The virtualization of SAP HANA involves the application of best practices and reference architectures such as VMware vSphere, as well as the use of Veeam image-level backups and BackInt to efficiently and reliably back up SAP HANA data in virtualized environments. SAP HANA is supported on both bare-metal and virtualized platforms. However, some virtualization platforms are only supported in non-production environments. For more information on supported versions, see SAP Note 1788665 – SAP HANA Support for virtualized/partitioned (multi-tenant) environments.SAP HANA virtualization provides a reliable and efficient way to back up SAP HANA data in virtualized environments through the use of best practices and reference architectures. The choice between bare-metal and virtualized platforms depends on specific performance, security and flexibility requirements. By using VMware vSphere, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and SUSE Linux Enterprise Hypervisor, SAP HANA can be optimally operated in various virtualized environments.
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| Virtualization vs bare metal | SAP HANA is supported on both bare metal and virtualized platforms. While virtualized servers are widely used today, bare metal servers continue to offer advantages for certain workloads. Bare metal enables dedicated access to the underlying physical resources and eliminates the abstraction layer of virtualization. This results in more predictable performance, reduced latency and avoids “noisy neighbor” interference compared to virtual machines (VMs). In addition, bare metal provides stronger hardware-based isolation and control for security-sensitive applications and regulated data. Bare metal servers also offer greater customization of hardware specifications and software environments tailored to application needs. However, they lack the scalability and flexibility benefits of virtualized infrastructures. Companies need to weigh the pros and cons based on factors such as performance requirements, security, compliance and capacity variability. For workloads where the physical isolation and reduced overhead of bare metal are most important, bare metal servers retain advantages over virtual servers. However, virtual environments are better suited for more dynamic, cost-sensitive applications. |
| VMware vSphere | SAP HANA is supported on VMware vSphere for scale-up, multi-VM and scale-out production environments, including SAP HANA Tailored Datacenter Integration deployments. These deployments provide an optimal environment for achieving a unique, secure and cost-effective solution that physical deployments of SAP HANA cannot provide. Benefits include on-premises security and control, consistency and predictable performance, regulatory requirements for cloud neutrality, data and business transaction sovereignty, increased security levels and higher service level agreements by leveraging vSphere vMotion. |
| Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHV) | For information on supported configurations of SAP HANA in a virtualized environment with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHV), see Best Practices / Deployment Guide SAP HANA on Red Hat Virtualization and SAP Note 2599726 – SAP HANA on Red Hat Virtualization. SAP and Red Hat jointly support SAP HANA Platform 2.0 SPS 05 (and later versions) virtualized on RHV 4.4 in production environments in accordance with the SLAs in the customer support agreements. Single and multiple SAP HANA virtual machines on dedicated SAP HANA certified servers are supported. |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Hypervisor (KVM) | For information on supported configurations of SAP HANA in a virtualized environment with SUSE Linux Enterprise Hypervisor (KVM), see Best Practices / Deployment Guide SAP HANA on SUSE Virtualization and SAP Note 3430656 – SAP HANA on SUSE KVM Virtualization. SAP and SUSE jointly support SAP HANA Platform 2.0 SPS 03 (and later versions) virtualized on SUSE KVM in production environments according to the SLAs in the customer support contracts. Single and multiple SAP HANA virtual machines on dedicated SAP HANA certified servers are supported. |
| NetApp | Various options are available for connecting storage to virtual machines (VMs). The preferred mode is the direct connection of the storage volumes with NFS from the guest operating system. This option is described in the “Technical Report: SAP HANA on NetApp AFF Systems with NFS”. Raw Device Mapping (RDM), FCP datastores or VVOL datastores with FCP are also supported. With both datastore options, only one SAP HANA data or log volume should be stored in the datastore for productive use cases. Snapshot-based backup and recovery orchestrated by SnapCenter, as well as solutions based on this, such as cloning SAP systems, cannot be implemented. The NetApp AFF A-Series and AFF C-Series product families are certified for use with SAP HANA in Tailored Datacenter Integration (TDI) projects. This certification applies to models such as AFF A150, AFF A250, AFF A400, AFF A700, AFF A800, AFF A900, AFF A90 and AFF A1K as well as AFF C250, AFF C400 and AFF C800. SAP HANA hosts are connected to storage controllers via a redundant 10GbE or faster network infrastructure. Data communication between SAP HANA hosts and storage controllers is based on the NFS protocol. A redundant switching infrastructure is required to ensure fail-safe SAP HANA host-to-storage connectivity in case of switch or network card failures. |
| Veeam | Veeam for HANA backups offers two options: File backup with a custom SAP HANA policy and BackInt backup. The SAP-certified solution from Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA v9.5 Update 4, Veeam Backup & Replication v10, v11 and v12 supports SAP HANA and SAP HANA databases on Intel architecture. Veeam Backup & Replication v12 is supported for Power Little Endian architecture. If you encounter a problem with BackInt for SAP HANA and Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA and believe that the problem is caused by the SAP HANA database, you should create an incident in the SAP Incident Processing System using the HAN-DB-BAC component. This component is intended for backup and restore problems with SAP HANA databases. If an analysis by SAP Support concludes that the error is caused by the Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA, the incident is sent back to the customer with the recommendation to open an incident in the Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA customer support system. Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA Support Service can then send the incident back to the customer. The customer can then contact SAP support again and forward the Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA Support Service results and the Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA incident ID. To handle incidents efficiently, it is helpful to provide the following information: SAP HANA database version, Veeam Plug-in for SAP HANA version, detailed description of the problem, the SAP HANA database landscape (number of configured hosts and their roles regarding coordinator, worker and standby) and copies of the relevant SAP HANA database trace files such as backint.log, backup.log and name server trace. |
