SAP HANA running on XEN virtual Machine

[dnyandevk007]

Hello,

We are running r.38xlarge(S4HANA) and m3.8xlarge(BW4HANA) HANA database for our S4HANA and BW4HANA systems. These are running on SLES 12 SP1 on XEN.

As stated in SAP notes 2284516 - SAP HANA virtualized on SUSE Linux Enterprise hypervisors

"Solution By issuing this SAP Note, Xen and KVM included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Server / SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, can be used for non-productive scenarios of SAP HANA"

What virtualization software are you using on AWS for your production HANA databases?

Thanks,

Dnyandev Kondekar

[dennispadia]

Hello Dnyandev,

By default, all instance on AWS runs on XEN hypervisor. As XEN is an open source hypervisor, so SAP has different support statements when running HANA on XEN virtual machine. This case is applicable if you have installed XEN hypervisor on your on-premise landscape. But for AWS, you don't need worry about SAP Note 2284516 because AWS has certified their XEN hypervisor to run HANA.

So you don't drill down to each component in AWS HANA instance to identify whether it is certified or not, instead you can just refer to Certified IaaS Platform on SAP Hardware directory to find out which all instances for HANA on AWS are certified by SAP.

Regards,

Dennis Padia

[dnyandevk007]

Hi Dennis,

I have not seen a clearcut and concrete statement from SAP that XEN is supported on Public Cloud like AWS.

Even in OSS Note 1788665 - SAP HANA Support for virtualized / partitioned (multi-tenant) environments it says it like below.

"XEN (on SUSE SLES 11 and 12 versions, supported for SAP HANA) with SAP HANA SPS 11 (or later releases) for non-production use cases"

Thanks,

Dnyandev Kondekar

[dennispadia]

Hello Dnyandev,

That's the idea and basic concept of using Public Cloud as we don't have to worry about underlying infrastructure once the solution/instance is certified.

SAP Note 1788665 needs to be followed if you are doing virtualization in On-Premise landscape for HANA not for public cloud. For public cloud, you just need to know which instance is certified. You can refer SAP Note 1656099 - SAP Applications on AWS: Supported DB/OS and AWS EC2 products for the same. With this argument, this should raise concern for KVM virtualization on GCP, Customized Hyper-v virtualization on Azure as this hypervisors are not mentioned in SAP Note but still it is supported to run HANA instance on public cloud.

You can also check SAP Note 2591601 - SAP on AWS: Adaption of your SAP License which can some where justify your search on XEN hypervisor support for HANA.

Regards,

Dennis