you buy the HANA product from someone like Dell, they can provide an appliance that is split, virtually and supported by SAP.

[Former Member]

Well thank you for your thoughts and replies to my question. I will keep this open so that you can get it off your chest

I think I would analyze this issue a bit differently; what are the involved/interested parties?

1) SAP corporate

2) HANA Hardware Vendors( IBM, HP, Dell etc.)

3) SAP Partners such as my company SITA CORP, Accenture etc

4) SAP Customers

5) SAP developer base in #1,2,3,4 and freelancers OR just in #3,4 and fl

So if the goal is make the customer happy we all have to work together.

When a customer is interested in HANA, they get the sale pitch, demos, presentations etc from #1 to #3. In real life (95% in my opinion) before customers makes a decision, they will consult to IS for skill-set & infrastructure readiness, high availability, support etc . If the HANA HW&SW are not within reach the IS will be reluctant to give a go ahead. Unlike BWA HANA is more than an appliance, you need to develop models etc. Therefore it has to be more available to SAP developer base for them to be comfortable to support it

By the way i found this press release later http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/press.epx?PressID=17747

Cheers

Tansu

[Vitaliy-R]

... 
> When a customer is interested in HANA, they get the sale pitch, demos, presentations etc from #1 to #3. In real life (95% in my opinion) before customers makes a decision, they will consult to IS for skill-set & infrastructure readiness, high availability, support etc . If the HANA HW&SW are not within reach the IS will be reluctant to give a go ahead. ...

Intuitively I would agree with you, but reality can be realy surprising. Customers are rational, are asking about these things, but then at the end they want to believe that HANA magically resolve the issues they are fighting chronically, and all SAP sales need to do is just to say "yes". And then customers just jump on it. I am not inventing - observations based on very own observations, and not single one.

And then someone need to implement and support this. I remember being approached by direct competitor at last TechEd, asking me desperately: "Our customer is implementing HANA. What should we do to support it??"

[Vitaliy-R]

Btw, I just had a look at the agenda of SAP Virtualization and Cloud Week coming to Palo Alto in April, and saw: "Run SAP HANA virtualized with Cisco UCS Service Profiles". Interesting. Anyone is going there to check what it is? Or, actually last year sessions were available for real-time online watch...

Edited by: Vitaliy Rudnytskiy on Mar 8, 2012 1:48 PM

[lbreddemann]

Hello Tansu,

one part of the high performance of HANA is that it is optimized closely towards the exact hardware platform and the setup of this hardware platform. Therefore HANA is supported only on the certified hardware and system configurations.

So the answer to both questions is: NO. HANA is not supported on VMWARE in any way.

regards,

Lars

[Vitaliy-R]

Lars, you are absolutely right from formal point of view, and indeed HANA is not certified to run on virtual systems. But interesting, that opinions about running HANA in virtual environments are different depending on who from SAP you talk to: guys from HANA product management will tell that it is not possible, but then folks from SAP virtualization/cloud organization saying that they see no reason why HANA would not perform well (even if there is some drop in performing) on virtual systems. Go figure. Cheers. -Vitaliy

[lbreddemann]

Hi Vitaliy,

just like basically all software HANA technically can be setup on virtual machines - sure, why not?

You can do that also with e.g. MacOS - do you get the same overall product experience when you run it on a ALDI PC?

Surely not.

Maybe HANA development someday comes up with a defined approach to support virtual environments, but as of know this is merely a nice wish and if you do use HANA on uncertified hardware, there simply won't be any support for it.

Regardless of the nature of the problem.

Personally I do like this approach as it allows to provide the product experience that was promised for HANA.

regards,

Lars

[Vitaliy-R]

...
> Personally I do like this approach as it allows to provide the product experience that was promised for HANA.
...

Lars, but all we need in Dev and Sandbox is an ability to write the code / model the data and then just run and debug it on little data volumes. There is no expectation of blazing fast crunch, and no disappointment if it will not be.

I know HANA db can run on Windows - I saw it at TechEd. And yet not clear for me, why it is not released for developers to do their code, unit test it, and then check the code into development server (let's say virtualized) for integration testing.

I had a feeling that SAP with HANA all focused on selling into business lines, and forgot about IT and their needs. Lack of cheap Development option is just one of the example of this.

Regards,

-Vitaliy

[esjewett]

Vitaliy,

Exactly. If SAP wants to be able to satisfy developer demand (and customer demand for competent developers and consultants), at some point I think they are going to have to offer Hana for download and move away from the cloud-hosting "sandbox" model, which is expensive and to date has not been able to satisfy developer demand. The argument that Hana will not perform to capacity is important in some situations, but not really when it comes to training and evaluating features/functionality.

Cheers,

Ethan

[lbreddemann]

Hi again,

Of course I do get the points you mentioned and I do agree - partly.

As a developer it's for sure necessary to have access to the platform you're developing for.

And from the way you mentioned this "developer demand" it all sounds as if the amount of data handled, the system performance and the general system setup won't play an important role for the solutions build.

It even sounds as all what's required would be a system that verifies the commands and behaves like a proper HANA installation - just not as super-fast as the proper HANA system.

But this isn't the case in reality.

System performance does matter in real life. In fact, for HANA it's the unique selling point at the moment.

When you're developing for HANA and performance is not your concern - then HANA is probably not the right platform to go for.

As the support guy that I rather have one HANA version done right on one platform then having the full variety of platform choices and only getting half of the fun on each and every of them.

Concerning Windows/Other platforms: as most other SAP software a cross-platform developmen process does exist just the same way as e.g. MacOS X had been co-developed on intel processors right from the start long before 10.4 came out.

Does this mean that there will be a HANA version on any other OS then Linux soon? Surely not.

Does this mean, SAP does not put all the hopes for the most important product for the next decade on one single OS platform and thus spreads risk? Yes, that's what behind here.

just my two cents (and definitively nothing of this is an official statement of SAP!),

Lars

[esjewett]

Hi Lars,

I think it's more the reality than SAP believes, and I think this sort of approach is more important than you are giving credit.

Scenario: I am a potential customer and I might want to build my application on Hana. I want to validate that this is technically possible.

Here are my options:

1. I could buy Hana, but very few companies are going to spend the time and money required for this if they haven't even verified that it will work. Sure, SAP will fix problems as I find them, but time is money and I just don't have time to deal with the SAP support organization and the project delays that result. (My view might be skewed, I am currently on the fifth revision of a note to fix a fairly basic BW DB_CONNECT problem - the high support message has been open for over 2 months. But while this is something of an outlier experience, my experience tells me that it is not all that uncommon.)

2. I can use my contacts to get temporary access to one of SAP's internal Hana systems. But will I get the sort of access I need? Will I have access for long enough? Is my proprietary data safe on this environment?

3. I can sign up for access to the developer preview system. This system is a great idea, but unfortunately access is limited and none of my data or developments are really private, so this isn't realistic for most customer validations.

So, there is not really reasonable solution available for this scenario at the moment. Here's the thing: Almost every potential Hana customer has this requirement at some point in the pre-sales process. Often, this experience will be before SAP is even in touch with the customer, and the customer will just throw up their hands and decide to go with something else.

I realize that SAP is working on solutions, but there is one truly simple solution that solves this problem and other problems beautifully: allow people to download Hana and run it (unsupported) on anything they want.

Cheers,

Ethan

[Former Member]

i couldn't let a good discussion go without a comment

Ethan/Lars,

i see merits in both points of view.

1) . SAP reselling HW for its top partners (IBM, HP, etc..) which cannot be easily replicated in your bedroom.

2). individual developers clamoring for more access to the latest technology.

how do we merge the both worlds?

i think SAP has a loyal development base which it needs to keep happy as much as it does its partners and customers, this is done not in words only. e.g. it may build a multitier access system based on certification, points, etc. this is what i would call investment into the development community.

i can also understand the internal pressure within the SAP organization to increase sales, especially for megadeals, but some of those within the community may help the sales by influencing their customers, some of which may be quite large organizations.

unfortunately, there is no easy answer. SAP may feel that by opening up more and more it sees its investement not paying off as developers get access but don't really provide anything tangible in return. some developers may feel turned off and may open up to competition that is trying to build its own equivalent of SAP's ecosystem and once they get their access somewhere else they may never come back.

in any event, i appreciate both Lars and Ethan picking up the subject as it inevitably surfaces in all SAP vs partners discussions. if i didn't mention others who are obviously interested in the outcome, it's only to protect the innocent.

now, who will answer my MDX cache questions?

[Vitaliy-R]

...
> 1) . SAP reselling HW for its top partners (IBM, HP, etc..) which cannot be easily replicated in your bedroom.
...

Minimal minor correction: SAP is not re-selling HANA hardware for any partner. Once they sell HANA license it is up to the customer which hw partner to choose. And then in turn it is up to the HANA hw partner to deliver the hardware with HANA software preinstalled.