Hana on Power

The Hana development at the Hasso Plattner Institute at the University of Potsdam was coordinated with Intel and focused on the x86 architecture of the Xeon processors. But IBM's Power architecture proved to be the better foundation.

It was not until 2014 that resistance was given up and HoP - Hana on Power - was permitted. Peter M. Färbinger, editor-in-chief of E-3 Magazine, spoke to IBM manager Andreas Span about a unique and successful odyssey in the SAP community.

The in-memory computing database Hana has many great advantages over classic SQL databases - not because SAP is better, but because Professor Hasso Plattner had the courage to make a fresh start: Hana was able to be created on the drawing boards in Potsdam at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) and in Walldorf at SAP headquarters without legacy issues and compatibility requirements.

In Potsdam, Professor Plattner's students researched and programmed together with Alexander Zeier. Hana was brought to operational maturity by mathematician and former SAP Chief Technology Officer Vishal Sikka in Palo Alto, California (USA).

All three - Plattner, Zeier and Sikka - may be assumed to have been not only first-class connoisseurs of the Intel processor architecture, but also to have firmly believed that only this general-purpose processor was best suited for their Hana database - a mistake, as was officially proven in 2014.

Power in Potsdam

Rumors had been circulating in the SAP community since the end of 2012 that the HPI in Potsdam had an IBM Power machine in addition to numerous Intel Xeon servers and that Vishal Sikka was horrified that his database was significantly faster on the Power architecture than on Intel Xeon.

Although the software and hardware are technically very complex architectures, the difference in performance between Intel Xeon and IBM Power is quickly explained:

Both processor architectures are designed for building servers, but Intel focuses on the overall market and thus produces a general-purpose processor, while IBM targets the data-driven enterprise as its main goal with the applications blockchain, artificial intelligence, Industry 4.0, ERP/CRM, etc.

A statement issued by IBM at the end of last year states that the new IBM Power Systems servers with an equally redesigned Power9 processor have been specially developed for computing-intensive AI workloads.

It can accelerate training times in the area of deep learning by up to four times. This makes it possible to build faster and more precise AI-based applications.

Some key components of the new processor were developed at IBM's German research and development center in Böblingen near Stuttgart. These include, for example, a PCI Express 4.0 interface, which delivers up to twice the speed of its predecessor, as well as new hardware functions for supporting so-called "High Precision 128 bit Floating-Point" operations, which are particularly important for high-performance scientific computing.

Support for blockchain applications through power systems and improved computing power per watt were also realized with the help of the German experts.

Big data with power

"Power8 and Power9 have each been newly and specifically developed for processing large amounts of data, with large memory bandwidth - a factor of four greater than Intel x86, more cache - a factor of five more cache than x86, and high performance - a factor of two per core in the benchmark, up to a factor of four in real customer workloads, as well as greater flexibility with PowerVM, high reliability through redundancy, especially in the Power Enterprise Servers."

confirms Andreas Klaus Span, Director and Business Unit Executive for SAP Hana on Power, in an interview with E-3.

However, in Andreas Span's opinion, the argument that Intel x86 originates from the commercial sector with the "good enough" approach, that Power always had to meet the requirements of the enterprise world and therefore developed a completely different architecture, is generally valid.

The opinion of IDC analysts and market researchers is interesting in this context: "IDC is always convinced that diversity in IT and a wide choice are positive factors.

The hardware environment for SAP Hana has so far been inadequate in this respect. There was a choice of providers, but not in terms of processor and performance, the virtualization strength of the platform or the way in which platforms were distributed as appliances.

As organizations that see the future of their business analytics at SAP become increasingly familiar with Hana and S/4, some new concerns are emerging. Processing analytics and transactions on a system like S/4 requires robust performance to handle large volumes of data, uncompromising resilience to protect in-memory processing, extensive flexibility based on virtualization and hybrid cloud, and ease of use.

Not all hardware currently available for SAP Hana and S/4 can optimally fulfill these requirements. Companies evaluating hardware options for Hana should consider the benefits of Hana on Power (HoP).

They have the opportunity to consolidate and simplify on IBM Power systems while optimizing the performance gains that Hana and S/4 can offer."

Differentiation factor

Since the end of 2015, Hana has been available on IBM Power Systems with IBM's innovative Power8 architecture and processors - current status: Power9. IDC is convinced that Power Systems represent a convincing differentiating factor for Hana and S/4.

Designed for very data-intensive workloads like Hana, Power includes high-performance integrated virtualization that is SAP-certified and numerous features to improve reliability.

Andreas Span is well aware that the TCA approach to purchasing is becoming less and less profitable in view of the weak virtualization, the increasing security errors and the limitations and low load capacity of x86 memory DIMMs.

Span: "Added to this is the exponential growth of Hana databases and data in general, which is crying out for a flexibly adaptable TCO approach. Measured against this, Power is not only the higher quality, more stable platform, but also the cheaper one."

Considerations relating to IBM Power are not the same for all existing SAP customers. Customers who currently run Hana on an appliance with commodity architecture must consider different aspects than customers who run SAP applications with a conventional database on Power. IDC emphasizes in this context:

"What all these companies have in common, however, is that IBM power systems make it easy for them to move to a robust Hana or S/4 platform that offers significant benefits. In addition, there is support from many sides for the first steps on this path.

Even if a company is not familiar with Power systems, there are no problems with regard to the required qualifications, as the platform runs on Linux. Thanks to the virtualization based on OpenStack, the platform can also be easily integrated into all virtualized data centers."

CIO, CEO or CFO

Andreas Span knows the decision-making processes inside out:

"Actually, it is less and less the CIO, but the CEO, CFO and other business leaders who have the say in this matter. It's almost always about a company's strategic direction and its future in an increasingly competitive global environment.

And it makes sense to rely on a seamlessly scalable, flexible platform with a guaranteed future. In over 2000 implementations to date, there has not been a single infrastructure-generated problem with Power. Users can sleep soundly - their applications run reliably and are protected."

Redundancy and replication

The flexibility of power systems allows multiple environments to run simultaneously. This means that unused capacity from the productive environment can be used for development or for user acceptance tests.

Compared to other architectures, IBM Power systems achieve greater efficiency from shared resources. IBM Power provides the resiliency that Hana customers demand for critical workloads. Reliability, availability and serviceability features and functions in the Power architecture make these systems ideal for Hana deployments.

This combined solution also supports a variety of different mechanisms, tools and procedures for greater resilience, including first-class support for redundancy and replication.

There are two processor platforms for Hana: Intel Xeon and IBM Power.

"Intel comes from the consumer world and has always coped well with lower requirements. Power is a high-performance product of the enterprise world with its 7×24 demands on performance, scalability and security"

explains Andreas Span in the E-3 interview.

"So if you have a complex, large Hana environment, there's no getting around Power. On top of that, the platform has been optimized for speed and 'data crunching' and, even with a generously calculated core-to-memory ratio and maximum load, hardly ever exceeds 20 percent utilization per instance. Coupled with the free built-in and far more complex virtualization, it is difficult to make a comparison with Intel."

As always, it depends on the size: "However, there may well be areas, characterized by small databases and a manageable number of applications, where Intel pays off. But usually only in the TDI approach recently recommended by SAP - not as an appliance.

Power is usually more expensive for the larger servers from a TCA perspective, but clearly takes the lead in terms of TCO," adds Span.

Appliance versus power

Everything in the Intel/Hana area is subject to certification - that is the appliance approach. IBM manager Span emphasizes that the slightest change - even if it's just a new power cable - requires recertification.

"The Power platform, on the other hand, is certified once and for all! Now to the price: The small Power servers are even priced at Intel level, while the large ones clearly score points in a TCO calculation.

We offer free TCO studies that include two or three competitor models and then let the customer decide freely based on the results. The bottom line: the customer can call us - whatever their budget."

As already mentioned several times, the Power architecture has been designed for efficient "data crunching" on a large scale. Andreas Span is therefore convinced that it is a logical development to use Hana together with the growing volumes of data that are available in concentrated form - One Single Source of Truth - as well as the growing future field of AI.

"Like everything else, the original idea of Hana was subject to the scientific and economic circumstances of its time. There is no need to emphasize how rapidly it has developed in the ten years or so since then.

Today, SAP primarily recommends the TDI architecture and scale-up and we are, to put it loosely, 'the only alternative to Intel'. On top of that, we have been researching and developing together for almost 40 years and have never really been strangers to the concept of in-memory computing."

Platform certificate

The entire Power platform is certified for Hana. "Once and for all!" explains Andreas Span, "This means that we don't have to approve each server individually and have them re-approved for the slightest change, as is the case with appliances.

When new releases come onto the market, such as Power9, they are tested together during the development phase, and if everything goes well, the SAP documentation status is uploaded promptly - the famous SAP Notes.

This has already been done for the 922 and 924 servers from Power9, the large 950 and 980 servers can also already be used for testing and development and we expect the documentation and therefore release for production this month."

SAP has set itself the goal of converting everyone and everything by 2025 with the Hana database, but above all as a platform.

"They also need a partner who offers them comparable prospects for the future"

IBM manager Span says in an E-3 interview.

"They have this partner with us. Apart from that, the code for Hana on Power and Intel has always been almost identical - over 97 percent. There is now only one development line for both platforms, the code is identical and the release times are simultaneous."

The IDC study mentioned above is therefore quite correct:

"Moving to an SAP Hana in-memory platform has become less complicated than it was a few years ago.

Many companies have already taken the first step by migrating to SAP Business Warehouse on Hana. BW is a good starting point for an SAP Hana in-memory database: the immediate performance improvements offer a high return on investment (ROI).

In addition, BW is not classified as a 'business-critical' application, which makes the situation less complicated. Around a quarter of SAP's 40,000 customers worldwide have already deployed BW on Hana and the majority are live and in production.

Most of these SAP Hana customers are running Hana as an appliance based on commodity architecture, as this was the only option at the time. Many of these early customers are now due for a technology refresh."

Nevertheless, there are still tens of thousands of existing SAP customers who have not yet made the switch to Hana. These companies now have significantly more options to choose from. In addition to the many appliances on commodity architecture, they can now choose to run the Hana database versions and the nine S/4 and BW applications on IBM Power systems.

Intel is active in the mass market with its processors: High quantities guarantee a scaling effect. How long will IBM be able and willing to afford its own processor development and production?

"As long as there are customers who rely on enterprise quality - and there are more than enough of them"

says Andreas Span about the current market situation.

"One of our top differentiators is the promise of continuity. We spent three billion developing Power9 and are already hard at work on Power10.

Power11 is on the drawing board. In addition, the applications and requirements are becoming increasingly complex - not only in the Hana environment - and these are not served by commercial-type chips."

And are cloud providers such as AWS, Google and Microsoft threatening HoP's on-premise world? "It seemed that way for a while," says the IBM manager. "Today, even analysts such as IDC are again of the opinion that cloud should be used with caution in limited areas that lend themselves to it. Security, legal and price reasons clearly speak in favor of keeping mission-critical data on-premise. Hybrid environments are probably the more sensible approach."

Are there significant differences between HoP and the Intel equivalent for existing SAP customers in terms of implementation and operation? Andreas Span:

"Yes, there are a few. Firstly, the whole power control is leaner and more compact and secondly, the consolidation factor makes management much easier. Otherwise, Linux is Linux on both platforms. And on the whole, the stability of the Power system also reduces implementation and maintenance costs."

IT for companies

A conclusion by the analysts at QuinStreet clearly shows the competitive advantage:

"The implementation of Hana on IBM Power systems is in line with the philosophy that IT should be transparent for the company.

This means that technology should support companies and not require them to adapt to the requirements of IT. The Power architecture is very well suited in this respect.

This is because their flexibility, reliability and performance give customers the ability to adapt to changes when necessary - without significant disruption.

IBM Power systems provide an excellent foundation for the Hana environment by enabling organizations to digitally transform. The systems that drive this transformation consolidate applications and services from across the enterprise and facilitate the development of new applications and services.

In addition, existing servers and storage resources that were previously used for traditional SAP workloads can be used for other purposes in the new Hana environment.

All of this is critical for the companies that rely on it. It requires Hana to be implemented on systems that are characterized by maximum reliability, availability and ease of maintenance.

IBM is recognized in the industry as an outstanding provider of business-critical IT systems. For years to come, IBM Power Systems will remain the platform of choice for both on-premise and cloud-based implementations to transform and evolve organizations using SAP Hana."

IDC takes a similar view of the market situation in a report: "IBM is positioning itself as a Hana and S/4 expert that can offer the complete package - from defining the strategy and functional specification via IBM Global Business Services (GBS) to the implementation and provision of Power-based hardware on-premise and as a hybrid cloud.

Back in April 2016, IBM and SAP announced a digital transformation partnership to jointly create innovative solutions around cognitive enhancements, user experiences, and industry-specific capabilities with Hana and S/4.

There are several reasons that make IBM Power Systems an excellent platform for Hana, with outstanding platform flexibility, resilience and performance at the core."

Hana and Power

Finally, the question remains: from IBM's point of view, to what extent is the success of Hana dependent on an adequate hardware basis? "Fundamental", is the immediate answer from Andreas Span.

"The basis simply determines the success or failure of the application level - just imagine a scenario from the retail market: A global company has a shutdown of a few days in the delivery process."