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What does a move to SAP HANA mean for your infrastructure?
Sap infrastructure- SAP’s HANA database and business applications offer a powerful path to increased efficiency and better business intelligence, but SAP’s software products are only part of the solution. Your SAP environment is built on top of a ‘core set’. Or another way of saying it, your SAP environment is your ‘new home build’, and the core set is “the foundations for the new home”. Consequently, to get the best out of your transition to SAP HANA, you must prepare a versatile, well-integrated infrastructure that includes operating systems, virtualisation, orchestration, and management components.
The starting point for your SAP core infrastructure is Linux because SAP HANA only runs on Linux. Choose an open-source vendor with a proven track record for great SAP support and take a close look at the surrounding landscape. You need an infrastructure that supports the full range of SAP applications and SAP HANA features and leaves room for future expansion and evolution.
When you build out your core infrastructure, particularly for SAP HANA, look for a solution that addresses these critical needs:
- Software-defined Infrastructure
- Lifecycle Management
- High Availability
- Advanced Data Tools
- Automation
- Strong Affinity with SAP
Software-Defined Infrastructure
The SAP business suite is designed to adapt to changes within your organisation. SAP applications work best in a self-managing, self-healing environment that minimises manual intervention.
Software-defined infrastructure (SDI) is a collection of technologies emphasising the fluidity of the software environment. The goal is a system where the software operates independently of the hardware, adapting to changing conditions with the minimal human touch.
Another goal of SDI is to reduce system downtime; service interruptions can cause missed opportunities and data loss issues. SAP designs many of their tools for continuous operation. You should design your core infrastructure for the fluidity and uptime emphasis embodied in SDI.
SAP designs its tools for continuous operation, and your core infrastructure should be designed that way too.
The rapid adoption of cloud and application containerisation technologies reflects a business desire for flexibility at all levels – financial, operational and technical. Whether you use these on-premises or “as a service” from a public cloud vendor, it is their automation and orchestration capabilities that keep you competitive, by enabling infrastructure to respond dynamically to changing needs.
Of course, SAP software can use the cloud as infrastructure. With solutions such as HANA Enterprise Cloud and the SAP Cloud Platform, their emphasis now is on enabling fast, flexible service delivery and as-a-service models for customers. Increasingly, everything is software-defined.
