Using SAP with HP Virtualization and Partitioning

Example: Typical System Landscape Approach
Building on the heuristics above, an understanding of the spectrum of SAP system deployments, and
the various technologies offered by HP’s VSE, a better vision of consolidation opportunities can be
established.
In reviewing the example of SAP systems illustrated in Figure 2, some conclusions may be drawn. For
example, production SAP systems typically require dedicated resources, are likely to need more
storage and network capacity than other systems, and will benefit from being isolated as much as
possible from any potential interruptions caused by other workloads. HP’s hard partitioning lends
itself immediately to such workloads and can be co-located in the same cabinet as other hard
partitions, minimizing data center resource needs and management overhead.
Given the potential for dedicated hardware access by formal QA workloads and SAP’s CTS host
system they appear to be better suited for hardware partitioning. However, they are expected to
have low average utilization with periodic peaks in processing power demand. As a result, these
systems may be perfectly suited for deploying in HP’s virtual partitions. This allows flexibility in
allocating processing resources to the workloads while providing dedicated access to hardware
components such as network interfaces.
Systems with small processing requirements and minimal storage needs while not having stringent
performance needs are excellent candidates for hardware sharing. Accordingly, SAP systems for
evaluation, training, functional test, and development are well suited for virtual machines.
A summary of the above example is shown in Figure 4. There will almost certainly be exceptions to
the approach outlined here, but this example will be useful in initial deployments and lends itself to
agility in configuration changes that may be required.
Figure 4. Typical example of various deployments in the SAP system landscape using HP virtualization and partitioning
Production
Formal Q/A
CTS Host
Development
Development
Functional Test
Training
Evaluation
Hard Partition
Virtual Partitions
Virtual Machines
Production
Formal Q/A
CTS Host
Development
Development
Functional Test
Training
Evaluation
Hard Partition
Virtual Partitions
Virtual Machines