SAP Hardware

SAP Hardware

Hardware is an essential component of a SAP system. Hardware consists of:

•   Servers (middle tier and database tier computers)
•   Disk Storage System
•   Network Gear (routers, switches etc)
•   Take Backup Units

All of these components work together to create a healthy system. Failure of even one component could halt the whole system, costing the company millions of dollars. 

All kind of systems are available in SAP hardware marketplace, from small and medium user platforms to large and highly resilient platforms.

Some large platforms are also capable of scale on the fly to meet the changing needs. 

When making a hardware purchase decision, solutions from different vendors should be compared. 

Most solutions cannot be compared as apples to apples. E.g. one solution could support the same workload as the other system but the level of scalability, availability, and reliability offered by the two systems could differ considerably. 

Spending little more money upfront could save the company tons of dollars on monthly maintenance and downtime costs.

Server Hardware

Server hardware comes in three main categories:

•  Small
•  Medium
•  High

A server can cost from a few thousand dollars to several million. Servers vary in performance as well. Main factors influencing server performance include:

• CPUs
• Speed of CPUs
•  Amount of RAM
•  Internal server architecture
•  Support for high-speed disk operations

Servers also vary in terms of configuration flexibility and adaptability.

SAP Hardware Solution

An SAP solution may utilize severs from any of the three categories. Typically high performance servers are used at database tier, while a middle tier could utilize inexpensive servers. Some businesses choose to utilize high performance machines at all tiers. Machines could be carved up into partitions or virtual machines. While other businesses might decide to go with low end hardware across the board relying on SAP's horizontal scalability.

Propriety Platforms

Most large hardware vendors use proprietary CPU (Central Processing Units) chips in their machines. Also most large vendors support only proprietary OS (Operating System)

Examples are:

•  IBM’s PowerPC chip running AIX operating system.
•  HP’s end-of-plife PA-RISC running HP-UX operating system.
•  HP’s Itanium2-based IA64 running HP-UX operating system.

You should also explore the ability of the machine to run other operating system as well. If you seek to retire SAP then you can simply use the same box internally after deploying less expensive operating system like Linux. 

For example HP's Itanium2-based IA64 also supports Linux and Windows operating systems

X64 Platforms

Late trend is investing in x64 platforms. An x64 platform is a low cost server based on Intel or AMD CPU rather than proprietary CPU. Windows based desktops and laptops that you buy from retail stores are also x64 machines. Recently x64 machines have become very powerful and now are rivalling proprietary systems in terms of high availability and visualization options. HP and Dell are big players in this market. Sun also offers bit of a choice. One time low up front cost should be a decision making criteria. Total cost through the life time of the system should be considered while making a decision.

High Availability

High availability feature is very important for an SAP system. Even if you are incurring additional charges you should consider high availability feature for SAP. High availability is an implementation of features that ensures a certain absolute degree of operational continuity. High availability features include:

•  Redundant power supplies
•  Disk array controllers (RAID) (array of disks keeps system running even if one disk fails)
•  Support for multiple network cards

Networks should be configured in a redundant fashion as well. Using dual network switches is a good example in this regards.

Disk Subsystem Hardware

Disk subsystems are enclosures for multiple disks. Disk subsystems could be used at database tier or at middle tier. Storage Area Networks (SANs) are example of most robust and high performance disk systems. Network-attached storage (NAS) is example of lesser extent disk systems. SANs and NAS devices are marketed under three categories: low-tier, mid-tier, and high-end.

Storage for SAP

Storage used with SAP system should support redundant connectivity between the storage device and the servers connected to it. This will avoid the single point of failure

RAID

RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) should be configured as well. RAID is a technology that allowed computer users to achieve high levels of storage reliability from low-cost and less reliable PC-class disk-drive components. This is achieved by arranging the devices into arrays for redundancy. RAID comes in following levels:

•   Level 0
•   Level 1
•   Level 5
•   Level 10

Different levels provide various combinations of availability, cost, and performance. 

RAID 0 is the cheapest and RAID 10 is the most expensive option.