SAP on SQL : General Update for Customers & Partners October 2011

Cameron_MSFT_SAP_PM · ‎Mar 13 2019

First published on MSDN on Oct 01, 2011

Below is a collection of recent notes, KB articles and recommendations

1. SAP have defaulted 100% PAGE compression of all new SAP installations, upgrades & migrations. In order to do this please implement these OSS Notes after installation (these notes will come in Support Packs eventually):

Note 1459005 - Enabling index compression for SQL Server

Download the latest version of MSSCOMPRESS report – this is a transport not an SNOTE - Note 1488135 - Database compression for SQL Server

Note 1581700 - PAGE compression support for DDIC & Hom./Het. System Copy – this will change the default data dictionary settings to PAGE and you do * not * need to set the default profile parameter dbs/mss/compression (as this has been defaulted)

More information on using MSSCOMPRESS can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2010/10/08/compressing-an-sap-database-using-rep...

SQL 2008 R2 includes powerful & effective Unicode Compression technology that makes SQL Server 2008 R2 as efficient or more efficient than UTF-8 databases such as DB2 or Oracle :

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/09/05/decreased-disk-space-requirement-for-...

Here are some results from customers who have compressed : 5.5TB system compressed to 960GB

Graph 1 : Shows KB READ/sec and KB WRITE/sec to the SAN reduces dramatically after compression as more data is held in SQL Server cache (memory)

Graph 2 : Shows Buffer Cache hit ratio before, during and after compression

Graph 3 : Show 5.533TB reduces to 0.964TB – a reduction of 82.6%. Storage, Backup, System Refresh and Check DB savings

2. We recommend all SAP customers to remove Internet Explorer in order to reduce patching requirements : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700#stepsforwin2008r2

Tasks such as checking cluster dependencies, cluster validation reports can be run remotely or saved as files. Neither SAP nor SQL require IE.

Windows8 Server products are installed by default without a full GUI. The full GUI found on Windows Server products today is only available for backwards compatibility:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/14/windows_server_2008_overview/

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-416T

3. The recommended OS and DB versions are : Windows 2008 R2 + SP1 . SQL Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 . http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2011/07/26/sql-server-2008-r2-service-pack-1...

4. Cluster systems will strongly benefit SLIPSTREAM installations – this will save huge amount of time during installation especially on cluster system. It takes 5 minutes to do the “advanced method” http://blogs.msdn.com/b/petersad/archive/2010/05/31/rrr.aspx

5. Please do not install the Sun Java 1.4.2 JVM. Please always use the new SAP owned and written JVM for 1.4.2 - Note 1495160 - SAP JVM as replacement for Partner JDKs 1.4.2 This release works with 6.40 and 7.0x systems.

6. Multi-SID or larger customers will typically use Mountpoints. Please review our team Blog on Mountpoints : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/06/10/sap-on-sql-installation-on-mount-poin... and http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/07/22/using-mounted-volumes-in-a-cluster.as...

7. SQL 2008 R2 SP1 supports 15,000 table partitions. To use and activate this feature see this blog : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/03/18/increased-partition-support-of-sql-se...

8. SAP BW benefits from the new Star Join optimization in SQL 2008 and higher. To activate this feature run SAP_RSADMIN_MAINTAIN in SE38 and set parameter S_MAXDOP_QUERY to a value such as 4 or 8 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2010/12/03/sap-bw-7-and-sql-server-2008-star-joi...

9. Page file recommendations have been updated – see Note 1518419 - Page file and virtual memory required by the SAP system . Generally I recommend creating a single large pagefile equal to the size of physical memory on the C: drive. Small pagefile or pagefiles on different disks make it difficult to capture a crash dump

10. We recommend to disable Netbios and switch on Windows Firewall using an Active Directory Policy - Note 1431619 - Disable Netbios over TCP/IP in Windows environments

11. On all SAP on SQL system please set Trace Flag 1117 - Note 1238993 - Proportional File Auto-Growth with SQL Server 2008

12. Windows 2008 and above supports new and improved cluster quorum models : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2010/06/30/new-cluster-quorum-models-in-windows-...

13. In order to leverage better/newer technologies such as RSS many larger customers are purchasing 10Gb network cards even if they do not have 10Gb switches in place just yet. The cost difference for 10Gb NIC vs. 1Gb has decreased significantly in recent times

14. We have a new Automatic Update Statistics mechanism : Trace Flag 2371 – for new implementations please consider switching on this traceflag : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/09/07/changes-to-automatic-update-statistic...

15. My colleague Leslie has created some new tutorials on SQL Server performance monitoring using DBA Cockpit. You can find these on SDN here: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/sqlserver

16. Always minimize the software installed on SAP and SQL Servers. Only install the SQL Engine (do not install SQL Management Studio or online help).

Run management software on a Management Station. A Management Station can be a small VM. Never install SAPGUI onto SAP or SQL Servers! The Management Station should either be highly available or it is recommended to have 2 Management stations. It is normal practice to define the Management Station as a server that can be accessed by WTS by SAP support. Customers normally define the Management Station under the Solution Manager installation in Service Marketplace

On the Management Station the following software should be installed:

a. SQL Management Studio + Books Online
b. Realtime Anti-Virus
c. Internet Explorer
d. SAP download manager
e. SAPGUI
f. Printers
g. Share Directories for Interfaces
h. Software archive with all software, patches and DVD used to install the systems
i. Adobe Reader
j. Any software needed for UNIX connectivity such as FTP client
k. Windows Services for UNIX if NFS shares are required
l. Winzip
m. Other utilities and tools
n. Do *not* install chatting software or other non-work related software

17. Recommend OSS Notes for Windows Hyper-V.

Note 1409608 - Virtualization on Windows

Note 1570141 - Key Figures of Virtualization on Hyper-V

Note 1492000 - General Support Statement for Virtual Environments

Note 1246467 - Hyper-V Configuration Guideline

Note 1374671 - High Availability in Virtual Environment on Windows

Note 1409604 - Virtualization on Windows: Enhanced monitoring

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/windows-virtualization

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/80bde77a-3f66-2d10-d390-a3c4...

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/windows-virtualization?rid=/webcontent/uuid/300908ec-6257-2c10-d...

18. SAP 7.20 Downwards Compatible Kernel. As at 13th October 2011 this is still in Pilot Phase. Once this is released customers can run one single kernel for most landscapes. The 7.20 kernel should be compatible with SAP_BASIS 7.00, 7.01, 7.02, 7.10, 7.11, 7,20 etc. Note 1616251 - Downward Compatible Kernel 720 Pilot Project

19. Windows 8 Server & SQL 11. These products are still in development but testing is on going. We target these products to deliver exceptional performance and functionality as good or better than competing proprietary platforms such as UNIX at a much lower cost.

Windows Hyper-V 3.0 will support 32 vCPU and 512GB of RAM in a VM. Windows 8 Server will support 640 CPU (logical processors) & 4TB of RAM

We recommend customers review this presentation/video

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-417T

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/BUILD/BUILD2011/SAC-416T

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/Build2011

20. Below is a list of recent SAP on SQL case studies. With more than 60,000 SAP installation on Windows and more than 30,000 installations on SQL Server the Windows/SQL Server platform is one of the more popular choices for customers of all sizes. Multi-national corporations run systems larger than 10-15TB on Windows & SQL Server running on Intel servers

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise/Ranbaxy-Laboratori...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000004133

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2005/Carter-Holt-Harvey/Server-Platfo...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise/Quanta-Computer/Quanta-F...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000002932

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2005-Enterprise-Edition/Marcopolo/Bra...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise/CHINT/Chinese-Manu...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/saponsqlserver/archive/2011/02/21/clp-optimize-storage-improve-performa...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Case_Study_Detail.aspx?CaseStudyID=4000010234

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-SQL-Server-2005-Enterprise-X64-Edition/FUJIFILM/...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Microsoft-Windows-Server-2003/Bang-Olufsen/Global-Electron...

http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Server-2008-R2-Enterprise/Advansa-SASA/Textile-Fir...