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Summary
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Difficulty
Intermediate
Duration
58m
Students
291
Ratings
5/5
Description

Designing the Azure infrastructure for SAP workloads is a crucial and fundamental step in the migration process. SAP systems are complex and demanding, relying on high-speed and high-capacity hardware and networks.

In this course, we look at the SAP-specific Azure products and features, as well as how generic Azure services can be utilized to architect a high-performance, resilient and secure environment to host SAP workloads. Microsoft has been a provider of SAP hosting infrastructure for many years, and as such, offers a range of solutions for hosting very modest landscapes to the biggest in the cloud.

Learning Objectives

  • Understand the elements of a migration project plan
  • Learn about the SAP-certified compute options available on Azure
  • Learn about the Azure storage options available and which ones to use for various scenarios
  • Understand how to create a performant SAP network using Azure
  • Learn about different SAP system deployment models in the context of infrastructure design

Intended Audience

This course is intended for anyone looking to understand the Azure infrastructure options available, certified, and suitable for various SAP deployments.

Prerequisites

To get the most out of this course, you should have a basic understanding of Azure and SAP.

https://cloudacademy.com/course/assessing-your-current-sap-landscape-1567/

 

Transcript

Designing the most suitable Azure infrastructure for running SAP workloads is very much dependent on the size and nature of the SAP workloads. Ascertaining and documenting your prospective target landscape requirements is the first step in a well structured migration plan. Once you understand in detail what is required, you can make decisions about the power and nature of compute resources, like the number of virtual machines needed, along with the amount of disk storage. The size and type of your target database or databases, along with the SAP version, NetWeaver or S/4HANA, will have a significant impact on infrastructure and operating system choices. In the case of a large HANA installation, you may need a bare metal large instance with the associated particular infrastructure in file storage and ExpressRoute networking. In this case, you are limited to SUSE or Red Hat Linux distributions. Virtual machines will need to be in proximity placement groups to maintain low latency network connections. You will know your high availability and disaster recovery parameters so you can choose the most appropriate levels of replication and redundancy. You can decide to protect your system against host hardware failure right through to the unlikely event of a whole Azure region going down. Most SAP deployments are multi-node affairs with an on-premises component. This means implementing high-performance networking using features like ExpressRoute Gateway FastPath and Global Reach. While ExpressRoute is essentially a private network, you can deploy Azure Application Gateway as a performant and secure entry point when you open your SAP system up to internet traffic. 

When it comes to deploying the SAP applications and databases on Azure infrastructure, it is possible to have multiple databases or apps on one host. SAP has several database multi-hosting or stacking models in the form of Multiple Components on One Server or Database, MCOS, and MCOD. Central Services can also be stacked on a single host, and SAP Fiori can share a HANA database when used exclusively with S/4HANA. Multi-hosting, where it doesn't impact performance, can save costs, especially in a non-production environment. A virtual infrastructure can throw up some unexpected issues, and a good example is the impact of virtual hardware identification in the context of SAP license validation. SAP has added the unique virtual machine ID as part of the hardware key generation, and for the most part, it shouldn't be an issue. Still, under specific circumstances, the virtual hardware can change, rendering the license invalid—just something to watch out for.  

About the Author
Students
21082
Courses
72
Learning Paths
14

Hallam is a software architect with over 20 years experience across a wide range of industries. He began his software career as a  Delphi/Interbase disciple but changed his allegiance to Microsoft with its deep and broad ecosystem. While Hallam has designed and crafted custom software utilizing web, mobile and desktop technologies, good quality reliable data is the key to a successful solution. The challenge of quickly turning data into useful information for digestion by humans and machines has led Hallam to specialize in database design and process automation. Showing customers how leverage new technology to change and improve their business processes is one of the key drivers keeping Hallam coming back to the keyboard.