SAP announced today that VMware vSphere is now supported and is the preferred way to virtualize SAP’s high performance HANA database. This is great news for customers of both VMware and SAP and opens new options for deployment and management of HANA. This new announcement follows the 2011 announcement by SAP and VMware that virtualization is a best practice for running SAP and that VMware is the preferred virtualization partner to deploy SAP applications for x86. It demonstrates the strong partnership between the companies and their desire to offer customers compelling solutions by supporting the combination of their leading edge software.
HANA running on vSphere can be treated and managed along with the rest of your SAP landscape using the same tools already in use. Extensive testing has been done with HANA on vSphere and it has been confirmed that HANA functions exactly the same as it does as a hardware appliance, but with the added benefits of VMware virtualization.
One of the biggest benefits of virtualizing HANA with VMware is the ability to have several smaller HANA instances all sharing a single physical server. This means that an entire HANA appliance does not have to be dedicated to a single instance, but can instead run multiple virtual HANA instances at the same time thus allowing for more flexibility. This can lead to much better utilization of existing resources and better overall efficiency.
While allowing for smaller HANA instances, vSphere 5.1 also allows for virtual machines to be scaled up to 64 virtual CPUs and 1 TB of memory. This enables virtual HANA to address a wide range of needs of customers. vSphere also allows for new HANA instances to be quickly deployed from templates. HANA deployment times can be reduced from weeks to minutes when deploying HANA as a virtual machine. It is also possible to quickly resize a HANA virtual machine with a simple setting change to adjust resource levels between different virtual machines. This allows for the resources used by HANA to be easily adjusted over time as needs change in the datacenter.
It is important to note that HANA runs on standard VMware vSphere that has not been modified or customized in any way to support HANA. This means that it is the same vSphere that VMware customers and partners are already using and will be supported and run the same way.
In order to obtain HANA on vSphere, existing HANA partners will begin offering a version of their HANA appliance that will have vSphere 5.x and a HANA virtual appliance pre-installed. Once received, additional HANA virtual machines are easy to create and deploy. This will make it extremely easy to get many initial instances of HANA up and running and speed the use and development of applications using HANA. HANA on vSphere opens many new possibilities by enabling a more flexible and still high performing leading edge database environment. Existing customers will find it compelling to leverage the same tools to manage and use HANA while taking advantage of the additional capabilities of VMware vSphere to enable rapid deployment and more efficient use of resources.
We are excited about SAP’s announcement today as this is the next phase in an ongoing evolution of virtualizing SAP environments for our joint customers!
For more information, see the press announcement , visit www.vmware.com/SAP, and visit SAP’s Events Newsroom for all of details on SAP’s announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage leading up to and during SAPPHIRE NOW + SAP TechEd. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and @SAPInMemory.
