In addition to Suse Linux and OpenStack: Software Defined Storage for Hana

It was a little more than two years ago when Suse announced the general availability of its enterprise storage solution based on the open source technology called Ceph.

Time and again, customers and partners from the SAP community asked Suse when SES would also be available for SAP use and specifically for Hana use.

Now the time has come. Since December 2016, Suse Enterprise Storage (for SAP) has been available in a Controlled Availability, which will be transferred to a General Availability on sight.

The first partner is Lenovo, which has integrated the Suse storage solution into its "Storage Solution for Hana" with the addition "Powered by Suse Enterprise Storage".

It can be assumed that other Hana hardware providers will come up with the Suse Enterprise Storage solution as a core component for advantageous and modern software-defined storage management and offer appliances or "complete engineered systems".

What distinguishes SES from traditional, proprietary storage system solutions for SAP Hana deployment?

On the one hand, it is significant that every Storage Solution for Hana with SES as a basis can be used in the form of a TDI solution (Tailored Data Center Integration) and is certified by SAP.

Basically, as in Lenovo's case, it is a distributed and software-defined storage cluster for (currently) Hana data and log files.

However, SES can also be used for mass data deployments, such as IoT applications or Big Data. SES and Suse Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications are closely intertwined.

Furthermore, with the design principles considered with regard to a distributed storage cluster including redundant storage nodes, SES is able to virtually ensure unlimited scaling from terabytes to petabytes, on top of that with a pronounced high availability.

SES based on Ceph combines block, object and file storage in an intelligent software-based solution. And: With Suse Enterprise Storage, cost-effective standard hardware systems (servers with x86-64 architecture, RAID disk systems) can be used; as well as mixed storage types such as NVMW, SSD or HDD.

In a traditional RAID implementation, XFS is supported as the file system. In a SAP Hana application environment, NFS share.

SES based on Ceph includes a kind of self-management and self-correcting or "self-healing" mechanisms in the form of software. On the one hand, this is ensured by intelligent algorithms.

On the other hand, the utilization level of such a software-defined storage cluster environment is monitored quasi permanently. There is also continuous data storage balance control management with simultaneous optimization of system performance.

It's all automatic - which means storage teams don't have to constantly deal with monitoring or management tasks. By the way, SES includes a modern GUI. According to the motto: "Clicking instead of scripting."

Market observers such as Gartner predict that by 2021, more than 80 percent of all corporate data will be stored in scale-out storage systems in corporate and cloud data centers. Today, the figure is around 30 percent.

One driver for this: With software-defined storage systems such as Suse Enterprise Storage, sometimes significant cost savings with reduced CAPEX and OPEX can be achieved compared to classic proprietary storage systems, in addition to agility benefits.

Particularly in the Hana environment, expensive proprietary storage systems can be a kind of showstopper, for example, during a migration to S/4 Hana that is planned in and of itself.

Storage Solutions for SAP Hana powered by SES based on the innovative open source technology Ceph have what it takes to keep S/4 migration projects in check in monetary terms, for example.