1© Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC MISSION- CRITICAL BUSINESS CONTINUITY FOR SAP EMC VPLEX, EMC Symmetrix VMAX, EMC VNX, VMware

1© Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.

EMC MISSION-CRITICAL BUSINESS CONTINUITY FOR SAP

EMC VPLEX, EMC Symmetrix VMAX, EMC VNX, VMware vSphere HA, Brocade Networking, Oracle RAC, SUSE Linux Enterprise

EMC Solutions Group


• Solution overview and architecture

• Solution components and configuration– EMC VPLEX Metro

– VMware vSphere

– SAP system architecture

– Oracle database

– Brocade network

– EMC storage

• Testing and validation

• Summary and conclusion

Agenda


Mission-Critical Business Continuity for SAP

• Eliminate single points of failure at all layers in environment

• Provide active/active data centers with near-zero RPOs and RTOs

Fully automatic failure handling and load balancing

Zero downtime maintenance

Simplified deployment of Oracle RAC on Extended Distance Clusters

Increased infrastructure utilization

Active/active data centers

Near-zero RTOs and RPOs

24/7 application availability

No single points of failure

Simplified high availability management


The Challenge; the Solution

The SolutionHigh availability and business

continuity

The ChallengeSAP single points of

failure


Eliminating Single Points of Failure


Solution ComponentsMission-critical business continuity for SAP ERP is delivered by combination of technologies from EMC, VMware, Oracle, SUSE, and Brocade

EMC VPLEX Metro

EMC VPLEX Witness

EMC Symmetrix VMAX and EMC VNX

Oracle RAC on Extended Distance Clusters

VMware vSphere

VMware vSphere High Availability

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, with SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension

SAP Enqueue Replication Server

Brocade MLXe core routers

Brocade DCX 8510 Backbones


Solution Architecture


Protection Layers


VPLEX Metro – Introduction

Site A Site B

Site C

VPLEXWITNESS

VPLEXCross-Cluster Connect

AccessAnywhereActive Active

• SAN-based storage federation

• Active/active data centers– ~100 km distance

• Workload rebalancing

• Near-zero RPO/RTO

• Data center migration• VPLEX High Availability

– VPLEX Witness

– VPLEX Cross-Cluster Connect


VPLEX Metro ConfigurationVPLEX logical structures

Consistency group

Virtual volume

Distributed device

Device

Extent

Storage volume


VMware Virtualization Components

vSphere 5.0

vMotion

Storage vMotion

EMC PowerPath/VE

EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI)

VMware HA

DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler)


VMware vSphere with VPLEX Metro

Cross-Cluster Connect


VMware Stretched Cluster Configuration

vCenterscreenshots


VMware HA and DRS Configuration

HA and DRS enabled for VMware stretched cluster

HA Restart Priority for SAP VMs

HA heartbeat datastores

DRS VM-VM affinity rule


EMC Virtual Storage Integrator and VPLEX

EMC VSI tab in vCenter GUI


SAP System Architecture SAP application software

– SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 IDES

– SAP NetWeaver Application Server for ABAP 7.01

– SAP Enqueue Replication Server

Operating system – SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

for SAP Applications 11 SP1– SUSE Linux Enterprise High

Availability Extension

Virtualization– SAP services on VMware virtual

machines– Oracle RAC database on physical

servers


SAP System Architecture – Design Considerations

Enqueue and message servers decoupled from Central Instance and implemented as services within ASCS instance

ERS installed as part of HA architecture to provide zero application lock loss

Two dialog instances provide redundant work processes such as dialog, background, update, spool

ASCS instance installed with virtual hostname to decouple it from VM hostname

ERS instance installed with different instance number to avoid confusion when both ASCS and ERS are under cluster control


SAP System Architecture – Design Considerations -Continued

SAP update processes configured on additional application server instances

ASCS, ERS, start, and dialog instance profiles updated with ERS configurations

SAP shared file systems stored on Oracle ACFS and mounted as NFS shares on SAP VMs – presented as highly available NFS resource managed by Oracle Clusterware

Storage for entire SAP environment encapsulated, virtualized, distributed across two sites, and made available to SAP servers through VPLEX Metro


SUSE Linux Enterprise HAE Configuration

SLES HAE protects enqueue and message servers across two cluster nodes built on VMware VMs

VMware High Availability protects the VMs

Virtual IP address, master/slave, and SAPInstance resource agents monitor and control resource availability

SAPInstance agent controls ASCS and ERS instances – configured as master/slave resource to ensure ASCS and ERS are never started on same node

VMDK partition used as SBD STONITH device – with multi-writer option configured to enable write access by multiple VMs


Oracle Database Architecture Oracle components

– Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition– Oracle ASM – Oracle ACFS– Oracle Clusterware

Single-instance database migrated to 4-node physical RAC cluster on ASM

Oracle Extended RAC Over VPLEX– Simplified management– Hosts connect only to their local VPLEX cluster– Hosts send I/O only once to the local cluster – dual writes not required– No need to deploy Oracle voting disk and Clusterware on third site– Eliminates costly host CPU cycles consumed by host-based mirroring– Protect multiple databases and/or applications as a unit


Oracle Database Configuration 4 ACFS volumes mounted across RAC cluster

TRANS, ASCS500, SAPMNT exported as NFS shares to SAP servers

Shared file systems presented as highly available NFS resource managed by Oracle Clusterware

ASM disk groups configured to reflect existing single-instance layout

ACFS volume Mount point

SAP_O_HOME /oracle/VSE/112

SAPMNT /sapmnt/VSE

USRSAPTRANS /usr/sap/trans

ASCS00 /usr/sap/VSE/ASCS00

ASM disk group

No of disks

Disk group size GB)

Redundancy

OCR 5 40 Normal

EA_SAP_ACFS 4 64 External

EA_SAP_DATA 16 2,048 External

EA_SAP_REDO 4 64 External

EA_SAP_REDOM 4 64 External

EA_SAP_FRA 4 256 External


Brocade Network Infrastructure

IP network

SAN


EMC Storage LayoutSite A – EMC Symmetrix VMAX Virtual Provisioning

Site B – EMC VNX5700• Traditional RAID groups and LUNs


Testing and Validation

Tests

SAP enqueue service process failure

SAP ASCS instance virtual machine failure

Oracle RAC node failure

Site failure (VPLEX cluster, ESXi server, network, RAC nodes)

VPLEX cluster isolation

Expected behaviorApplication continues without interruption


SAP Enqueue Service Process Failure

SAPInstance resource agent detects/reports failure.

Master/slave resource agent promotes SAPASCS1 to master (which hosts ASCS services).

Master/slave resource agent starts ERS on SAPASCS2 when it rejoins cluster.

Replicated lock table restored.

Result

• Application continues without interruption

• No administrative intervention required

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SAP ASCS Instance VM Failure

SAPASCS2 becomes unavailable from vSphere Client.

SAPInstance resource agent detects/reports failure.

VMHA restarts failed VM on surviving ESXi host.

Master/slave resource agent promotes SAPASCS1 to master (which hosts ASCS services) and starts ERS on SAPASCS2 when it rejoins cluster.

Replicated lock table restored.

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Result

• Application continues without interruption

• No administrative intervention required


Oracle RAC Node Failure

RAC node goes offline – instance VSE003 unavailable.

SAP instance work process connects to another RAC node.

• End user experiences longer transaction response time when DI work process reconnects to other RAC node.

• Uncommitted transactions rolled back at DB level to guarantee data consistency; end user receives system error message and needs to restart transaction.

• No administrative intervention required.

Result

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Environment Status Before Site Failure

• All RAC nodes running.

• VPLEX clusters available on both sites.

• ESXi servers available on both sites.

• Site A and Site B SAP virtual machines up.

Status


Site Failure

VPLEX Witness overrides consistency group detach rule so VPLEX on Site B remains available.

RAC nodes on Site B remain available.

VMHA restarts SAPASCS1 and SAPDI1 on Site B.

SLE HAE detects failure of SAPASCS1 and restarts ERS when that node rejoins cluster.

End users on SAPDI1 lose their sessions, but can log in again when it restarts on Site B. During restart, new users are directed to SAPDI2.

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VPLEX Cluster Isolation

VPLEX Witness overrides consistency group detach rule so VPLEX on Site B remains available.

RAC nodes on Site B remain available.

RAC nodes on Site A are ejected.

ESXi servers on Site A remain available.

Virtual machines SAPASCS1 and SAPDI1 remain active due to VPLEX Metro HA Cross-Cluster Connect.

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Testing and Validation

Tests

SAP enqueue service process failure

SAP ASCS instance virtual machine failure

Oracle RAC node failure

Site failure (VPLEX cluster, ESXi server, network, RAC nodes)

VPLEX cluster isolation

Observed behaviorApplication continues without interruption


Summary and Conclusion

Solution combines EMC, SAP, VMware, Oracle, SUSE, and Brocade technologies to:▪ Eliminate single points of failure at all layers in environment

▪ Provide active/active data centers with near-zero RPOs and RTOs

▪ Enable mission-critical business continuity for SAP applications

Fully automatic failure handling and load balancing

Zero downtime maintenance

Simplified deployment of Oracle RAC on Extended Distance Clusters

Increased infrastructure utilization

Active/active data centers

Near-zero RTOs and RPOs

24/7 application availability

No single points of failure

Simplified high availability management

Documents

1© Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. EMC MISSION- CRITICAL BUSINESS CONTINUITY FOR SAP EMC VPLEX, EMC Symmetrix VMAX, EMC VNX, VMware