Build the foundation for SAP ERP modernization

Successful SAP ERP modernization programs begin with clear organizational alignment on wanted outcomes and expected business value, end-to-end scope and roadmap. This alignment is critical to enterprises that run their core operations on SAP ECC for years. It helps them determine where to start their modernization initiatives and how to prioritize, organize and plan to see the value of this investment.

To build this strategic plan, enterprises need a fact base that enables them to move forward with critical SAP S/4HANA-enabled transformation decisions across people, process, enterprise architecture and next-gen technology. 

With hundreds of successful implementations of S/4HANA programs that involved both SAP ERP applications and infrastructure modernization, IBM® has a well-defined approach that is called Rapid Discovery. This approach helps determine the what, why and how for SAP ERP modernization and is infrastructure agnostic. Whether you are running SAP ERP on AIX, IBM i, Linux® or Windows, the approach remains the same. IBM’s team of cross-functional experts uses innovative tools and frameworks to build a transformative foundation composed of six essential ingredients: 

1. Enterprise Capability Model—Agreement on the business process hierarchy that defines the scope of the ERP implementation while also defining business requirements in the to-be business processes 
2. Governance Model—Clear structure, framework and operating model for program oversight and implementation including key roles, responsibilities and decision authority 
3. Business Value—Financial case for change in transformation that quantifies the tangible benefits of the program and compares them to the costs of implementation 
4. Implementation Roadmap—Clear articulation of key architectural decisions, scope of services, data strategy and implementation roadmap for transformation 
5. Executive Alignment—Alignment of executives across the business on the purpose, priorities, path forward, responsibilities and business benefits of transformation 
6. Sustainability Framework—Alignment of sustainable goals into the overall ERP strategy to allow for single source of truth data access for regulatory requirements 

As part of Rapid Discovery, we also help clients work through issues that are related to the following enablers: 

• Modern Enterprise Architecture—Design the future-state enterprise architecture, including strategic direction for application rationalization and RISE or non-RISE cloud strategy. 
• Data and Analytics—Determine the current-state realities of data readiness and develop an optimized data and analytics strategy to support and utilize the move to SAP S/4HANA. 
• Security and Controls—Define the security and controls architecture after reviewing the current maturity levels. 
• Change management—Uncover and understand the organizational change management opportunities and impacts related to ERP transformation and develop a high-level approach to unlock user adoption and value realization.

This well-defined discovery process for SAP ERP modernization helps you assess your current SAP ERP landscape, define your to-be state and align on business case, operating model and a modern enterprise architecture. If you would like to learn more, join us for the webinar, “Build the foundation for SAP ERP modernization with rapid discovery assessment” where we take a detailed analysis of this process. 

Source: ibm.com

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Driving innovation for SAP HANA workloads through IBM Power Systems Virtual Server

For enterprises and businesses running mission-critical SAP workloads, it’s time to make some important decisions. The 2027 deadline to migrate to SAP HANA and SAP S/4 HANA is looming. This date is when SAP will discontinue support for all earlier ERP applications and databases.

Meanwhile, across all industries, organizations are facing an increasing need to modernize and adapt to a hybrid cloud infrastructure, allowing enterprises to achieve new levels of speed, reliability and innovation. Strategizing and moving toward the future is a significant endeavor for a team of any size. The answer to this need? The only on-premises and off-premises certified IBM® Power® solution for SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver — IBM Power Systems Virtual Server.

Let’s dive in to see how it all comes together to empower SAP HANA applications.

A history of driving benefits 

SAP and IBM have been working together to advance innovation for over 50 years. Our strong relationship has allowed us to collaborate on early development stages and upward, adapting each of our technologies to work together. In fact, harnessing the power of both IBM and SAP has never been easier or more effective thanks to IBM Consulting™ solutions. This offering allows businesses and organizations looking for an end-to-end solution from a managed service provider (MSP) to harness the power of SAP technology while working toward their individual goals.

We created IBM Power Systems Virtual Server as a seamless extension of on-premises Power Systems technology, where SAP HANA has been available since 2015. Yet this new hybrid cloud solution has been designed for our clients to take advantage of cloud-based efficiencies, industry-renowned security, reliable performance and the ease of having infrastructure managed by the experts at IBM. Plus, IBM Power Systems Virtual Server delivers low-latency capacities thanks to 15 data centers in 7 countries with even more on the way, augmenting high-availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) capacities.

When clients use the hybrid cloud solution of IBM Power Systems Virtual Server, they have access to over 50 SAP-certified production instances. Plus, they can also access customizable instances that can be specifically sized for their environment—encouraging an agile, flexible approach to today’s toughest problems.

IBM Power Systems Virtual Server is purpose-built to handle data-intensive workloads. Our SAP-certified solution follows the success achieved by IBM Power Systems for thousands of clients deploying Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 8.1 and 8.2 as well as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 12 and 15 Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) boot images.

Innovation with the power of Linux

For years, Red Hat and SAP have helped push innovation for clients with various needs in different stages of their transformation. Clients can get the most from their SAP workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 and 8.2, thanks to a proven solution designed to bring flexibility and a solid foundation.

As multicloud platforms, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.1 and 8.2 are built to enable SAP clients to accelerate their hybrid cloud journeys without vendor lock-in. Features such as live kernel patching and Red Hat Enterprise Linux HA solutions for SAP HANA and SAP S/4 HANA help clients’ workloads stay running smoothly during migration.

Clients can also take full advantage of SLES 12 and 15 OVA boot images, specially optimized for IBM Power Systems Virtual Server. These solutions create even more possibilities for those clients looking to run SAP HANA workloads on SLES.

Adaptable and agile: IBM Power Systems Virtual Server in action

We’ve worked with BRF, a global leader in exporting pork and poultry headquartered in Brazil, to achieve a higher level of hybrid cloud capabilities for greater efficiency and flexibility. Harnessing the power of a hybrid cloud environment, 80% of BRF’s logistical routing, control and scheduling of products are now running on IBM Power Systems — something very much needed as the company distributes to more than 117 countries worldwide.

BRF decided to migrate to IBM Power Systems Virtual Server to become more agile and resilient. First and foremost, our HA and DR capacities helped bring stability by decentralizing the company’s operations through the multizone region within Brazil. We also helped support its migration efforts toward a virtualized environment while achieving the flexibility it needed. The company can now spin up various-sized SAP HANA instances as needed for logistics while handling the increasing demand for meat on a global scale. Moreover, while IBM Power Systems Virtual Server helped BRF reach new efficiencies, it also helped save costs.

Source: ibm.com

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How to get the most value from SAP HANA

3 ways running SAP HANA on Power Systems can benefit your business

Increasing disruption creates increased complexity and a need to solve problems quickly—as in yesterday. The last year forced businesses to take a quantum leap in the acceleration of, and focus on, digital transformation. We all saw entire industries go completely online overnight, and companies that had started modernizing their businesses were in a better position to adapt quickly, while many struggled to maintain business continuity. What’s clear is today’s customer preferences and appetite for exceptional digital experiences is demanding, and the success of every business relies on the ability to adapt as the needs of customers continue to evolve.

More Info: C2090-543: IBM DB2 9.7 Application Development

Core business applications, such as SAP HANA, are key to ensuring your organization can keep up with the speed of change; the time to embrace migration and modernization is now. By using SAP business applications, IT teams can simplify workflows, speed processes, and reduce business risk, thus freeing up time and resources to focus on their move to SAP S/4HANA.

Why should running SAP HANA on Power Systems matter to you?

In the simplest terms, SAP HANA is a platform that can efficiently and cost-effectively process data faster than any traditional database. It can help your organization process information that is coming from, including but not limited to, the business, mobile, UX/UI, and the Internet of Things (IoT), efficiently and cost effectively. Notably, SAP HANA facilitates analytics and data processes as well as application development and deployment.

Furthermore, SAP HANA’s in-memory database can be run on-premises, on an IBM Power® Systems server, in the cloud, or both, and can be an integral part of your hybrid cloud strategy. It’s worth mentioning Power Systems is built precisely for memory-intensive applications, such as SAP HANA, offering the resilience, scale, and performance you’ll need to ease the process and still quickly deploy your applications.

Three scenarios where the benefits of SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems are undeniable

So, how can SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems benefit your business? Here are three questions and answers to help you get the most value out of SAP HANA and achieve your broader business goals.

Scenario 1: My SAP HANA application is due for a refresh. What do I stand to gain by updating my SAP HANA application?

If you’re running SAP HANA appliances on architecture that needs a refresh or are in the process of a strategic hybrid cloud transformation, upgrading to SAP HANA on Power Systems can help you reduce data sprawl, increase flexibility, improve reliability, boost performance and consolidate fewer workloads in a smaller footprint.

In fact, even if you’ve never had IBM Power Systems in your data center, establishing the platform will provide you with a powerful Linux system offering significant processor benefits and positions you to develop a customized solution for your business needs.

Scenario 2: I’m running a traditional database or other non-SAP HANA processing solution. Why should I make the costly and challenging move to SAP HANA from a traditional database?

SAP is discontinuing support for the SAP Business Suite with traditional databases in 2027, creating a mandatory move to SAP HANA. By maintaining traditional SAP deployments, you’re consuming IT resources that could be better diverted to more strategic initiatives. Migrating to SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems will significantly boost your performance, ease data administration and processing and increase user response time for transactional in-memory processing.

IBM Power Systems is an important part of this process because, as an in-memory database, SAP HANA performs best with high-quality memory and large memory spaces. With Power Systems you can easily shift resources from your traditional environment to a growing SAP HANA portfolio.

Scenario 3: I have on-premises SAP applications. Can I expand to off premises?

Absolutely! In fact, as customers develop their hybrid cloud strategies—and, simultaneously, SAP discontinues support for SAP Business Suite—there’s even more urgency to develop and execute on a migration plan toward SAP S/4HANA. Fortunately, you can easily extend your SAP environment to our IBM Power Virtual Servers. Power Virtual Servers provide a wide variety of SAP-certified options for running SAP workloads. One use case we see is customers utilizing Power Virtual Servers for non-production/test environments, freeing up on-premises infrastructure to optimize their production SAP workloads.

How to get the most out of SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems

SAP HANA can be complex, but the benefits of running SAP HANA on Power Systems are compelling—you can reliably process and analyze your data-intensive workloads with minimal delays, improved performance, faster load times and a lower overall cost.

If you’re curious and want more information, the IDC white paper, Who Can Benefit from SAP HANA Database and S/4HANA on IBM Power Systems? outlines the benefits of SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems, including deployment options, performance and cloud capabilities. Click below to learn more about how your organization can realize the benefits of SAP HANA on Power.

Source: ibm.com

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Automate disaster recovery using IBM VM Recovery Manager

Business continuity is a top priority for every enterprise. And, at the foundation, it’s all about having a solid plan in place to deal with disruptions and potential threats.

If you’re an IT planner, you know that data protection and disaster recovery (DR) — the aspects of business continuity that are most relevant to IT professionals — can be major concerns. An outage of one or more of your mission-critical systems could cause significant business downtime, including loss of revenue and irreparable damage to long-term customer relationships.

So how can you stay ahead of the curve?

Planning ahead for disaster recovery: Five key questions

There are five key questions on the mind of technology planners when considering a disaster recovery solution:

1. Are there any tools that can automate disaster recovery?
2. How can we keep the remote location updated with the current state of the primary location?
3. Which methodology should we use?
4. How can we reduce the costs of redundant systems and licenses?
5. What’s the best way to test and verify disaster recovery site readiness?

IBM VM Recovery Manager can answer these questions. It’s an easy-to-use, automated and cost-effective disaster recovery solution for applications hosted on IBM Power Systems. In this blog post, I’ll illustrate how IBM Systems Lab Services helped an enterprise client address DR concerns for its SAP HANA landscape using IBM VM Recovery Manager.

How IBM VM Recovery Manager can help

IBM Systems Lab Services recently worked with a client that’s a multinational SAP consulting and hosting service provider, hosting SAP HANA and other SAP landscapes on IBM Power Systems servers for its customers. The client was looking for an easy-to-use, automated solution for disaster recovery.

Initially, they considered HANA System Replication for its database, but with this option, the similar replication would not be available for the SAP Central Services (SCS) and SAP Application Server (AS) components. Therefore, other solutions would have to be used, creating a more complex environment to manage.

Storage replication was another option considered for replicating all critical data to a remote site. However, management of storage replication during a DR operation is highly complex, involves manual processes, is more time consuming and requires additional training for your staff on these expert skills.

Both of these solutions require duplicate instances in the DR site, demand advanced skills, require further resources and come with higher license costs. On top of that, neither provides a DR rehearsal capability while production is running.

IBM Systems Lab Services conducted a proof of concept to demonstrate the benefits of IBM VM Recovery Manager for disaster recovery, including how it would address the client’s specific concerns.

VM Recovery Manager:

◈ Moves SAP HANA databases and other SAP instances to the disaster recovery site with a single command for planned or unplanned site movement. In turn, relieving the client of the complexities of server and storage management during DR operation and sparing them the need for additional staff training.
◈ Validates DR site readiness with its DR rehearsal capability, thereby giving the client confidence about its DR readiness.
◈ Offers other features like monitoring and auto update of configuration changes to the VMs like processor/memory, disk additions and so forth — capabilities that take away the administrative overhead from the staff.

In the end, the client was very happy with the product demonstration and decided to implement VM Recovery Manager as its DR solution — with IBM Systems Lab Services there every step of the way from design to implementation. From there, the Lab Services team provided knowledge transfer and enablement for the client’s team to manage the solution covering all of its SAP systems, including databases and applications.

The following pictures illustrate VM Recovery in normal operation and after a site recovery.

Picture 1: Production VMs running on primary site

Picture 2: Production VMs moved to secondary site and running after a DR move

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Top IBM Power Systems myths: Linux on x/86 is different from Linux on Power

There are many misconceptions about IBM Power Systems in the marketplace today, and this blog series is all about dispelling some of the top myths. In the last post, I put aside the myth that IBM Power Systems has no cloud strategy. In this post, we’ll look at a myth that has been propagated by many of our x/86-based competitors and consultants. This myth wants you to believe that if you invest in a Linux on IBM Power Systems solution, you’ll be getting an inferior product, one that’s not “real” Linux, or that your applications won’t work the way they should.

There is one aspect of this myth that’s true. Linux on Power solutions are:

◈ Almost always faster
◈ More reliable
◈ Usually smaller (require fewer cores and fewer physical systems)
◈ More secure

In all other aspects, from Linux distributions and release levels to system management and monitoring tools and development environments, they are the same.

Consider the following points:

Endianness

Not long ago, there was a difference between Power and x/86 based systems that affected not only Linux distributions but all operating systems, applications and databases that ran on those systems. Our industry borrowed from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, using the terms “big endian” and “little endian” to describe the way computers represent data. x/86 systems have always been “little endian” and Power was always “big endian.” That caused a problem because software created for little endian systems could not run on big endian systems without modification, and vice versa.

In April 2104, IBM announced little endian (LE) support for POWER8, and today all of our POWER9 systems support a 64-bit LE environment.

While LE support removes the endian differences, LE code compiled for an x/86 system needs to be recompiled for a Power-based LE system.

Linux distributions

There are hundreds of Linux-based distributions available in the market today. While many can run on IBM Power Systems, IBM officially supports RedHat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Community versions of Linux like Debian, openSUSE, CentOS, Fedora and others are also available.

These distributions are built around a package management system and include the Linux kernel, Gnu shell utilities, system management tools, a desktop environment as well as open source software and sometimes proprietary packages.

There are Linux distributions with features designed to take advantage of some of the unique capabilities of IBM Power Systems architecture, and the startup process for a Linux distribution may be a bit different between x/86 and Power. However, once it is installed the features and functionality are identical.

Virtualization options

There are usually several options for virtualization within a Linux distribution. KVM is the default option for Ubuntu and is the foundation for Red Hat virtualization. PowerVM is the only virtualization option for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 at this time. KVM on Power and RHEV options provide the same functionality on Power as they do on an x/86 platform, while PowerVM is designed to take advantage of IBM Power architecture.

System administration and monitoring tools

All Linux distributions supported on IBM Power platforms provide system administration and monitoring tools. Cockpit, Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) and NMAP are examples of the tools provided by Red Hat. SUSE Linux Enterprise server supplies an advanced system management module that includes CFEngine, Puppet, Salt and The Machinery Tool. Landscape is Ubuntu’s systems management package.

There are many open source and proprietary solutions available like Chef, JuJu, Ansible, Wireshark and countless others that can be added to a Linux distribution. In fact, the top five open source tools for Linux systems administration are available on Power Linux systems providing the same level of functionality and support as they do for x/86 based systems.

Application development environments

Linux on Power solutions have all of the tools developers need to build their application portfolios. For example:

◈ Container management solutions like Docker, Kubernetes and Rancher

◈ Programming languages including Python, php, Ruby, Scala, Java, Erlang and C/C++

◈ Atom, Bluefish, Eclipse, Netbeans, Geany, AnJuta and Glade—all considered to be the top integrated development environments

◈ Git/Git-Hub, Apache Subversion, Darcs, Mercurial, Monotone and CVS—some of the best version control systems available

◈ Eight of the top ten text editors, including Atom, VIM, gedit, GNU EMACS and Nano

◈ Many other capabilities, including diff tools like meld and kdiff, debug tools and multi-media editors like Adrour, Audacity and Gimp

Desktop environments and application portfolios

There are also a wealth of open source and proprietary applications, databases and desktop options available for Power Systems clients to choose from. Here are a few examples:

◈ KDE, Mate, GNOME, Cinnamon, Budgie, LXDE and XFCE, which are considered to be the top desktop environments in 2018 for Linux

◈ Thunderbird, Geary and Evolution e-mail clients

◈ Pidgin and Empathy instant messaging applications

◈ Calligra Suite, Libre Office and WPS Office

◈ MariaDB, Postgre SQL, EnterpriseDB, MongoDB, Cassandra, Redis are among the top open source databases available, as well as IBM Db2

◈ Dolibarr and Odoo, two of the most popular open source ERP packages

◈ Spark, elasticsearch, Apache Solr and Hadoop for analytics

◈ SAP HANA’s more than 2000 clients, many of whom left the x/86 world to take advantage of the IBM Power architecture

Is Linux on x/86 different from Linux on Power?

Linux on Power is the same as Linux on x/86, except for better performance, reliability, security and a smaller physical footprint. These are the differences that should matter most and be the key reasons why a Linux on Power solution is a better choice than an x/86-based Linux solution.

IBM Systems Lab Services has a team of experienced consultants ready to help you get the most out of your Linux on Power system.

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Get a health check for your SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems

Are you confident your SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems are getting optimal performance?

SAP HANA has been available on IBM Power Systems for a few years, and many organizations have migrated to it, bringing numerous advantages such as flexibility, efficient resource utilization, server consolidation and reduction in costs. As a Tailored Data Center Integration (TDI) model, an SAP-certified person is required to install and configure HANA. During deployment, a certified HANA engineer sets up the system following IBM Power server and SAP HANA best practices and runs an SAP HANA Hardware Configuration Check Tool (HWCCT), which ensures the environment has been configured for HANA prerequisites and for hardware performance to meet HANA KPIs.

After deployment, however, organizations will eventually need to make changes to their workloads and infrastructure. The monitoring tools you use might not capture deviations from best practices. Some components of your system might require periodic checks like firmware updates, patches, backups, cluster operations and so on. Hence the need arises for a periodic health check for SAP HANA on Power Systems. Without periodic health checks, you might not be getting the best availability and performance from your systems, and you could be at greater risk for an unplanned outage.

What is an SAP HANA on Power Systems health check?

A health check involves inspecting your system in several key areas, such as:

◈ Ensuring up-to-date software levels
◈ Examining the adequacy of hardware resources
◈ Looking at system tuning based on your current workload pattern
◈ Doing checks for best practices in virtualization
◈ Checking the feasibility of adopting newly released features in the Power server/OS/HANA

Your HANA configuration, error logs, high availability and backup policies are also validated.

Minimum checks that needs to be carried out as a part of an SAP HANA on Power Systems health check

The following chart shows a list of the minimum checks that must be covered as a part of an SAP HANA on Power Systems health check. This is only a high-level list; additional checks based on your results may be needed.

Benefits of an SAP HANA system health check

An SAP HANA on Power Systems health check offers numerous benefits:

◈ Helps you identify any single point of failure and fix it

◈ Helps prepare you for handling unexpected downtime

◈ Demonstrates current hardware utilization and growth trends, thus helping you plan for future growth or release a portion of your hardware for other workloads, thus saving on budget for any additional workloads

◈ Helps you get better support by staying up-to-date with software versions

◈ Helps you better manage your IT budget by knowing growth trends

◈ Helps you know new technologies that could be applied to your environment

◈ Improves productivity, improves your confidence and may reduce the cost of acquiring additional hardware for new workloads

Who can perform an SAP HANA on Power Systems health check?

An SAP HANA on Power Systems health check can be done by anyone who has good knowledge of IBM Power Systems, Linux and HANA. You may do it yourself or engage a team of experienced consultants like IBM Systems Lab Services. Lab Services helps organizations build and optimize SAP HANA solutions with Linux on Power Systems with a tailored data center infrastructure strategy, and health checks are among the many services we offer to help clients optimize their SAP HANA environments.

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