SAP ERP and SAP Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems Solution Architecture www.vce.com SAP ERP AND SAP SYBASE ASE ON VBLOCK™ SYSTEMS SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE Version 1.0 January 2013 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 1 Copyright © 2013 VCE Company Inc. All Rights Reserved VCE believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS PROVIDED "AS IS." VCE MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND WITH RESPECT TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION, AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 2 Contents Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5 About this document ............................................................................................................... 5 Solution overview.................................................................................................................... 5 Objectives ............................................................................................................................... 6 Scope ..................................................................................................................................... 7 Audience................................................................................................................................. 7 Feedback ................................................................................................................................ 7 Technology overview............................................................................................................... 8 Solution components .............................................................................................................. 8 Architecture overview .............................................................................................................. 9 Logical layout .......................................................................................................................... 9 Physical layout .......................................................................................................................10 Hardware and software components......................................................................................10 Design considerations............................................................................................................12 Compute configuration ...........................................................................................................12 Network configuration ............................................................................................................12 Network considerations ......................................................................................................12 vSphere network configuration ...........................................................................................13 Storage design ......................................................................................................................14 Virtualization configuration .....................................................................................................16 Application configuration ........................................................................................................17 Solution validation ..................................................................................................................22 Test environment design........................................................................................................22 Sales and distribution performance test .................................................................................22 Test procedures .....................................................................................................................22 Test results ............................................................................................................................23 Summary ............................................................................................................................25 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................26 Next steps..............................................................................................................................26 APPENDIX – Description of the solution components .........................................................27 Vblock™ Systems..................................................................................................................27 Compute components ........................................................................................................27 Network components ..........................................................................................................28 Storage components ..........................................................................................................28 Virtualization components...................................................................................................28 Management components ..................................................................................................28 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 3 SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES......................................................................................................28 Sybase ASE 15.7.0.12 ...........................................................................................................29 SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2.............................................................................................29 VMware vSphere 5.0 .............................................................................................................29 VMware vCenter 5.0 ..............................................................................................................29 VMware View Client 5.0 .........................................................................................................29 VMware HA ...........................................................................................................................29 EMC Symmetrix Management Console .................................................................................30 Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition .....................................................................30 HP LoadRunner 11.0 .............................................................................................................30 References ..............................................................................................................................31 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 4 Introduction About this document IT departments need new database solutions and tools to simplify processing and database management for the increasingly complex and continuously growing volume of data encountered in today’s data centers. Faster data processing speed is required to support real-time decision making. For SAP application users, explicit support for SAP applications and single licensing agreements are also needed to streamline the implementation process and to lower costs. IT departments need systems that can handle a variety of complexities, yet can provide simplicity to configurations and data center management. Vblock Systems™ and SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database combined with SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) applications is a superb solution for these issues. This solution improves data processing in companies utilizing SAP systems, through: Scalable database technology that can handle increasing database size and complexity without requiring complex tuning and tweaking Explicit support for SAP applications Simplicity in the data center: coordinated configurations of databases and application, and easyto-manage systems Vblock Systems™ that provide scalable infrastructure with predictable application database and transaction performance characteristics Solution overview This solution architecture paper describes the key features and benefits of the solution with SAP ERP and SAP Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems. Vblock Systems are the world’s most advanced converged infrastructure. VCE represents the next evolution of IT, one focused on the next generation data center and the future of cloud computing. Vblock Systems provide a converged infrastructure system approach that data centers increasingly utilize to provide faster time to production, high end user productivity, high IT operations productivity, simplified management and IT infrastructure costs, seamless integration, solutions validation, true life cycle management, and an excellent support experience. SAP is one of the key enterprise applications in data centers and holds the largest market share. And, SAP Sybase ASE is the next generation mission critical database for high transaction applications. SAP Sybase ASE is a highly reliable database, trusted by global corporations. A report on a recent project for Bloor Research, Philip Howard’s paper Sybase ASE Total Cost of Ownership, A comparison to Oracle provides analysis from a two-part survey comparing Sybase ASE to Oracle. On the measure of total cost of ownership Sybase ASE was significantly superior to Oracle. Analysis of the study metrics found “that Sybase is less expensive or requires fewer resources than Oracle by more than 20% and, in some cases, more than 30%. As a result we would expect a clear TCO benefit for deploying Sybase ASE as opposed to Oracle.” © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 5 SAP Sybase ASE is highly optimized for SAP workloads and shows improved overall SAP application performance with lower overall TCO when compared with competitive databases for SAP workloads. In a recent project described by VMware, engineers reported that “even the most demanding Sybase ASE database workloads can be virtualized with VMware vSphere. VMware, in cooperation with SAP, conducted testing across a range of configurations to compare the performance of SAP Sybase ASE running in a virtual machine (VM) versus running directly on physical hardware. The results showed throughput on a high-transaction OLTP database running in VMs often matched that of an identical physical system.” The solution architecture utilizes a standard Vblock System 700 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K for testing and validation. The solution can also be implemented on Vblock Systems 300. This document describes the technology, architecture design considerations, and configurations used in the VCE solution validation for SAP ERP and SAP Sybase ASE with Vblock Systems. It lists the validation steps performed along with the test results and conclusions. Objectives The objectives of the solution validation project were to: Describe methods to take advantage of new features, capabilities, and services as they relate to SAP workloads, now that SAP Sybase ASE is certified for SAP Applications Demonstrate the simplicity of the SAP ERP and SAP Sybase ASE implementation due to having both Sybase and SAP applications installable from SAP, and from installation tools provided by SAP. Describe how to reduce configuration management, for example by completing the VM configuration and then saving it as a SAP installation template Conduct performance testing of SAP Sybase ASE in a SAP virtualized application environment. The performance testing was conducted with Sales and Distribution Benchmark transactions and SAP transactions to meet the following objectives: - Demonstrate the virtualized performance of SAP applications with SAP Sybase ASE database on Vblock Systems over physical performance through our performance testing results. - Demonstrate high performance of virtualized SAP Sybase ASE with SAP applications through performance testing results - Performance testing will also validate that the integrated SAP Sybase ASE database with SAP applications improves overall system efficiency by: • Improving performance to less than 2 seconds response time • Showing less than 65% CPU utilization for 1200 users © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 6 Scope The project scope covers SAP ERP application deployment with SAP Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems. Out of scope for the solution architecture is a general database implementation. Audience The solution architecture paper is intended for system administrators, network administrators, technical managers, and architects, as well as technical engineering staff, IT managers, IT planners, and other IT professionals who are evaluating, acquiring, managing, operating, or deploying SAP in a virtualized data center environment. All existing and potential customers of Vblock Systems with a current or future SAP implementation will also benefit from the information in this paper. Feedback To suggest documentation changes and provide feedback on this paper, send email to docfeedback@vce.com. Include the title of this paper, the name of the topic to which your comment applies, and your feedback. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 7 Technology overview This section contains a list of technology used in the solution. Solution components The solution uses the following hardware and software components and technologies. See the Appendix for a description of each of these products and technologies. Vblock Systems SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES Sybase ASE 15.7.0.12 SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2 VMware vSphere 5.0 VMware vCenter 5.0 VMware View Client 5.0 EMC SMC Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition HP Load Runner 11.0 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 8 Architecture overview Discussed below is the architecture that was used to validate SAP ERP and Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems 700. The following sections describe the physical layout and the logical layout of the architecture that was set up in our test environment on Vblock Systems 700. Logical layout Figure 1 shows the logical architecture of the validation environment for SAP ERP and Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems. Fig. 1 Logical architecture: SAP ERP and Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems 700 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K This architecture is virtualized on Vblock Systems 700, and includes VMware clustering: SAP Cluster: the SAP environment is installed in a VMware cluster which has three ESXi servers with VMware HA (HA) switched on. In this cluster are the SAP Central instance, four SAP Application servers, and the Sybase ASE database installed on SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2, with vSphere 5.0 on the EXSi host The performance testing platform with the Load Runner server and two Load Runner clients (Client 1, Client 2), is installed on Windows 8 R2 on vSphere 5.0 on the ESXi host © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 9 Physical layout Figure 2 shows the physical layout of the validation environment. Fig. 2 Physical architecture: SAP ERP and Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems 700 with EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K The physical architecture shows SAP ERP servers on UCS B230 M2 blade servers running as ESXi hosts on the SAP VLAN. These are part of the VMware cluster. The ERP performance test platform has its own servers. Hardware and software components The following table lists the hardware used to validate this solution. Hardware resource Description Source Vblock Systems 700 1 Local Compute Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS): Local 6 x UCS blade B230-M2, with 2 processors, 20 cores with 262 GB memory each Network 2 x Cisco MDS 9148 FC Switch 2 x Cisco 5548 Ethernet Switch Storage VMAX_0895_sp 8 x 200 GB EFD 88 x 450 GB FC 16 x 2 TB SATA Virtualization vSphere 5.0 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 10 The following table lists the software used to validate this solution. Software Quantity or type VMware vSphere 5.0 3 VMware vCenter 5.0 1 VMware View Client 5.0 1 Sybase ASE 15.7.0.12 1 SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2 4 EMC SMC 1 SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES 1 Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition 4 HP Load Runner 11.0 1 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 11 Design considerations Design considerations for this solution include: The SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES system is designed to meet the SAP Application Performance Standards (SAPS) requirements for 1200 users SAP distributed system comprises: - Sybase ASE database installed on a separate vSphere EXSi host - Central instance installed on a separate vSphere ESXi host - Four application servers installed on separate vSphere ESXi hosts Storage is provisioned using FAST for best performance Compute configuration The compute components in Vblock Systems are built on the Cisco UCS line of products. The components include one or more blade server chassis, and compute blades, IO modules, and the fabric interconnects that connect the unified fabric to the rest of the environment. In the solution validation environment, the following compute components are used: Component Quantity Cisco UCS B230-M2 4 Memory 262 GB each CPU 20 cores each Network configuration Vblock Systems network components comprise various models of Cisco Nexus and MDS storage switches. These include the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series, Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, Cisco Nexus 1000V, Cisco Catalyst 3000 Series, and the Cisco MDS 9000 Series switches. The following sections provide additional network information about the SAP ERP Sybase ASE solution including general network considerations, and a description of the vSphere network configuration. Network considerations The primary users for this solution are those with LAN/WLAN connectivity, providing low latency and high bandwidth. It is presumed that users are connecting from trusted or semi-trusted networks, rather than from the Internet. The Internet scenario is out of scope for the solution, but those aspects of the solution are more a matter of integrating with likely extant infrastructure controls, rather than requiring new ones. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 12 vSphere network configuration In this solution, the vSphere network configuration includes the Vblock Systems’ VMware Standard Switch (VSS). Although a VSS was used in the network configuration and served the purpose for this study, it is highly recommended a Virtual Distributed Switch (VDS) be used in complex production environments like SAP. The VDS simplifies VM networking by enabling you to manage the VM networking, which spans multiple vSphere hosts in a data center, as a single virtual switch from a centralized VMware vCenter Server through a vSphere client interface. In addition to supporting Private VLANs (PVLANs), the VDS also provides the ability to shape both inbound and outbound network traffic. With the vCenter Server management user interface, VSS can easily be migrated to VDS in a non-disruptive manner. For additional information, see the following VMware paper: VMware vSphere Distributed Switch Best Practices In this solution, all network interfaces on the vSphere servers use 10-GbE connections. All VMs are assigned static IP addresses, which is the best practice for SAP installations. The screenshot below shows the standard switch configuration in the vCenter Server. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 13 The following table describes where the networking components are used. Networking component Use Vblock_data_2270 VM port group for all SAP systems Management network Used for all vSphere host management networks Vblock_esx_vmotion Used for all vSphere host vMotion networks Storage design Vblock Systems 700, the system used for this solution, has the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K series as the storage platform. The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K series are high-end storage systems built for the virtual data center. Designed for reliability, availability, and scalability, the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K has specialized engines, each of which includes two redundant director modules that provide parallel access and replicated copies of all critical data. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 14 The EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K offers the following software components: Component Description EMC Symmetrix Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools (FAST VP) Enables your business to optimize system performance while reducing cost. FAST VP optimizes array performance across drive types (Flash, SATA, and fibre channel) and across all engines in the array. Tiering is automatically optimized by dynamically allocating and relocating application workloads based on defined policies. FAST VP non-disruptively moves workloads across storage types, optimizing the overall system performance. EMC Symmetrix Virtual Provisioning Virtual Provisioning, based on thin provisioning, is the ability to present an application with more capacity than is physically allocated in the storage array. The physical storage is then allocated to the application as needed from the shared pool of capacity. This lowers cost of ownership by reducing initial over-allocation of storage capacity and reducing labor costs by simplifying data layout and eliminating the steps required to accommodate capacity growth. Vblock 700LX storage is designed for a 100% virtual provisioned environment. EMC Enginuity EMC Enginuity is the storage operating environment for the EMC Symmetrix VMAX 10K. It delivers performance, array tiering, availability, and data integrity. EMC Symmetrix Management Console (SMC) and EMC Symmetrix Performance Analyzer (SPA) These applications simplify management and provide advanced monitoring capabilities for Symmetrix environments. EMC SMC is a browser-based graphical interface for device creation and management on Symmetrix arrays. EMC SPA is an automated monitoring and trending tool launched through EMC SMC. It assists in long-term planning, diagnostic drill-down to identify performance issues and their root causes, and real-time monitoring. Storage best practices are followed to size the SAP Sybase ASE. Below is the storage configuration set up for the database storage. The storage sizing is done based on the SAPS requirement of the database. Database storage sizing Drive Type EFD FC SATA FAST POLICY 10% 70% 20% Number of drives 8 18 16 RPM EFD 15K 7.2K RAID RAID-571 RAID-10 RAID-6+2 © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 15 Virtualization configuration Vblock Systems virtualization components include VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter Server, and VMware vSphere. For the SAP ERP and Sybase ASE solution, clustering is performed using vSphere for SAP systems. One cluster is created with three ESXi servers for the SAP environment. vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) is enabled on the management and security clusters so that it continuously monitors utilization across vSphere hosts in these clusters, and intelligently allocates available resources among VMs. It also balances computing capacity within each cluster. VMware HA HA is enabled for the management and security cluster to provide easy-to-use and effective high availability for all the management VMs in the event of physical server failure. In the case of server failure, HA restarts the affected VM on the spare server. SAP Environment Cluster Components Characteristics vSphere hosts 3 Data stores 1 for SAP Binaries, 1 for SAP SWAP, 4 for SAP Data volumes, 2 for SAP Logs. SAP VMs 6 Network 2 x 10 GB uplink connectivity for each host DRS Enabled HA Enabled Best practices parameters that are recommended by VMware and SAP are included in the VM configuration. The configuration is saved as a SAP installation template. This saves a lot of configuration time when creating additional VMs, and makes it easier to spin off new application servers. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 16 Application configuration To ease installation, SAP provides a wizard. SAP ERP systems are installed with the distributed system option using SAP installer as per the SAP installation guide. As shown in the selected installation steps, the fact that ASE is SAP’s proprietary software brings simplicity to the installation. Both the database installation and the SAP application installation can be done with SAP software, eliminating the need to perform each installation as a completely separate process. Here is the sequence of selected installation steps. Note: Not all of the installation steps are shown in this document. Global Host Preparation: 1. Start the SAP Installer. 2. Select Enhancement Package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0 SAP Application server ABAPSybase ASEDistributed SystemGlobal Host Preparation. 3. Provide the system inputs for the system number, SAP SID, sapmnt location, and so forth. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 17 Database instance installation: 1. Select Enhancement Package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0SAP Application server ABAPSybase ASE Distributed System Database Instance. 2. Provide all the inputs for the SAP installer to continue the database instance installation. 3. Enter the configuration parameters for the Sybase ASE database as shown in the below screenshot. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 18 4. Enter the database server ports as shown. 5. After all parameters are entered, continue execution of the database instance installation. The SAP database instance installation is completed as shown. Central instance installation: 1. Select Enhancement Package 6 for SAP ERP 6.0 SAP Application server ABAP Sybase ASE Distributed System Central Instance. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 19 2. Enter the SAP system parameters as shown below. 3. After all the parameters are entered, continue with the execution of the central instance installation. The SAP central instance installation is completed as shown below. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 20 SAP system logon using SAP GUI: After the successful installation of the SAP System, users can login to the system using SAP GUI. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 21 Solution validation To test the solution’s performance, Sales and Distribution (SD) Benchmark Transactions were run in the SAP ERP and Sybase ASE environment. Average dialog/transaction response times in milliseconds were measured. The SD Transactions test is one of the most CPU-consuming and memory-demanding benchmarks available and has become a de-facto standard for SAP's platform partners, and in the ERP environment. Test environment design The test environment used is described in the above sections of this paper. Sales and distribution performance test The objective for the SD performance test was to run the test with 1200 Dialog Users (1000 Concurrent) and show that the Average Dialog Response Time was less than 2 seconds. Test procedures The SD transactions cover a sell-from-stock scenario that includes a customer order creation, the corresponding delivery with subsequent goods movement, and creation of the invoice. SAP transactions were used to perform these business transactions. After the SAP business transactions were completed, the SAP monitoring transactions were run. During the performance test, a defined sequence of business transactions were performed as shown in the table below. To avoid data-locking situations, each benchmark user had unique master data, such as material, vendor, or customer master data. Performance order SAP transaction Transaction description 1 VA01 Create an order with five line items 2 VL01N Create a delivery for this order 3 VA03 Display the customer order 4 VL02N Change the delivery (VL02N) and post goods issue 5 VA05 List 40 Orders for one sold-to party 6 VF01 Create an invoice 1. The above SAP business transactions were performed. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 22 2. Next, the SAP monitoring transactions were performed, as listed in the following table: Performance order SAP monitoring transaction Transaction description 1 AL08 To monitor user distribution in application servers and central instance execute this transaction. 2 SM21 & ST22 To view runtime errors during volume testing execute these transactions. 3 SM66 To monitor all RFC. 4 ST03N To monitor dialog and report user steps executed after volume testing. Note: This transaction was a crucial transaction as it helped to calculate the volume of transactions done in the entire testing. Test results The performance test was run against the test environment using LoadRunner. The number of users was ramped up gradually until 1000 user concurrency was obtained (1200 users total), and then the test was continued under steady load for an hour. Response time measurements were taken during the steady state. The dialog transaction response times for the SD transactions were captured. The expected results were less than 2 seconds. The actual average response time results for each of the transactions is below 1 second. Transaction Response Time Response Time (sec) Transaction Response Time (sec) 0.98 0.96 0.94 0.92 0.9 0.88 0.86 0.84 Response Time Business Transactions © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 23 Transactions - CPU and memory Utilization The test environment comprised three application servers. The 1200 User load was distributed evenly across the application servers. For 1200 users, the Average CPU utilization and memory utilization for the application servers were each expected to be less than 65%. The graph below shows the Average CPU and memory utilization results achieved for the application servers are better than expected: Average CPU utilization is 55% Memory utilization is 38% Utilization (%) CPU, Memory Utilization 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 CPU Memory Sales transactions are distribution transactions that are very light, and not in the storage subsystem, as these transactions are meant to be CPU-intensive and memory-intensive. The storage array utilization was very low. SAP Sybase ASE Database on SAP ERP - CPU and Memory Utilization Performance for the SAP Sybase ASE database hosting the SAP ERP is excellent, showing even less CPU and memory utilization, as plotted in the graph below. Utilization (%) CPU, Memory Utilization 40 30 20 10 CPU 0 Memory Time © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 24 Summary The SD benchmark is one of the most CPU consuming and memory-demanding benchmarks available and has become a de-facto standard for SAP's platform partners, and in the ERP environment. The test objective was to show that transactions run in less than 2 seconds. The actual results achieved show that each response time is less than 1 second, a superior performance. In addition, the average CPU utilization and memory utilization on the servers was lower than the expected 65%, with actual results at just 55% and 38%. And, at close to 30%, the utilization was even lower on the SAP Sybase ASE database hosting SAP ERP in this system. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 25 Conclusion Running SAP ERP with Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems is an optimized solution. Customers who are running SAP ERP with another database can confidently migrate to Sybase ASE on Vblock Systems to take advantage of this solution. This paper meets the objectives stated earlier in the paper. It provides new configuration information and describes methods to take advantage of new features, capabilities, and services as they relate to SAP workloads. Sybase ASE is very recently certified for SAP Applications and this paper explains how to configure Sybase ASE for SAP and what to expect from it. The design and configuration sections in the paper demonstrate the simplicity of the SAP ERP and Sybase ASE implementation optimized for Vblock Systems. As shown in the selected installation steps, the fact that ASE is SAP’s proprietary software brings simplicity to the installation. Both the database installation and the SAP application installation can be done with SAP software, eliminating the need to perform each installation as a completely separate process. The SAP application and database installations together are called a “silent installation” by SAP since no user interaction is needed for the database installation. The installation is made even simpler with tools such as the installation wizard. Reduced configuration management is illustrated by including best practices parameters recommended by VMware and SAP in the VM configuration and then saving it as a SAP installation template. This reduces a lot of time with the configuration of individual VMs and makes it easier to spin off new application servers. The SD benchmark performance testing results show the high performance of virtualized SAP applications with SAP Sybase ASE database on Vblock Systems. The performance test results also demonstrate that the integrated SAP Sybase ASE database with SAP applications improves overall system efficiency: The improved performance objective of 2 seconds response time has been exceeded with our results showing less than 1 second response time The objective for results showing less than 65% CPU utilization for 1200 users in a SAP application environment was met with actual results achieved in our SAP applications running on SAP Sybase ASE with Vblock Systems showing that server average CPU utilization was only 55% and memory utilization was merely 38%. Furthermore, SAP Sybase ASE database host performance and utilization with this system showed even stronger results, with CPU utilization averages near 30% and memory utilization averaging between 25-30%. Next steps To learn more about this and other solutions, contact a VCE representative or visit www.vce.com. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 26 APPENDIX – Description of the solution components This appendix contains descriptions of all hardware and software components and technologies used in the solution: Vblock Systems SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES Sybase ASE 15.7.0.12 SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2 VMware vSphere 5.0 VMware vCenter 5.0 VMware View Client 5.0 EMC SMC Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition HP Load Runner 11.0 Vblock™ Systems VCE Vblock Systems seamlessly integrate leading compute, network and storage technologies. Through intelligent discovery, awareness and automation, Vblock Systems provide the highest levels of virtualization and application performance. Vblock Systems are unique in their ability to be managed as a single entity with a common interface that provides customers with end-to-end visibility. The Vblock System 300 is an agile and efficient data center class system, providing flexible and scalable performance. It features a high-density, compact fabric switch, tightly integrated fabric-based blade servers, and best-in-class unified storage. The Vblock System 700 is an enterprise-class mission-critical system for the world’s most demanding workloads and service levels. It includes the industry’s best director-class fabric switch, the most advanced fabric-based blade server, and the most trusted storage platform. Each Vblock System has a base configuration, which is a minimum set of compute and storage components as well as fixed network resources. Within the base configuration, certain hardware aspects can be customized. Together, the components offer balanced CPU, I/O bandwidth, and storage capacity relative to the compute and storage arrays in the system. For more information, go to http://www.vce.com. Compute components The compute components in Vblock Systems are built on the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) line of products. The individual components include one or more blade server chassis, included compute blades, I/O modules, and the fabric interconnects that connect the unified fabric to the rest of the environment. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 27 Network components The network components in Vblock Systems comprise various models of Cisco Nexus and MDS storage switches. This includes the Cisco Nexus 7000 Series, Cisco Nexus 5000 Series, Cisco Nexus 1000V, Cisco Catalyst 3000 Series, and the Cisco MDS 9000 Series Switches. Storage components Vblock Systems are built with either EMC VNX or Symmetrix VMAX-based storage arrays. The 300 series systems ship with VNX-based arrays and the 700 series systems ship with VMAX arrays. Virtualization components Virtualization components include VMware ESXi, VMware vCenter Server, and VMware vSphere. Management components All Vblock System 300 and 700 models include an Advanced Management Pod (AMP).The AMP provides a single management point for Vblock Systems that provides the following benefits: Monitors and manages Vblock System health, performance, and capacity Provides fault isolation for management Eliminates Vblock System resource overhead Provides a clear demarcation point for remote operations The AMP has two deployment options: mini-AMP and high availability (HA) AMP. The mini-AMP is an economical single-server system with reduced costs for switches and licenses and optional packages for networking, backups, and data duplication. The HA AMP is a two-server system that uses a local disk to boot VMware vSphere ESXi and shared storage for the Vblock Systems management servers. It is designed to be a highly available, out-of-band management environment. In addition to the components described above, the AMPs leverage Cisco UCS rack-mount servers, Cisco Catalyst 3000 Series Switches, and EMC storage. SAP ERP 6.0 EHP6 IDES SAP ECC 6.0 EHP6 is used to validate the solution. The SAP application is integrated ERP software. It targets business software requirements of midsize and large organizations in most industries and sectors. SAP ECC 6.0 EHP6 allows for open communication within and between all company functions, as well as with other businesses outside the firewall, due to its services oriented architecture (SOA). © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 28 Sybase ASE 15.7.0.12 SAP Sybase ASE is a high-performance relational database management system for mission-critical, data-intensive environments that provides high operational efficiency and throughput on a range of platforms. Included features are data encryption to protect from internal and external breaches; partitioning technology for better performance and easier maintenance; and, virtualization and clustering capabilities for continuous availability and efficient use of resources. In-memory database technology provides significant improvements in response time and throughput for high data volume and high concurrent user organizations. Data compression results in reduced storage costs and increased performance on increasingly large data sets. SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 SP 2 SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 is the most interoperable platform for mission-critical computing in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Service pack 2 provides greater performance, reliability and hardware support, and it supports Linux containers. It runs fast and reliably anywhere runs any application, and it runs for less: combining SUSE Linux Enterprise with industry-standard hardware lets you run mission-critical workloads for a fraction of the cost of proprietary UNIX and RISC-based servers. Since it's designed for heterogeneous, mixed IT environments, you can run it with existing hardware. VMware vSphere 5.0 VMware vSphere is the virtualization platform that provides the foundation for the private cloud. The core VMware vSphere components are the VMware ESXi Enterprise hypervisor and VMware vCenter Server for management. The VMware vSphere ESXi hypervisor runs in the Vblock Systems. VMware vCenter 5.0 As described above, vSphere 5.0 includes the VMware vCenter 5.0 for management. VMware View Client 5.0 With VMware View, desktop administrators can virtualize the operating system, applications, and user data and deliver modern desktops to users. Centralized automated management of these components adds increased control and cost savings. Business agility is improved with a flexible high performance desktop experience for users, across a variety of network conditions. VMware HA HA provides easy-to-use and cost-effective HA for applications running in VMs. In the event of physical server failure, affected VMs are automatically restarted on other production servers with spare capacity. In the case of operating system failure, HA restarts the affected VM on the same physical server. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 29 EMC Symmetrix Management Console SMC is an intuitive, web-based interface used to discover, configure, monitor, and control Symmetrix storage arrays. Solutions Enabler command line interface operations can be used in the SMC web interface. SMC provides support for support for managing local and remote replication activities. It also enables device creation and configuration, along with basic device masking. It allows organizations to reduce manual errors and accelerate routine processes, and it offers new flexibility for managing storage. Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition Microsoft Windows is a well known operating system. Windows version 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition is installed in the validation environment. HP LoadRunner 11.0 Hewlett Packard LoadRunner is an automated performance and testing product for examining system behavior and performance, while generating actual load. HP LoadRunner can simulate hundreds or thousands of concurrent users to test an application under real-life user loads, and meanwhile it collects information from key infrastructure components such as Web servers, and database servers. To determine the reasons for particular behavior, the results are analyzed in detail. LoadRunner has the following tools: Virtual User Generator (VuGen), Controller, Load Generator, and Analysis. LoadRunner supports a wide variety of application protocols, permitting LoadRunner to natively support many types of applications, including applications based on Web technologies. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 30 References SAP To read the SAP documentation on SAP Service Marketplace, see the links below. Note: To access this documentation SAP requires that you have registered and have a user id and password. Contact SAP to set up your user id. SAP Installation Guides: service.sap.com/instguides --> Installation & Upgrade Guides (left hand side menu) --> SAP Business Suite Applications --> SAP ERP 6.0 Other Sybase ASE Total Cost of Ownership, A comparison to Oracle VCE Vblock Systems Series 300 Architecture Overview Vblock Systems Series 700 Architecture Overview For additional VCE Vblock Systems platform papers for SAP, see vce.com/solutions. From the menu bar, click Products & Solutions and select SAP. VMware VMware vSphere Distributed Switch Best Practices © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved. 31 ABOUT VCE VCE, formed by Cisco and EMC with investments from VMware and Intel, accelerates the adoption of converged infrastructure and cloud-based computing models that dramatically reduce the cost of IT while improving time to market for our customers. VCE, through the Vblock Systems, delivers the industry's only fully integrated and fully virtualized cloud infrastructure system. VCE solutions are available through an extensive partner network, and cover horizontal applications, vertical industry offerings, and application development environments, allowing customers to focus on business innovation instead of integrating, validating, and managing IT infrastructure. For more information, go to http://www.vce.com. Copyright © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Vblock and the VCE logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of VCE Company, LLC and/or its affiliates in the United States or other countries. All other trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. © 2013 VCE Company, LLC. All Rights Reserved.