Dell, SAP Expand HANA Collaboration
The SAP HANA ecosystem continues to expand with broader collaboration between the German enterprise software specialist and hardware partner Dell that rolls out new services on the SAP HANA platform.
The goal of this and a string of related announcements this week is to move SAP customers to a real-time cloud platform that applies, in Dell's words, "the right level of performance to the needs of the application."
Dell said it worked with SAP to certify its PowerEdge R920 rack server to run SAP HANA on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. HANA will also run in virtual mode atop on VMware's vSphere 5.5 server virtualization stack.
A day earlier, Red Hat and SAP announced expansion of their strategic alliance with the launch of Red Hat Enterprise Linux under the SAP HANA platform. The partners also said they would make RHEL available across the broader the SAP Data Management product line.
The certification announcement means the Dell server can be used for expanded deployments of the HANA platform, which is touted as allowing easier scaling of server memory capacity.
The collaboration between SAP and its hardware and software partners aims to speed the transition of HANA customers to the cloud. The expanded partnerships also are expected to broaden availability of a new open platform for SAP solutions targeting big data and cloud computing.
Working with Red Hat and VMware, Dell said the collaboration would support virtualization in production environments based on SAP HANA. Single server appliances based on PowerEdge R920 would support SAP HANA and VMware vSphere 5.5 in production environments. That means the same tools used to manage virtualized datacenters can be used to manage production environments running SAP HANA, Dell said.
Support for running SAP HANA on Red Hat Enterprise Linux included certifying the Dell server running RHEL as well as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server running SAP HANA. That would give joint customers more operating system options in their datacenters, the partners claimed. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 has been the only supported operating system for HANA in-memory databases so far. While SUSE Linux is popular among HPC centers and mainframe shops, it does not have the market share of RHEL, particularly in the financial services segment where Red Hat rules.
Dell said the collaboration with SAP also includes certification of its Compellent storage arrays with SAP HANA.
Meanwhile, Dell announced a pair of "transformation services" targeting SAP-based environments. A migration service would speed the transition from outdated IT networks to SAP HANA. "The legacy environment continues running while migration activities take place," Dell said.
A "modernization assessment" service would provide a side-by-side database comparison with SAP and Dell's Managed Virtual Hosting Datacenter.
Dell said support for SAP HANA and Red Hat Enterprise Linux is scheduled to be available in the third quarter of 2014. Support for SAP HANA and VMware vSphere 5.5 on the Dell PowerEdge R920 server is scheduled for June, the company said.
Dell PowerEdge R910 servers have also been certified to run SAP HANA.
Separately, Red Hat said RHEL would be made available via SAP-certified hardware appliances provided by partners. Red Hat also said RHEL for SAP HANA and SAP's data management portfolio also will be made available on the Amazon Web Services cloud.
