SLES for SAP Applications 12: New anchor point for SAP Linux usage

Who would have thought a little more than ten years ago that Linux would one day become the dominant operating system platform in mission-critical SAP deployment?

At that time, an almost manageable number of companies still voted to run their SAP R/3 applications together with open source software and in conjunction with standard x86 servers.

For a long time now, the largest SAP user companies worldwide with tens of thousands of users and complex SAP system landscapes with several hundred SAP instances and database sizes in the double-digit TB range have also relied on Linux (fully or partially virtualized).

Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications now has a five-figure installation figure.

And SLES for SAP Applications is also expanding its market position against the backdrop of an S/4 migration. Linux is virtually a given for Hana and Hana-based SAP systems, and SLES for SAP Applications is the recommended and preferred Linux system.

SLES for SAP Applications has been part of virtually all Hana-based SAP deployments to date - regardless of industry or company size.

Version 12 SP2

Now the new version 12 SP2 is here. The SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP3, which will run out of support after January 31, 2017, can be further extended with LTSS or the support can be further guaranteed by an update to SLES for SAP Applications 11 SP4, which can be significantly simplified by using the Suse Manager.

Version 12 enriches numerous extended and new features. These further optimize mission-critical SAP deployment, with even higher performance, pronounced security and high availability, or accelerated SAP deployment and forced S/4 migration. Whereby with SLES 12 for SAP Applications the latest Intel/AMD x86-64 processors and all common virtualization technologies are supported.

Thus, SLES claims the status of a unique reference platform with the best possible performance for SAP application development. Work on this reference platform is ongoing.

From this, a new feature called "Benchmark Tuning Option at Installation" was developed as another element of a Hana performance optimization.

Version 12 also provides extended functionalities for the Suse Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension. In addition, downtimes can be drastically minimized.

For example, the usable "HAWK Graphical User Interface" simplifies the configuration of high-availability cluster environments with combined physical and virtual servers.

A so-called "Cluster Sanity Check Framework" (Clustertools2) also allows HA/DR configurations to be verified before going live. Furthermore, new "System Replication Resource Agents" now allow automatic failover to a backup system including recovery without the intervention of a system administrator.

This minimizes recovery times of large Hana in-memory datasets from possibly hours to minutes.

New features

New feature highlights of SLES 12 for SAP Applications also include: an extended Security Encryption Management, a Full System Rollback, Templates for Kiwi for image generation, use of Suse Connect or a Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol Environment.

An additional way to increase availability, possible since SLES for SAP Applications 12, can be enabled by live patching of the Linux infrastructure.

Automation of the Linux infrastructure can also be implemented via Suse Manager.

In summary, the new major release 12 of SLES for SAP Applications virtually represents a new anchor point for SAP deployment, both in terms of the use of SAP applications and the use of the SAP database Hana (as well as Any DBs for SAP Classic).