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SAP OS/DB Migration to SQL Server–FAQ v5.2 April 2014

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The FAQ document attached to this blog is the cumulative knowledge gained from hundreds of customers that have moved off UNIX/Oracle and DB2 to Windows and SQL Server in recent years.  Intel based servers provide all of the required Enterprise Features at a fraction of the cost of UNIX hardware.  The most recent Intel E7 v2 IvyBridge processors out perform overpriced proprietary UNIX hardware like IBM pSeries.

  1. 4 socket HP DL580 = 133,570 SAPS or 24,450 users
  2. 4 socket IBM pSeries Power7+ = 68,380 SAPS or 12,528 users
  3. 8 socket Fujitsu = 259,680 SAPS or 47,500 users

Source: SAP SD 2 Tier Benchmarks https://global.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/sd2tier.epx See end of blog for full disclosure

Increasing numbers of customers are migrating off platforms like pSeries as customers move SAP and other standard package type applications onto commodity Intel servers and Cloud platforms.

SAP provide fast, safe and fully documented and supported tools to export SAP databases from UNIX/Oracle or DB2 and import to SQL Server.  The FAQ provides information on how to speed up the data export/import process and how to address common questions that come up on migration projects.

Updates in this document include:

  1. Recommendation to use FusionIO or other in-server SSD cards to improve migration and post migration performance
  2. Support for Windows 2012 R2
  3. Planned support packs for SQL Server 2014
  4. Important new SAP Notes for SAP BW customer – important updates for SMIGR_CREATE_DLL
  5. Updates for new Notes for SAP System Copy

Feel free to post any questions about OS/DB Migration in this blog post and I will answer.

The SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark performed on
February 13, 2014, by HP in Houston, TX, USA, was certified by SAP on behalf of the SAP
Benchmark Council on March 12, 2014, with the following data:
Number of SAP SD benchmark users: 24,450
Average dialog response time: 0.98 seconds
Throughput:
Fully processed order line items per hour: 2,671,330
Dialog steps per hour: 8,014,000
SAPS: 133,570
Average database request time (dialog/update): 0.012 sec / 0.031 sec
CPU utilization of central server: 99%
Operating system, central server: Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition
RDBMS: SQL Server 2012
SAP Business Suite software: SAP enhancement package 5 for SAP ERP 6.0
Configuration:
Central server: HP ProLiant DL580 Gen8, 4 processors / 60 cores / 120 threads,
Intel Xeon Processor E7-4890 v2, 2.80 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and
256 KB L2 cache per core, 37.5 MB L3 cache per processor,
1024 GB main memory

The SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark performed on
January 20, 2014, by Fujitsu in Paderborn, Germany, was certified by SAP on behalf of
the SAP Benchmark Council on February 18, 2014, with the following data:
Number of SAP SD benchmark users: 47,500
Average dialog response time: 0.97 seconds
Throughput:
Fully processed order line items per hour: 5,193,670
Dialog steps per hour: 15,581,000
SAPS: 259,680
Average database request time (dialog/update): 0.015 sec / 0.030 sec
CPU utilization of central server: 99%
Operating system, central server: Windows Server 2012 Standard Edition
RDBMS: SQL Server 2012
SAP Business Suite software: SAP enhancement package 5 for
SAP ERP 6.0
Configuration:
Central server: Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 2800E, 8 processors / 120 cores / 240 threads,
Intel Xeon Processor E7-8890 v2, 2.80 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and
256 KB L2 cache per core, 37.5 MB L3 cache per processor,
1024 GB main memory

The SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark performed on
May 6, 2013, by IBM in Beaverton, OR, USA, was certified on August 6, 2013, with the
following data:
Number of SAP SD benchmark users: 12,528
Average dialog response time: 0.99 seconds
Throughput:
Fully processed order line items per hour: 1,367,670
Dialog steps per hour: 4,103,000
SAPS: 68,380
Average database request time (dialog/update): 0.009 sec / 0.016 sec
CPU utilization of central server: 99%
Operating system, central server: AIX 7.1
RDBMS: DB2 10.5
SAP Business Suite software: SAP enhancement package 5 for
SAP ERP 6.0
Configuration:
Central server: IBM Flex System p270 Compute Node, 4 processors / 24 cores / 96 threads,
IBM POWER7+, 3.41 GHz, 32 KB (I) and 32 KB (D) L1 cache
and 256 KB L2 cache per core, 10 MB L3 cache per core,
256 GB main memory

Oracle to SQL Migration FAQ -v5.2.docx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 28, 2014
    Hi, Does memory footprint affect the SAPS number generated? In your comparison, P series use 256GB while x86 use 1TB memory. Regards,

  • Anonymous
    May 03, 2014
    Hello Bobby, Good question.  I will rephrase this a little more precisely.  "Are results on the SAP SD 2 Tier benchmark highly sensitive to the amount of RAM".  The answer is probably not more than a 1-2% after about 256GB of RAM.  By this I mean if the pSeries had 1TB and the Win/SQL benchmarks had 256GB RAM would the results be dramatically different, the answer is no.  pSeries has effective memory compression features as well, though these are disabled for benchmarking (an interesting feature, but hardly useful with memory as cheap as it is for x86 systems). With 99% of servers sold last year being x86 (Source: IDC and Gartner) it is hardly surprising the R&D and investment into IBM Power is decreasing along with the market share of UNIX in general.  There may be some niche uses for IBM pSeries but standard package type software like SAP is not one of them. Thanks Cameron.

  • Anonymous
    March 08, 2015
    Hello , I have an SAP sysbase Advantage database serve 9.10 which we want to migrate to SQL Server 2012. Could you please point me to any resources? regards Kevin