EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP Business Suite Applications

Implementation Guide

EMC VSPEX FOR VIRTUALIZED SAP BUSINESS SUITE APPLICATIONS Enabled by EMC VNX Family

EMC VSPEX

Abstract

This Implementation Guide describes the high-level steps required to deploy an SAP system on an EMC® VSPEX® Proven Infrastructure with VMware vSphere enabled by EMC VNX®. The guide provides information on SAP systems running on Windows/SQL Server and SLES/Oracle combinations.

December 2014

2 EMC VSPEX For Virtualized SAP Business Suite Applications Enabled by EMC VNX Family Implementation Guide

Copyright © 2014 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved. Published in the USA.

Published December 2014

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EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP Business Suite Applications Enabled by EMC VNX Family Implementation Guide

Part Number H13679

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EMC Confidential Contents

3 EMC VSPEX For Virtualized SAP Business Suite Applications Enabled by EMC VNX Family


Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction 7

Purpose of this guide .................................................................................................. 8

Business value ........................................................................................................... 8

Scope ......................................................................................................................... 9

Audience .................................................................................................................... 9

Terminology.............................................................................................................. 10

Chapter 2 Before You Start 13

Overview .................................................................................................................. 14

Predeployment tasks ................................................................................................ 14

Deployment workflow ............................................................................................... 15

Deployment prerequisites ........................................................................................ 16

Planning and sizing SAP NetWeaver 7.40 ................................................................. 19

Overview .............................................................................................................. 19

Storage Pools ...................................................................................................... 19

Example............................................................................................................... 19

Essential reading ...................................................................................................... 21

VSPEX Design Guide ............................................................................................ 21

VSPEX Solution Overviews ................................................................................... 21

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guides ..................................................................... 21

Chapter 3 Solution Overview 23

Overview .................................................................................................................. 24

EMC VSPEX proven infrastructure ............................................................................. 24

Solution architecture ................................................................................................ 25

Summary of key components.................................................................................... 26

Chapter 4 Solution Implementation 29

Overview .................................................................................................................. 30

Physical setup .......................................................................................................... 30

Network implementation .......................................................................................... 30

Storage implementation ........................................................................................... 31

Overview .............................................................................................................. 31

Setting up the VNX configuration ......................................................................... 32

Provisioning storage for VMFS datastore .............................................................. 32

Contents EMC Confidential

4 EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP Business Suite Application Implementation Guide

Provisioning storage for the application pool disks .............................................. 33

ESXi and vCenter infrastructure implementation ....................................................... 35

Multipathing implementation ................................................................................... 37

SAP virtual machine implementation ........................................................................ 38

Overview .............................................................................................................. 38

Creating SAP virtual machines ............................................................................. 39

SAP System implementation ..................................................................................... 40

Overview .............................................................................................................. 40

Planning .............................................................................................................. 41

Preparation .......................................................................................................... 41

Installing a distributed SAP system ...................................................................... 42

Post-installation .................................................................................................. 43

Chapter 5 Solution Validation 45

Baseline hardware validation ................................................................................... 46

Overview .............................................................................................................. 46

Verifying ESXi functionality .................................................................................. 46

Verifying solution components redundancy ......................................................... 46

Monitoring the solution’s health .......................................................................... 47

SAP application performance validation ................................................................... 47

Overview .............................................................................................................. 47

Test environment ................................................................................................. 47

Workload profile .................................................................................................. 48

Validation procedure ........................................................................................... 49

Success criteria ................................................................................................... 50

Testing results ..................................................................................................... 50

Chapter 6 Reference Documentation 51

EMC documentation ................................................................................................. 52

Product documentation ............................................................................................ 52

SAP documentation .................................................................................................. 52

VMware documentation ............................................................................................ 52

Links ........................................................................................................................ 53

VMware website .................................................................................................. 53

Appendix A Qualification Worksheet 55

Configuration worksheet for SAP NetWeaver 7.4 ....................................................... 56

EMC Confidential Contents



Figures Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure ................................................................ 25

Figure 2. Solution architecture ........................................................................... 26

Figure 3. SAP system storage elements on a VMware vSphere 5.5 platform ....... 32

Figure 4. Create Storage Pool wizard—FAST VP enabled ..................................... 34

Figure 5. Storage Pool Properties—FAST Cache enabled ..................................... 35

Figure 6. SAP system architecture ...................................................................... 48

Figure 7. Test result: SAP system performance ................................................... 50

Tables Table 1. Terminology......................................................................................... 10

Table 2. Predeployment tasks ........................................................................... 14

Table 3. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for SAP Business Suite applications deployment process ............................................................................ 15

Table 4. Deployment prerequisites checklist ..................................................... 16

Table 5. Storage pools ...................................................................................... 19

Table 6. Example of customer evaluation: large-sized SAP production system .. 19

Table 7. Example of required resources: Large-sized SAP system ...................... 20

Table 8. Example of storage recommendations: Large-sized SAP system .......... 20

Table 9. Solution components .......................................................................... 26

Table 10. Tasks for physical setup ...................................................................... 30

Table 11. Tasks for switch and network configuration ......................................... 30

Table 12. Tasks for VNX storage array configuration ............................................ 31

Table 13. Example of additional storage layout for virtual machine OS on VNX ... 33

Table 14. Storage layout example on VNX ........................................................... 33

Table 15. Tasks for ESXi and vCenter installation and configuration .................... 36

Table 16. SAP host virtual machine installation and configuration ...................... 38

Table 17. Example of the required resources: Large-sized SAP system ................ 39

Table 18. Example of a storage recommendation: Large-sized SAP system ......... 40

Table 19. SAP host virtual machine installation and configuration ..................... 40

Table 20. Required verification tasks .................................................................. 46

Table 21. Tools to monitor the VSPEX for virtualized SAP Business Suite application solution ............................................................................ 47

Table 22. Characteristics of applied workload ..................................................... 48

Table 23. Test procedure .................................................................................... 49

Table 24. Common server information ................................................................ 56

Table 25. ESXi server information ....................................................................... 56

Table 26. Array information ................................................................................. 57

Table 27. Network infrastructure information ...................................................... 57

Contents EMC Confidential


Table 28. VLAN information ................................................................................ 57

Table 29. Service accounts ................................................................................. 58

Table 30. SAP system parameters ....................................................................... 58

EMC Confidential Chapter 1: Introduction



Chapter 1 Introduction

This chapter presents the following topics:

Purpose of this guide ................................................................................................. 8

Business value ........................................................................................................... 8

Scope ......................................................................................................................... 9

Audience .................................................................................................................... 9

Terminology ............................................................................................................. 10

Chapter 1: Introduction EMC Confidential


Purpose of this guide

EMC® VSPEX® Proven Infrastructures are optimized for virtualizing business-critical applications. VSPEX provides partners with the ability to plan and design the assets required to support SAP Business Suite applications in a virtualized environment on VSPEX Private Cloud.

The EMC VSPEX for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications architecture provides a validated system, capable of hosting virtualized SAP systems at a consistent performance level. This solution is designed to be layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud solution using a VMware vSphere virtualization layer, and uses the highly available EMC VNX® family for the storage.

The compute and network components, while vendor-definable, are designed to be redundant and are sufficiently powerful to handle the processing and data needs of the virtual machine environment.

This Implementation Guide describes how to implement an SAP environment on any VSPEX Proven Infrastructure that uses a VNX storage array. This guide applies to online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads and does not cover data warehousing workloads.

Business value

Never before has access to mission-critical data been more important to businesses competing in a rapidly changing global economy. Today, IT departments are challenged with an explosion of corporate data along with stagnant or shrinking budgets.

As the foundation of the cloud-ready information platform, SAP applications provide great availability, breakthrough insight, credible and consistent data, and productive development experience to customers. SAP applications can also quickly build solutions and extend data across on-premises cloud and public cloud backed by mission-critical confidence.

The VNX family is designed to offer a hybrid, unified storage system for VSPEX customers who need to centralize and simplify storage when transforming their IT.

Customers who want to virtualize SAP systems on a VSPEX Private Cloud will see the benefits that the Multicore optimization (MCx) VNX family brings, as this architecture distributes all data services more evenly across all the system’s cores. This means that cache management and back-end RAID management processes scale linearly and benefit greatly from the latest Intel multicore CPUs. I/O operations in VSPEX run faster and more efficiently than ever before with the new VNX family arrays.

EMC Fully Automated Storage Tiering (FAST™) is an optional feature of the VNX family that is available to VSPEX customers. EMC FAST Cache dynamically extends the storage system’s existing read/write caching capacity with flash drives to increase system-wide performance and lower total cost per IOPS. FAST Cache does this by using high-performing flash drives that are positioned between the primary cache (DRAM-based) and the hard disk drives (HDDs). This feature boosts performance of




highly transactional applications such as SAP by keeping “hot” data in cache so it is available when you need it.

VSPEX enables customers to accelerate their IT transformation with faster deployments, and simplified management, and storage provisioning. Customers can realize greater efficiency with higher application availability, increased storage utilization, and faster, leaner backups. In addition, VSPEX provides customers with flexibility of choices when selecting server and network components to address the requirements of their SAP environments.

Scope

This Implementation Guide describes the high-level steps required to deploy SAP Business Suite application environments on a VSPEX Private Cloud for VMware vSphere with an EMC VNX storage system. This guide assumes that a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure already exists in the customer environment.

The guide focuses on virtual machine layouts and infrastructure configuration pertinent to SAP system landscapes and is not intended to replace existing Installation Guides found in the SAP Marketplace.

Audience

This guide is intended for internal EMC personnel and qualified EMC VSPEX Partners, and assumes that VSPEX Partners who intend to deploy this VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications are:

Qualified by SAP to sell and implement SAP, Oracle and/or SQL Server solutions

Certified in SAP NetWeaver Technology Platform, with at least

C_TADM51_* SAP Certified Technology Associate – System Administration (Oracle)

C_TADM53_* SAP Certified Technology Associate – System Administration (SQL Server)

Qualified by EMC to sell, install, and configure the VNX family of storage systems

Certified to sell VSPEX Proven Infrastructures

Qualified to sell, install, and configure the network and server products required for VSPEX Proven Infrastructures

Readers must also have the necessary technical training and background to install and configure:

EMC VNX

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 and/or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11

Oracle 11g and/or Microsoft SQL Server 2012



SAP NetWeaver technology

This guide provides external references where applicable. EMC recommends that partners implementing this solution are familiar with these documents. For details, see Essential reading on page 21 and Chapter 6: Reference Documentation on page 51.

Terminology

Table 1 lists the terminology used in this guide

Table 1. Terminology

Term Definition

AAS SAP Additional Application Server, previously known as a Dialog instance

ASCS ABAP SAP Central Services instance, an ABAP instance of the SAP system containing the Enqueue server and message server

CIFS Common Internet File System

DRS Distributed Resource Scheduler

FAST VP Fully Automated Storage Tiering for Virtual Pools, enabling multiple storage service levels to support ViPR-driven storage-as-a-service offerings in the hybrid cloud environment

IOPS Input/output operations per second

iSCSI Internet Small Computer System Interface

LDAP Lightweight Directory Access Protocol

MCOD Multiple components in one database

NFS Network File System

NIC Network interface card

OLTP Online transaction processing, including typical applications such as data entry and retrieval transaction processing

PAS SAP Primary Application Server, the Central instance without the message and Enqueue servers (which were split off to become the ASCS in new installations)

RDBMS Relational Database Management System

SP Service Pack; (for example SP1 = Service Pack 1)

SWPM SAP Software provisioning manager

tempdb A system database used by Microsoft SQL Server as a temporary working area during processing

VMDK Virtual Machine Disk

VMFS Virtual Machine File System




Term Definition

SAP Application Server

The virtual or physical machine that contains at least one SAP Application Instance

SAP Instance An SAP installation; an Application Instance contains SAP work processes, while a Central Services Instance contains the SAP message server and other SAP services

SAP NetWeaver

The technology platform which the SAP Business Suite is based on; refers to all ABAP-based and Java-based SAP technologies or products

SAP System A combination of ASCS, PAS, DB instances, and any AAS that work together under a single SID; an SAP system may exist in one application server (Central System) or multiple (distributed) application servers

SAP System Landscape

A layout/architecture of SAP systems interconnected via transport routes. Typical implementations involve a three-system landscape (DEVQASPRD)

SAP Solutions Landscape

A layout of several SAP systems serving different functions (business modules such as CRM, FI-CO, and so on) connected through business processes and functioning as one system



EMC Confidential Chapter 2: Before You Start



Chapter 2 Before You Start


Overview .................................................................................................................. 14

Predeployment tasks ............................................................................................... 14

Deployment workflow .............................................................................................. 15

Deployment prerequisites ........................................................................................ 16

Planning and sizing SAP NetWeaver 7.40 ................................................................ 19

Essential reading ..................................................................................................... 21

Chapter 2: Before You Start EMC Confidential


Overview

This chapter provides an overview of important information you need to be aware of, documents you need to be familiar with, and tasks you need to perform before you start implementing your VSPEX for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications solution.

The EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP business Suite applications Design Guide for this solution describes how to size and design your solution and how to select the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure on which to layer SAP systems. The deployment examples in this Implementation Guide are based on the recommendations and examples in the Design Guide.

Before you deploy an SAP system on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, EMC recommends that you complete the predeployment tasks described in Table 2.

Predeployment tasks

Predeployment tasks include procedures that do not directly relate to environment installation and configuration, but whose results are needed during installation. Examples of predeployment tasks include the collection of hostnames, IP addresses, VLAN IDs, license keys, installation media, and so on. Perform these tasks before a customer visit to decrease the time required on site.

Table 2 describes the predeployment tasks for this solution.

Table 2. Predeployment tasks

Task Description Reference

Gathering documents

Gather the related documents listed in Essential reading on page 21.

These are referred to throughout this document to provide details on set-up procedures and deployment best practices for the various components of the solution.

Essential reading on page 21

Gathering tools Gather the required and optional tools for the deployment. Use Table 4 to confirm that all equipment, software, and appropriate licenses are available before the deployment process.

Deployment prerequisites on page 16





Gathering data Collect the customer-specific configuration data for networking, arrays, accounts, and so on. Enter this information into the Configuration worksheet for SAP Systems for reference during the deployment process.

Configuration worksheet for SAP NetWeaver 7.4 on page 56.

Deployment workflow

EMC recommends that you refer to the process flow in Table 3 to design and implement your VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for SAP Business Suite applications.

Table 3. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for SAP Business Suite applications deployment process

Step Action

1 Use the VSPEX for SAP Business Suite applications qualification worksheet to collect user requirements. The qualification worksheet is in the Design Guide.

2 Use the VSPEX Sizing Tool to determine the recommended VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications, based on the user requirements collected in Step 1. Refer to the Design Guide for guidance.

For more information about the VSPEX Sizing Tool, refer to the EMC VSPEX Sizing Tool portal.

Note: If the VSPEX Sizing Tool is not available, you can manually size SAP Business Suite applications using the sizing guidelines in Chapter 4 of the Design Guide.

3 Determine the final design for your VSPEX solution. Refer to the Design Guide for guidance.

Note: Ensure that all application requirements, not just the requirements for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications, are considered.

4 Select and order the right VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. Refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21 for guidance.

5 Deploy and test your VSPEX solution. Refer to this Implementation Guide.

Note: This guide describes how to implement the solution. If you already have a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure environment, you can skip the sections for the implementation steps already completed.

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Deployment prerequisites

This guide applies to VSPEX Proven Infrastructures for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications solutions with VMware and the EMC VNX family of storage systems. The example provided and carried through this guide is for a deployment on a VNX5800. The same principles and guidance applies to all other models that VSPEX Proven Infrastructures support.

Table 4 itemizes the hardware, software, and licenses required to configure the solution. For additional information, refer to the hardware and software tables in the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide listed in Essential reading on page 21.

Note: If you already have a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure environment, you can skip this section.

Table 4. Deployment prerequisites checklist

Requirement Description Version Reference notes

Hardware Physical servers: Sufficient physical server capacity to host the required number of virtual machines as recommended by the Design Guide and VSPEX Sizing Tool.

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines

VMware vSphere 5.5 servers to host virtual infrastructure servers.

Note: This requirement may be covered in the existing infrastructure.

Networking: Switch port capacity and capabilities as required by the virtual server infrastructure.

EMC VNX: Multiprotocol storage array with the required disk layout.

Note: The storage should be sufficient to support the additional storage layout for applications.

Software for VSPEX

VNX OE for block 5.33.000.5.034 EMC Online Support

VMware website

EMC Unisphere® for VNX 1.3.1.1.0034

EMC vStorage APIs for Array Integration Plug-In

Release for vSphere 5.5

EMC PowerPath®/VE (optional) 5.9

VMware ESXi 5.5

http://www.vmware.com/





VMware vCenter Server 5.5

EMC FAST™ Cache enabler (optional) N/A

EMC FAST enabler N/A

EMC Thin provisioning enabler N/A

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or 2012 R2 Standard (or higher) with latest update

OS Software SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3

SAP RDBMS - Microsoft Windows Server

2012 Standard or Enterprise edition SP1 with latest update

Database software

SAP RDBMS - Oracle Database 11.2.0.3 or higher

SAP Installation Guides

SAP Software Download Center Oracle and/or SQL Server as

appropriate Same versions as the database software

Database client software

SAP Download Manager 2.1.140 or higher

SAP Application software

SAP Software Provisioning Manager (SWPM)

1.0 or higher SAP Download Manager

SAP UC Kernel 740 SAP Installation Guides

SAP Software Download Center

SAP Note 1680045 SAP Installation Export ECC 6 SR1 EhP7 or

higher

SAP license

Note: You need an S-user account to log in to these SAP websites. Contact your SAP account manager for more information.

ERP Permanent

https://websmp105.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700000828172012

https://support.sap.com/swdc


https://support.sap.com/software/download-manager.html







Licenses Microsoft Windows Server license keys

Note: This requirement may be covered by an existing Software Assurance agreement and may be found on an existing customer Microsoft Key Management Server (KMS) (if applicable).

2008 or 2012 Standard (or higher)

SAP Support Portal License Keys

Microsoft SQL Server license key

Note: This requirement may be covered by existing infrastructure.

2012 Standard or Enterprise Edition

VMware vSphere license keys

Note: This may be covered in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure

5.5

https://support.sap.com/licensekey

https://support.sap.com/licensekey




Planning and sizing SAP NetWeaver 7.40

To plan and size your SAP Business Suite applications, follow the recommendations and VSPEX Sizing Tool proposals introduced in the Design Guide.

In this VSPEX for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications solution, we1 used the storage pool configuration as detailed in Table 5.

Table 5. Storage pools

Pool name Purpose

VSPEX private cloud pool

This is the pool where all the virtual machine OS volumes reside.

SAP file system pool The SAP file system pool stores SAP kernel, profiles, transport objects, instance related objects, and so on.

DB general pool The db general pool stores database specific objects, such as database home, binaries, archive log (oracle) and etc.

data file pool The data file pool stores the data files for the database.

Log pool The log pool stores the log files and tempdb (SQL Server) for the database.

This example is based on the large-sized SAP production system example described in the Design Guide. Complete the evaluation as shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Example of customer evaluation: large-sized SAP production system

Question Example answer

What is the workload type of this application? OLTP (default)

What is the annual growth rate (%)? 30

What is the production system SID? RP1

What is the total SAPS for the production system? 10,000

What is the size of the production system database (GB)? 1,000

Do you intend to use FAST VP for your production system? Yes

After you have received a completed qualification worksheet from the customer, and entered the answers into the VSPEX Sizing Tool, you will see results similar to those shown below:

Required resources that provide resources to calculate the number of virtual machines and their characteristics.

1 In this guide, “we” refers to the EMC Solutions engineering team that validated the solution.

Overview

Storage Pools

Example



A Storage recommendations table that lists the additional storage hardware that is required to run the OLTP workload; this is in addition to the VSPEX Private Cloud pool.

Table 7 and Table 8 are examples based on the customer information provided in Table 6. In this guide, we use the resources shown in these tables. The suggested storage layout is in addition to the VSPEX private cloud pool.

In this sizing example, we make the following assumptions:

The virtual SAPS rating supplied by the hardware vendor SAP practice is 1250 SAPS per vCPU at 65% CPU utilization. This is a hypothetical value.

DB SAPS is 4000. Customers can obtain the actual DB SAPS from SAP Quick Sizer result.

8 cores per socket. Customers can obtain the actual CPU architecture from the server vendor.

We used the assumed values in the list above with the reference documents and resources listed in the Design Guide to calculate the resources we used in this guide shown in Table 7 for the large-sized SAP system.

Table 7. Example of required resources: Large-sized SAP system

Instance Role vCPU Memory OS volume capacity

OS volume IOPS Number of virtual machines

Database

Instance

4 32 GB 100 GB Less than 25 1

Application

Instance


ASCS Instance 2 16 GB 100 GB Less than 25 1

Table 8. Example of storage recommendations: Large-sized SAP system

Recommended additional storage pools for SAP system

VSPEX private cloud pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity No. of disks

RP1 data pool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 10

RAID 1 FAST VP solid state drives

100 GB 6

RP1 log pool RAID 1/0 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 4

RP1 SAP file system RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 5

RP1 db general pool RAID 5 SAS disks 15,000 rpm 300 GB 5




Essential reading

EMC recommends that you read the following documents available from the VSPEX space in the EMC Community Network or from the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure pages on EMC.com.

The SAP Installation Guides are found in SAP Service Marketplace Installation and Upgrade Documentation and SAP Installation Guides. SAP notes are found in the SAP Support Portal. These websites all require SAP Service Marketplace (SMP) login.

If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative.

Refer to the following VSPEX Design Guide:

EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP Business Suite applications

Refer to the following VSPEX Solution Overviews:

EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: Accelerate Your Journey to Your Cloud with VMware vSphere Operations Management

Refer to the following VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guides:


VSPEX Design Guide

VSPEX Solution Overviews

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guides

https://community.emc.com/community/partner/vspex?view=overview

http://www.emc.com/platform/virtualizing-information-infrastructure/vspex.htm

http://www.emc.com/resource-library/resource-library.htm

https://service.sap.com/instguides

https://service.sap.com/instguides


https://service.sap.com/notes

https://service.sap.com/notes



EMC Confidential Chapter 3: Solution Overview



Chapter 3 Solution Overview


Overview .................................................................................................................. 24

EMC VSPEX proven infrastructure ............................................................................. 24

Solution architecture ............................................................................................... 25

Summary of key components ................................................................................... 26

Chapter 3: Solution Overview EMC Confidential


Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications and the key technologies used in this solution. This guide uses the EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for up to 1,000 virtual machines as the working example.

This VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications solution was validated using VSPEX Private Cloud running VMware virtualized SUSE Enterprise Linux and Microsoft Windows Server on EMC VNX family storage arrays to provide storage and server hardware consolidation.

The solution is layered on a VSPEX Private Cloud, which uses servers, storage, network, and SAP Business Suite application components that focus on small and midrange environments. The solution enables customers to quickly and consistently deploy a small or medium virtualized SAP Business Suite application environment in a VSPEX Private Cloud.

This solution requires the presence of SAP Solution Manager, SAP Router, Active Directory and Domain Name System. The implementation of these services is beyond the scope of this guide, but the services are prerequisites for a successful deployment.

EMC VSPEX proven infrastructure

EMC has joined forces with IT infrastructure providers to create a complete virtualization solution that accelerates the deployment of the private cloud. VSPEX enables faster deployment, greater simplicity and choice, higher efficiency, and lower risk. Validation by EMC ensures predictable performance and enables customers to select technology that uses their existing IT infrastructure while eliminating planning, sizing, and configuration burdens. VSPEX provides a virtual infrastructure for customers looking to gain the simplicity that is characteristic of truly converged infrastructures, at the same time gaining more choice in individual stack components.

VSPEX solutions are proven by EMC and packaged and sold exclusively by EMC channel partners. VSPEX provides channel partners with more opportunity, a faster sales cycle, and end-to-end enablement. By working closely together, EMC and its channel partners can now deliver infrastructure that accelerates the journey to the cloud for even more customers.

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure, as shown in Figure 1, is a modular, virtualized infrastructure validated by EMC and delivered by EMC’s VSPEX partners. VSPEX includes a virtualization layer, server, network, and EMC storage and data protection, designed by EMC to deliver reliable and predictable performance.




Figure 1. VSPEX Proven Infrastructure

VSPEX provides the flexibility to choose network, server, and virtualization technologies that fit a customer’s environment to create a complete virtualization solution. VSPEX delivers faster deployment for EMC partner customers, with greater simplicity and efficiency, more choice, and lower risk to a customer’s business.

For more information about VSPEX Proven Infrastructures, refer to the EMC VSPEX Private Cloud: VMware vSphere 5.5 for up to 1,000 Virtual Machines document.

Solution architecture

Figure 2 shows an example of the architecture that characterizes the validated infrastructure for the support of a virtualized SAP system on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure.

In this solution, all SAP instances are deployed as virtual machines on vSphere clusters. VMware vCenter Server manages configuration and monitoring details. VNX provides the back-end storage functionality. You can use any model that has been validated as part of the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. SAP Router is required for SAP Support connections.

Note: This solution applies to all VSPEX offerings on VMware.



…Computecomponents

EMC VNX series

VMware vSphere 5.5 Cluster

Network

connections

Supporting infrastructure

Storage network

Network components

Storage and backupcomponents

Hypervisor management server

SAP Router

DNS server

Active Directory Server

Windows Server 2012/SLES 11 SP3 virtual machines

VSPEX Proven Infrastructure

Network

SAP PAS,AAS SAP ASCS SAP DB Instance

Figure 2. Solution architecture

For more details, refer to the appropriate document in Essential reading on page 21.

Summary of key components

Table 9 summarizes the key components used in this solution. The Design Guide provides overviews of the individual components.

Table 9. Solution components

VSPEX layer Components

Application SAP Netweaver 7.4-based system

Microsoft Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SQL Server 2012

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 and Oracle 11g R2

Virtualization VMware vSphere 5.5

EMC Virtual Storage Integrator (VSI)




VSPEX layer Components

Compute VSPEX defines the minimum amount of compute layer resources required but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any server hardware that meets these requirements.

Network VSPEX defines the minimum number of network ports required for the solution and provides general guidance on network architecture, but enables the customer to implement the requirements using any network hardware that meets these requirements.

Storage EMC VNX

EMC PowerPath/VE



EMC Confidential Chapter 4: Solution Implementation



Chapter 4 Solution Implementation


Overview .................................................................................................................. 30

Physical setup.......................................................................................................... 30

Network implementation .......................................................................................... 30

Storage implementation .......................................................................................... 31

ESXi and vCenter infrastructure implementation ...................................................... 35

Multipathing implementation .................................................................................. 37

SAP virtual machine implementation ....................................................................... 38

Chapter 4: Solution Implementation EMC Confidential


Overview

This chapter describes the steps required to deploy an SAP environment on a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure enabled by VMware vSphere 5.5 and VNX.

Note: If you already have a VSPEX Proven Infrastructure environment, you can skip the sections for the implementation steps that you already completed.

Physical setup

This section includes information about the preparation of the solution’s physical components. After you complete the steps listed in Table 10, the new hardware components are racked, cabled, powered, and ready for network connection.

Table 10. Tasks for physical setup


Preparing network switches

Install switches in the rack and connect them to power.

Vendor installation guide

Preparing servers Install the servers in the rack and connect them to power.

Vendor installation guide

Preparing VNX Install the VNX in the rack and connect it to power.

VNX Unified Installation Guide

For details of the physical setup, refer to the appropriate VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21

Network implementation

This section describes the network infrastructure requirements that you need to support the solution architecture. Table 11 provides a summary of the tasks for switch and network configuration and references for further information.

Table 11. Tasks for switch and network configuration


Configuring the infrastructure network

Configure the storage array and host infrastructure networking as specified in the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide.

Refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21

Completing the network cabling

Connect:

Switch interconnect ports

VNX ports

ESXi server ports

Configuring the VLANs

Configure private and public VLANs as required.

Vendor switch configuration guide





Use VMXNET3 NIC

Use VMXNET3 NICs on every guest VM

VMware Knowledge Base

For details of network implementation, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

Storage implementation

This section describes how to configure the VNX storage array.

Table 12 provides a summary of the tasks for storage configuration and references for further information.

Table 12. Tasks for VNX storage array configuration


Setting up the initial VNX configuration

Configure the IP address information and other key parameters, such as DNS and Network Time Protocol (NTP), on the VNX. Getting Started with VNX

Installation Assistant for File/Unified

VNX Installation Assistant for File/Unified Worksheet

Provisioning storage for VMFS datastores on VNX

Create the VMFS datastores that host the virtual machines.

Create and provision LUNs for SAP file system, database general, data and log files.

Figure 3 shows the high-level architecture of the SAP NetWeaver ABAP-based ERP system components and storage elements validated in the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure for virtualized SAP Business Suite applications on a vSphere virtualization platform. All the storage volumes are consumed in Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK) format in a VMware virtualized environment.

Overview

http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001805



Figure 3. SAP system storage elements on a VMware vSphere 5.5 platform

Ensure that network interfaces, IP address information, and other key parameters such as DNS and Network Time Protocol (NTP) are configured on the VNX before storage provisioning.

For more information on how to configure the VNX platform, refer to the relevant document listed in Table 12.

Before you provision the storage for the VMFS datastore, follow the recommendations and VSPEX Sizing Tool proposals introduced in the Design Guide.

Before you start, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21 to provision VMFS storage for virtual machine operating system on VNX.

Table 13 shows an example of additional storage layout for an SAP system on VNX, and the VSPEX private cloud pool. For more information about storage layout recommendations and design, refer to the Design Guide.

Setting up the VNX configuration

Provisioning storage for VMFS datastore




Table 13. Example of additional storage layout for virtual machine OS on VNX

Storage pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity

Number of disks

VSPEX private cloud pool

RAID 5 (4+1) SAS 15,000 rpm 600 GB 5

RAID 1/0 (1+1) FAST VP SSD 100 GB 2

Refer to the following VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide:


Before you provision the storage, follow the recommendations and VSPEX Sizing Tool proposals introduced in the Design Guide.

Table 14 shows an example of storage pools for a SAP system on VNX. See the storage layout for this example in Table 7 and Table 8. The FAST VP configuration steps are outlined in the Configuring FAST VP on VNX section on page 33. For more information about the storage layout recommendations and design, refer to the Design Guide.

Table 14. Storage layout example on VNX

VSPEX private cloud pool RAID type Disk type Disk capacity No. of disks



100 GB 6




Configuring FAST VP on VNX

FAST VP can increase the efficiency of all disk drive resources and get better performance for a lower cost. By adding FAST VP SSDs as an extreme performance tier into the data pool, FAST VP can automatically adapt to changes with business cycles.

In the VNX, FAST VP enables moving data automatically between FAST VP SSDs and SAS tiers with a slice granularity of 256 MB, which can help to dramatically reduce the response time and boost SAP application performance.

Enabling FAST VP is a transparent operation to SAP systems. No reconfiguration or downtime is necessary. To make the best use of either FAST VP or FAST Cache, EMC recommends that you first enable FAST VP on the user database storage pool. For more details, refer to the Design Guide.

Provisioning storage for the application pool disks



For detailed steps about how to create FAST VP, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21. Figure 4 shows an example of the Create Storage Pool wizard.

Create and configure FAST VP in the following way:

1. In the Create Storage Pool wizard, select the number of disks for each tier you want to add to the storage pool, as shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. Create Storage Pool wizard—FAST VP enabled

2. Click OK to complete the configuration.

EMC recommends that all the LUNs in the pool have the same tiering policy and use the Start High and then Auto-Tier tiering policy for the data pool. For detailed steps about how to configure FAST VP at the LUN level, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

Configuring FAST Cache on VNX

By using SSDs in the array as an extended read-and-write cache, FAST Cache increases IOPS and dramatically decreases database response times compared to a high-cost, all-SAS configuration. FAST Cache copies data from SAS or NL-SAS tiers to FAST Cache SSDs at a granularity of 64 KB.

Enabling FAST Cache is a transparent operation to SAP systems and no reconfiguration or downtime is necessary. For more details, refer to the Design Guide.

For detailed steps about how to enable FAST Cache, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

To create and configure FAST Cache on VNX, use these steps:

1. In Unisphere, after FAST Cache is created, click Storage and select Storage Pool. Select Data Pool, and then click Properties.

2. In Storage Pool Properties, click Advanced. To enable FAST Cache, select Enabled, as shown in Figure 5.




Figure 5. Storage Pool Properties—FAST Cache enabled

3. To complete the configuration, click OK.

Note: The FAST Cache feature on a VNX series array does not cause an instant performance improvement. The system must collect data about access patterns and promote frequently used information into the cache. This process can take a few hours, during which the performance of the array steadily improves.

ESXi and vCenter infrastructure implementation

This section provides the requirements for the installation and configuration of the ESXi hosts, vCenter, and infrastructure servers required to support the architecture. Table 15 describes the tasks that must be completed.

Enable FAST Cache



Table 15. Tasks for ESXi and vCenter installation and configuration


Installing ESXi Install the ESXi 5.5 hypervisor on the physical servers that are being deployed for the solution.

vSphere Installation and Setup

Configuring ESXi networking

Configure ESXi networking including network interface card (NIC) trunking, VMkernel port, virtual machine port groups, and Jumbo Frames.

vSphere Networking

Installing PowerPath/VE

Install PowerPath/VE multipathing software on the ESXi hosts.

Multipathing implementation

Connecting VMware datastores

Connect the VMware datastores to the ESXi hosts deployed for the solution.

vSphere Storage

Creating a virtual machine for Microsoft SQL Server 2012

Create a virtual machine to host SQL Server 2012 that will be used for the vCenter Server database. Verify that the virtual server meets the hardware and software requirements.

Microsoft TechNet

Installing Microsoft Windows on the virtual machine

Install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition on the virtual machine that is created to host SQL Server 2012.

Microsoft TechNet

Installing SQL Server 2012

Install SQL Server 2012 on the virtual machine designated for that purpose.

Microsoft TechNet

Creating the vCenter host virtual machine

Create a virtual machine to be used for the VMware vCenter Server.

vSphere Virtual Machine Administration

Installing the vCenter guest OS

Install Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard Edition on the vCenter host virtual machine.

N/A

Updating the virtual machine

Install VMware Tools, enable hardware acceleration, and enable remote console access.


Creating vCenter ODBC connections

Create the 64-bit vCenter and 32-bit vCenter Update Manager ODBC connections.


Installing and Administering VMware vSphere Update Manager

Installing vCenter Server

Install vCenter Server software. vSphere Installation and Setup

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.install.doc/GUID-7C9A1E23-7FCD-4295-9CB1-C932F2423C63.html

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.networking.doc/GUID-35B40B0B-0C13-43B2-BC85-18C9C91BE2D4.html

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.storage.doc/GUID-8AE88758-20C1-4873-99C7-181EF9ACFA70.html

http://technet.microsoft.com/



http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.vm_admin.doc/GUID-55238059-912E-411F-A0E9-A7A536972A91.html





http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.update_manager.doc/GUID-F7191592-048B-40C7-A610-CFEE6A790AB0.html








Installing vCenter Update Manager

Install vCenter Update Manager software.


Creating a virtual datacenter

Create a virtual datacenter. vCenter Server and Host Management

Applying vSphere license keys

Type the vSphere license keys in the vCenter licensing menu.


Adding ESXi hosts Connect vCenter to ESXi hosts. vCenter Server and Host Management

Configuring vSphere clustering

Create a vSphere cluster and move the ESXi hosts into it.

vSphere Resource Management

Performing array ESXi host discovery

Perform ESXi host discovery in the Unisphere console.

Using EMC VNX Storage with VMware vSphere TechBook

Enabling VMware High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS), and vMotion functionality

After you enable DRS, EMC recommends you use VMware vSphere DRS affinity and anti-affinity rules for specific groups of virtual machines; for example, groups of multiple SAP instances, which should never reside on the same host.

vSphere Availability

Installing the vCenter Update Manager plug-in

Install the vCenter Update Manager plug-in on the administration console.


Installing the EMC VNX UEM (Unified Element Manager) CLI

Install the VNX UEM command line interface (CLI) on the administration console.

EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: Unified Storage Management Product Guide

Installing the EMC VSI plug-in

Install the EMC VSI plug-in on the administration console.


For details of ESXi and vCenter, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

Multipathing implementation

EMC PowerPath/VE software optimizes multipathing through load-balancing algorithms. Port load balancing equalizes the I/O workload across all available channels.

EMC recommends installing PowerPath/VE on VMware ESXi hosts for load balancing, path management, and I/O path failure detection.

Overview




http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc%2FGUID-3B5AF2B1-C534-4426-B97A-D14019A8010F.html



http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc/GUID-3B5AF2B1-C534-4426-B97A-D14019A8010F.html

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.vcenterhost.doc/GUID-3B5AF2B1-C534-4426-B97A-D14019A8010F.html

http://pubs.vmware.com/vsphere-55/topic/com.vmware.vsphere.resmgmt.doc/GUID-98BD5A8A-260A-494F-BAAE-74781F5C4B87.html






PowerPath/VE installation

You can install PowerPath/VE by using the VMware remote vCLI, VMware vSphere Update Manager, or VMware vSphere Auto Deploy.

When you have downloaded the PowerPath/VE software complete the following steps to install it using remote vCLI:

1. Make the offline package available for use on the local vSphere host.

2. Use the scp (secure copy) command to copy the PowerPath/VE ZIP offline package to the vSphere host. Alternatively, copy the PowerPath/VE ZIP offline package to the local vCenter data store using vSphere client.

3. On the remote host running vCLI, type the following commands to install the PowerPath/VE package:

# esxcli -s <vSphere server IP address or hostname> software

vib install -d <absolute path to PowerPath package>

4. Bring the vSphere host into Maintenance mode.

5. Reboot the vSphere host onto which you are installing.

6. Bring the vSphere host out of Maintenance mode.

For PowerPath/VE installation and configuration for vSphere, refer to EMC PowerPath/VE installation and Administration Guide. For iSCSI or FC multipathing configuration, refer to vSphere Storage ESXi 5.5, vCenter Server 5.5.

SAP virtual machine implementation

This section describes the requirements for the installation and configuration of the SAP Server virtual machines. Table 16 describes the tasks that must be completed.

Table 16. SAP host virtual machine installation and configuration

Task Description

Creating the SAP virtual machines

Create virtual machines to be used for the database and SAP instances

Installing the guest OS

Install Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter Edition or SLES 11 SP3 on the SAP host virtual machines.

Updating the virtual machine

Install VMware Tools

Assigning IP addresses

Assign IP addresses for all the networks in all virtual machines.

Join all virtual machines to the domain.

Configuring PowerPath/VE for FC storage

Overview




Task Description

Creating virtual disks for database and application instance

Create virtual disks to hold the database and SAP instance files.

Create a virtual machine on the ESXi server with the customer’s guest OS configuration. You can calculate the memory and processor requirements for the SAP virtual machines using the reference documents and resources listed in the Design Guide.

CPU and RAM

Table 17 describes the virtual machine configuration we used in the sizing example in this guide.

Table 17. Example of the required resources: Large-sized SAP system

Instance Role vCPU Memory OS volume capacity

OS volume IOPS Number of virtual machines

Database

Instance


Application

Instance


ASCS Instance 2 16 GB 100 GB Less than 25 1

SCSI Controllers and virtual disks

Table 18 describes the storage configuration. Storage resource sizing is based on the workload IOPS requirement.

Creating SAP virtual machines



Table 18. Example of a storage recommendation: Large-sized SAP system

Recommended additional storage pools for SAP system

VSPEX private cloud pool name RAID type Disk type Disk capacity No. of disks



100 GB 6




SAP System implementation

This section provides information about how to implement an SAP ECC 6.0 ABAP distributed system on the VSPEX Proven Infrastructure. After completing the tasks in Table 19 the new system is ready to be verified and tested.

This section is an excerpt from the installation guide provided by SAP. This section only covers installation of a distributed system2.

Before implementing SAP, plan for and size the database accordingly. Refer to the Design Guide for guidance.

Table 19. SAP host virtual machine installation and configuration


Planning Planning steps that must be completed for the Standard, distributed or high availability systems, and any additional application server instance

SAP Service Market Place Planning Information for SAP ERP 6.0

Preparation Ensure that the necessary installers are available and installation parameters are identified


Installing a distributed SAP system

Install the SAP ABAP and database instances


Post-installation A high level list of post-installation processes and SAP initialization to be done by an SAP Basis consultant


2 Consult the SAP installation guide for more information about installing Standard, High-availability or MCOD systems.

Overview

https://websmp105.sap-ag.de/~form/handler?_APP=00200682500000002672&_EVENT=DISPLAY&_SCENARIO=&_HIER_KEY=501100035870000015092&_HIER_KEY=601100035870000179414&_HIER_KEY=601100035870000179422&_HIER_KEY=601100035870000204995&_HIER_KEY=701100035871000439303&









This section includes the planning steps that you have to complete before installing SAP systems.

Prerequisites

1. Plan your SAP system landscape according to the Master Guide available at the appropriate download location under service.sap.com/instguides.

2. Decide on the installation option.

Distributed System Installation

1. Check the hardware and software requirements on every installation host.

2. Identify basic SAP system installation parameters.

3. For the database installation:

a. Oracle – EMC recommends that you check the information available in the SAP Knowledge Center.

b. SQL Server – decide on how to distribute your database components to disk as per installation guide.

4. Decide the transport host to use.

5. Decide whether to integrate LDAP Directory Services in your SAP system.

6. Read the Diagnostics Agent – Specific Planning Steps, to install the Diagnostics Agent with your SAP system.

7. Optional: Decide if you want to install multiple components in one database (MCOD).

Additional Application Server instance

1. Check the hardware and software requirements for every installation host on which you want to install one or more additional application server instances.

2. Identify the basic SAP system installation parameters.

This section includes the preparation steps that you have to complete prior to installing SAP systems.

1. Check that the required operating system users and groups are created.

2. Set up file systems and make sure that the required disk space is available for the directories to be created during the installation.

3. If required, set up virtual host names.

4. To share the transport directory trans from another system, export this directory to your installation hosts.

5. Install the SAP frontend software on the desktop of the user.

6. Check that the required installation media are available on each host. For an ERP system, ensure that you have the following ready:

a. SWPM 1.0

b. Kernel DVD

Planning

Preparation

http://service.sap.com/instguides



c. Installation Export DVD

d. RDBMS DVD (Oracle/SQL Server)

e. DB Client DVD

7. Optional: Create a user for LDAP directory access to use a generic LDAP directory.

Additional Application Server instance

Perform the following preparations on the host to install the additional application server instances:

1. Check that the required operating system users and groups are created.

2. Set up file systems and make sure that the required disk space is available for the directories to be created during the installation.

3. To use virtual host names, set the environment variable SAPINST_USE_HOSTNAME. Alternatively, specify the virtual host name in the command to start the installer.

4. To share the transport directory trans from another system, export this directory to your installation hosts.

5. Check that the required installation media are available.

To install a distributed SAP system, take the following steps:

1. To share the transport directory trans from another system, mount it from this other system. Otherwise, we recommend sharing the trans directory that is created during the installation of the primary application server instance.

2. On the ASCS instance host, perform the following actions:

a. Run the installer to install the ABAP central services (ASCS) instance.

b. Export global directories in <sapmnt>/<SAPSID> to the database and primary application server instance host.

3. On the database instance host, perform the following actions:

a. For Oracle

i. Mount the global directories in <sapmnt>/<SAPSID> that you exported from the SAP global host and optionally the trans directory that you exported from the SAP transport host.

ii. Run the installer to install the database instance.

b. For SQL Server, run the installer to install the database instance.

4. On the primary application server instance host, perform the following actions:

a. For SLES, mount the global directories in <sapmnt>/<SAPSID> that you exported from the SAP global host.

b. Run the installer to install the primary application server instance.

c. To use the shared transport directory trans from another system, mount this directory also.

Installing a distributed SAP system




d. Continue with the installation of one or more additional application server instances and then proceed directly to post-installation.

5. Additional Application Server instance

Oracle: To share the transport directory trans from another system, you have to mount it from this system. Otherwise, we recommend that you share the trans directory that is created during the installation of the primary application server instance.

On the SAP global host, export global directories in <sapmnt>/<SAPSID> to the database and primary application server instance host.

On every additional application server instance host, complete the following:

1. Mount the global directories in <sapmnt>/<SAPSID> exported from the SAP global host.

2. Run the installer to install the additional application server instance.

3. To use the shared transport directory trans from another system, mount this directory also.

SQL server: 1. Install the MS SQL Server Native Access Client (SNAC) software

2. Run the installer to install the additional application server instances.

3. Continue with the post-installation steps.

This section includes the planning steps that you need to complete when installing SAP systems.

1. For SLES, perform the post-installation steps for the operating system.

2. Check if you can log on to the application server.

3. Perform the consistency check.

4. Install the SAP license.

5. Configure the remote connection to SAP Support.

6. Apply the latest kernel and Support Packages.

7. Install the SAP Online Documentation.

8. Configure the Transport Management System.

9. SAP Kernel Release 7.40 and higher: Perform IP Multicast configuration.

10. Ensure user security.

11. For SAP systems based on SAP NetWeaver 7.40 and higher: If required, change the keys for the secure storage.

12. On the database instance host, perform Oracle-specific post-installation steps.

13. Perform a full installation backup.

Post-installation



14. Check the Master Guide for the SAP NetWeaver application for further implementation and configuration steps.

EMC Confidential Chapter 5: Solution Validation



Chapter 5 Solution Validation


Baseline hardware validation ................................................................................... 46

SAP application performance validation .................................................................. 47

Chapter 5: Solution Validation EMC Confidential


Baseline hardware validation

This section provides a list of items that you need to review after you configure the VSPEX solution. The goal of this section is to verify the configuration and functionality of specific aspects of the solution, and to ensure that the configuration supports core availability requirements. Table 20 describes the required verification tasks that you must complete.

Table 20. Required verification tasks


Verifying ESXi functionality

Verify the basic ESXi functionality of the solution with a post-installation checklist.

Using EMC VNX storage with VMware vSphere

Verifying solution components redundancy

Verify the redundancy of the solution components:

Storage

ESXi host

Network switch

Vendor documentation

Monitoring the health of solution

Use tools to monitor the health of solution, as shown in Table 21.

EMC recommends that you verify the ESXi configurations before deployment to production on each ESXi server.

For more detailed information, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

To ensure that the various components of the solution maintain availability requirements, it is important that you test specific scenarios related to maintenance or hardware failure. EMC recommends that you verify the redundancy of the solution components including storage, ESXi hosts, and network switches.

For details, refer to the relevant VSPEX Proven Infrastructure Guide in Essential reading on page 21.

Overview

Verifying ESXi functionality

Verifying solution components redundancy




Health monitoring is a simplified measurement that reflects the reliability, stability, and performance of the entire VSPEX solution. Table 21 lists some tools you can use to monitor and troubleshoot your VSPEX solution.

Table 21. Tools to monitor the VSPEX for virtualized SAP Business Suite application solution

Tools Description

esxtop The esxtop tool provides a real-time view (updated every five seconds, by default) of ESXi hypervisor performance metrics, such as CPU. It is important that you understand the performance of the hypervisor in order to measure or troubleshoot the SAP system performance-related issues.

Unisphere Analyzer Unisphere Analyzer software is preloaded on all VNX storage systems with the FLARE or block bundles (or later). It is easy to monitor, collect, and analyze all aspects of its storage-related data.

perfmon The performance monitor tool in the Windows operating system commonly referred to as perfmon. It is beneficial to collect data from deployed applications at regular intervals to analyze trends and to have baseline measurements, which can be useful in investigating problems that are related to I/O performance.

Event Viewer Event Viewer is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in. It lets you browse and manage event logs. It is a handy tool for troubleshooting problems. You can filter for specific events across multiple logs, and reuse useful event filters as custom views.

EMC recommends that you use the test tools to verify the performance of the entire virtualized SAP Business Suite applications environment. For details about performance verification and test methodology, refer to the Design Guide.

SAP application performance validation

We stressed an SAP system in a VSPEX solution on a VNX storage system. We used a mixed workload of SAP online transactions and resource-intensive background jobs to validate the performance improvements delivered by FAST Suite.

The purpose is to measure the performance of the SAP system under intense workload to ensure that the VSPEX solution meets your business requirements.

The testing landscape consists of two SAP systems, AB1 and AQ1. The database size for both systems is 1.6 TB. Figure 6 shows the system architecture.

Monitoring the solution’s health

Overview

Test environment



Figure 6. SAP system architecture

SAP system AB1 represents a dialog-intensive production SAP system. The simulated mixed workload consists of a high number of concurrent dialog transactions and heavy background jobs. System AQ1, on the other hand, represents a report-intensive SAP system. Heavy background jobs are executed in this system to compete with AB1. The I/O pattern of this solution test is small random I/O and the read/write ratio is 85/15.

Table 22 describes the characteristics of the applied workload.

Table 22. Characteristics of applied workload

Workload type Workload Number of concurrent users/jobs

Target system

Duration

Dialog transaction

Order to Cash (OTC)

2,000 AB1 10 hours

Background job VA05—order query

50 AB1 10 hours

Background job VA05—order query

50 AQ1 10 hours

Note: Benchmark results are highly dependent upon workload, specific application requirements, and system design and implementation. Relative system performance will vary as a result of these and other factors. Therefore, this workload should not be used as a substitute for a specific customer application benchmark when critical capacity planning and/or product evaluation decisions are contemplated.

Workload profile




We used four scenarios to assess the performance of the VSPEX solution. Table 23 presents the actual workload used for the scenarios.

Table 23. Test procedure

Test case SAP workload Storage Configuration

Calibration AB1: 2,000 OTC users

AQ1: idle

Baseline (no FAST VP)

Baseline AB1: 2,000 OTC users + 50 jobs

AQ1: 50 jobs

Baseline (no FAST VP)

FAST VP AB1: 2,000 OTC users + 50 jobs

AQ1: 50 jobs

FAST VP

FAST VP plus FAST Cache

AB1: 2,000 OTC users + 50 jobs

AQ1: 50 jobs

FAST VP + FAST Cache

The tests were executed as follows:

Calibration testing: We calibrated AB1 performance in the baseline storage configuration. We determined that AB1 can maintain an average dialog response time of 1,000 ms under a workload of 2,000 OTC users. This tells us that increasing the workload beyond this point will degrade the performance to an unacceptable level.

Baseline testing: Several load-intensive background jobs were added to AB1 while the current OTC users were active; another set of background jobs were run against AQ1 to induce contention. Average dialog response time in AB1 was taken across several 60-minute intervals, and recorded the highest response times observed for a conservative measurement. The observed results were taken during the period of maximum workload.

FAST VP testing: AB1 and AQ1 were migrated from the baseline storage configuration to the FAST VP storage configuration. The same test was executed again to observe how FAST VP behaves in response to the increased workload against the baseline testing.

FAST VP plus FAST Cache testing: FAST Cache was enabled on the storage pools that host AB1 and AQ1 systems. The same test was run one more time to observe how FAST Cache further improves the application performance.

Validation procedure



The performance was based on the following criteria:

SAP average response time met an arbitrary SLA (Service Level Agreement)of 1,200 ms

Figure 7 compares the system performance measured with dialog transaction average response time of the baseline, FAST VP, and FAST VP + FAST Cache tests.

Figure 7. Test result: SAP system performance

The baseline system performance showed an increase in the average response time due to additional workload. After migrating from the baseline storage configuration to the FAST VP storage configuration, the system performance improved by 33.50 percent and the average response time was in compliance with the SLA. The FAST VP + FAST Cache storage configuration further improved the performance by 57.23 percent, compared to the baseline test.

Summary

The VSPEX solution on VNX helps to improve disk performance and storage efficiency. FAST Cache dynamically absorbs unpredicted spikes in system workloads and improves the application performance.

FAST VP, on the other hand, optimizes long-term TCO by flexibly exploiting the storage resources based on how frequently data is accessed over time. Together, these features complement each other and can a play crucial role in reducing latency and maximizing SAP performance, as validated in this testing.

Note: EMC Corporation does not warrant or represent that a user can or will achieve similar performance expressed in transactions per minute.

Success criteria

Testing results

EMC Confidential Chapter 6: Reference Documentation



Chapter 6 Reference Documentation


EMC documentation ................................................................................................. 52

Product documentation ............................................................................................ 52

SAP documentation .................................................................................................. 52

VMware documentation ........................................................................................... 52

Links ........................................................................................................................ 53

Chapter 6: Reference Documentation EMC Confidential


EMC documentation

The following documents, available from the EMC Online Support or EMC.com websites, provide additional and relevant information. If you do not have access to a document, contact your EMC representative.

EMC PowerPath and PowerPath/VE for Windows Installation and Administration Guide

EMC Unisphere Remote: Next-Generation Storage Monitoring

EMC Unisphere: Unified Storage Management Solution

EMC VNX5600 Unified Installation Guide

EMC VNX FAST VP: VNX5200, VNX5400, VNX5600, VNX5800, VNX7600, and VNX8000

EMC VNX Installation Assistant for File/Unified Worksheet

EMC VNX Multicore FAST Cache: VNX5200, VNX5400, VNX5600, VNX5800, VNX7600, and VNX8000

Using EMC VNX Storage with VMware vSphere TechBook

Product documentation

For additional information, see the product documentation listed below.

EMC VSI for VMware vSphere: Storage Viewer Product Guide


EMC VNX Host Connectivity Guide for VMware ESX Server


SAP documentation

Refer to the following references below.

Installing SAP Systems Based on SAP NetWeaver 7.1 and Higher – Using Software Provisioning Manager 1.0 – Central index of generic installation guides sorted by database

SAP ERP Central SAP Notes

VMware documentation

Refer to the following topics on the VMware website:


vSphere Networking

http://www.emc.com/resource-library/resource-library.htm

https://websmp105.sap-ag.de/~sapidb/011000358700003041202006E



EMC Confidential Chapter 6: Reference Documentation



vCenter Server and Host Management

vSphere Storage




Links

Refer to the following topics on the VMware website:


vSphere Networking

vCenter Server and Host Management

vSphere Storage




VMware website













Chapter 6: Reference Documentation EMC Confidential


Appendix A: Qualification Worksheet



Appendix A Qualification Worksheet

This appendix presents the following topic-:

Configuration worksheet for SAP NetWeaver 7.4 ...................................................... 56



Configuration worksheet for SAP NetWeaver 7.4

Before configuring the SAP system for this solution, you need to gather some customer-specific configuration information such as IP addresses, hostnames, and so on.

The following tables provide a worksheet that you can use to record the information. You can also print and use the worksheet as a customer “leave behind” document for future reference.

To confirm the customer information, cross-reference with the relevant array configuration worksheet: VNX Installation Assistant for File/Unified Worksheet.

Table 24. Common server information

Server name Purpose Primary IP address

Domain Controller

DNS Primary

DNS Secondary

DHCP

NTP

SMTP

SNMP

SQL Server (for vCenter Server)

Table 25. ESXi server information

Server name Purpose Primary IP address Private net (storage) addresses

ESXi Host 1

ESXi Host 2

ESXi Host 3

ESXi Host 4

…




Table 26. Array information

Object Description

Array name

Array type

Admin account

Management IP

iSCSI Server IP

SPA IP address

SPB IP address

VSPEX private cloud pool name

Infrastructure datastore name

SAP data pool name

SAP data datastore name

SAP log pool name

SAP log datastore name

SAP file system pool name

SAP file system datastore name

SAP DB general pool name

SAP DB general datastore name

Table 27. Network infrastructure information

Name Purpose IP address Subnet mask Default gateway

Ethernet Switch 1

Ethernet Switch 2

…

Table 28. VLAN information

Name Network purpose VLAN ID Allowed subnets

Virtual machine networking management

iSCSI storage network

vMotion



Table 29. Service accounts

Account Purpose Password (optional, secure appropriately)

Windows Server administrator

Array administrator

Table 30. SAP system parameters

Parameter Value

General

SAP System Description/Purpose

SAP SID

SAP Master Password

Number of AAS

SAP S-user for licensing

SAP ASCS

Virtual machine name

OS Hostname

FQDN

IP address

SAP DB


OS Hostname

FQDN

IP address

SAP PAS


OS Hostname

FQDN

IP address

Total number of work processes




Parameter Value

WP distribution DIA –

BGD –

SPO –

V1 –

V2 –

SAP AAS

Hostname(s)

FQDN

IP address(es)

Total number of Work Processes

WP distribution DIA –

BGD –

SPO –

V1 –

V2 –

Documents

EMC VSPEX for Virtualized SAP Business Suite Applications