November 14, 2024 - UPDATE:  SAP Certifies KVM Virtualization for SAP HANA with SUSE SLES 15

KVM Virtualization with SUSE SLES 15 SP5 has achieved the SAP Certification for SAP HANA powered by 4th Gen Intel Xeon Processors. This initial certification covers 2S platforms and will extend to multi-VM, HA scenarios and additional scale-up options on 4S and 8S systems. Read SAP Note here.

Intel’s joint initiative with Fujitsu and SUSE uses Fujitsu FlexFrame to manage and operate SAP Landscapes on bare metal, KVM or VMWare based infrastructure. One of the key features is the seamless migration between different virtualization platforms which enables greater flexibility to SAP customers.

Supported Scenarios at launch:

• Single SAP HANA virtual machines on dedicated SAP HANA certified servers up to 2 sockets are supported. The VM may span over 1 or 2 sockets.
• The maximum size of a virtual SAP HANA instance is limited by the maximum size of a virtual machine on SUSE Virtualization KVM release, which is 2 CPUs and 4 TiB of memory for Intel Sapphire Rapids with up to 224 vCPUs. The minimum size of an SAP HANA instance in a virtual machine on SUSE KVM is 8 vCPUs based on 8 physical cores and 128 GB. An SAP HANA instance/virtual machine is sized according to the existing SAP HANA sizing guidelines and SUSE recommendations.
• OLAP workload is limited to 3 TiB (Class L workload) and 4 TiB (Class M workload).
• SAP HANA certified 2 socket Intel Sapphire Rapids processor-based configurations in scale-up configurations.

The Expanding World of Hypervisors

The hypervisor market is rapidly expanding, offering businesses many options for performance and security applications through virtualization technology. In the SAP ecosystem, virtualizing and consolidating software landscapes enables organizations to achieve significant cost savings and reduce total cost of ownership, simplifying the hardware environment, which in turn decreases data center space, power, and cooling needs, thereby enhancing service levels and business agility through dynamic resource management and live migration functionality. By pooling infrastructure resources and moving away from the traditional “one application to one server" model, companies can lower IT costs and streamline operations, reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks allowing them to focus on the tasks that matter.

Innovation in open system computing solutions further supports virtualized workloads by enabling secure, uninterrupted backup and migration, eliminating planned downtime and improving recovery from unplanned outages. Most SAP software installations are deployed on Intel processor-based servers, often spread across many four-socket or smaller servers in large enterprises. These provide the scalability and reliability needed to consolidate distributed setups into fewer, more powerful enterprise-class servers and offer resilient, and virtualized hardware infrastructure that can be leveraged to streamline SAP landscapes and efficiently clone production environments.

Navigating Subscription Costs and Collaborative Solutions

While VMware is a recognized leader in this space, Broadcom’s acquisition of VMware has in some cases led to substantial price increases which has organizations seeking alternatives for running their virtualized SAP environments, particularly SAP HANA, to avoid significant increases in operational costs.

SUSE is enhancing its KVM validation to support Intel's Sapphire Rapids platform (2 Socket, 4 Socket, 8 Socket configurations). To equip customers with a full solution that also addresses enterprise needs to manage VMs on a large scale, Intel and SUSE collaborate with Fujitsu to allow customers to leverage the Fujitsu Integrated System PRIMEFLEX for SAP Landscapes solution, providing a comprehensive management solution akin to vSphere (VMware's virtualization management platform) which transforms data centers into aggregated computing infrastructures and manages them as a unified operating environment.

Intel, SUSE, and Fujitsu’s partnership offers clients a complete package that facilitates hyperscaler transitions, addresses migration requirements, and provides a robust management framework for SAP workloads, which has been independently validated by SAP. Fujitsu’s PRIMEFLEX for SAP Landscapes streamlines the management of SAP applications and SAP HANA, enhancing agility and fostering innovation while significantly cutting infrastructure costs.

PRIMEFLEX: An Agile and Comprehensive SAP Solution

Fujitsu’s Integrated System PRIMEFLEX for SAP Landscapes is an end-to-end operating concept for service-oriented SAP infrastructure, that dynamically allocates physical and virtual servers to SAP applications as needed, significantly reducing costs across planning, implementation, operation, and change management phases. The solution's high agility allows for easy scalability of servers and applications during operation, with integrated components that include central management, high availability, and disaster recovery.

The Preferred Operating System: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the operating system of choice for Fujitsu's SAP workloads, establishing a well-established and reliable combination for SAP environments. Customers can migrate their SAP workloads, including SAP HANA, to a certified and robust platform engineered specifically for SAP deployments. This platform integrates a hypervisor alongside an enterprise-grade management solution, improving operational cost management and offering greater flexibility in selecting a hypervisor platform.

Stay Informed

Learn more by following the SUSE blog, or see more Information about the latest Intel Innovation and offerings for SAP workloads on intel.com/sap.