Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Provides a technical overview of Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes

Contains SAP HANA best practices and sizing recommendations

Shows how SAP applications can be used in a hyper-converged environment

Describes the recommended Lenovo RackSwitch top-of-rack switches

Patrick Hartman Arne Wolf William Scull Mike Perks

Last update: 12 February 2019

ii Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Table of Contents

1 Introduction ............................................................................................... 1

1.1 SAP SE solutions overview ...................................................................................... 1

2 Technical overview of ThinkAgile VX ...................................................... 2

2.1 ThinkAgile VX series ................................................................................................ 2

2.2 Configurations .......................................................................................................... 2

2.3 Software components .............................................................................................. 8

2.4 SAP application landscapes ..................................................................................... 9

2.5 Data Management Network Components .............................................................. 11

2.6 Hardware management network components ....................................................... 15

2.7 Reliability and performance features ...................................................................... 16

3 SAP Business Suite sizing ..................................................................... 17

4 SAP HANA system sizing ....................................................................... 18

4.1 SAP HANA sizing example .................................................................................... 19

5 SAP HANA best practices ...................................................................... 24

5.1 SAP HANA architecture ......................................................................................... 24

5.2 ThinkAgile System Configuration ........................................................................... 25

Resources ..................................................................................................... 27

1 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

1 Introduction The intended audience for this document is technical IT architects, system administrators, and managers who are interested in executing SAP application workloads on the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes.

ThinkAgile VX provides a hyper-converged infrastructure. Hyper-converged means incorporating multiple components like compute and storage into a single entity through software. A hyper-converged infrastructure seamlessly pools compute and storage to deliver high performance for the virtual workloads and provides flexibility to combine the local storage using a distributed file system to eliminate shared storage such as SAN or NAS. These factors make the solution cost-effective without compromising performance.

The Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances can be used for all SAP applications except SAP HANA, along with the ThinkAgile VX certified nodes. Only the ThinkAgile VX 2U certified node has been specifically certified for use with the high demands of the SAP HANA database.

Chapter 2 brings a technical overview of ThinkAgile VX Series and explains why the combination of Lenovo’s servers with VMware software gives the best system performance and reliability. Chapters 3 and 4 present sizing examples for SAP Business applications and the SAP HANA database. Then, best practices using the SAP HANA database are given in chapter 5.

1.1 SAP SE solutions overview SAP Societas Europaea (SE) is a software vendor of business software. Their comprehensive solutions for business processes across all industries offer the solutions needed to run a company.

SAP SE has over 1600 products and 330 solutions which could run on ThinkAgile VX. Those can be categorized, in general, as follows:

• Enterprise Resource Planning o SAP S/4HANA® o SAP Business Suite® (ERP, SCM, PLM, CRM, SRM)

• Digital Platform o SAP HANA® database o SAP Sybase ASE® (and other databases, like Oracle®, IBM DB2®, or Microsoft SQL Server®) o SAP NetWeaver® platform (Portal, KM, BI, PI, ABAP, JAVA)

• Business Analytics o Business Intelligence with SAP BW/4HANA®

• Customer Experience o SAP C/4HANA®

2 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

2 Technical overview of ThinkAgile VX This chapter provides an overview of the ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes including the associated software, systems management, and networking.

2.1 ThinkAgile VX series Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes are designed to help you simplify the IT infrastructure, reduce costs, and accelerate time to value. These hyper-converged appliances from Lenovo combine industry-leading hyper-convergence software from VMware with Lenovo enterprise platforms. Several common uses are:

• Enterprise workloads • Server virtualization • Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)

Starting with as few as three nodes to keep your acquisition costs down, the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes are capable of immense scalability as your needs grow.

2.2 Configurations This is an overview of each of the ThinkAgile VX appliances and certified node models usable for SAP application with the exception of SAP HANA deployments.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances are available in five families that can be tailored according to your needs:

• VX 2000 Series – General purpose 1U 1-node platform optimized small and medium businesses.

• VX 3000 Series – General purpose 1U and 2U 1-node platform and 2U 4-node platform optimized for

compute-heavy applications, such as SAP application servers. The VX3520-G 2U 1-node platform is

available with GPU hardware for accelerating graphics-intensive deployments.

• VX 5000 Series – Storage dense 2U 1-node platform optimized for long-term, high-capacity storage

requirements like backups.

• VX 7000 Series – 2U 1-node platform optimized for the highest-performance workloads, such as SAP

databases (non-SAP HANA) and collaboration.

Lenovo ThinkAgile VX certified nodes are available in three families • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 1U node • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 2U node – excellently optimized and certified for use with SAP HANA • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 2U4N node

Please refer to the following tables to the differences between each of these models.

2.2.1 VX 2000 Series Specifications The ThinkAgile VX 2000 Series models are available as a 1U 1-node form factor. The VX2000 series are designed to provide optimum performance and capacity for small and medium-sized business.

3 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Small and medium-sized businesses

Model Name VX2320

Form Factor 1U

Processor Up to 2x Intel® Xeon® Platinum processors, up to 165W

Memory (2666MHz TruDDR4) Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs

GPU None

Drive Bays 4x 3.5-inch

Cache Drive Options 1x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB

Number of Disk Groups 1

Storage Options 3x 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB HDDs

Hypervisors Preloaded VMware ESXi, vSAN

2.2.2 VX 3000 Series Specifications The ThinkAgile VX 3000 Series models are available as a 1U 1-node form factor, 2U 4-node form factor and a 2U form factor with GPUs. All VX 3000 Series models are engineered for compute-heavy workloads (business applications and VDI) and are available in all-flash and hybrid models.

Compute-heavy, high-performance virtualization, and VDI

Model Name VX3320 VX3720 VX3520-G

Form Factor 1U 2U 4-Node 2U

Processor Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 165W

Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 165W

Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 125W with GPU

Memory (2666MHz TruDDR4)

Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs

Up to 1TB in 16x slots, using 64GB DIMMs; 2666MHz TruDDR4

Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs

GPU None None 1 or 2 Nvidia M10 or M60

Drive Bays 10x 2.5-inch 6x 2.5-inch 16x 2.5-inch

Cache Drive Options

1 or 2x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB

1 or 2x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB

1 or 2x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB

4 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Number of Disk Groups

1 or 2 1 to 3 1 to 4

Storage Options HDDs: 1.2TB, 1.8TB, 2.4TB

SSDs; 1.6TB, 3.84TB, 7.68TB

HDDs: 1.2TB, 1.8TB, 2.4TB

SSDs; 1.6TB, 3.84TB, 7.68TB

HDDs: 1.2TB, 1.8TB, 2.4TB

SSDs; 1.6TB, 3.84TB, 7.68TB

2.2.3 VX 5000 and VX 7000 Series Specifications The 2U 1-node Lenovo VX 5000 Series model is engineered for the storage of heavy workloads (Big Data/Analytics, email, etc.) and offers a high-capacity model. The 2U 1-node Lenovo VX 7000 Series model is engineered for high-performance workloads (for example, in-memory databases) and optimized for I/O-intensive operation.

Big Data/Analytics, email, large databases, and other high-capacity storage needs

Databases and other high-performance storage

Model Name VX5520 VX7520

Form Factor 2U

Processor Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 165W

Memory (TruDDR4)

Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs 2666MHz

Drive Bays 12x 3.5-inch 24x 2.5-inch

Number of Disk Groups

1x or 2x 1 to 4

Cache 1x or 2x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB SSDs Up to 4x 400GB, 800GB, 1600GB SSDs

Storage Options HDDs: 6x 2TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 10TB, 12TB HDDs: up to 20x 1.2, 1.8, 2.4TB SSDs: 1.6TB, 3.84TB, 7.68TB

2.2.4 VX 1U Certified Nodes Specifications The ThinkAgile VX 1U Certified Node, based on the ThinkSystem SR630, is an ideal 2-socket 1U rack server for small businesses up to large enterprises that need industry-leading reliability, management, and security, as well as maximizing performance and flexibility for future growth.

Small businesses up to large enterprises

Form Factor 1U

5 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Processor Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 205W

Memory (2666MHz TruDDR4)

Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs

GPU None

Drive Bays Up to 12 bays (including 4x AnyBay): LFF: 4x hot-swap SAS/SATA; SFF: 4x hot-swap AnyBay + 6x hot-swap SAS/SATA + 2x rear; or 8x hot-swap SAS/SATA or 10x U2.2 NVMe; plus up to 2x mirrored M.2 boot

2.2.5 VX 2U Certified Node Specifications For medium to large enterprises, and managed-cloud service providers, the VX 2U Certified Node, based on the ThinkSystem SR650, is the optimum 2U 2-socket server—the most widely used server type worldwide. It's engineered to deliver high performance with 205W CPUs, low latency NVMe drives, and high-powered GPUs.

The VX 2U Certified Node for SAP HANA is a select set of those components specifically called out for the high demands of the SAP HANA database.

Medium to large enterprises

Form Factor 2U

Processor

Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 205W

VX 2U for SAP HANA: minimum of 2x Intel Xeon Silver 4114 processors up to 205W

Memory (2666MHz TruDDR4)

Up to 3TB in 24x slots, using 128GB DIMMs

GPU

Up to 2 Nvidia M10 or M60

VX 2U for SAP HANA: not allowed

6 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Drive Bays Up to 24 hot-swap bays (including 4 or 8 AnyBay): LFF: 12x hot-swap SAS/SATA + 2x rear:; SFF: 8, 16 or 24 hot-swap SAS/SATA (up to 8x AnyBay): plus up to 2x mirrored M.2 boot (optional RAID 1)

2.2.6 VX Dense Certified Node Specifications Based on the ThinkSystem SD530, the VX Dense Certified Node consists of a modular 2U Lenovo D2 Enclosure containing up to four front-access servers (nodes). Each node, incorporating two powerful Intel Xeon processor Scalable family CPUs with up to 6 drives and 1TB RAM. The innovative design of the D2 Enclosure provides the flexibility to meet varied needs in the modern data center.

Form Factor 2U rack enclosure, 4 independent compute nodes

Processor Up to 2x Intel Xeon Platinum processors, up to 165W

Memory (2666MHz TruDDR4)

Up to 1TB in 16x slots, using 64GB DIMMs

Drive Bays Up to 24x (6x per node) hot-swap SFF SAS/SATA HDDs/SSDs; up to 8x (2x per node) hot-swap SFF NVMe SSDs

For best recipes of firmware and software, please see: datacentersupport.lenovo.com/solutions/ht505302.

Table 1: Shows the similarities and differences between ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes.

Table 1: Comparison of ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes

Feature VX Series appliances VX certified nodes

Hypervisors Preloaded VMware ESXi, vSAN

Systems Management Hardware management via Lenovo XClarity and software management through VMware vCenter and

Lenovo XClarity Integrator for VMware vCenter

License Options VMware vSphere 6 Standard, Enterprise or Enterprise Plus with Operations Management; VMware vSAN Standard, Advanced, Enterprise; HCI Kit Advanced, HCI Kit Enterprise; 3- or 5-year support subscription

Warranty Support 3- or 5-year customer replaceable unit and onsite service, next business day 9x5; optional service

upgrades

Validated and integrated hardware and firmware Yes Yes

Certified and preloaded with VMware software Yes Optional

7 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Includes VMware licenses Yes Optional

ThinkAgile Advantage Single Point of Support for quick 24/7 problem reporting and resolution

Yes Yes

Includes SAP HANA deployment services No Optional For more information about the system specifications and supported configurations, refer to the product guides for the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes based on the Intel Xeon Scalable processor. For appliances see:

• Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 2320 Series: lenovopress.com/lp0844 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 3320 Series: lenovopress.com/lp0725 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 3720 Series: lenovopress.com/lp0937 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 3520-G Series: lenovopress.com/lp0936 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 5520 Series: lenovopress.com/lp0782 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 7520 Series: lenovopress.com/lp0783

For certified nodes see:

• Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 1U node: lenovopress.com/lp0932 • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX 2U node: lenovopress.com/lp0933

o Additionally for use with SAP HANA • Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Dense Certified Node: lenovopress.com/lp0934

Figure 1: ThinkAgile VX2320

Figure 2: ThinkAgile VX3320 and VX 1U Cert Node

Figure 3: ThinkAgile VX Enclosure with 4 x VX3720/VX Dense Certified Node

8 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Figure 5: ThinkAgile VX5520

Figure 6: ThinkAgile VX7520, VX 2U Node and VX 2U Node for SAP HANA

2.3 Software components This section gives an overview of the software components used in the solution.

2.3.1 Hypervisor The ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes (generally) support the following hypervisors:

Table 2: VMware OS options

Description FC Option PN

Preloaded OS

VMware ESXi 6.0 U3 (factory installed) AXFS 01GU475

VMware ESXi 6.5 u1 (factory installed) AXFT 01GU476

VMware ESXi 6.5 u2 (factory installed) B3VW 01GU477

VMware ESXi 6.7 (factory Installed) B3VX 01GU478

The ThinkAgile VX Series appliances come standard with VMware ESXi hypervisors preloaded in the factory. This software is optional for the ThinkAgile VX Series certified nodes.

Figure 4: ThinkAgile VX3520-G

9 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

VX 2U Node for SAP HANA Special Rules:

• This node only allows the preloaded OS options of B3VW and B3VX, and the equivalent Option PN

as shown in Table 2: VMware OS options

2.3.2 Lenovo XClarity Administrator Lenovo XClarity Administrator is a centralized system management solution that helps administrators deliver infrastructure faster. This solution integrates easily with Lenovo servers, ThinkAgile VX Series appliances, certified nodes, and Flex System providing automated agent-less discovery, monitoring, firmware updates, and configuration management.

Lenovo XClarity Pro goes one step further and provides entitlement to additional functions such as XClarity Integrators for Microsoft System Center and VMware vCenter, XClarity Administrator Configuration Patterns and Service and Support. Lenovo XClarity Administrator is an optional software component and can be also used to manage firmware upgrades.

Lenovo XClarity Administrator is provided as a virtual appliance that can be quickly imported into a virtualized environment. XClarity can either be installed on a separate server or a server within a VMware vSAN cluster, providing that the hardware management network with the server xClarity Console (XCC) is routable from the server hosting the XClarity VM.

2.4 SAP application landscapes Logically, an SAP application landscape has 3 tiers: a presentation layer, a business logic or application layer, and a database layer. Scalability is key for a successful implementation of an SAP solution.

As a business grows, SAP provides scaling using 2 and 3-tier deployment architectures as follows:

• A 2-tier (also known as vertical scaling) architecture uses a single server for all SAP applications, except the presentation layer. This means that the presentation layer is one tier and the application and database layer is mapped to the second tier.

• A 3-tier (also known as horizontal scaling) architecture means that each of three logical tiers maps to an individual set of one or more physical servers.

A 2-tier architecture has the following key advantages:

• Because the application and database layers are on the same host, this architecture provides the best performance, since there is no overhead for database connections, nor network traffic, and no shadow processes.

• The 2-tier approach makes it easier to administer small installations or installations with performance demands that are not dynamic. Larger installations can also use the extra performance that can be achieved from this type of installation.

A 3-tier architecture offers the following key advantages:

• The application tier can be scaled separately from the database tier to provide both, load sharing and high availability in each tier. Short-time load peaks can be easily managed by temporarily adding

10 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

more application servers. Larger SAP application implementations typically use a 3-tier or multi-tier architecture to allow easier implementation of high availability for each component or tier.

• Separating the database layer from the application layer gives an organization the flexibility to choose the database of choice, such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, IBM DB2, SAP MaxDB, SAP Sybase ASE or SAP HANA and keep it separate from SAP application servers.

The flexibility of the SAP software enables one to decide the best approach whether that is a two, three or multi-tiered architecture.

An SAP application landscape is a group of two or more SAP systems. An SAP system consists of one or more SAP instances across one or more servers. A traditional SAP landscape may consist of one or more of the following types of SAP instances:

• Development system (DEV) • Test and Quality Assurance (QA) systems • Training system (TRN) • Pre-Production system (Pre-PPD) • Production system (PRD)

Figure 7 shows an example of a typical landscape for an SAP customer.

Figure 7: SAP customer landscape

2.4.1 Virtualization of SAP landscapes Traditionally, the SAP application tier is executed on physical servers which can be a wasteful use of physical resources. Virtualization can be applied to consolidate servers and reduce CAPEX and OPEX. Virtualization of the SAP application tiers provide all the standard benefits of virtualization including:

• Flexibility

11 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

• Load shifting • Optimized application availability • Rapid provisioning

Lenovo and their partners have conducted benchmarks with virtualization enabled to show the performance differences between a virtualized and non-virtualized SAP application system. According to the SAP Notes for VMware ESXi, the performance overhead has been measured to be 10%. These overheads should always be included when sizing a new hardware platform. An example sizing can be found in Chapter 3 SAP Business Suite sizing.

2.5 Data Management Network Components The following Lenovo 10GbE TOR switches are recommended to use in a ThinkAgile VX Series cluster for the management of the VMware vSAN data:

• Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch • Lenovo RackSwitch G8272 • Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1072T RackSwitch • Lenovo ThinkSystem NE2572 RackSwitch

Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch

The Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch (as shown in Figure 8) is a 1U rack-mount 10 Gb Ethernet switch that delivers lossless, low-latency performance with a feature-rich design that supports virtualization, Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE), high availability, and enterprise-class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality. The switch delivers line-rate, high-bandwidth switching, filtering, and traffic queuing without delaying data.

The NE1032 RackSwitch has 32x SFP+ ports that support 1 GbE and 10 GbE optical transceivers, active optical cables (AOCs), and direct attach copper (DAC) cables. The switch helps consolidate server and storage networks into a single fabric, and it is an ideal choice for virtualization, cloud, and enterprise workload solutions.

Figure 8: Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/lp0605

Lenovo RackSwitch G8272

The Lenovo RackSwitch G8272 (as shown in Figure 9) uses 10Gb SFP+ and 40Gb QSFP+ Ethernet technology and is specifically designed for the data center. It is an enterprise-class Layer 2 and Layer 3 full-featured switch that delivers line-rate, high-bandwidth switching, filtering, and traffic queuing without delaying data. Large data center-grade buffers help keep traffic moving, while the hot-swap redundant power supplies and fans (along with numerous high-availability features) help provide high availability for business-sensitive traffic.

12 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

The RackSwitch G8272 is ideal for latency-sensitive applications, such as high-performance computing clusters and financial applications. In addition to the 10 Gb Ethernet (GbE) and 40 GbE connections, the G8272 can use 1 GbE connections.

Figure 9: Lenovo RackSwitch G8272

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/tips1267

Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1072T RackSwitch

The Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1072T RackSwitch, that uses 10GBASE-T and 40 Gb QSFP+ Ethernet technology, is specifically designed for the data center. It is ideal for today's big data, cloud, and enterprise workload solutions. It is an enterprise-class Layer 2 and Layer 3 full-featured switch that delivers line-rate, high-bandwidth switching, filtering, and traffic queuing without delaying data. Large data center-grade buffers help keep traffic moving, while the hot-swap redundant power supplies and fans (along with numerous high-availability features) help provide high availability for business-sensitive traffic.

The NE1072T RackSwitch (as shown in Figure 10Figure 10) has 48x 1/10 Gb Ethernet (RJ-45) fixed ports and 6x QSFP+ ports that support 40 GbE optical transceivers, active optical cables (AOCs), and direct attach copper (DAC) cables. The QSFP+ ports can also be split out into four 10 GbE ports by using QSFP+ to 4x SFP+ DAC or active optical breakout cables.

Figure 10: Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1072T RackSwitch

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/lp0607

Lenovo ThinkSystem NE2572 RackSwitch

The Lenovo ThinkSystem NE2572 RackSwitch is designed for the data center and provides 10 Gb/25 Gb Ethernet connectivity with 40 Gb/100 Gb Ethernet upstream links. It is ideal for big data, cloud, and enterprise workload solutions. It is an enterprise-class Layer 2 and Layer 3 full-featured switch that delivers line-rate, high-bandwidth switching, filtering, and traffic queuing without delaying data. Large data center-grade buffers help keep traffic moving, while the hot-swap redundant power supplies and fans (along with numerous high-availability software features) help provide high availability for business-sensitive traffic.

The NE2572 RackSwitch (as shown in Figure 11) has 48x SFP28/SFP+ ports that support 10 GbE SFP+ and 25 GbE SFP28 optical transceivers, active optical cables (AOCs), and direct attach copper (DAC) cables. The switch also offers 6x QSFP28/QSFP+ ports that support 40 GbE QSFP+ and 100 GbE QSFP28 optical transceivers, active optical cables (AOCs), and direct attach copper (DAC) cables. The QSFP28/QSFP+ ports can also be split out into four 10 GbE (for 40 GbE QSFP+) or 25 GbE (for 100 GbE QSFP28) connections by using breakout cables.

13 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Figure 11: Lenovo ThinkSystem NE2572 RackSwitch

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/lp0608

2.5.1 VLANs It is a networking best practice to use VLANs to logically separate different kinds of network traffic. The following standard VLANs are recommended:

• Management Used for all management traffic for the hypervisor

• Storage network Used for vSAN storage traffic

The following ESXi specific VLANs are recommended:

• vSphere vMotion Used to move VMs from one server to another.

• Fault Tolerance Used to support the fault tolerance (FT) feature of vSphere.

In addition, each workload application might require one or more VLANs for its logical networks. For larger networks with many workloads, it is easy to run out of unique VLANs. In this case, VXLANs could be used.

The procedure for configuring VLANs for ThinkAgile VX Series appliances is outside of the scope of this document.

2.5.2 Redundancy It is recommended to use two top of rack (TOR) switches for redundancy in the data network. It is also recommended to use two dual-port 10Gbps network adapters for workloads that require high throughput on the network or scale-out cluster deployments. This will effectively provide two redundant, bonded links per host for 20Gbps of bandwidth per logical link. Note that by default, the bonding configuration for ThinkAgile VX Series is active/passive, but this can be changed to active/active with the proper configuration on the hypervisor host and switch side.

In order to support the logical pairing of the network adapter ports and to provide automatic failover of the switches, the Lenovo ThinkSystem NE1032 RackSwitch and G8272 support virtual link aggregation groups (VLAGs). When VLAG is enabled over the inter-switch link (ISL) trunk, it enables logical grouping of these switches. When one of the switches or the uplink from the host to the switch is lost, the connectivity is automatically maintained over the other switch.

Figure 12 and Figure 13 shows two scenarios of single port and dual-port connectivity using the Lenovo RackSwitch G8272. Note the connections into the customer switch and also the extra link between the data switches and the management switch that is required for initial setup only.

14 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Figure 13: Data network with dual adapters

In addition, the Lenovo Cloud Network Operating System (CNOS) should be used on the G8272 switches. A detailed description of the CNOS operating system and its application to the ThinkAgile VX Series

Figure 12: Data network with single adapter

15 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

deployments are provided in the following paper: Networking Guide for Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series (CNOS Switch Firmware) lenovopress.com/lp0604.

2.6 Hardware management network components The hardware management network is used for out-of-band access to ThinkAgile VX Series appliances and certified nodes via the optional Lenovo XClarity Administrator. It may also be needed to re-image an appliance. All systems management is handled in-band via Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) commands.

The dedicated xClarity Console (XCC) port on all of the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX series appliances and certified nodes need to be connected to a 1GbE TOR switch as shown in Figure 14.

2.6.1 Hardware management switches The following Lenovo 1GbE TOR switches are recommended to use in a ThinkAgile VX Series cluster:

• Lenovo RackSwitch G7028 • Lenovo RackSwitch G8052

Lenovo RackSwitch G7028

The Lenovo RackSwitch G7028 (as shown in Figure 15Figure 15) is a 1 Gb top-of-rack switch that delivers line-rate Layer 2 performance at an attractive price. G7028 has 24 10/100/1000BASE-T RJ45 ports and four 10 Gb Ethernet SFP+ ports. It typically uses only 45 W of power, which helps improve energy efficiency.

Figure 15. Lenovo RackSwitch G7028

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/tips1268.

Figure 14: IMM 1GbE management network

16 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Lenovo ThinkSystem NE0152T

The Lenovo ThinkSystem NE0152T RackSwitch (as shown in Figure 16Figure 15) is a 1U rack-mount Gigabit Ethernet switch with 10 GbE uplinks that deliver line-rate performance with a feature-rich design that supports virtualization, high availability, and enterprise-class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality in a cloud management environment.

The NE0152T RackSwitch has 48x RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet fixed ports and 4x SFP+ ports that support 1 GbE and 10 GbE optical transceivers, active optical cables (AOCs), and direct attach copper (DAC) cables. Featuring a small 1U footprint, this switch is designed for management network and access-layer deployments in data center infrastructures.

The Lenovo ThinkSystem NE0152T RackSwitch is shown in the following figure.

Figure 16: Lenovo ThinkSystem NE0152T RackSwitch

For more information, see this website: lenovopress.com/tips0965.

2.7 Reliability and performance features Reliability and excellent performance are important for any workload but particularly for hyper-converged infrastructures like ThinkAgile VX Series. These requirements are met through the following design features of VMware vSAN software combined with Lenovo Servers.

Hardware reliability

Lenovo uses the highest quality hardware components combined with firmware that is thoroughly tested. As a consequence, Lenovo servers have been rated #1 in hardware reliability for the last 3 years. This is important as it lowers the frequency of a server failure which in turn lowers OPEX.

A ThinkAgile VX appliance or certified node has redundant hardware components by including two power supplies, multiple chassis fans, two Intel CPUs, multiple memory DIMMs, multiple SSDs and HDDs, and optionally up to two dual-port network interface cards.

Hardware performance

The ThinkAgile VX Series appliances or certified nodes have been carefully designed for performance. In addition to all of the usual attributes like processors and memory, the 24 drive VX7520 uses three HBA controllers instead of the one. As a consequence, the latency is halved for some workloads that heavily utilize the cold tier. This allows higher throughput and improved transaction rates.

17 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

3 SAP Business Suite sizing SAP NetWeaver and SAP Business Suite may be run on the Lenovo ThinkAgile VX appliances and certified nodes based on the VMware ESXi validation done by VMware. The Lenovo and SAP sizing methodology is based on SAP benchmarks, information from SAP, and actual customer experiences. Lenovo uses sizing tools and customer input to approximate the system resource requirements, however, actual customer results can vary. A sizing questionnaire is used to gather the requirements that are used to estimate the hardware resources to run SAP Business Suite on Lenovo servers.

A sizing estimate approximates the hardware resources (processor, memory, and disk) that are required to support an SAP application or component implementation. This estimate provides an introductory understanding of the customer’s initial hardware requirements based on the information given. Your actual experiences vary from the sizing estimate for many reasons, including batch and reporting workloads and custom code.

Sizing the hardware requirements for each SAP implementation is an iterative process, which can be refined and repeated several times. One should always check the sizing input data and estimations during the implementation project. It is important to understand that the sizing estimate is a pre-installation effort and, therefore, only based on standard assumptions and benchmark performance data. It cannot and should not replace capacity planning for installed systems.

VMware has created an SAP community document entitled “SAP on VMware vSphere” FAQ, which describes the best practices and configuration guidance when deploying the VMware vSphere hypervisor for SAP applications. In addition, the following SAP notes should be helpful:

• SAP Note 2161991: VMware vSphere Configuration Guidelines

Additionally, the following SAP notes are useful when deploying SAP applications in a virtualized environment:

• SAP Note 1492000: General Support Statement for Virtual Environments • SAP Note 1122387: Linux: SAP Support in Virtualized Environments

18 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

4 SAP HANA system sizing VMware has created an SAP community document entitled “SAP HANA on VMware vSphere” FAQ, which describes the best practices and configuration guidance when deploying the VMware vSphere hypervisor for SAP applications. In addition, the following SAP notes should be helpful:

• SAP Note 2393917: SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 in production • SAP Note 2718982: SAP HANA on VMware vSphere and vSAN

The VX 2U Node for SAP HANA has special hardware configuration rules that must be taken into account when configuring a server for use with SAP HANA. These rules may have been described elsewhere in this guide, but are collected here for completeness sake.

Processor Rules: o Two (2) Intel Xeon Scalable Processors are required.

o Intel Xeon SP models 4xxx, 5xxx, 6xxx and 8xxx are supported starting with at least eight (8)

cores per processor

Memory Rules: o At least one (1) fully populated memory channel with twelve (12) similar TruDDR4 DIMMs is

allowed

o Memory must be added in groups of twelve (12) TruDDR4 DIMMS from Table 3:

12 × any feature code

12 × feature code AUU1 and 12 × feature codes AUNB or AUNC

12 × feature codes AUNB or AUNC and 12 × feature code AUND

24 × any feature code

Table 3: ThinkAgile VX 2U for SAP HANA Memory options Description Part

number Feature code

Quantity

RDIMMs ThinkSystem 8GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (1Rx8 1.2V) RDIMM 7X77A01301 AUU1 12 / 24 ThinkSystem 16GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (1Rx4 1.2V) RDIMM 7X77A01302 AUNB 12 / 24 ThinkSystem 16GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (2Rx8 1.2V) RDIMM 7X77A01303 AUNC 12 / 24 ThinkSystem 32GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (2Rx4 1.2V) RDIMM 7X77A01304 AUND 12 / 24 LRDIMMs ThinkSystem 64GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (4Rx4 1.2V) LRDIMM 7X77A01305 AUNE 12 / 24 3DS RDIMMs ThinkSystem 128GB TruDDR4 2666 MHz (8Rx4 1.2V) 3DS RDIMM 7X77A01307 AUNF 12 / 24

19 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Networking Rules:

o A minimum of two (2) AUAJ - Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx 2x25GbE SFP28 Adapters are

required

o Other adapters may be added up to maximum supported by the General Purpose System

GPU Rules:

o VX 2U Node for SAP HANA does not support GPUs.

Cache/Capacity Rules:

o For every one (1) NVMe cache drive, either four (4) or five (5) SAS SSD capacity drives may

be used

vSAN Disk Group Rules:

o VX 2U Node for SAP HANA requires a minimum of four (4) disk groups

Software Rules:

o VMware ESXi versions 6.5 U2 and 6.7 or higher may be used with SAP HANA applications

as shown in Table 2: VMware OS options

o All system management software FC and Option PN are allowed.

o An additional Professional Service Unit exists for installation and deployment of SAP HANA

4.1 SAP HANA sizing example In order to size a ThinkAgile VX system correctly with SAP HANA, one needs to consider various system requirements. We configure a system here to illustrate the concepts using an example customer. The customer Amanda Miles from ABC Company wants to begin her journey with S/4HANA. She already uses VMware ESXi for her company´s virtual infrastructure. Her company already uses SAP ERP on SAP HANA on a bare metal server from Lenovo. She now wants to move this physical server into a VMware vSAN hyper-converged infrastructure.

Amanda´s current SAP HANA system uses 128GB of main memory and runs on a Lenovo ThinkSystem SR950 server based on Intel Xeon SP family of processors. Using the sizing reports, Amanda determines that she requires a workload of 25,000 SAPS and a maximum of 150GB of memory to handle the current system. Her team expects a growth of 50% over the next 3 years for a total of 225GB of main memory.

Immediately, it can be determined that Amanda will require a new cluster of at least three (3) ThinkAgile VX 2U certified nodes. SAP HANA will run on two (2) of the nodes as a production VM and one for SAP HANA system replication. The third node will be used for her SAP ERP application servers. The following guidelines describe only the sizing of the productive SAP HANA database.

4.1.1 SAP based expert sizing The size of an SAP HANA VM is the result of estimating the memory, processor, storage, and network components for each instance. Additionally, any non-productive SAP HANA workload and other SAP applications need to be calculated into the total to find the appropriate Lenovo ThinkAgile VX solution size.

If possible, the easiest approach to determine the amount of processing power required is to use the SAPS value. SAPS, standing for SAP Application Performance Standard, describes a workload requirement for the CPU capacity of an SAP application and it can be calculated using the outputs of tools provided by SAP. They

20 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

enable Lenovo experts to translate the sizing results into a Lenovo configuration with the appropriate Intel Xeon processors and memory. If not, one can use various CPU and memory utilization monitoring to determine the processing power required. For each additional virtual machine (VM), you will need to add the results together to form a complete picture of the resources necessary to run SAP applications.

Memory sizing

Amanda decided at the very beginning that the estimated database size was using 225GB of virtual memory. This will be the memory required used in a single virtual machine instance running an OS, not the entire physical memory on one server. Amanda expressed the desire to use as many sockets as possible for a single instance. Amanda remembered that there are resources required for the VMware ESXi hypervisor and they must be also taken into account.

With 16GB RDIMMs, the ThinkAgile VX can be configured with a total of 384GB system memory (24 total DIMMS). The team determines that SAP HANA will run on two (2) sockets. See the following section on Processor (CPU) Sizing for more details.

VMware states that vSAN will need system resources assigned to itself and should be calculated into any overall memory considerations per node. For example, a four disk groups per host, all flash configuration uses roughly 42960 MB. Table 4: SAP HANA virtual machine memory sizing

Total Server Memory1 Minimum Available VM Memory1 Maximum Available VM Memory1

1 Socket 2 Sockets

192GB N/A* (128GB smallest HANA VM allowed)

192GB

384GB 192GB 384GB

576GB 288GB 576GB

768GB 384GB 768GB

1.5TB 768GB 1563GB

2.3TB 1152GB 2304GB

3TB 1536GB 3072GB

1 These are absolute values. Care must be taken also to include other overheads, such as that for the ESXi host, which may take up a

small part of the overall memory for each socket. See VMware KB article 2113954 for more details.

21 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Processor (CPU) sizing

Lenovo has certified using SAP HANA only on whole number of sockets which can be used for productive use. As well, no other workload may run on the socket running a productive SAP HANA instance according to the SAP documentation. This means that when using both sockets for a single SAP HANA VM, there will be no remaining sockets to be used for other purposes like SAP application servers, and other non-productive SAP HANA instances. Instead, Amanda can add other nodes into the cluster if she so desires for those applications, or create a second cluster for explicit use of those applications.

In Amanda’s example, the local team uses long-term load history to determine that she can use at least 10 cores per socket in total, so we can configure with two (2) Intel Xeon Gold 5115 10C processors.

Using guidelines from SAP, we can begin to define the processor type and sizes required. SAP recommends a minimum of eight (8) cores per socket. Since Amanda’s team was previously using the Intel Xeon Gold 5115 10C processor in her original ThinkSystem SR650 VMware based machines, she has chosen to stay with the same processor in the ThinkAgile VX 2U node.

With the initial memory sizing, and applying the SAP HANA definitions for configuring an instance, this defines a virtual machine that could run on two (2) physical sockets with an estimated total of 352GB of physical memory. The remaining memory is reserved for the VMware ESXi hypervisor.

Storage sizing

SAP has created several configuration guides for the use of SAP HANA. A Tailored Datacenter Integrated approach (or TDI) of SAP HANA uses specific rules for the storage, network and CPU to Memory ratios in order to ensure that enough raw performance is available for the SAP HANA database. Using the SAP HANA TDI guide for storage sizing, we can estimate the size of virtual SAN necessary to use with SAP HANA. For each virtual machine, the individual needs for SAP HANA should be calculated accordingly, then these can be fitted into the VMware vSAN capacity layer appropriately. This document does a very good job describing the various shares necessary for SAP HANA persistence, backup and operating system requirements for a system. We additionally recommend to increase the operating system to 128GB and have a swap space of a maximum of 32GB. While a bit larger than the recommendations from SAP SE, they allow temporary file growth and certain root file system features, like snapshots, when used with various Linux file system types.

At a minimum the ThinkAgile VX 2U Node requires a minimum of four (4) VMware vSAN disk groups (DG) where each DG is a subset of at least one (1) NVMe based cache disk (pink) and at least four (4) SAS SSD based capacity disks (blue). A maximum layout is shown in Figure 17.

22 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

As an example and using the above requirements, we calculate for each SAP HANA VM the sum of the following storage requirements:

• Storage for SAP HANA Shared, Data and Log directories.

o SAP HANA TDI guidelines requires roughly 2.5 * amount of VM memory

Example: 3 VMs each with 225GB = 2.5 * 225GB = 562.5GB

• Storage for each VMs Linux OS = 128GB

• Storage for each VMs Linux swap = 32GB

We add all individual SAP HANA VM requirements together for one server and then multiply this by 2 because VMware states to set the failures to tolerate to one (1) which implies the doubling of the storage.

Finally, we add the storage per node required together for the total raw storage required. Then an additional slack space is calculated and added to the overall computation of the needed data space and FTT multiplier. Basically, VMware vSAN monitors for any disk to be above an 80% threshold. When this value is reached, VMware vSAN starts moving the data out of that disk onto other disks. In the event that all of the disks are above 80%, then VMware vSAN will continuously try to swap data in and out of every drive, reducing thus the storage bandwidth to nothing. Hence, the recommendation from VMware has always been far away from that value, with a comfortable value set around 30% of the whole physical space to be left aside as slack space. A cluster-wide slack space of 30% additional cluster space must be added with a factor of 1.42 multiplied to the total raw space of the entire cluster.

To try to reduce this down to a formula without a growth factor, or disk format overhead we arrive at the following:

Total raw capacity = ∑vms(SAP HANA VM Shared, Data & Log + OS + swap) × 2FTT=1 × 1.42slack

Capacity = 3*(562.5 + 128 + 32) * 2 * 1.42 = 6155.7 GB ≅ 6TB

A ThinkAgile VX 2U node has 4 disk groups with each drive group having at least four (4) SAS SSD devices. At a minimum, we can use the ThinkSystem 2.5" PM1635a 400GB Mainstream SAS 12Gb Hot Swap SSD. For a cluster with four (4) nodes, this provides 25.6TB raw capacity (16×400×4) in total or more than enough for the use of the three (3) SAP HANA virtual machines in this example. Each drive group then also has one (1) ThinkSystem U.2 Intel P4600 1.6TB Mainstream NVMe PCIe3.0 x4 Hot Swap SSD to complete the VMware vSAN configuration.

Figure 17: ThinkAgile VX 2U node with disk group layout

23 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Network sizing

Running SAP HANA on ESXi requires network cards and switches that support Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) technology when using NVMe devices. Any switch described in Section 2.3 may be used for SAP HANA as they all support the RDMA over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) standard, but some additional configuration on the switch will be required (e.g. PFC parameters).

The ThinkAgile VX 2U for SAP HANA itself requires two (2) Mellanox ConnectX-4 Lx 2x25GbE SFP28 adapters that are running in Ethernet mode to achieve a redundant connection. These adapters should always be added and connected to a 10GbE or faster switch. Networking guidelines for SAP HANA are also in the SAP HANA Network Guidelines.

Essentially, setting up the networking for a ThinkAgile cluster, whether ThinkAgile VX or ThinkAgile HX, are the same – for the details, refer to the Networking Guide for Lenovo Converged HX Series Nutanix Appliances document on LenovoPress. Using the ThinkAgile Network Orchestrator, as described on LenovoPress, allows the VLAN policies to be created in VMware vCenter and pushed over to the switch CLI in an automated fashion and without the requirement for a manual network CLI action.

24 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

5 SAP HANA best practices This section describes the installation and configuration of supported Linux operating systems running SAP HANA.

5.1 SAP HANA architecture In order to deploy an instance of SAP HANA, you need to size and configure VMware ESXi hypervisor, guest, operating system, file system, and SAP HANA itself correctly. The following are the best practices and sizing guidance in order to create the most efficient use of the ThinkAgile VX system chosen.

5.1.1 ThinkAgile VX system specification For installations of SAP HANA, certain minimum and maximum values need to be considered before starting to size a VM and the entire landscape. Table 5 is derived directly from the SAP Notes 2718982, 2393917 and the Lenovo certification.

Table 5: SAP HANA limitations on VMware ESXi for vSAN

Description Maximum Minimum

Virtual Memory (vMEM) allowed 3TB 128GB

Virtual CPUs (vCPUs) allowed 56 (112 with hyper-threading) 8 (16 with hyper-threading)

Sockets / Productive SAP HANA use 2 1

Sockets / Non-SAP HANA Productive 4 1

Number of ThinkAgile VX Nodes 64 3

5.1.2 Cluster best practices Below is a list of best practices to deploying SAP HANA:

• Always plan for high availability of both SAP HANA and VMware vSAN with the following minimums o One ThinkAgile VX 2U node for SAP HANA (mandatory) o One ThinkAgile VX 2U node for VMware vSAN HA and use with SAP HANA System

Replication (mandatory) o One ThinkAgile VX 2U node for VMware vSAN HA (mandatory) o One ThinkAgile VX 2U node for VMware vCenter maintenance (highly recommended) o If the customer wishes to use workloads other than SAP HANA, other ThinkAgile VX

appliances or certified nodes may be used, but VMware must be configured so that no SAP HANA workload is run on these extra nodes

o All nodes within the cluster must confirm to the storage restrictions of SAP HANA, if SAP HANA is to be used on any node within the cluster.

• For production SAP HANA VMs o Do not place any other VM on the same socket(s) running the productive VM o Do not share resources across any VMs and the productive VM(s) o Allow only whole multiples of processor sockets (1,2 or 3) per productive VM

• For non-production SAP HANA VMs

25 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

o The same configurations for productive VMs are valid o Half socket non-productive VMs are allowed (but may not run on the same socket as a

productive SAP HANA VM) • For all other VM workloads

o Any socket not running an instance of a productive SAP HANA VM can run productive or non-productive workloads, such as SAP ERP, BW or NetWeaver.

• Turn off any VMware vSAN features that save storage impacts, such as compression, deduplication or erasure coding (EC-X), on any containers holding the SAP HANA productive data files

5.1.3 SAP HANA requirements SAP Note 2718982 provides some basic rules to set up VMware vSAN with a ThinkAgile VX node to use with SAP HANA. In addition, Lenovo provides the following best practices:

• SAP HANA demands a minimum of 128GB RAM and 8 physical cores or 16 threads per VM for any SAP HANA workload.

• The VM containing the productive SAP HANA appliance instance must use all physical cores contained on a whole number of processor sockets (1 or 2). For example, if two Intel Xeon SP 8176 processors are used, then each of the two possible VMs will contain multiples of 28 physical cores (CPUs) or, with hyper-threading, 56 virtual CPUs (vCPUs).

• The SAP HANA Storage TDI guidance and calculations for SAP HANA Data, Log, and Shared directories should be used as described in this document.

• The SAP HANA Storage TDI guide gives guidance on how to calculate the quantity of SAP HANA VMs on an HCI network with the following formula:

Network bandwidth / highest throughput KPI = number of VMs on the cluster possible.

5.2 ThinkAgile System Configuration

5.2.1 ThinkAgile UEFI Configuration For better results of your VMware vSphere ESXi installation, see the VMware Guide “SAP HANA on Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions based on VMware vSAN Guide” for the specific configuration changes necessary for SAP HANA. Those settings recommended by VMware are valid for ThinkAgile VX systems.

5.2.2 ThinkAgile Storage Configuration A ThinkAgile VX 2U node for SAP HANA must use a combination of NVMe and SSD devices for the cache and capacity layers respectively. Currently, only the ThinkSystem U.2 Intel P4600 Mainstream NVMe devices are supported for the cache layer, whilst any SSD from the family of the ThinkSystem PM1635a or PM1645 SAS 12Gb drives may be used for the capacity layer. The following configuration rules for VMware vSAN should be as followed:

vSAN Disk Group Rules:

o Each node requires a minimum of 4 disk groups

Cache/Capacity Rules:

o For each cache drive, at least 4 capacity drives are required

26 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

5.2.3 VMware vSphere Configuration For better results of your VMware vSphere ESXi installation, see the VMware Guide “SAP HANA on Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions based on VMware vSAN Guide” for the specific configuration changes necessary for SAP HANA.

5.2.4 Operating System Configuration Install the desired Linux distribution according to their installation guidelines for SAP. Apply operating system settings for SAP HANA inside the VM as recommended in SAP Note 2235581 - SAP HANA: Supported Operating Systems (SAP account required) for the Linux distribution chosen.

SAP requires that method to detect whether a SAP HANA VM runs on a certified SAP HANA HCI solution or not. VMware and SAP have created a script that can be run on the ESXi host which allows during runtime if an SAP HANA instance is running on a vSAN datastore. This script is available from Lenovo professional services.

The script, based on Python, runs every five minutes on the ESXi host. It should be installed by the Lenovo partner to the VMware ESXi before the SAP HANA VMs are created. It adds the following information to the VM configuration file.

• "guestinfo.vsan.enabled": True/False,

• "guestinfo.SDS.solution": esxi_version, this is equivalent to the vSAN release

• "guestinfo.vm_on_vsan": True/False

Prerequisites:

• Enable SSH on VMware ESXi before installing the script. Deactivate SSH after installation.

• We recommend to have identical passwords of the super user across all ESXi hosts. This may be

changed afterwards.

5.2.5 File System Configuration For better results of your VMware vSphere ESXi installation, see the VMware Guide “SAP HANA on Hyper-converged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions based on VMware vSAN Guide” for the specific configuration changes necessary for SAP HANA. Use the Linux logical volume management tool LVM to create your volumes for SAP HANA as described in the VMware guide.

5.2.6 SAP HANA configuration Apply SAP HANA settings inside the VM as recommended in SAP documentation for the version of SAP HANA you are installing. This can be found on help.sap.com/hana.

5.2.7 Check compliance It is highly recommended to work with the latest version of the system check script. You can find it in SAP Note 2533844 – Lenovo Support Tool for SAP HANA appliances. Verify all hardware requirements and basic operating system requirements using this script.

27 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Resources VMware

VMware vSphere

VMware vSphere - www.vmware.com/products/vsphere

SAP and VMware - www.vmware.com/solutions/business-critical-apps/sap-virtualization.html

SAP on VMware Best Practices Guide (2015)

Blog: SAP HANA on vSphere – Support Status and Best Practices Summary

VMware vSAN

VMware Virtual SAN - www.vmware.com/products/vsan

SAP HANA on Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) Solutions Powered by VMware vSAN™ Guide

SAP HANA and VMware vSAN HCI Guide

VMware Virtual SAN 6.0 Performance Guide

https://blogs.vmware.com/virtualblocks/2016/02/18/sap-on-virtual-san/

https://blogs.sap.com/2016/02/12/sap-on-vmware-virtual-san/

Blog: Designing vSAN Disk groups – All Flash Cache Ratio Update

Virtual SAN Software-Defined Shared Storage - Product page

VSAN Design and Sizing Guide

What's New - VMware Virtual SAN 6.2

VMware Knowledge Base Articles

VMware KB Article 2113954

VMware KB Article 55636

SAP SE

SAP Notes (Authorization required)

SAP Note 2235581 – SAP HANA: Supported Operating Systems

SAP Note 2533844 – Lenovo Support Tool for SAP HANA appliances

SAP Note 1788665 – SAP HANA Support for virtualized / partitioned (multi-tenant) environments

SAP Note 2718982 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere and vSAN

SAP Note 2393917 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 in production

SAP Note 2652670 – SAP HANA VM on VMware vSphere

SAP Note 2161991 – VMware vSphere configuration guidelines

SAP Note 2000003 – FAQ: SAP HANA

SAP Note 171356 – SAP Software on Linux: General Information

SAP Note 1552925 – Linux: High Availability Cluster Solutions

SAP Note 1501701 – Single Computing Unit Performance and Sizing

SAP Note 1612283 – Hardware Configuration Standards and Guidance

28 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

SAP Customer Network (SCN)

SAP HANA TDI Overview - https://blogs.saphana.com/2015/02/18/sap-hana-tailored-data-

center-integration-tdi-overview/

SAP HANA TDI FAQ - http://go.sap.com/documents/2016/05/e8705aae-717c-0010-82c7-

eda71af511fa.html

SAP HANA TDI Storage Guidelines - https://www.sap.com/documents/2015/03/74cdb554-5a7c-

0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.html

SAP HANA TDI Networking Guidelines - http://blogs.saphana.com/wp-

content/uploads/2015/02/SAP_HANA_Network_Requirements_whitepaper_v1-1.pdf

SAP on VMware Virtual SAN

SAP on Virtual SAN - Virtual Blog (VMware blog around VSAN for SAP and performance)

Community Blog: SAP on VMware Virtual SAN

Community Blog: SAP on VMware vSphere

Community Blog: SAP HANA on VMware vSphere

SAP Virtualization Wiki: wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/display/virtualization

29 Reference Architecture for SAP Applications using Lenovo ThinkAgile VX Series

Document History

Version 1.0 12 February 2019 Initial version

© 2019 Lenovo. All rights reserved.

Availability: Offers, prices, specifications and availability may change without notice. Lenovo is not responsible for photographic or typographical errors. Warranty: For a copy of applicable warranties, write to: Lenovo Warranty Information, 1009 Think Place, Morrisville, NC, 27560, Lenovo makes no representation or warranty regarding third party products or services. Trademarks: Lenovo, the Lenovo logo, ThinkSystem, System x, ThinkServer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lenovo. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon and Xeon Inside are registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

02-2019