The Role of Oracle Solaris in Support of SAP Enterprise Applications

An Oracle White Paper Oracle 2010

The Role of Oracle Solaris in Support of SAP Enterprise Applications


Executive Overview............................................................................. 1 ............. 2 ............. 3

. ............. 3 ............. 5

he ............. 5 ............. 6

............. 7

............. 9

........... 12

........... 12

........... 12 .............................................. 14

........... 14

........... 15

........... 15

........... 15

........... 15 ility: Oracle Solaris ZFS ........................ 16

........... 17

........... 17

........... 18 Enterprise Computing Tools from Oracle.......................................... 18

Datacenter Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center........................................ 19 Security and Compliance Support................................................. 19

Business Benefits of Running SAP on Oracle Solaris....................... 21

Forces Driving a New Platform Design ..................................

Cloud Computing ...............................................................

Virtualization................................................................... ...

The Demand for Green IT ..................................................

SAP Business Suite 7 and tNext Generation of Enterprise Applications .......................

Restructuring in a Difficult Budget Environment.................

The Power of Oracle Solaris for the Next-Generation Computing Platform ....................................

The Simplicity of Oracle Solaris .........................................

Oracle Solaris as a Virtualization Engine ...............................

Virtualization and SAP .......................................................

Oracle Solaris Containers ..................................................

Oracle Solaris and Hypervisors.......

Dynamic Domains ..............................................................

SAP Integration Point: SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller ...............

Security, ZFS, Diagnostics, Open Source, and Other Engineering Advantages of Oracle Solaris .......

Security ..............................................................................

The Enterprise in Control: Binary Compatibility .................

Data Integrity and Scalab

Deep Dive into Performance: Oracle Solaris DTrace.........

Open Source Benefits: Engineering Vision ........................

Green Benefits of Oracle Hardware .......................................


........... 22

........... 22 igration........................................................................ 22

........... 23

........... 24

........... 24

........... 24

........... 25

........... 25 Sustainability ................................................................................. 25 Lowering Total Cost of Ownership ................................................ 26

Conclusion ........................................................................................ 27

The Ecosystem Advantage: Best of Both Worlds...............

Enterprise Support .............................................................

Help with M

Ease of Administration .......................................................

Virtualization: Optimize Resources, Ease Administration, and Go Green

High Availability Computing ...............................................

Scalability ...........................................................................

Tunability............................................................................

Maximum Flexibility............................................................


Executive Overview

IT executives face a continuous but unpredictable cycle in which newly relevant force

a redesign of the platfor

s demand

m and infrastructure for enterprise computing. Past challenges have

ns, the internet,

hat demand a new

rious levels of

enterprise

s Suite 7; and the increasing corporate emphasis on

restructuring.

ing a new

d as a result,

wever,

form must address support for virtualization, environmental sustainability, and

tight integration with enterprise applications. The platform must be flexible to enable quick

d processes. The next

generation of computing platforms must also offer lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

This white paper

Surveys the forces driving IT departments to redesign their computing platforms

Examines the key platform design issues

Analyzes how the Oracle Solaris operating system (OS) meets the new requirements

been caused by the personal computer, the adoption of enterprise applicatio

Y2K, and the dot-com boom.

The current environment represents the next in a series of challenges t

structure for the enterprise computing platform. Cloud computing offerings at va

the software stack; the viability of virtualization at scale; new generations of

software, such as SAP Busines

environmental sustainability are forces sufficient to initiate a new era of platform

When these forces are amplified by an economic downturn, the urgency of defin

computing platform rises dramatically.

The right design of platform for a particular company involves many concerns, an

valuable specific advice on the optimal shape of a platform is hard to find. In general, ho

a modern plat

changes and align the IT infrastructure with business requirements an

1


Forces Driving a New Platform Design

Any one of the following forces discussed in this section puts pressure on the existing shape of the terprise computing:

puting

Virtualization

Taken together, they represent a new set of requirements that will have a dramatic impact. This section analyzes the forces individually, and then examines how, collectively, they demand a new approach to deploying IT infrastructure for the enterprise (see Figure 1).

platform for en

Cloud com

Green IT

New enterprise applications

Economic pressures

Figure 1. Several forces are driving organizations toward a next-generation computing platform.

2


Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is having on enterprise computing platforms is similar to the effect has had on the shape of the overall enterprise. Software as a service offerings such as Splatform as a service offerings such as Google App Engine and Force.com; and infrastructure as a

that globalization alesforce.com;

cture to the ning, and dynamic scalability. The cloud can change the financial

uild datacenters

applications and supporting nding that the cloud

ice, without uters.

of enterprise computing, which is now functionality,

loud or in

the cloud and be constructed in such a way that is friendly to the future construction of work units. This means that applications that were previously

operate only within a highly secure datacenter might need to communicate with other ed support for

livered at scale. For IT departments have used virtualization in many ways, for example, to make workstations

end users and developers and for rapid creation of test environments. housands of ng as companies

hieve new

The Consequences of Server Sprawl

The past 10 years have seen a rapid proliferation of servers at most companies, commonly known as server sprawl Changing application requirements and cheaper hardware have resulted in a system landscape that is severely underused (about 2040 percent usage per server). At the same time, they are overstraining the power and cooling infrastructure of existing datacenters and dealing with severe budget constraints that force companies to try to make the most of what they have.

service offerings such as Amazon Web Services, Rackspace, and GoGrid are changing the rules about what goes where.

Each business must figure out when it makes sense to move applications and infrastrucloud for lower costs, faster provisioshape of the computing platform by converting the capital expenditures required to binto more predictable operational expenses.

The early success of the cloud has been in adopting software as a service development and test environments. Computationally intensive applications are fican be an incredibly cost-effective way to perform large amounts of work on short notneeding the long-term investment in massive datacenters with hundreds of comp

In general, cloud infrastructure is forcing the redefinition thought of as a collection of work units. Each work unit has associated data, applicationand network connectivity. The way that each work unit is processed, whether in the ctraditional ways, depends on the nature of these other elements.

Modern platforms must be able to easily integrate with

intended toservices operating in the cloud or be moved to the cloud. To handle this reality, increassecurity, virtualization, and remote administration will be required.

Virtualization

Cloud computing is essentially a collection of productized, virtualized resources deyears now, more powerful for sophisticatedAlthough cloud vendors have put virtualization to work in datacenters with tens of tservers, IT adoption for production has been slower. However, adoption is acceleratilook to virtualization technologies to combat “server sprawl,” increase flexibility, and acgreen IT goals.

3


Server sprawl can have the following consequences:

More OS instances mean higher costs. Administration is more difficuapproach is to add staff with expertise in a given plat

lt, and whether the form or retain premium staff with

. Components cannot be switched as easily as cannot be

another server for every enterprise application need, although a common strategy since the er does maintaining the

dramatic ers. But the price of increasing use of virtualization in this manner is

vision, administrate, and monitor a virtual environment that can be much more l enviro ent becomes more complex

s both hardware ogies.

ight not be widely vailable.

Heating and cooling costs are much higher, meaning there is

lihood of failure increases with the age of the

ded equipment.

sioning and management. One common scenario involves underlying physical hardware that is reconfigured to support online applications in the day and batch processing at night. During the day, the virtual machines (VMs) that power the online systems can be allocated more CPUs and memory. In addition, several user interface servers can be started. As the load drops after working hours, the user interface servers can be shut down, and the CPU and memory can then be allocated to a VM that is running a batch processing application needing as much computing power as possible during the night.

multiplatform experience, staffing costs can rise uncontrollably.

Diverse hardware platforms are more expensivethey can be in a standardized environment, and the benefits of economies of scaleleveraged for acquisition and maintenance support expenses.

Addingadvent of distributed computing, no longer makes sense. In most cases, neithstatus quo.

Increased use of virtualization has been the antidote to server sprawl, enabling theconsolidation of underused servthe need to procomplex than a physicabecause virtual assets are mo

nment. In addition, change managemre mobile.

The Problem with Obsolete Platforms

Obsolete platforms present several complications, which can be mitigated by virtualization:

Maintenance support costs rise significantly aand software vendors shift to new technol

Components and replacement parts ma

a substantial energy cost for running these older systems.

The likeplatform.

The consolidation that takes place due to virtualization can also serve to replace outmo

Flexibility in Application Provisioning and Management

Virtualization provides great flexibility in application provi

More Virtual Than Real

With the increasing adoption of se

virtualization in the x86 server s

vital to examine the increasing am

system administrator time associat

tracking both physical machines and v

machines (VMs) as they are deployed

provisioned with workloads. Indeed

rver

pace, it is al

proliferation of VMs is expecte

outstrip the number of physical

shipped worldwide. IDC no as a

worldwide. Source: IDC

so

ount of

ed with

irtual

and

, the

d to quickly

server units

tes that 2008 w

record year for physical server unit shipments,

with more than 8 million units shipped

4


When the applications are aware that they are running in a virtual environmethrough the SAP Adaptive Comput

nt, as SAP applications are ing Controller, even more advanced administration and

the management and administration are addressed from the very beginning, it is likely that a virtual sical one.

tainability measures is orm.

en IT, or green computing, because of server osts for air

aller carbon footprint, gnificantly in most sustainability programs.

to cloud-based are generally provisioned with lower energy and cooling costs per server or

ction of a new

ns

nagement anies are wary

hem to upgrade or by outright

atforms. As the

availability of HP 3000 from its

ms. So costly secondary markets might be needed to obtain replacement parts for older hardware platforms. As you make decisions about your platform, understanding the level of commitment SAP has to its technology partners is critical.

Customization can dilute or eliminate vendor support. Over time, older applications become more and more customized to meet changing business requirements. If the customization is extensive, the applications become more costly to support internally and, subsequently, diminish the value of the vendor’s support program.

management capabilities can be employed.

But to expand the use of virtualization, there must be a way to manage the virtual environment. Unless

mess will replace the phy

The Demand for Green IT

The demand for companies to improve their performance along a variety of susdriving the design and implementation of the next generation of computing platf

Virtualization is associated most directly with greconsolidation. Fewer, more energy-efficient servers doing more work means lower cconditioning and power consumption. This lower energy use also means a smwhich counts si

Green IT goals can also be achieved by retiring entire datacenters and moving themresources, whichapplication instance.

Whatever the mechanisms used to achieve greener IT, it is likely to involve introducomputing platform.

SAP Business Suite 7 and the Next Generation of Enterprise Applicatio

Many implementations of enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship ma(CRM), and supply chain management (SCM) applications are so challenging that compto upgrade to current versions. To combat this hesitancy, vendors strongly encourage tthrough various mechanisms, such as by increasing support charges for older versionscutting off support for older hardware and software platforms.

SAP typically certifies compatibility with specific hardware, database, and middleware plsoftware version ages, customers might have difficulty keeping up with platforms that are certified and supported, increasing the risk of failure and performance problems. In some cases, the platform support becomes an issue as well; for example, SAP recently removed the list of certified platfor

5


There is an increased burden on internal IT staff to keep the applications in compliancregulations; failure can put the company at additional risk of penalties. Especially giv

e with en the constantly

ompliance is critical.

s on older ness needs, many

; enterprise re. Generally, this

xacerbates the ugh this software might solve the CEO’s immediate

n’t really solve the problem for the CIOthe datacenter has now become more

SAP, for issues and the needs of the global business in

M, SCM— is now on the

ages. Version d through

oduct forward ments.

enabled Web ese Web

scovered to help ith specific high-value processes. Value scenarios take advantage of the synchronization

of SAP Business Suite 7 and frequently implement processes that span the traditional boundaries of

allation to acquire loyment time

Restructuring in a Difficult Budget Environment

Despite budgetary constraints, the imperative for business success is stronger than ever. CEOs need timely and actionable business information and the ability to change direction very quickly to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. CEOs need dashboards that show revenues, the sales pipeline, trend analysis, and timely updates on the key risks.

shifting landscape of global trade and environmental regulations, assurance of c

In the past, the temptation was to maintain the status quo and keep the ERP systemhardware (for the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” laggards). To address pressing busihave bought new licenses to other software products such as business intelligenceperformance management; and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) softwasoftware runs on a different platform from the database and ERP system, which eplatform proliferation problem. And althoproblem, it doescomplicated, difficult, and expensive to administer.

Why Upgrade Now?

Enterprise software is continually evolving to address the changing needs of business. example, has created SAP Business Suite 7 with TCOmind. Significant enhancements to SAP Business Suite 7 software include

Synchronization of all the applications so that each application—ERP, CRsame release cycle; updates are integrated and tested together.

Thy software maintenance and support model is achieved with enhancement packupgrades will still occur, but only every 5 or 10 years. Software will be upgradeenhancement packs: coordinated collections of new functionality that move the prto meet new require

Enterprise service bundles are collections of service-oriented architecture (SOA)services that provide access to data and functionality inside SAP Business Suite 7. Thservices support distributed computing environments where some parts reside on premise and other parts reside in the cloud.

Value scenarios in SAP Business Suite 7 are automations of processes that were dibusinesses w

ERP, CRM, SCM, and so forth.

SAP Business Suite 7 is a switch framework that eliminates the need for a new instnew functionality. Desired features are not installed but turned on, which reduces depfor new features.

6


These urgent demands mean CIOs need a platform that is flexible enough to respond tstabile enough to keep enterprise applications running smoo

o such requests; thly; and, of course, cost efficient, because

ements of this next-generation platform have been made clear:

uting

nd more latform must be

dynamics at once menting a computing platform designed to address these problems is critical to

olaris OS, which is a key component of the next-generation

gh containers,

laris has best-in-class security.

Solaris have anticipated the complexity of anagement, and green IT.

credible flexibility to support virtualization.

rise applications.

puting

As previously discussed, when you combine legacy hardware and software infrastructure with the pressure to save money and better use resources through virtualization, the complexity of enterprise computing will likely increase.

Day-to-day operations of the company depend on selecting a platform that is flexible enough to adapt to change and offers enterprise grade stability.

severe budget constraints mean everyone must do more with much less.

Thus far, the following el

Support for cloud comp

Increased use of virtualization

Better performance in green IT and sustainability measures

Maximum use of the latest generation of enterprise software

The combination of these forces leads to a new platform that will be highly virtualized acomplex. CIOs must have a clear strategy for managing this complexity. The new pmore secure because it will be connected more widely to the cloud and to other datacenters.

Addressing multiple challenges is not new, but the urgent arrival of so many newmeans that implesuccess.

Oracle has developed the Oracle Scomputing platform:

Oracle Solaris has been designed so that virtualization is integrated into the OS throulogical domains, and dynamic domains.

Oracle So

The administration and management capabilities of Oracle the next-generation platform regarding virtualization, identity m

Oracle Solaris comes with ZFS, a file system that provides in

Oracle Solaris supports a broad portfolio of energy-efficient hardware.

Oracle Solaris is the most widely supported OS for enterp

Oracle Solaris is open source, reducing cost and lowering barriers to exit.

The Power of Oracle Solaris for the Next-Generation ComPlatform

7


IT faces numerous challenges in this environment, including

Maximum asset use. Companies must make the most of what they have in a dow“rip and rep

n economy. The lace” strategy is not an option, and investments with multiyear paybacks are generally

mers.

wer technology is

Support. pplications, ease of support is a key factor in creating a exercise in

n according to agreed- important, key partners and customers have SLAs that

and externally.

propriate access to data while

lowering total

In many ways, the OS is the most important element of the stack.

The OS occupies a critical position, below the applications and above the hardware. Furthermore, as virtualization becomes more widely used, having a stable and well-integrated OS becomes even more

tant a IT challenges.

TABLE 1. HOW ORACLE SOLARIS H GES

IT CHALLENGE BENEFIT ROLE OF THE OS IN MEETING CHALLENGE

not considered.

Continuous access. Unplanned downtime means lost revenue, whether from the standpoint of unproductive employees, loss of sales, or decreased confidence from partners and custo

Agility. The ability to respond quickly to a dynamic business climate is critical. Nemore flexible and adaptable than older software.

For business-critical enterprise asolid infrastructure. When there are multiple vendors, support issues can become anfinger-pointing and miscommunication.

Expectation management. All the business units expect their systems to ruupon service-level agreements (SLAs). Moremust be met. The infrastructure must ensure that all SLAs are met, both internally

Security and compliance. The infrastructure must enable apfacilitating compliance with data privacy regulations.

Accelerated ROI. The most important of all considerations right now is not only costs, but also demonstrating that the company can achieve ROI quickly.

impor . Table 1 highlights how robust OS can address common

ELPS ADDRESS IT CHALLEN

Maximum

set use

panies make the logies

ualization

chnologies

s where needed

Helps com most of Built-in, no-charge virtualization techno

what they have Supports a wide range of hardware and virt

te

Ability to reliably virtualize existing system

as

Continuous

access

Dependable operat

affects profitability

Availability features such as predictive self healing feature in Oracle

Solaris and Oracle Solaris Cluster high availability software

ions; availability

Agility Ability to easily reconfigure

systems and databases to respond

to a changing system landscape or

acquisitions

Easily integrated features such as load balancing and dynamic

reconfiguration

Support for Java-based standards that enable the latest in e-

business

8


Support source of support av ls with clear fault messages to

s on their own

Security an

compliance

ding private or

leakage or fines from lack of

built in

Fine-grained access control built into the base OS and integrated

hnologies such as Oracle Solaris Containers

Single ailable Robust and intuitive diagnostic too

when needed

d Avoi

help administrators figure out problem

proprietary data Strong data security and audit trail functionality

compliance virtualization tec

Low TCO Increased r

ventures

Lower energy costs

rce

rise hardware

Application binary compatibility guaranteed

Tremendous ISV application support

evenue No license fee and open sou

Frees up money for new Maximum uptime

Runs on commodity and enterp

The Simplicity of Oracle Solaris

This subsection examines the benefits of Oracle Solaris in greater detail, considering theespecially the SAP context.

The benefits of running SAP applications on Oracle Solaris include the following:

End-to-end support for enterprise applications. The smallest x86 server upserver can run Oracle Solaris; no other OS spans such a wide range of hard

enterprise and

to the largest SPARC ware architectures and

. This simplifies system administration e most cost-effective and appropriate hardware for

ltip vers with n t Solaris.

Ease of ad Running the same OS across as much of the

Choice. Oracle Solaris not only spans all sizes and families of Oracle servers but IBM, HP, Egenera, and Fujitsu are among the OEMs for Oracle Solaris.

Application support. More than 11,000 applications are available on Oracle Solaris, three times more than available on any other version of UNIX (see Figure 2).

enterprise independent software vendor (ISV) applicationsgreatly while providing flexibility in selecting ththe applications in question and their SLAs. High-end muthousands of threads as well as x86 and x64 servers can ru

rocessor, multicore serhe same OS: Oracle

ministration. system landscape as possible streamlines administration.

Hardware Choice

OEMs that install Oracle Solaris

on their hardware: IBM, Fujitsu,

HP, Dell, Toshiba, Egenera,

and others.

9


Figure 2. Oracle Solaris provides comprehensive application support across several platforms.

ease of owing (see Figure

ree but highly and can be

parate license fee. are part of Oracle Solaris itself.

zed as the most t would normally

cense from a company such as NetApp or EMC with Oracle Solaris, there is no

d predictive self Solaris keeps

ut downtime—all at no

racle Solaris builds on UNIX security with Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), an integrated firewall, and out-of-the-box secure settings. Such features typically come at an additional cost, in terms of licenses and expertise to implement best practiceswith Oracle Solaris, there is no additional cost.

Out-of-the-box integration. Linux and other OSs require the installation of numerous additional software packages, for example, security components and even applications such as the PostgreSQL database. These features are preintegrated with Oracle Solaris—no additional cost is required.

Oracle Solaris not only offers scalability across architectures, choice of hardware, andadministration, but also provides significant value-added features, including the foll3):

Virtualization. Oracle Solaris offers SAP-supported virtualization that is not only fefficient in the form of Oracle Solaris Containers. Containers are extremely flexiblebooted faster than any other type of virtualization. Furthermore, there is no seContainers

Data integrity, capacity, and management. Oracle Solaris ZFS is widely recogniadvanced and high-performing file system yet developed. It offers capabilities tharequire a li additional cost.

Keeps running when components fail. Oracle Solaris offers dynamic failover anhealing. If a memory component or disk is about to fail or actually fails, Oracle running, enabling suspect or faulty components to be swapped out withoadditional cost.

Strong security. UNIX is considered more secure than Microsoft Windows. O

10


Figure 3. Oracle Solaris provides many advantages in its support of the next-generation computing

Is Your Platform Flexible?

platform.

as business needs s to the business can be

ble and require

ditions and to r the global

n. Do business users have access to improved analytics and reporting tools? Are such requests always funneled through IT? Flexibility means empowering users to get the information that they need to make good decisions quickly, with as little IT support as possible.

Work with partners. Key business partners and even governments are requiring that more business be conducted electronically. Does your platform support flexible integration technologies such as SOA, so you can quickly take advantage of new opportunities and meet the challenges of business network transformation?

Flexibility refers to the ability to manage change in the future, evolving the solutionchange. The impact of flexibility can be relatively high, because changeabsorbed quickly and at a relatively low cost, compared to older systems that are inflexiextensive customization. Flexibility is used in several areas:

Quick response. Flexibility allows companies to adapt to changing business conreconfigure business processes as relationships with partners and customers change omarket changes. How quickly can businesses respond to new requirement today?

Timely informatio

11


In short, flexibility means responsiveness to the needs of the business. Other impcharact

ortant platform eristicsincluding scalability, stability, and simplicityprovide the underpinning for this

flexibility.

cle Solaris and rdware platforms. Oracle Solaris is actually designed to support a continuum of

partitioning and virtualization technologies that can add and application .

P

lication, the

P application. In rvers must be

f-month processing, they are usually running at as low as 1020

nally been S on one CPU

/3, SAP has tualization. SAP has

is 8 and 9 have been r five years or more. It is common for SAP customers to be running

dozens of SAP instances on a single Oracle server.

ted by SAP since 2005, making Oracle the perfect sections

nefits with minimal new

Oracle Solaris Containers

Because Containers are part of the OS itself, they require far less management than other options. The tools to manage these lightweight VMs are built into the OS itself.

Containers offer extremely efficient and secure virtualization. The host runs one copy of Oracle Solaris, which is why Containers are so lightweight, compared to other techniques; however, the integrated Containers essentially cordon off the VM and enable applications to think they are the only

Oracle Solaris in Production

Some 90 percent of the Fortune

s running Oracle Solaris in

duction today.

Oracle Solaris as a Virtualization Engine

Unlike most other virtualization solutions on the market, virtualization is built into Orainto the Oracle ha

ress varying levels of flexibility isolation requirements

Virtualization and SA

Why is virtualization important to enterprise customers, in general, and SAP customers, in particular?

Consider again how server sprawl occurred. Often, when adding a new enterprise appapplication was run on a dedicated server. Counting production, test, development, and disaster

100 i

pro

recovery servers, companies can easily have four to six servers running a single SAfact, the SAP system landscape can comprise 50 servers or more. And because these sesized for peak use, such as end-opercent of their true capacity the majority of the time.

Furthermore, the AMD Opteron and Nehalem chips show that even what has traditiothought of as commodity hardware has too much power for one server. Running one Owill, by definition, be a thing of the past.

SAP applications are among the best for virtualization because, since the advent of Rfocused on separating applications into logical chunks that lend themselves to virsupported virtualization for seven years, and many customers running Oracle Solarvirtualizing SAP applications fo

Oracle’s virtualization solutions have been supporpartner—and Oracle Solaris the perfect platform—for virtualization. The following subexplore further how Oracle Solaris virtualization provides bottom-line bemanagement and support challenges.

12


resources running on that particular system. Containers offer particular benefits for SAP Each application can be run in a separate Container, which improves security and administration easier. Furthermore, resources can be dynamically allocated to Conactually be moved from one server to another. If an underlying server requires maintenance, the

customers. makes tainers and can

.

requires , or Oracle Solaris,

managed through an underlying hypervisor that has overhead. Containers have almost Mware and

Although enterprise virtualization is now becoming widely adopted, Oracle has again been leading the on curve. Containers have been used in the enterprise for more than five years,

ces, depending on application needs. In

rent datacenters for disaster recovery

ed overall server usage rates from 20 to 60 percent

Used to separate departmental applications so that security requirements are properly addressed

Containers can be hibernated and dynamically resized during the day to accommodate different peak loads. Figure 4 shows one example of adjusting the resources in Containers to address these needs.

Container running SAP CRM 7.0, for example, can easily be moved to another system

With other virtualization technologies, such as VMware, creating a virtual environmentinstalling an entire copy of the OS. Whether it is running on Windows, Linux, AIXthey must all be no overhead (about 2 percent compared to about 20 percent for hypervisors such as VMicrosoft Hyper-V).

technology innovatiproviding secure and lightweight virtualizationfreeas part of Oracle Solaris.

Flexibility of Containers

Containers can be assigned different amounts of resouraddition, Containers can be

Created almost instantaneously

Cloned so that two Containers have the same application stack

Cloned and housed at diffe

Reconfigured as needed and moved from one system to another should more resources be required

Standardized to streamline operations significantly; for example, one bank improv

Figure 4. Resources for Zones can be adjusted for time of day.

Although the terms Zones and Containers are often used synonymously, there are some technical differences. Once you assign resources (such as CPUs) to a Zone, it becomes a Container.

13


Oracle Solaris and Hypervisors

Another approach to virtualization is using a hypervisor. A hypervisor is a thin layer ofbetween the OS and the VMs. VMware and Hyper-V a

software re examples of hypervisors. Oracle’s VM Server

OSs. For each VM, another copy of the OS is running. For this ent, compared

ing guest OSs under use of the ZFS file system, which is currently available

ZFS to other

ty to run as is on SPARC.

ing, storage, and ew highs for the industry. The OpenSolaris

key server virtualization technologies in the form of Containers, domains for Oracle’s complete

ety of proven approaches to virtualization (see Table 2) so that customers r needs. Another option for virtualization is to partition the

hardware of a large server into several differe called

from Oracle since 1998.

ACLE- ALIZATION GLANCE

TUALIZATION EASE OF CR OS SUP DDITIONAL BENEFITS

is open source-based (based on Xen) and runs on Oracle Solaris.

A hypervisor manages all the guestreason, the overhead for virtualization using a hypervisor runs at approximately 20 percto approximately 2 percent for containers.

Oracle VM Server provides some additional unique advantages. For example, runnOracle Solaris effectively provides them theonly for Oracle Solaris (although there are open source projects in process to bringUNIX versions such as Mac OS X and Linux).

For SPARC systems, domains provide powerful hypervisor functionality with the abilimany as 128 virtual systems on a single server. This hypervisor is free with Oracle Solar

Oracle continues to deliver on a holistic, built-in virtualization design for networkapplication abstraction, raising performance and scale to nplatform delivers Sun chip multithreading (CMT) systems, and the Xen-based hypervisor, to give users a virtualization platform built directly into the OpenSolaris OS.

Dynamic Domains

Oracle Solaris supports a varican optimize their environments to thei

ent machines. This type of virtualization is the oldest form and is also available on mainframes. Such VMs ar dynamic domains and have been available

TABLE 2. OR SUPPORTED VIRTU AT A

VIR

TECHNOLOGY

EATION PORTED A

Containers es Easy Oracle Free with Oracle

Solaris

Zon Solaris

Oracle VM Serve Medium Multiple Can run both 32-bit

and 64-bit guests

r Hypervisor

VMware Hypervisor Medium Multiple Licensing fees apply

Hyper-V Hypervisor Medium Multiple Licensing fees apply

Domains Hypervisor Medium Oracle Solaris Free on SPARC

Dynamic domains Physical grouping of

machine resources into

VMs

Advanced Oracle Solaris Free on SPARC

14


SAP Integration Point: SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller

The SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller (ACC) enables a view of SAP sacross the system landscape. Using the SAP NetWeaver ACC, SAP administrators canapplications from one server to another with minimal downtime (about five minutesadded support for managing SAP applications running in Container

ystems running move

). Oracle recently s through the SAP NetWeaver

ACC. Administrators running the SAP NetWeaver ACC can see all SAP applications running on all

ntages of

powerful RISC binary

software will run on future releases of Oracle Solaris. Features such as Oracle Solaris ZFS and Oracle Solaris DTrace

additional description to appreciate how they fit into the Oracle Solaris value proposition. This ource platform.

ty is an inherent

BAC, which follows the

ge, ensuring that users have only the privileges that they need and no

all Oracle Solaris binaries make it possible for administrators to be confident that no Trojan horses have been inserted into the operating environment. Each Oracle Solaris binary has a

secure by from the time

away is that if you ask whether an older application that ran on Oracle Solaris 8 will run on Oracle Solaris 10, the answer is yes. Factoring in Containers, and that becomes a resounding yes. You can move older applications running on Oracle Solaris 8 or 9 into a Container on Oracle Solaris 10, and they can still believe that they are running on a server that uses Oracle Solaris 8 or 9.

This is what binary compatibility really means in practice. When Oracle patches Oracle Solaris, the company applies the patch retroactively to all versions. For users, this means not having to retest or

supported platforms and move them or reallocate resources to them as needed.

Security, ZFS, Diagnostics, Open Source, and Other Engineering AdvaOracle Solaris

Oracle Solaris is the only OS that runs on the full range of hardware, from laptops toservers. In addition to its scalability and value-added virtualization capabilities, it offerscompatibility, which puts enterprises in control of OS upgrades and ensures that their

requiresection covers all of these topics, as well as the benefits of Oracle Solaris as an open s

Security

The design vision behind Oracle Solaris puts enterprise use at the forefront, so securipart of every aspect of the OS and its configuration.

Oracle Solaris 10 offers a systemic approach to strong security. Oracle Solaris offers Rprovides an alternative to the traditional all-powerful UNIX root or superuser. RBAC security principle of least privilemore. This is referred to as user and process rights management.

Secure signatures of

digital fingerprint that can be verified.

Oracle Solaris 10 is shipped with an integrated IP filter firewall, and its configuration isdefault. In other words, network services are turned off, and security rules are enabledOracle Solaris is installed.

The Enterprise in Control: Binary Compatibility

Binary compatibility sounds technical, and in some ways it is, but the important take

15


recertify applications. It also means that when you want to move to newer or more cost-efficient

applications that ge of having an of the same

the latest patches to Linux software that is

are.

le, are different

t hardware

not need to update the ng the datacenter in control instead of forcing

with the ability olaris 10,

Binary compatibility is one of many features that illustrate that Oracle truly understands the needs of control their patch level rather than forcing them to

ation of the

and EMC. rate license for a product

FS introduces to the pool; there is

m this pool, you ns.

ue through ris ZFS record only

the deltas between the two. For example, if you have an SAP production environment and you are going to do some testing, you can clone your environment instantly and hand it to your test group. You can create a full replica of the file system using standard OS features instead of getting a license for a commercial product.

Anyone who has ever lost important files, run out of space on a partition, spent weekends adding new storage to servers, tried to grow or shrink a file system, or experienced data corruption knows that

hardware, you do not have to wonder if it will work.

This is in striking contrast with most application vendors, who do not guarantee thatran on earlier versions will run properly on the latest OS release. It is also an advantaintegrated OS. Although Linux requires installation of auxiliary software to get some capabilities that Oracle Solaris has out of the box, you will have to apply and to any other components, such as databases. If you are using a database or otherpart of Oracle Solaris, those patches are applied retroactively to all included softw

Now consider what binary compatibility does not mean. SPARC and x86, for exampchip architectures. Binary compatibility across these hardware architectures is not possible. What Oracle provides in this case is source code compatibility. This means that no matter whaplatform is in use, Oracle Solaris and applications always look and feel the same.

Datacenters might want to remain on a certain version of an OS. Companies doOS to get the latest fixes for Oracle Solaris, rightly puttithe datacenter to follow the OS vendor’s lead to maintain their support contract. Andto run older versions of Oracle Solaris 8 and 9 applications in Containers on Oracle Sadministration is even further eased from a datacenter perspective.

enterprise computing. By allowing enterprises to update to a newer OS version to get relevant fixes, Oracle demonstrates its apprecicomplexity of running large datacenters.

Data Integrity and Scalability: Oracle Solaris ZFS

Oracle Solaris ZFS provides snapshot capabilities such as those available from NetAppOracle Solaris also includes a volume manager, which would require a sepasuch as Symantec’s Veritas Volume Manager.

Oracle Solaris ZFS represents a leap forward in file system capabilities. Oracle Solaris Zthe concept of pools as a way to manage storage. When you add storage, you add itno need to work with storage devices at the device level with Oracle Solaris ZFS. Frocan then allocate storage to various SAP applications, databases, and other applicatio

Oracle Solaris ZFS takes snapshots instantaneously. It offers copy-on-write, a techniqwhich you can clone a whole file system instantaneously, and then have Oracle Sola

16


there is room for improvement in file systems and volume managers. Oracle Solaris ZFS is designed deliver a general-purpose file system that spans the desktop to the datacenter.

End-to-end data inte All data is protected by 64-bit checksums; data consistency is

ates

on times the capacity of 32- or 64-bit file systems for tremendous scalability.

to optimize performance.

formance that ? This type of

question can be difficult to answer easily. DTrace lets system administrators troubleshoot kernel and cle Solaris. Its etimes port their

they can more easily debug them.

DTrace works by turning on probes scattered throughout the code and the OS. Because DTrace create system overhead. DTrace allows administrators to

on Oracle

most stable and Oracle engineers

of OpenSolaris ams allow for

ains solid. eded. Currently,

cations.

The Oracle Solaris ecosystem consists of the Oracle Solaris OS and open source OpenSolaris OS, as well as the Oracle Studio development tools, which form the core of a large developer community and a vast portfolio of applications. Free and open, Oracle Solaris is a proven, industry-leading OS with features designed to save time and money in business-critical operations. Oracle Solaris provides stability, massive scalability, high performance, and guaranteed forward binary compatibility. Oracle Solaris releases feature an extended support lifecycle as needed in today’s demanding datacenters.

from the ground up to

Oracle Solaris ZFS provides

grity.maintained at all times.

Ease of administration. Eliminates the need for volume managers; the GUI automadministrator intent.

Immense data capacity. World’s first 128-bit file system, with 16 billi

Huge performance gains. Proven technologies combine

Deep Dive into Performance: Oracle Solaris DTrace

Oracle Solaris DTrace empowers administrators to answer tough questions about perbusiness users might need immediate answers to. What is happening with performance

application problems in real time. DTrace can examine any program running on Oracapabilities are so well known that developers who program for other platforms somprograms to Oracle Solaris so that

probes run only when needed, they do notsee at a fine-grained level what is happening in a kernel process or application runningSolaris, quickly pinpointing any problems.

Open Source Benefits: Engineering Vision

A product of Oracle’s comprehensive engineering vision, the Oracle Solaris OS is theenterprise-friendly server OS available. OpenSolaris is the innovation platform where and open source developers work with leading-edge features. Eventually, a snapshot will become the release candidate for the next version of Oracle Solaris. These two streunlimited open innovation while ensuring that Oracle Solaris for the enterprise remOpenSolaris can also be deployed in the enterprise when cutting-edge features are neyou can use OpenSolaris in your test and development environment for SAP appli

17


These two streams enable open innovation while ensuring that Oracle Solaris for the eremains solid. OpenSolaris can also be deployed in the enterprise when advanced feat

nterprise ures are needed.

Currently, you can use OpenSolaris in your test and development environment for SAP applications.

h approximately 50 atforms include

ty, and I/O s, Oracle’s Sun

p to 2 TB of se servers provide

covery. CPU, memory, s. Even hardware

ing.

nd T3) incorporate pr

parallel threads the only 256-

rvers offer five times the performance while rvers save energy.

do and, thus, scale up to

GB RAM with 4U of height.

MT and x86 in one single chassis with up to 128-way CMT blades (two UltraSPARC T2 CPUs). With up to 256 GB RAM for massive parallel

loads these servers y combination

Enterprise Computing Tools from Oracle

that can help

Datacenter management. Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center provides the ability to manage multiple datacenters, including discovery of servers and management of a diverse system landscape.

Security and compliance support. Oracle Identity Manager/Waveset is integrated with SAP BusinessObjects Access Control. Oracle Identity Analytics and OpenSSO can help in ways that are particularly relevant to secure and compliant management of the entire enterprise landscape.

Green Benefits of Oracle Hardware

Oracle’s engineering vision includes not only Oracle Solaris but hardware. Althougpercent of Oracle licenses run on non-Oracle hardware, reasons to consider Oracle pl

Optimizing services that require the highest availability, maximum scalabilithroughput. For applications such as SAP databases or business warehouse systemSPARC Enterprise servers are the right choice, providing scalability up to 256 cores, uRAM, and up to 288 PCI Express slots in one system. Sun SPARC Enterpriredundancy of all active hardware parts and, therefore, automatic system reand I/O resources could be added or removed without interrupting running servicemaintenance, such as replacing a defective CPU, can be done while the system is runn

Hardware support for encryption. Oracle’s CMT processors (UltraSPARC T2 aocessing power that optimizes strong encryption. These CPUs are currently the only

ones on the market providing eight cores with eight independent threads each and 64on one single die. Up to four of these CPUs can be housed in one chassis, making itway server in four rack units (4U) on the market.

Green servers. Oracle Solaris CoolThreads seconsuming one-fifth of the power of older servers. Even in the x86 area, Oracle seWith their intelligent systems design, Oracle x86 servers stay cooler than competitorsprovide the same performance and more RAM in half the size. Oracle x86 servers caneight AMD CPUs and 512

Flexibility. Oracle’s Sun Blade 6000 combines C

workloads and up to 24-way Intel Xeonbased blades for compute-intensive workcan be mixed in an

Aside from Oracle Solaris and its server offerings, Oracle has many software offerings SAP customers, including

18


Datacenter Management with Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center

To manage enterprise system landscapes, companies frequently use datacenter management suites from s in this category.

Oracle Enterprise Manager Ops Center offers an enterprise-grade solution to managing multiple systems, both physical and virtual.

ing reports on servers by customer, what OSs are running, what

le Solaris, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and SUSE indows supported only on VMs

ts for all connected systems

compliance tegrating with the

SAP GRC product line in key areas. Oracle offers a complete stack that helps companies automate lication in the datacenter, whether it’s SAP ERP,

gregation of d audit ability.

automated end-BusinessObjects

that product. Further, ncluding SAP

ss Control to gain ser interface.

Without such a solution, auditors would have to be guided through multiple system interfaces.

Support for workflows and approvals. Access isn’t assigned; it’s granted. Oracle Waveset helps manage the workflows needed to get approvals complete and on record.

Oracle Waveset shows access throughout the system landscapeat both the software and the OS level. In addition, Oracle Waveset’s Lightweight Directory Access Protocol functionality makes it possible to manage access to the growing number of virtualized systems through resource maps.

companies such as CA Technologies. Oracle provides agents for all major vendor

datacenters and all running

Highlights of this offering include

Detailed reporting capabilities, includsystems users have logged in to, and what processes they are running or have run

Management of virtual and physical systems

Support for mixed environments, including OracEnterprise Linux Server; W

System discovery and heartbea

Support for multiple datacenters

Security and Compliance Support

SAP has offerings that address enterprise imperatives related to governance, risk, and(GRC). Oracle’s offerings help extend that to a diverse system landscape, as well as in

compliance tasks and requirements for every appOracle Solaris, Microsoft Active Directory, or Microsoft Exchange Server, providing seduties (SoD), automation, compliance and role management workflow, and streamline

Oracle Waveset and Governance, Risk, and Compliance

Oracle Waveset interfaces with SAP BusinessObjects Access Control to provide a fullyto-end solution regarding identity management and audit trails. Interfacing with SAP Access Control allows SAP customers to leverage the content and definitions in Oracle Waveset extends automated access control to the entire system landscape, iapplications as well as applications from Oracle’s JD Edwards. Key features include

Streamlined access for auditors. When auditors come in to look at the details of transactions and system access, they can use either Oracle Waveset or SAP BusinessObjects Acceaccess to all audit information for the entire system landscape through a single u

19


Oracle Identity Analytics

SAP BusinessObjects Access Control can scour SAP systems for SoD violatioroles, offering some 450,000 rules that ensure that roles in SAP are clean from a compperspective. But what about roles in the larger system landscape or in other software sOracle or JD Edwards? Oracle Identity Analytics handles the engineering and simplanalyzing roles to see where two roles are essentially equal, making secure and compliof thousands of users a straightforward task. Oracle Identity Analytics also provides a ccertification process, so that all activities are monitored and logged for review at an

ns and help clean up liance ystems, such as

ification of roles, ant management

omplete IT y time by anyone.

Furthermore, Oracle Identity Analytics provides real-time access control checks through Web services, ther identity management solutions that might be in place.

urely because it partner, is

ctionality using O functionality for

ate and stems and reside

le portal interface. Oracle OpenSSO provides a way to authenticate users once, regardless of where the services themselves are running.

In concert with SAP BusinessObjects Access Control, Oracle Waveset, Oracle Identity Analytics, and Oracle OpenSSO provide SAP customers with an integrated compliance solution that addresses the OS level as well as both SAP and non-SAP applications (see Figure 5).

offering flexibility for integration with o

Open Single Sign-On: Managing SAP Access

Single sign-on (SSO) greatly streamlines system administration, but it must be done secprovides a gateway to all the functionality that a user, whether employee, customer, or authorized for.

Oracle OpenSSO is an authentication/authorization framework that provides SSO funfederated identity management. Federation technology provides cross-enterprise SSWeb servicesbased applications. Oracle OpenSSO provides a secure way to authenticauthorize end users through Web services. Web services can run on many different syin many different domains, and yet be combined into a sing

20


Figure 5. Oracle Waveset, Oracle Identity Analytics, and Oracle Open SSO provide an integrated

Business Benefits of Running SAP on Oracle Solaris

Now that an overview of some of the technical features that make running SAP on Obest choice have been presented, it is important to turn to the business benefits that will appreciate. You can think of Oracle as a trusted contractor that takes care ofbuilding a house to your specifications, putting its own quality into every system ofheating and cooling to the windows to the roof and plumbing. It is possible

compliance solution.

racle Solaris the SAP customers

every aspect of the house, from the

for enterprises to manage all this on their own, building the house themselves or supervising a large cadre of subcontractors, but those who have been through this experience know that a trusted contractor with a strong reputation for quality can save homeowners many headaches, both during the building process and for years to come. In addition, the value proposition is such that when you weigh your options, you will be surprised at the low TCO. This is one of the rare cases where the best solution—the solution that really solves the problem and addresses all the headaches—is also the most cost effective.

21


The Ecosystem Advantage: Best of Both Worlds

Oracle combines the strengths of the open source community with its comprehensive engineering

aris is open source, and innovation happens in OpenSolaris, where the open source to its

ed, Oracle Solaris cle Solaris, Oracle

words, customers benefit ting—scalability,

rce.

Innovations such as the Oracle Solaris ZFS file system, Containers, and DTrace were born from ensive engineering vision and are now being ported or replicated in some way on

the problem is rdware vendor rd parties such

ating environment, creating another layer of complexity when you es to support for any SAP-related

eering expertise available

on every hardware platform on which it runs. Oracle also provides virtualization (free), so you do not have to call a virtualization vendor. Oracle works with the leading

ors and, for SAP customers, has an Oracle Joint Support Center for SAP

one phone call to rt you need.

Help with Migration

Oracle offers several different categories of migration help. First, it can help you determine if Oracle Solaris is right for you and what kind of TCO you can expect. Second, it can help you migrate SAP applications to Oracle Solaris.

vision, bringing the best of both worlds to customers.

Oracle Solcommunity, ISVs, and customers can work with the latest from Oracle and contributeimprovement.

At the same time, the needs of the enterprise are well served at every level. As releasis a secure, stable OS, created with a coordinated engineering vision that moves Orasoftware, and Oracle hardware along a single, focused trajectory. In otherfrom this singular vision and its sensitivity to the many needs of enterprise compuhigh availability (HA), and security—while also enjoying all the benefits of open sou

Oracle’s comprehother OSs.

Enterprise Support

One of the many challenges of enterprise computing is that vendors might claim that really someone else’s problem. From the network provider to the many ISVs to the hato the OS vendor, finger-pointing is a common problem. Virtualization provided by thias VMware adds yet another operencounter problems. Enterprise customers do not need finger-pointing when it commission-critical systems. Oracle has an SAP Solution Center that helps its clients withproblems, offering customers a single source for support and making its enginshould the customer have any problems.

Oracle supports Oracle Solaris

virtualization vendApplications, located at the SAP campus in Walldorf, Germany.

If you are having any trouble running SAP applications on Oracle Solaris, you makeOracle and get the suppo

22


23

s migrate from ertake it or port

acle personnel. Consultation for running Oracle Solaris 8 and 9 applications in Containers on Oracle Solaris 10 is also

applications ations fall into two categories: homogeneous system migrations and

essentially involve

racle has SAP-certified migration consultants who can help you make the transition.

once you are running on Oracle Solaris, binary compatibility ensures that you u deci ifferent database.

. It wo

ve commercial versions of UNIX. In this case, Oracle

g that quickly brings administrators coents up to speed with Oracle Solaris

is available for AIX adminisd training for m

that DTrace offers

Assurance that binary compatibility offers, meaning that upgrades and patches to the OS are on your timetable—not the vendor’s.

Oracle Solaris offers ease of patch management, particularly when compared to Linux, where patch management and control is a much more difficult chore to keep up with. Enterprises benefit from an OS that can be used with a less frequent patch cycle; Linux requires roughly the same patch frequency as Windows (monthly at minimum) to remain secure.

Help with Migrating to Oracle Solaris

Oracle has a group of service offerings that can help you evaluate a migration as well alegacy platforms to Oracle Solaris 10. You can gauge a migration’s ROI before you unda particular homegrown application to Oracle Solaris with help and expertise from Or

available.

Help with SAP Migration

If you are not running on Oracle Solaris right now, you might need to migrate your SAPto Oracle Solaris. SAP migrheterogeneous system migrations. Homogeneous migrations are straightforward andan archive and restore procedure.

Depending on the changes you are making, you might need a migration consultant. O

The good news is thatwill never face another heterogeneous migration, unless yo de to move to a d

Ora

Suppo

cle Solaris: Superior

rt

search from Crimson

nsulting compared the cost

uality of support for Red

terprise Linux to

t for Oracle Solaris.

racle Solaris

tracts is on

16 percent lower

Red Hat Enterprise

ntracts.

Oracle has almost 18 times

oyees dedicated to

n Red Hat does.

Oracle offers immediate live

r of urgent calls; Red

ns such calls within

Ease of Administration

A running Oracle Solaris environment is easy to administerworks right, and works all the time.

If you are new to Oracle Solaris, your administrators might haexperience with other

rks,

ming . Delta

Re

Co

and q

Hat En

suppor

Cost for O

support conoffers targeted delta traininfrom other UNIX environm

average

than for

Linux co

training for moving to Oracle Solaris trators igrations and HP-UX administrators. Oracle offers targete

from Windows and Linux. more empl

service thaAdministrators will appreciate the

Diagnostic capabilities transfe

Hat retur

one hour.

Power of managing datacenters with xVM Ops Center,

Ability to dynamically create and adjust Containers as needed


Virtualization: Optimize Resources, Ease Administration, and Go Gree

Virtualization makes the most of your computing resources. Few

n

er servers means less energy used

standardized, lower astructure,

ore like Amazon and Google, putting in place a commodity-based utility computing foundation that allows them to centralize skills in system administration and standardize

ent.

time when upgrading ents fail. Oracle Solaris incorporates predictive self healing properties that

e components perience a decrease in

rage management is handled automatically. Add storage, .

made the OS a in environments where HA is a requirement.

For environments where even higher availability is needed, Oracle Solaris Cluster software can be used e the availability of SAP components running on Oracle Solaris even further. Oracle Solaris

as a single point

s benchmarks, ing on a two-

erver (Intel based) with SAP’s new two-tier benchmark kit.

ber of users on any s is the highest

lt on the two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution Standard Application Benchmark achieved by any company to date. By comparison, for Linux, the highest number of simultaneous users recorded is 12,500 and for Windows, 10,600.

In other words, from top to bottom, Oracle Solaris 10 has proven to be an excellent choice for running SAP applications. High-end servers with 64 processors require running Oracle Solaris. Windows cannot scale this far, taking advantage of only as many as 16 processors; the Linux record is 32 processors.

(cost savings) and a smaller carbon footprint—not to mention space savings.

Additionally, the introduction of virtualization allows companies to move toward acost environment. Instead of having a heterogeneous landscape of hardware and infrcompanies can now be m

their computing environm

High Availability Computing

HA is an enterprise requirement for many companies. Most systems require downthe OS or when componmove bad components offline so that the system can keep running. Additionally, thoscan be replaced without bringing the system down. Companies typically exdowntime of 30 to 40 percent.

The Oracle Solaris ZFS zpool means that stoand it becomes available to the pool, like adding money to a nice, healthy bank account

Oracle Solaris’ reliability, predictive self healing properties, and live update facility havefavorite

to improvCluster uses redundant computers to protect against downtime, eliminating the serverof failure.

Scalability

Only Oracle Solaris can run on the full range of hardware available. According to SAP’as of this writing, Oracle has achieved the largest number of users—some 3,700—runnprocessor Sun Fire X4270 s

Moving up from the Intel platform, Oracle Solaris also achieved the highest numplatform—approximately 39,100 users on a Sun SPARC Enterprise M9000 server. Thirecord resu

24


The choice is clear: companies that want to maximize their scalability options shoapplications on Oracle Solaris. In this way, the full r

uld run SAP ange of hardware, from low-end commodity

hardware to high-end SPARC servers can all run a single OS.

ultative ch, it can help users make the most effective hardware choice given its patterns of application

date shifting load

eads, whereas that architecture. For applications such as portals that are

thread intensive, it might make sense to deploy a CMT server. Oracle can help customers choose the ware for the system’s needs, allowing customers to run, in one server, blades with

ieve the perfect CPU

ook at the ge of

every way.

SLAs are another important business driver. Moving from an older RISC server or mainframe to an might make sense, but if the SLAs demand HA, it might require additional consideration.

, whereas other

resources—yours and the planet’s. Powering the network consumes 100 billion cent of Fortune

cooling as major problems in their datacenters. What does

about energy efficiency:

Reduced operating expenses help make your business more profitable and allow you to focus IT resources on adding value to the organization.

Experience deploying energy-efficient solutions helps you respond in a changing regulatory climate.

Improved green credentials help you gain a positive standing with your customers.

Tunability

Not all SAP applications require the same type of processor. Because of Oracle’s consapproausage and minimizing costs. Virtualization enables changes to be made to accommopatterns.

Some applications can effectively take advantage of multiple processors and many throther applications do not make full use of

most effective harddifferent processors, all running Oracle Solaris 10.

Maximum Flexibility

All migrations need to be checked to see if they make sense, if they will help achperformance-to-cost ratio.

If you are considering running SAP applications on Windows or Linux, take another lenvironment. Does this move make sense? If the real business driver is to take advantavirtualization on commodity hardware, Oracle Solaris might prove a better choice in

Intel server With Oracle Solaris, you can even mix blades with different CPUs and price points in a single box—all in one operating environment. Because of SLAs, a database might need a CMT bladeapplications might run on lower cost but powerful x86 blades.

Sustainability

Datacenters drain kilowatts of electricity and costs around US$7.2 billion every year. More than 40 per500 IT executives identified power and energy-efficient computing really contribute to your business?

Datacenter efficiency needs to be a factor in strategic decision-making. Here are a few data points

25


Technical measures to save money in the datacenter produces a streamlined IT infrastructure that

ore manageable, so your IT staff can focus on supporting users and

exposed to

eded by the next-first servers to ever qualify for a utility

d its processing

f green IT; virtualization must be deployed to at replace 20 old servers with a single new server

ldSAP h

To

ededd.

unt iec

. To ith

ecosystem, anntion

erm strategic focus

in a more sustainable way.

ill drive sustainability research and

ther with Oracle, to offer relevant services, such as system landscape optimization, that help customers to maximize their computing resources.

Lowering Total Cost of Ownership

Server consolidation with Oracle Solaris results in substantial reduction in TCO. This kind of information is always more meaningful if it is specific to your installation, and Oracle has TCO tools

can adapt more readily to business imperatives.

A rationalized infrastructure is manticipating and responding to change.

A consolidated IT infrastructure is more secure and available, so your business is less risks from data theft or the costs of downtime.

Oracle is not new to green IT; Its Sun Fire T1000 and Sun Fire T2000 servers (supercgeneration Sun SPARC servers with CMT technology) were the company rebate. The newly introduced Sun UltraSPARC T1 “Niagara” server doublepower while holding firm on its energy requirements and physical footprint.

But energy efficiency alone cannot bring the benefits ooptimize server usage. Server consolidation projects thaddress both of these issues.

Although this white paper focuses on the datacenter, it wouremiss not to mention the Sun Ray thin desktop client.

be as he 233 wer even ) but

ity, which

e of a support Oracle, ounced a and

Why Not Lin

Although Lin

coexist well in the d

enterprise u

scalability, and

of Oracle S

Further, Ora

run on com

makes it a

low-end applicatio

to comp

Linux is to

out of the

track down a

ux?

ux and Oracle Solaris

ata center, for

se, the stability,

engineering vision

olaris is unsurpassed.

cle Solaris’s ability to

modity x86 hardware

surprising choice for

ns. The best way

are Oracle Solaris and

evaluate what you get

box without having to

dditional software,

interoperability, and the relative

cost of managing the platform.

appear

, looking at a

three-year cost shows that the

TCO for Linux for enterprise apps

is higher.

deployed Sun Ray Clients for its training center in Belgium.workstations that SAP replaced consumed 30 kilowatts of pwhen idle. Sun Ray Clients are not only silent (no fans nethey consume only 17 kilowatts when running at full spee

Oracle is a founding member of the SAP Green IT Commwas launched in April 2009. One key theme for SAP is thavirtualization technologies are increasingly becoming one pmuch larger puzzle related to sustainability and green ITan ongoing dialogue around these topics, SAP, together wOracle’s customers, and other members of its new community focused on facilitating green IT collaborasolution creation. This effort is part of SAP’s long-ton sustainability, which comprises SAP’s own operations as well as developing sustainable business process and green IT solutions that help SAP customers operate

Although Linux may

cheaper in year 1

The SAP Green IT Community wdevelopment initiatives with partners and customers. SAP will continue to promote innovative optimization technologies such as virtualization, toge

26


that can help you calculate the cost of your current infrastructure as well as the TCO oinfrastructure. Such server consolidations range from replacing 9 serve

f a consolidated rs to as many as 20 servers with

an year one only, ight appear low cost but come with

costs. The value-added features of Oracle Solaris coupled with

acenter ass

TCO SAVINGS WI

CURRENT CONFIGUR ATED CO

a single server (see Table 3 for sample savings based on real-world configurations).

When TCO comparisons take into account costs for years one through three rather thOracle Solaris wins over other options, such as Linux, that madditional administration and licensing its cross-hardware compatibility make its TCO very competitive indeed.

A free onsite dat essment is available.

TABLE 3. SAMPLE TH ORACLE SERVER CONSOLIDATIONS

ATION CONSOLID NFIGURATION DIFFERENCE

2 IBM p595 servers

24 CPUs HA require servers

32 GB)

s (1 T

t lower operating costs than

current configuration

35 percent lower investment than

P6 solution

ments

2 Sun SPARC Enterprise M8000 23 percen

12 four-core CPUs

2 Sun B6000 with 12 x64 (four 4-core proposed IBM

4 CMT blade 2 8-core 32 GB)

2 HP Superdome Itanium 2 servers

Capacity = 80,000 SAPS

2 x EMC CLARiiON CX4-240, Veritas

2 Sun X4600, 9032

256 G

2x Sun StorageTek 7410

gs in energy and

cooling

percent savings in hardware

ings Veritas software

license

ROI within 6 months

Volume Manager, Veritas File System

0 SAPS 89 percent savin

87

maintenance

100 percent sav Oracle Solaris ZFS

14 HP servers (different types, PA-RISC) 2 Sun X4600

2 Sun SPARC M3000 servers

76 percent savings in energy and

cooling, hardware maintenance not

considered

ars ROI within 2 ye

Conclusion

When companies find themselves at an inflection point in SAP deployment, needing to squeeze the most value from existing SAP seats and licenses, server consolidation is an important way forward. In this context, it makes sense to take a look at Oracle Solaris for the following reasons:

Innovation matters.Oracle’s comprehensive engineering vision continues to bring innovation and flexibility to the platform while offering unparalleled stability and scalability for enterprise use. The innovation platform for Oracle Solaris is OpenSolaris; Oracle Solaris as released is enterprise ready, truly offering customers the best of both worlds—stability and innovation.

27


28

it runs on o high-end servers. Deploy Oracle Solaris on low-cost systems to achieve

n option currently supported by both Oracle and SAP. Examin tainers for further

compliance

al for enterprise datacenters. If problems arise, calling Oracle will solve the problem—no finger-pointing. Oracle’s

in Walldorf, and rting SAP customers.

laris offers ds so little

ng Linux.

ore than 11,000 ISV Oracle Solaris versus

lex application if it does not

p.shtml

Flexibility improves efficiency. Oracle Solaris’ platform compatibility means thateverything from laptops thigh performance and stability.

Virtualization is free. The Oracle Solaris Containers feature is the only virtualizatioe case studies regarding Con

details about the enterprise benefits of free virtualization using Containers.

Oracle Solaris is green. Green IT offers sustainability, energy and cost savings, andwith emerging regulations

Robust support for SAP applications. Having a single source for support is critic

role as an SAP global technology partner, , the Oracle Solution Center for SAPSAP-certified migration consultants highlight Oracle’s commitment to suppo

Less stress. Some advantages of Oracle Solaris are less easily quantified. Oracle Soproven and unparalleled stability. Oracle Solaris’ TCO is low partly because it neeadministration, and administering Oracle Solaris is much easier than administeri

Application availability and binary compatibility. Oracle Solaris 10 runs mapplications. As Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov says in his extensive comparison ofLinux, “With Linux you are generally surprised if a binary package for any compcompiled for a previous version of OS works. With Oracle Solaris, you are surprised work.” http://www.softpanorama.org/Articles/Linux_vs_Solaris/summing_u Binary

upgrades are on your timetable—not the vendor’s.

business le Solaris ZFS, virtualization, DTrace, network

ris the ideal ape.

Compliance and security. Support for and integration with SAP GRC as well as robust security at the OS-level are important enterprise considerations.

Low TCO. Oracle Solaris, although often thought of in the context of high-end RISC servers, is actually free and comes integrated with the server.

compatibility means that patches and

Flexibility and agility. Cutting-edge technology features open the way for changingprocesses and business network transformation. Oracvirtualization, identity management, and many other capabilities make Oracle Solasolution for the changing business landsc

The Role of Oracle Solaris in Support o

Enterprise Applications

October 2010

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The Role of Oracle Solaris in Support of SAP Enterprise Applications