“SAP HANA Now Supported on VMware vSphere 5.5 for Production Scenarios” was the title of a joint press release by SAP and VMware on May 6, 2014 – which also signaled an announcement of success for SUSE. Because both companies recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) as the preferred operating system for their solutions, it is also a central element of SAP HANA on vSphere.
This new solution marked the achievement of a further milestone in the long-standing partnership between three technology leaders. VMware, SAP, and SUSE have again combined their expertise to enable customers to operate their mission-critical SAP systems even more easily and efficiently – whether on-premise or in private, hybrid, and public clouds.
Best-In-Class Linux Virtualization Solutions
VMware and SUSE have been working together since 2004 to enable companies to reap the benefits of best-in-class Linux virtualization solutions. They can support customers’ Linux-on-VMware requirements on vSphere, OpenStack, or in the VMware vCloud Air public cloud. Extensive practical experience confirms that users benefit from lower investment and operating costs, a high-availability, high-reliability IT infrastructure, fast, automated IT provisioning, and improved support.
Linux Trend in SAP Data Centers
Linux-based, virtualized data centers pay dividends for SAP users in particular. There is already a clear trend from UNIX to Linux in this area – above all to SLES. More than 10,000 SAP customers already rely on the SUSE platform to achieve cost savings as well as higher availability and system performance. These benefits are increased further still by combining the platform with VMware solutions, as demonstrated by the example of Peerless Clothing, the largest producer of men’s tailored clothing in North America. By deploying its SAP environment on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Peerless Clothing has saved at least US$700,000 compared to the cost of a UNIX solution. By virtualizing its servers with VMware, the company has also reduced its hardware by 90% and can deploy new servers in a matter of hours.
Addressing Key Issues for the Future
To maximize this potential, SAP together with VMware and SUSE is also promoting specific topics for the future, such as SAP HANA. And with considerable success. SAP also recommends SLES as the optimal operating system for SAP HANA, and since June of this year, SUSE has been providing high-availability (HA) capabilities accordingly. It is a similar picture for the partnership with VMware. The press release by SAP and VMware continued: “SAP HANA support of VMware vSphere 5.5’s virtualized environment will help further simplify and streamline data center operations for customers implementing a data center virtualization strategy.” And VMware, SAP and SUSE are working together in other areas too.At SUSECon in Orlando this year, VMware will be presenting a session on blueprinting and provisioning SAP using vCloud Automation Center and Application Director.
