For SAP customers, scalability, agility, cost reduction, and a streamlined SAP software landscape are critical requirements. However, SAP landscapes are evolving rapidly with increasing need to optimize data and increase AI implementation. This, in turn, is driving SAP customers to adopt better computing solutions that address performance and efficiency requirements. Intel and SAP have a long-standing history of collaboration and co-innovation that has enabled enterprises to deploy powerful and secure applications, especially SAP instances that are purpose-built and optimized for SAP HANA. Many of the world’s largest SAP S/4 HANA systems run on Intel architecture which enables them to meet security and compliance needs and allows these SAP customers to use advanced technologies for faster, safer, and connected business processes that significantly reduce environmental impact. In May of 2023, Intel and SAP announced an extended strategic collaboration to deliver more powerful and sustainable SAP software landscapes in the cloud - focusing on scalability, agility, security, and cost performance for customers. SAP leveraged the Intel Xeon platform throughout 2024 with OEM and CSP partners to deliver its benefits to SAP customers and partners, simplifying their lives with one platform for SAP landscapes, with multiple platform choices for the best fit based on their needs. SAP runs on 4th and 5^th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors enabling customers to benefit from the gen over gen enhancements. In September of 2024, Intel launched the Intel Xeon 6 platform with new flexibility to choose between energy optimized Efficient-Cores and performance optimized Performance-Cores, both well in line with SAP performance requirements. Intel Xeon 6 for SAP with E-Cores provides an edge as it addresses the needs of SAP HANA as well as SAP’s Microservices-based BTP Platform Services towards performance and energy savings. The fact that all SAP Software onPrem or Cloud runs on Performance and Efficiency cores equally, without any modifications, enables choice, a smooth transition, and consumption of those new capabilities. As Stefan Bauerle, Senior VP, Head of Database, SAP HANA Database & Analytics at SAP, emphasizes on lowering power demands by running SAP HANA and SAP HANA Cloud on Intel® Xeon® 6 processors in early analytical workloads testing, “At SAP, we are committed to cut our emissions to 0 by 2030 together with Intel. Our collaboration with Intel extends to enhancing the energy efficiency with modern data centers including our own co-located facilities and those who share with our partners for SAP Hana cloud. With Intel Xeon 6 CPUs with efficient cores, we aim to optimize SAP Hana performance while improving energy efficiency. In the first tests with analytical workloads on SAP Hana, we were able to achieve a similar performance and scalability compared to current generations of Intel CPUs while reducing the power consumption up to 60%.” In 2024 the Intel Xeon Processor family runs SAP landscapes to help businesses boost their agility and flexibility to make better decisions. Intel-powered cloud instances are available at all regions, availability zones, and countries/territories worldwide. Various families are considered a performant and scalable platform for SAP landscapes and therefore are SAP IaaS. Details can be found at the SAP Hardware Directory here.

The Power of Choice and Flexibility with Intel Xeon Platforms at the Cloud Service Provider

Microsoft Azure families for SAP Landscapes

Azure flagship Mv3 family for SAP HANA powered by 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors offers higher resiliency & performance with up to 32TB scale-up capacity for your SAP HANA Database. Mv3 family is the State-of-the art-instances, optimized for SAP. Azure Ddsv6 and Edsv6 series on 5th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for even further improved performance per $ optimized for SAP Applications and smaller SAP HANA databases. Confidential Computing instances from the DCv5 and DCv6 family offer Intel Trust Technology for Data in Use protection for your Applications/Services and can be used for non-Production SAP HANA Landscapes and all other workloads that require confidentiality, privacy preservation and compliance with regulations.

AWS families for SAP Landscapes

AWS u7i family for SAP HANA with 4th Gen Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors for higher resiliency & performance with up to 24TB scale-up capacity for your SAP HANA Database. U7i instances are enabled with Intel Total Memory Encryption Technology that encrypts SAP HANA in Memory Data while in use. Furthermore, it provides 45% better price performance than previous u6i generation. The additional c7i and m7i family provides various options for your SAP landscapes. They are powered by 4^th Gen Intel Xeon processors that have built-in accelerators to speed up data operations.

Google Cloud families for SAP Landscapes

GCP X4 family for SAP HANA with 4^th Gen Intel Xeon offers higher resiliency & performance with up to 32TB scale-up capacity for your SAP HANA Database. Additionally, the c4 family provides various high-memory and high-performance options to support SAP Applications and SAP HANA as well. It delivers leading SAPS/$ performance and scales to 1.5TB Memory Capacity while also equipped with Google Hyperdisks. Transitioning from previous N1, N2 or C3 instances will provide significant consolidation savings and performance improvements.

Conclusion

As the businesses grow and scale, their SAP systems also need to scale, necessitating stronger IT infrastructure to operate efficiently. SAP users need to enhance their application performance to handle higher demands from end users at a reasonable price point for optimal Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) which also means finding solutions that are both affordable, and capable of delivering performance on the level required to support their growing SAP environments. SAP HANA and Intel collaboration allows running SAP Applications with Cloud Service Providers, SAP RISE as well as onPrem or in Hybrid scenarios, to respond faster, minimize delays and improve overall performance. This enables quick processing and analysis of a great deal of data, resulting in meaningful insights for enterprises and optimized hardware assets that can be used for diverse workloads from simplified AI to machine learning (ML), and IoT/edge computing.