How Microsoft Moves Their SAP

Landscape into Azure

Matt Ordish, Hans Reutter
Microsoft Corporation
Session ID 5713
SESSION TITLE

Title
How Microsoft Moves Their SAP Landscape into Azure

Abstract
Microsoft runs a large SAP landscape with more than
500 operating system images either on bare-metal
servers or virtual machines. Microsoft is on a path to
move a major number of their SAP systems from on-
premise to Azure public cloud in order to run a SAP
landscape cross premises. This session will report
experiences and best practices.
3 KEY LEARNING POINTS

Understand what Hybrid Cloud is

Understand advantages of Hybrid Cloud
especially for large SAP landscapes
Learn from how Microsoft approached the
move into Hybrid Cloud
RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Reduce infrastructure costs for your

SAP landscape by aggressively
leveraging public cloud infrastructure
BEST PRACTICES

Method to evaluate
suitability of SAP
system for public
cloud
Special thoughts
about usage in Azure
AGENDA

Current SAP Landscape And Infrastructure

Private Cloud On-Premise

Microsoft Azure And SAP

MSIT Deciding For The Right Infrastructure

MSIT Final State

 SAP APPLICATIONS AT
MICROSOFT

ERP ECC GTS E-REC ECC 6.0 CI ECC 6.0 BI/BPC

6.0 EhP6 Services: Finance, Controlling, Accounting,
Finance/Corporate 10.1
Global Trade Services: EhP4
E-Recruiting: Applicant EhP7
Convergent Invoicing: 8.1
Business
Enterprise Controlling, Treasury, Project Systems, Financial Compliance Management, Tracking, Requisition Receivables Management, Planning&Consolidation,
Services, Real Estate, Corporate Finance Management, InHouse
Cash Center
Customs Management Management Contract Accounting BI BPC BI
FI CO AC EC TR CON CUS AT RM RM CA
CC
PS FIN RE CFM IHC TRE
TREX: for Sanction Party List
Screening
TRE
TREX: for Candidate Resumes IS: Telecommunications
4.0
Conv.Charging: Direct
Billing,Rating
Human Capital Management: Personnel Administration, Benefits, X X IS-T BL RT
Organizational Management, Talent Management, Personnel
Time Management, Payroll
SCM 7.0 MDG ECC 6.0 OER NW 7.0 SMG 7.1
PA BN OM TM PT EhP7 EhP2
EhP2
Supply Chain Management: Master Data Gov: Object Event Repository: EhP1
Solution Manager: Custom
Supply Chain Management: Sales and Distribution, PY Demand Planning, Event
Management, Supply
Business Partners
BP Secure Track and Trace
Scenario
Development Management
Cockpit, Maintenance
Materials Management, Logistics, Logistics Execution Network Planning Optimizer, SAP Support
Services
SD MM LO LE OERDSC NW 7.4 STT
Add-On: Core Country Version for Central and Eastern Europe
DP EM 9.2 Add-On: Auto-Infrastructure CDM MAI
Object Event Repository:
ID
Secure Track and Trace
CEE SNP Scenario AIN SER
STT
Others BOBJ Data Services 4.2 GRC SAP Services
PI/XI NW 7.3 Process Integration Add-On: Auto-Infrastructure
DUET Enterprise 2.0 ID 10.1
Governance, Ariba Network
Tidal Enterprise Scheduler Risk & Compliance IBP (HCI)
BSI Tax Factory AIN GRC
Vertex Sales Tax
Esker Faxing
RealTech
Others
 SAP SYSTEMS PER LANDSCAPE

Sandbox

POC, special use

as required
Quarterly
Quarterly Integration refreshed on
demand
Quarterly Unit Test Test
Development BPRT
Transpor Transpor
ts Unit testing ts Stress testing Tr
ans
DR ts por
never refreshed refreshed refreshed Production
from production quarterly quarterly

Monthly & Monthly &

rt
Prod. support Prod. support spo
Unit Test an s
Development Tr
Transpor
ts
refreshed Unit testing
quarterly from refreshed
development quarterly
 SAP SYSTEM LANDSCAPE
02/2016
Physical
Virtualize
d
Azure VM

ERP GTS BI BOBJ SCM CI/ MDG CFM OER ADS OER DUET SOL
DS RMCA E-REC 1DSC CC OEM XI/PI GRC
Prod.

UA
Quarterly T
Release
SIT
Systems

DE
V

Prod. QA
Quarterly Release
Support, OOC,
& Monthly DE & Prod. Support
V

Sandbox
AGENDA

Current SAP landscape And Infrastructure

Private Cloud On-Premise

Microsoft Azure And SAP

MSIT Deciding For The Right Infrastructure

MSIT Final State

WINDOWS SERVER 2012 (R2)
HYPER-V
Features for unprecedented virtualization of SAP workloads:
64-node cluster running up to 4,000 VMs
64 logical CPUs inside a single VM
1TB memory in a single VM
Many improvements in the areas of network and storage
Asynchronous VM replication
Live- and storage migration much faster than before
Cluster Aware Update (CAU) on the host cluster
Windows Server 2016 allows node by node upgrade from Windows
Server 2012R2 to Windows server 2016 running private cloud
clusters with a mixed Windows OS versions

Details:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831410.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/hh968267.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server/server-virtualization.aspx
EXPERIENCES WITH CUSTOMER DEPLOYMENTS

Windows power mode on host server has a similar

impact on performance of SAP application instances
as if those were deployed on bare-metal
High Performance power mode on host server does benefit
performance significantly
Power mode setting within VMs have no impact

For large VMs (16+ vCPUs) that run in role of

dedicated DBMS VMs, it is highly recommended to
use Windows Server 2012 R2 as host and guest OS
Introduction of vRSS on host and within VM avoids getting
bottlenecked on one CPU performing the network handling
AGENDA

Current SAP landscape And Infrastructure

Private Cloud On-Premise

Microsoft Azure And SAP

Deciding For The Right Infrastructure

MSIT Final State

 HYPER SCALE INFRASTRUCTURE IS
THE ENABLER
30 Regions Worldwide, 22 Generally Available

North
North Central
Central
US
US
Illinois United West
West
Illinois United
United
United
Kingdom Europe
Europe
Canada
Canada Kingdom
Kingdom
Kingdom
Regions Netherland
Netherland
Central Central Canada Regions
Central Central Canada East
East Regions
Regions s
s Germany
US Toronto Quebec Germany North
North
US Toronto Quebec City
City East China
China North
US Iowa
Iowa East **
** North
US Magdeburg *
*
Gov Magdeburg
Gov Beijing
Beijing
US
US DoD
DoD Iowa
Iowa Germany Japan
Japan East
East
North
North Germany China
West Central ** China Tokyo,
Tokyo,
West Europe
Europe Central ** South *
TBD Frankfurt South * Saitama
Saitama
TBD East
East US
US Ireland
Ireland Frankfurt Shanghai
Shanghai
Virginia
Virginia Japan
West
West US
US India Japan
India
Californi
Californi Central West
West
East
East US
US Central
a
a Pune Osaka
Osaka
2
2 Pune
India
India
US Virginia
US Gov
Gov Virginia
India South
South
South
South Central
Central Virginia India
Virginia West Chennai
Chennai
US
US US West East
East Asia
US DoD
DoD Mumbai
Asia
Texas
Texas East Mumbai Hong
Hong
East
TBD Kong
Kong
TBD

SE
SE Asia
Asia
Singapo
Singapo
re
re

Australia
Australia East
East
New
New South
South
Wales
Wales
Brazil
Brazil South
South
Sao
Sao Paulo
Paulo Australia
Australia South
South
State
State East
East
Victoria
Victoria

100+ datacenters Operational

Top 3 networks in the world Announced/Not Operational
2.5x AWS, 7x Google DC Regions * Operated by 21Vianet ** Data Stewardship by Deutsche Telekom
 AZURE SERVICES
Platform Services

Security & Services Compute Web and Mobile Data Hybrid

Manageme Cloud Service
Operations
Web Apps API Apps
nt
Portal
Services Fabric
SQL Data DocumentDB
Azure AD
Database Warehouse
Health Monitoring
Batch
Azure Active RemoteApp AD Privileged
Directory Mobile Logic Apps Redis Identity
Azure Storage
Apps Cache Management
Search Tables
Azure AD
B2C Domain Services

Multi-Factor
Integration API Notification
Authentication Management Hubs
Storage BizTalk Backup
Queues Services Analytics & IoT
Automation
HDInsight Machine Stream Data Operational
Hybrid Service Bus Learning Analytics Lake Analytics
Scheduler
Connections Developer Services
Azure Import/Export
Visual Studio Data Event Data
Key Vault SDK
Factory Hubs Catalog
Media & CDN
Store/ Azure Site
Marketplace Media Content VS Online App IoT Hub Mobile Recovery
Services Delivery Insights Engagement
Network (CDN) StorSimple
VM Image Gallery
& VM Depot

Infrastructure Services
OS/Server Compute Storage Networking
Virtual Container BLOB Azure Premium Virtual Load DNS Express Traffic VPN App
Machines Service Storage Files Storage Network Balancer Route Manager Gateway Gateway

Datacenter Infrastructure (30 Regions, 22 Online)

 AZURE INFRASTRUCTURE AS A SERVICE
(IAAS)

Azure datacenters,
your datacenters.
cloud
cloud service
service
services
services caching
caching identity
identity bus
bus media
media

virtual
app
virtual
machine
machine virtual
virtual
s
s network
network
mobile
mobile integratio
integratio
services services
services web
web sites
sites n
n hpc
hpc analytics
analytics

vpn
vpn

data
SQL
SQL blob
blob
database
database HDInsight
HDInsight table
table storage
services storage

virtual
network

infrastructure
virtual
virtual virtual
virtual traffic
traffic
machines network vpn manager cdn
services machines network vpn manager cdn

vpn
AZURE SCENARIOS USED BY CUSTOMERS

Two major Azure scenarios so far in regards to SAP

Run parts of SAP landscape or whole SAP landscape on
Azure (see details later)
Have Site-To-Site or Express Route connectivity between Azure and on-
premise datacenter
Extend Active Directory into Azure to achieve network transparency
Deploy SAP systems in Azure VMs

Use Azure as DR site for SAP landscape

Run complete SAP landscape virtualized on-premise
Use Azure Site Recovery Service to replicate SAP
application layer VM from on-premise into Azure
Use DBMS methods to replicate DBMS data into Azure
CERTIFICATION PROCESS WITH
SAP

Microsoft needs to certify Azure infrastructure with SAP:

Certify VM types by conducting SAP SD benchmark
Officially have these benchmarks approved and released by SAP:
http://global.sap.com/campaigns/benchmark/appbm_cloud.epx
Get SAPS throughput numbers or every certified VM noted in SAP Note:
1928533 SAP Applications on Azure: Supported Products and Azure VM typ
es
Document Reference architecture and deployment processes:
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-sa
p-getting-started/

Not all Azure VM types are certified for SAP.

Minimum requirements for VMs are:
At least 2 vCPUs
Ratio between memory and vCPU at least 6:1
No Basic SKU supported
AZURE VM SKUS SUPPORTED
FOR SAP

SAP Note
1928533 SAP Applications on Azure: Supported Products and Azure VM t
ypes

*) The DS series in a 3-tier configuration is only supported with DB data files and DB transaction log files placed on Azure Premium
Storage.
**) The GS series (2-tier and 3-tier) is only supported with DB data files and DB transaction log files placed on Azure Premium
Storage.
AZURE STORAGE STANDARD
STORAGE

Azure Standard Storage

Working in conjunction with all VM-Series:
Costs of disks based on stored data in disk and not by nominal size
of disk
E.g. Disk defined with 1TB size and filled with 100GB data charges
will be for 100GB only
Standard Azure disk has a limited IOPS quota of 500 IOPS
Use Striping or Storage Pools to overcome IOPS limits per VHD
IOPS quota multiply with number of disks engaged in Storage Pool
E.g. build Storage Pool over 4 disks means roughly a limit of 4 x limit
of single disk
Not really suitable for DBMS storage traffic when SAP system has some
workload
Expect storage write latency like SQL Server Tlog writes being in the
15-40ms and read latencies also in the double digit space
AZURE STORAGE PREMIUM
STORAGE

Azure Premium Storage

Working with DS/GS VM series so far
Provides fast read/write cache that is backed by local SSD drives on
compute node. Up to 1TB disk cache size dependent on VM type
Three different types of disks (see table)
Moving disks from Standard Azure Storage to Premium Storage that
dont hit the exact sizes of the three different categories are
snapped to next larger category. E.g. a disk defined with 200GB
would be categorized as P20 disk
Charged by nominal size independent
of data stored in disk even pay for
empty disks
Preferred for DBMS layer of SAP
deployments
CURRENT MS/SAP AZURE ROADMAP
OS/DBMS

Guest OS
Windows certified since May 2014
SUSE Linux planned for Q2/CY2016
Red Hat Linux planned after SUSE Linux
DBMS releases
SQL Server
SAP ASE
Oracle (Limited to Windows Guest OS)
MaxDB
IBM DB2
CURRENT MS/SAP AZURE ROADMAP
SAP APPLICATIONS

SAP applications
SAP applications based on SAP NetWeaver
SAP HANA Dev Edition through SAP Cloud Appliance Library
and/or Azure Marketplace (http://cal.sap.com )
SAP BusinessObjects certified. See 2145537 - Support of SAP
BusinessObjects BI platform on Microsoft Azure
SAP HANA Enterprise Edition Roadmap working on it
Customers can use Azure for non-production systems already
SAP LiveCache (part of SCM)
SAP Content Server
SAP TREX
Hybris Deployments possible today as pure IaaS
SAP NETWEAVER
CERTIFICATIONS
SAP and Microsoft have tested and certified Microsoft Azure IaaS against the same
standards as those used for on-premises infrastructure. The table below shows a list of
product certified today.
SAP Solution Guest OS Database VM Type
SAP Business Suite Windows Server; SQL Server; A5-A11, D11-D14, DS11-
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Oracle; DB22; SAP DS14, GS1-GS5
(SLES) ASE3
SAP Business All-in- Windows Server; SQL Server; A5-A11, D11-D14, DS11-
One SLES Oracle; DB22; SAP DS14, GS1-GS5
ASE3
SAP Business Objects Windows Server NA A5-A11, D11-D14, DS11-
(BI) DS14, GS1-GS5

SAP NetWeaver1 Windows Server; SQL Server, A5-A11, D11-D14, DS11-

SLES Oracle; DB22; SAP DS14, GS1-GS5
Only
1
3 NetWeaver 7.00 and later SAP releases of NetWeaver are supported for deployment in Azure
ASE Oracle Database 11g R2 Patchset 3 (11.2.04 ), Single Instance
2

3
SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise 16
SAP HANA CERTIFICATIONS
SAP Solution Supported OS Azure Offerings
SAP HANA Developer Edition SUSE Linux A5-A11, D11-D14, DS11-DS14, GS1-
(including the HANA client software comprised of SQLODBC, Enterprise Server GS5
ODBO-Windows only, ODBC, JDBC drivers), HANA studio, and
HANA database)1
(SLES)

SAP HANA One SLES DS14_v2 (upon general availability)

SAP S/4HANA SLES Controlled Availability for GS52

SAP HANA on Azure (Large
Instances) upon general availability
SAP Business Suite on HANA (OLTP) SLES SAP HANA on Azure (Large
Instances) upon general availability

SAP HANA Platform or Enterprise Edition for SLES SAP HANA on Azure (Large
SAP BW (OLAP) Instances) upon general availability

1Customers can try SAP HANA Developer Edition on Azure using the SAP Cloud Appliance Library.

2Contact your Microsoft or SAP account manager for more information.

SAP DEPLOYMENT IN HYBRID
IT SCENARIO

Communications through VPN tunnel or ExpressRoute connection

On-Premise AD/DNS extended into Azure
On-Premise and Azure located SAP systems in same domain/AD
Communication between SAP Systems in Azure and on-Premise
completely transparent
Every single customer using
SAP on Azure beyond demo
or trainings scenario is using
this setup with VPN/
ExpressRoute
Supported for Hybrid and
productive SAP landscape
in Azure
SUPPORTED VS. NOT
SUPPORTED

Supported:
Distinct Test/Production
Systems in different
premises

NOT Supported:
Application layer and
DBMS layer in different
locations
HA FOR SAP DEPLOYMENT IN
AZURE

SAP application layer has a Single Point Of Failure (SPOF) with

CI/ASCS/SCS that is critical for the complete system
SAP uses Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) to secure their
SPOF

Issue:
Azure does not support
shared disks as necessary for
setup of WSFC configurations
suitable for SAP CI/ASCS/SCS

Solution:
Use 3rd party SIOS Datakeeper
to create Windows Server Failover Cluster with Shared Disk:
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/11/11/high-availability-for-a-file-share-usi
ng-wsfc-ilb-and-3rd-party-software-sios-datakeeper/
AGENDA

Current SAP landscape And Infrastructure

Private Cloud On-Premise

Microsoft Azure And SAP

MSIT Deciding For The Right Infrastructure

MSIT Final State

STEP 1: ON-PREMISE WITH
SOME VMS

Early 2014: 520 Servers

61% Physical Hardware
39% On-Prem VMs
39%

61%
CATEGORIZING SYSTEMS

Azure as well as Hyper-V have some restrictions in

regards to maximum CPU and memory per VM
Azure additionally has some limitations around IOPS
per VHD and per VM
In order to decide which systems can be virtualized
or moved into Azure, systems need to be
categorized in terms of:
CPU resource consumption
Memory consumption
IOPS requirement

The need to categorize all systems in the MSIT SAP

Landscape results in a lot of work but has to be
done
 MOVING TO AZURE AND ON-
PREMISE

Example CPU Utilization as one of the measures to

decide
Server Utilization Index Map Server Utilization to SLA Server Classification by BPU App Lifecycle Disp
Index

Disk Score
1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Frozen Cold Warm Warm Hot Fire
2 Cold Cold Warm Warm Hot Fire
3 Warm Warm Warm Warm Hot Fire
CP
U 4 Warm Warm Warm Warm Hot Fire
Sc 5 Warm Warm Warm Hot Fire Fire
ore
6 Hot Hot Hot Hot Fire Fire

CPU Score Total % Proc Disk Score Avg. Disk Transfer/sec

1 <=2%
2 >2% and <=5%
3 >5% and <=20%
4 >20% and <=70%
5 >70% and <90%
6 >=90%
1 <=10
2 >10 and <50
3 >=5 and <200
4 >=200 and <1,000
5 >=1,000 and <10,000
6 >=10,000
MOVING TO VIRTUALIZATION

Before moving large systems into on-premise virtualization

an intense series of tests were conducted together with the
Corporate VM operations team Findings:
VM hosts need to run in high performance power mode
Severe difference between throughput of single SAP work
process when host server was running balanced power mode
compared to high performance power mode
4 x Intel E5 servers (HP DL560) are used as host hardware
Storage either EMC VMAX (Tiered Storage) or XtremeIO
Largest on-premise VMs up to 32 vCPUs
Maximum memory per on-premise VM of 352GB (11GB/vCPU)
May 2015 to August 2015: migrate to on-premise VMs in
combination with datacenter move
STEP 2: HYBRID CLOUD
VERSION 1

February 2016
9% Physical Hardware 11% 9%

80% On-Prem VMs

11% Azure

80%
AGENDA

Current SAP landscape And Infrastructure

Private Cloud On-Premise

Microsoft Azure And SAP

MSIT Deciding For The Right Infrastructure

MSIT Final State

 STEP 3: HYBRID CLOUD VERSION 2
(10/16)
Physical
Virtualize
d
Azure VM

ERP GTS BI BOBJ SCM CI/ MDG CFM OER ADS OER DUET SOL
DS RMCA E-REC 1DSC CC OEM XI/PI GRC
Prod.

UA
Quarterly T
Release
SIT
Systems

DE
V

Prod. QA
Quarterly Release
Support, OOC,
& Monthly DE & Prod. Support
V

Sandbox
STEP 3: HYBRID CLOUD
VERSION 2

October 2016
1% Physical Hardware 1%

64% On-Prem VMs 35%

Production systems
Pre-production/DR systems
Very large Non-Prod
systems 64%

35% Azure
Development systems
Sandbox systems
Unit test systems
Some small production
systems
STEP 4: FINAL HYBRID STATE

On-premise (Physical and VMs)

Production systems with very high load and
very high performance requirements
Systems required to co-locate with on-
premise systems
DR systems for production on-premise
systems
Physical servers: 5 DB servers for ERP system
Azure
All other systems
AZURE HOW?

We are leveraging our own MSIT supported Azure subscription and own
ExpressRoute connectivity.
VM provisioning and storage design done by Basis team
SAP Basis team needed to ramp-up knowledge on Azure IaaS
Moving to ARM template
All VMs are 2 the Azure regions: Non-prod in one, production in the
other
Re-evaluate system location in hybrid cloud as part of capacity
management
Plans for DR for production systems in Azure similar to on-premise
solution (Do not rely on Azure DR failover, due to requirements to do
business initiated failovers independently)
Snoozing of Azure VMs if not required (e.g. weekends, holidays)
Build out new environments according to real needs, not future
expectation. Grow environment over time as requirements change.
CLOSING
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