SAP Cloud Infrastructure with OpenStack

The fact that SAP is relying on open source is also an opportunity for customers to take a critical look at their own pace of innovation and to lay the foundations for a future SAP cloud infrastructure with the first OpenStack projects.

SAP and IoT

At the OpenStack Conference 2016, which took place at the end of April in Austin in the USA, there were two interesting presentations from SAP.

In a keynote presentation, the speaker shared how OpenStack is used as an infrastructure layer for an SAP-based Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure.

The IoT example "Siemens Mindsphere" was mentioned. Here, OpenStack forms the basis for the Hana cloud platform, which in turn is used as the basis for Siemens Mindsphere.

Standardized interfaces

Another use case for OpenStack is to provide a standardized interface for cloud applications that require infrastructure services.

According to the presentation, SAP currently has around 20 different cloud infrastructures that have been created through company acquisitions. With the help of OpenStack technologies, an "SAP Converged Cloud" is to be created.

Instead of individual programming of the underlying hardware components, OpenStack is to be used as a standardized API.

This ultimately creates a cross-vendor control layer for new cloud infrastructures. This gives OpenStack the chance to become the infrastructure standard for SAP environments.

One of the advantages for customers: With such a solution and open APIs, vendor lock-in can be reduced when building new cloud infrastructures.

SAP and the OpenStack Foundation

SAP is a Gold Sponsor of the OpenStack Foundation and is therefore actively involved in development. NetApp is also a member of the OpenStack Foundation and is involved in further development: NetApp is one of the founders of the Manila project.

Developed as an OpenStack building block, Manila provides an automated, scalable, on-demand service for delivering shared and distributed file systems (File Share as a Service).

An open, standardized API is used for this. Manila can be used both as a single module and in combination with other OpenStack modules.

OpenStack Manila

At SAP, Manila is used to deploy shared file systems in OpenStack environments. Since the end of 2015, an integration of OpenStack with Landscape Virtualization Manager (LVM) has also been available, allowing an SAP administrator to access OpenStack services such as Manila via SAP LVM.

In a proof of concept, a team from NetApp and SAP showed how SAP systems based on a shared file system can be moved very easily from a private cloud architecture, such as a VMware environment, to an OpenStack cloud or directly to the Amazon cloud.

This freedom of choice in building hybrid cloud environments, as well as customers' full control over their data, are important components of NetApp's data fabric concept.

With Data Fabric, NetApp defines the future of data management and gives enterprises the ability to move data freely within hybrid infrastructures.