SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver Support for vSphere in VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0 on Intel Xeon 6 CPUs with P-core Systems

Broadcom is pleased to announce SAP support for VMware vSphere in VMware Cloud Foundation 9 virtual machines running SAP HANA 2.0 and SAP NetWeaver–based applications on Intel Xeon Processors, including Intel’s latest generation Intel Xeon 6 with P-cores processors. See SAP note 3663150 for details.

SAP HANA Support

vSphere support in VCF 9 for SAP HANA 2.0 includes support for:

• Intel Xeon 6 with P-cores processors (Granite Rapids)
• Intel 5^th Gen Xeon Processor (Emerald Rapids)
• Intel 3^rd Gen Xeon Processor (Icelake)
• with SAP HANA VM configurations up to 4 TB of memory and up to 344 vCPUs

Validation for 2nd Gen Xeon (Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake) and 4^th Gen Xeon (Sapphire Rapids) processors supporting up to 16 TB and 960 vCPUs is currently in progress. Support for these Intel processors will be added later to SAP note 3663150 – SAP HANA on vSphere in VCF 9.

Supported SAP HANA VM Configurations on Intel Xeon 6 (Granite Rapids-SP, 2-socket host):

*Estimated vaSAPS incorporate a maximal 10% virtualization overhead and are based on benchmark 2025064

Note: Actual SAP HANA VM configurations may vary depending on the CPU core count and memory configuration used. Support for up to 4 TB per CPU socket (8 TB per 2-socket host) will require additional validation, which can be done upon request.

Support for Intel Xeon 6 with P-Cores with vSphere 8 was released at the end of September 2025 (see SAP note 3372365), enabling seamless migration from vSphere 8 environments to vSphere in VMware Cloud and vSphere Foundation 9.

Migration Guidance

The Intel Xeon 6 platform, with its support for up to 86 cores per socket and increased memory capacity and VCF 9, is an ideal choice for migrating existing virtualized or bare-metal SAP HANA systems from older SAP appliance hardware using CPU generations, such as Cascade Lake, which typically offered 0.75–1 TB per CPU, without the need for re-sizing or significant effort.

For example, a previous 4-socket server running 2^nd Gen Intel Xeon (Cascade or Cooper Lake) 4 TB SAP HANA systems, can get migrated onto a 2-socket 4 TB Intel Xeon 6 system without resizing required.

The benefits of migrating and consolidating existing virtualized or bare-metal SAP HANA systems are clear:

Basic Migration Steps

1. Verify SAP HANA VM sizing and select the appropriate Granite Rapids server configuration to avoid oversizing.
2. Add the new Granite Rapids host to your existing vSphere cluster or create a new one.
3. Shut down the SAP HANA VM and offline migrate it to the new Granite Rapids host.
4. Upgrade the VM hardware version to at least version 21 (vSphere 8) or version 22 (vSphere 9).
5. Adjust the VM configuration to align with the new hardware topology for optimal NUMA performance (cores per socket and memory alignment).

Start the VM and validate performance and stability.

SAP NetWeaver Support

vSphere 9 for SAP NetWeaver includes full support for all SAP-supported CPU platforms running Windows Server, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) operating systems. For details, please refer to:

• SAP Note 1409608  – Virtualization on Windows
• SAP Note 1122387 – Linux: SAP Support in Virtualized Environments

What’s Planned Next

• Support for older CPU generations like 2nd Gen Xeon (Cascade Lake, Cooper Lake) and 4^th Gen Xeon (Sapphire Rapids) processors supporting up to 16 TB and 960 vCPUs
• 4-socket Xeon 6 with P-Cores host validation
• Xeon 6 with P-Cores hosts  SAP HANA HCI (vSAN 9) support
• Support for Larger memory configurations for Xeon 6 with P-Cores hosts  (>2 TB per CPU socket) upon customer demands
• Higher VM density and improved TCO by supporting more than 2 VMs per CPU socket on Xeon 6 with P-Cores hosts and vSphere in VCF 9
  

References:

• SAP note 3372365 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 8
• SAP note 3663150 – SAP HANA on vSphere in VCF 9
• SAP Note 2652670 – SAP HANA VM on VMware vSphere
• SAP Note 1409608 – Virtualization on Windows
• SAP Note 1122387 – Linux: SAP Support in virtualized environments