TDI Phase 5 - Hana twice as fast

With TDI 5, SAP customers can determine their own Hana server dimensions or configurations together with hardware suppliers. A good deal, at least. Similar to SAP Classic times. TDI 5 brings cost savings for customers.

For a long time, SAP customers were encouraged to set up and operate Hana exclusively as an appliance. Everything was designed/setup in a box as a preconfigured, preinstalled and tested system solution with the core components (layers): Server and Storage including Linux as OS platform, SAP software and also network functionality.

The main advantages from SAP's point of view are that all components are coordinated and tested; SAP and its partners evaluated the solutions of the appliances, which are designed as single-node ScaleUp systems or multi-node ScaleOut systems.

According to the respective customer's needs, a sizing, if you will, a packaging with subsequent system installation and testing as well as installation and operation took place.

But then there was a change of direction, or rather an additional design/setup option: namely through the so-called "SAP Hana Tailored Data Center Integration concept", or TDI for short.

As of fall 2014, anyone who wanted to as an SAP customer could design or set up an SAP Hana system environment (in addition to ScaleUp and ScaleOut systems) to some extent themselves on the basis of TDI.

The main difference between the Hana design core elements and an appliance is that with the TDI approach, the server, storage and network layers can be selected more or less freely.

However, the server, storage and network systems from the various vendors must have SAP certification. To date, Linux remains the only operating system that can be used in conjunction with Hana, with Suse SLES for SAP Applications as the preferred operating system platform.

Quicksizer from SAP specifies

According to information from the SAP community, TDI Phase 5, or TDI 5 for short, is now entering a new round. And that's not all. According to this, TDI 5 means a turning point, but it could also be seen as such: SAP is rowing back in terms of Hana servers. And it is moving back to a state similar to that of SAP Classic, i.e. Netweaver-based systems.

After all, when asked by SAP partners, TDI 5 brings with it "that SAP customers once again have more flexibility or freedom in the dimensioning of their Hana servers.

Now the customer and the hardware supplier can, to a large extent, again jointly determine the system characteristics and they are again jointly responsible for them, especially for the core characteristics," as an expert from a Hana hardware manufacturer puts it. "What is also new is that the term SAPS is returning," it is reported.

Accordingly, an SAP tool called Qucksizer still spits out the hardware dimensions, first of all the memory size and the core count, categorized according to T-shirt sizes.

In addition to TDI 5, however, work is also being done again with SAPSen, a unit for the performance of an SAP system from the SAP Netweaver/Classic world. It serves as a basis for determining the number of cores required for a Hana system. Where SAPSen cannot be used, the so-called core-to-memory ratio comes into play, according to the explanations.

In addition to the Quicksizer, the so-called migration report can also be used for Hana sizing. It shows further information about an SAP Classic Hana switch, for example, generated workloads and more.

A related important innovation is described thus:

"Now customers are able to work with their hardware supplier to determine or set the appropriate sizing on their own, whether L, M or S - with a lower core count than before and using smaller servers."

Also, for example, a Hana data load, a data-in-memory load from other source systems, could lead to the fact that instead of an M-size with fewer cores, Quicksizer suggests or specifies to use an L-size with many cores - but you can still use an M-size with fewer cores.

So, agree with the customer on an M-Size system with fewer cores, because a Dataload in and of itself takes place less frequently in running Hana operation and you can take some time with it if necessary.

In other words:

According to the available information, cores can be saved with TDI 5. The end result is a reduction in costs. The obligation to use quasi overpowered Hana systems with many cores, of which a high number of cores is practically not used, has been brought to SAP's attention several times, explains a person familiar with the scene, painting the following picture:

"In many cases, it was and still is as if a sports car with perhaps 400 hp runs at full speed at idle, but hardly drives at all. Specifically, of the 120 cores available, for example, not even 20 were used.

On the other hand, it is obvious that further developments in processors - in addition to constantly increasing visualization - also increase the performance of current Hana servers and therefore fewer cores must be installed for the same performance.

In the Intel environment (Hana-on-Intel), the current Skylake processors are generating a new boost, as are the Hana-on-Power environment with Hana machines with Power 9 processors newly announced by IBM.

Nothing happens without customer pressure

SAP customers should therefore be pleased with TDI 5 because of the innovations, which in consequence mean cost savings on the one hand and a kind of back-to-the-roots with greater Hana server self-determination or more flexibility under their own control on the other.

Speaking of customers. In discussions with experts from the SAP community, the question came up: What has now prompted SAP to make the core changes associated with TDI 5 and those outlined earlier?

Practically unanimously, the following could be heard: "Only customer pressure made SAP change its mind".

A community member who, like others, does not want to be named, put the following interesting incident on record: A major SAP customer with many subsidiaries was in the process of concluding Hana and S/4 licenses.

However, the company made this conditional on being allowed to use fewer cores than actually specified. In fact, the number of cores was about the same as for SAP Classic. Only when this was assured by SAP were the SAP licenses concluded.

Why SAP, as the technology watchdog, has always preferred a rather restrictive line when it comes to Hana server hardware, even though the Hana servers themselves actually offer more performance than is needed or could be exploited to a greater extent (with a higher core-to-memory ratio), is answered by community members in this way:

"At SAP, it seems they are simply afraid that too much Hana server or core utilization will degrade Hana database response times by mere fractions of a second."

"Customers can use existing power servers as well as new ones because TDI 5 significantly improves the memory-to-core ratio. Fewer cores need to be used for the same amount of memory.

This can reduce the server footprint because fewer servers may be required and the cost of enabling and maintaining cores can decrease.

For sizing all new offerings, but also for customers already using Hana-on-Power (re-sizing after TDI 5), hardware can be used more efficiently and cost-effectively.

WITH the change from TDI 4 with Core to Memory to TDI 5 with SAPSen, the result is a significantly improved, fairer, reduced and thus more cost-effective resource requirement of the required CPU capacity for the customer and thus an improved processor utilization of the Hana-on-Power systems.

This represents a significant step in the right direction in terms of the resource requirements for computing power to be held in reserve, and above all, the customer's regained responsibility for the procurement and use of computing resources in cooperation with the manufacturer and the business partner, as has always been the case for classic SAP systems."

"At first glance, Hana TDI 5 does not have a major impact for Hana environments virtualized with VMware. Even before TDI 5, using VMware vSphere for Hana allowed customers to utilize Hana server systems more heavily and flexibly than the fixed Hana appliance server configurations.

Before TDI 5, the only factor for calculating performance was the required RAM of a Hana instance. The CPU configuration defined for this purpose was described via the so-called core-to-memory ratio.

With TDI 5, the expected workload in SAPS can be calculated and this information can be used to determine the maximum size of the working memory of a Hana system (physical or virtual Hana).

Now it is possible to configure Hana VMs that approach the 4 TB limit. The additional flexibility that TDI 5 brings to configuring a Hana VM makes configuring a VM in a compliant manner more complex.

VMware has developed a configuration tool that supports an SAPS-based approach in addition to the existing SAP Hana appliance shirt sizing and uses these sizings as the basis for creating compliant Hana VM configurations, making them easier.

This standardization initiative is currently being discussed by VMware and SAP in the SAP Sizing Meeting with all SAP technology partners. From the customer's point of view, TDI 5 changes the following in a nutshell from VMware's point of view: more RAM per Hana VM is possible (depending on SAPS sizing), more Hana RAM per VMware CPU license, better utilization of existing server resources and usage, if necessary a smaller CPU type (fewer CPU cores) can be used or it is no longer necessary to change hardware due to RAM limitations.

Any sizing, with or without TDI 5, should be considered an iterative process (Plan, Do, Check, Act) as systems change over their lifetime. VM configuration should be adjusted according to these changes. The ability to use more RAM per CPU resource, or smaller CPUs, brings flexibility and ultimately saves money!"

"SAP TDI Phase 5 does not change the core to memory ratio: It is still 768 GB for BW and 1.5 TB for SoH (for Skylake processors).

A new feature is that both the quicksizer for new systems and the sizing report for existing systems output an SAPS value. This information makes it possible to select a smaller and thus more cost-effective solution.

In addition to addressing memory, the aim of SAP is to enable customers to select the CPU according to their requirements and thus avoid configurations with too strong (oversized) processors. The procedure is secured at the bottom by the requirement of a minimum of 8 cores per CPU.

For HPE as a manufacturer, this provides the opportunity to offer solutions that are tailored to requirements and therefore cost-optimized. TDI Phase 5 is about optimization - even more CPU power is not currently needed in the Hana market. Addressing memory is still the focus."

"TDI 5 continues the optimizations that SAP introduced with Tailored Datacenter Integration for SAP Hana server use in general. SAP customers are thus able to handle their individual IT infrastructure needs even more flexibly.

From the customer's point of view, including for SAP service providers, this brings benefits, including cost advantages. As a long-standing SAP partner, Suse is known to support both the appliance idea and SAP's Tailor Data Center Integration (TDI) approach.

In this context, Suse, as a preferred and selected Linux supplier with SLES for SAP Applications, also works closely with the Hana-on-Intel vendors as well as with IBM Hana-on-Power systems as a matter of course.

As far as developments are concerned, but also on a day-to-day basis in SAP Hana projects or in projects where the deployment of Hana-based application solutions such as SAP S/4 Hana is the focus "

"With TDI Phase 5, SAP opens up the possibility of aligning Hana infrastructures with the customer-specific workload in line with requirements. Fujitsu uses the leeway gained through intelligent concepts to optimize investments in an SAP IT infrastructure and improve the ROI of the overall SAP Hana solution.

Due to the previous binding of the working memory to the CPU used, in many cases customers have experienced insufficient utilization of the processors used in the systems. Especially with Suite-on-Hana applications, CPU utilization during standard operation of 10 to 15 percent is not uncommon.

TDI Phase 5 now provides the following additional options, namely: a requirements assessment with the SAP Quicksizer, in which expected performance requirements are stored on the basis of empirical data. Based on this data, an impression of the expected requirements can be gained in advance of a new Hana installation.

Specifying the SAPS values for the database server usually results in a larger amount of RAM per CPU and thus "more Hana/Euro". In addition, the ratio of CPU to main memory can be individually adapted to the customer and an optimal utilization of the infrastructure can be achieved.

With TDI Phase 5, the customer is de facto decoupled from the fixed ratio between CPU and memory, the only restrictions being the use of systems released for SAP Hana. This leads to an improved core to memory ratio and an improved price/performance ratio.

For example, for a Hana database with a main memory requirement, instead of a four CPU system, a two CPU system can be selected that meets the requirements in terms of SAPS performance.

Beyond just operating the SAP Hana database, Fujitsu also offers its customers integration into an operating model that homogeneously integrates Hana into workflows and releases it from its special role."