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7 Reasons to Choose SUSE for SAP HANA

Written by SUSE | May 2, 2019 4:00:00 AM

When you run your business operations on SAP HANA or S/4HANA you want an underlying infrastructure that is reliable, fast and secure without overburdening your IT staff with service deployment and management.

SUSE delivers the leading platform for SAP environments providing reduced downtime, optimized performance and increased agility in delivering mission-critical services. The SAP S/4HANA business suite of applications is designed to “run simple” in a digital and connected world.

SUSE helps you:

  • Ensure reliability and performance of SAP HANA-based services
  • Deliver SAP application-based services with greater agility
  • Quickly resolve problems with SAP HANA systems
  • Smoothly transition to SAP S/4HANA

Why build your SAP HANA infrastructure on SUSE? Here are seven reasons:

1. Choose the recommended OS for SAP HANA with thousands of customers.

Know that you’ve selected the right platform by choosing the Linux that SAP chooses. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a reference development platform for SAP applications including SAP HANA. This ensures that there has been the greatest level of scrutiny on new features and fixes, guaranteeing robustness and reducing the possibility of incompatibilities when patches are applied. It is also validated by SAP and has a proven history of customer success with more than 90 percent running SAP HANA on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. And best of all, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a recommended and supported OS of choice for SAP HANA, and is the underlying OS for SAP Cloud Platform.

2. Ensure reliability with reduced downtime for SAP operations.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications includes an advanced high-availability solution that is easy to set up for physical and virtual resources of SAP HANA and business applications. SAP HANA can replicate your in-memory data within the same data center or across two data centers. SUSE adds automated failover and recovery in minutes, not hours. Non-Volatile Dual In-Memory Module (NVDIMM) support for SAP HANA databases enables instant database recovery after system reboots. Loading large SAP HANA databases from storage into traditional RAM can take several hours.

3. Eliminate downtime from security threats

Access to business data in your SAP HANA systems is critical to your business operations. Security vulnerabilities to the Linux kernel can put your operations at risk, but there is often a cost associated with downtime to update the kernel. USE Linux Enterprise Live Patching eliminates the need for planned downtime of SAP HANA and S/4HANA systems by deploying critical security patches without rebooting servers or impacting performance.

4. Reduce the time and effort to deploy SAP HANA systems for increased agility.

SUSE’s Installation Wizard automates installation of SAP NetWeaver and SAP HANA solution stacks including the high availability stack. It fully supports SAP HANA Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI) customized implementations. Installation times for a fully optimized SAP implementation can be reduced from days to hours. Easily deploy SAP HANA in a public cloud using Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure using templates for automated installation of optimized pre-configured solutions. Integration with SUSE Manager provides a single pane of glass for deployment, monitoring and configuration management.

5. Secure and protect SAP HANA systems.

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications includes a built-in firewall with automated configuration to secure SAP HANA in-memory systems. The SAP HANA Firewall can be automatically configured at installation, or easily set up with guidance and recommendations from a built-in wizard. The wizard eliminates command line entries required to configure a highly available SAP HANA system.

6. Smoothly transition to SAP S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA runs only SAP HANA and SAP HANA only runs on Linux. SUSE provides support for Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol, giving Windows Server administrators a familiar working environment for managing Linux. A guide provides tips for executing common Windows Server commands in Linux. Enhanced Active Directory support eliminates the need to re-create Windows userids and passwords in the Linux environment. SUSE offers a course designed specifically for system administrators who need to administer SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications for SAP HANA and S/4HANA systems. In this course, they learn basic Linux concepts, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications administration, storage administration, SAP specific settings within SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications and troubleshooting tips and tricks. See www.training.suse.com.

7. Quickly resolve problems with unparalleled Enterprise Support and Extended Service Pack Overlap.

SUSE offers a maintenance and support service that seamlessly integrates through the SAP Solution Manager into the SAP global support backbone and enables you to initiate a support request using regular SAP escalation channels: telephone, web front-end, CSN or SAP Solution Manager. You also get direct access to SUSE Level 3 Support when you know you have an OS issue. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications includes Extended Server Pack Overlap Support that eliminates the need to pay for Long Term Service Pack Support (LTSS). This gives you 4-1/2 years of Priority Support for each Service Pack so that you can plan the operating system updates with your SAP software stack updates.

SUSE helps companies to achieve a smart transition to S/4HANA by transforming their existing core infrastructure into an agile, easy-to-manage technology platform that allows them to better compete and serve their customers in the digital economy.