SAP Business Data Cloud Now Available on Microsoft Azure
We’re thrilled to announce that SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) including SAP Databricks is now available on Microsoft Azure marking a major milestone in our strategic partnership with SAP and Databricks and our commitment to empowering customers with cutting-edge Data & AI capabilities. SAP BDC is a fully managed SaaS solution designed to unify, govern, and activate SAP and third-party data for advanced analytics and AI-driven decision-making. Customers can now deploy SAP BDC on Azure in US East, US West and Europe West, with additional regions coming soon, and unlock transformative insights from their enterprise data with the scale, security, and performance of Microsoft’s trusted cloud platform. Why SAP BDC on Azure Is a Game-Changer for Data & AI Deploying SAP BDC on Azure enables organizations to accelerate their Data & AI initiatives by modernizing their SAP Business Warehouse systems and leveraging a modern data architecture that includes SAP HANA Cloud, data lake files and connectivity to Microsoft technology. Whether it’s building AI-powered intelligent applications, enabling semantically rich data products, or driving predictive analytics, SAP BDC on Azure provides the foundation for scalable, secure, and context-rich decision-making. Running SAP BDC workloads on Microsoft Azure unlocks the full potential of enterprise data by integrating SAP systems with non-SAP data using Microsoft’s powerful Data & AI services - enabling customers to build intelligent applications grounded in critical business context. Why Azure is an Ideal Platform for Running SAP BDC Microsoft Azure stands out as a leading cloud platform for hosting SAP solutions, including SAP BDC. Azure’s global infrastructure, high-performance networking, and powerful Data & AI capabilities make it an ideal foundation for large-scale SAP workloads. When organizations face complex data environments and need seamless interoperability across tools, Azure’s resilient backbone and enterprise-grade services provide the scalability and reliability essential for building a robust SAP data architecture. Under the Hood: SAP Databricks in SAP BDC is Powered by Azure Databricks A key differentiator of SAP BDC on Azure is that SAP Databricks, a core component of BDC, runs on Azure Databricks—Microsoft’s first-party service. Azure Databricks is a fully managed first party service making Microsoft Azure the optimal cloud for running Databricks workloads. It uniquely offers: Native integration with Microsoft Entra ID for seamless access control. Optimized performance with Power BI, delivering unmatched analytics speed. Enterprise-grade security and compliance, inherent to Azure’s first-party services. Joint engineering and unified support from Microsoft and Databricks. Zero-copy data sharing between SAP BDC and Azure Databricks, enabling frictionless collaboration across platforms. This deep integration ensures that customers benefit from the full power of Azure’s AI, analytics, and governance capabilities while running SAP workloads. Expanding Global Reach: What’s Next While SAP BDC is now live in three Azure regions US East, US West and Europe - we’re just getting started. Over the next few months, availability will expand to additional Azure regions such as Brazil and Canada. For the remaining regions, a continuously updated roadmap can be found on the SAP Roadmap Explorer website Final Thoughts This launch reinforces Microsoft Azure’s longstanding partnership with SAP, backed by over 30 years of trusted partnership and co-innovation. With SAP BDC now available on Azure, customers can confidently modernize their data estate, unlock AI-driven insights, and drive business transformation at scale. Stay tuned as we continue to expand availability and bring even more Data & AI innovations to our joint customers over the next few months.SAP on Azure Product Announcements Summary – SAP Sapphire 2025
Introduction Today at Sapphire, we made an array of exciting announcements that strengthen the Microsoft-SAP partnership. I'd like to share additional details that complement these announcements as well as give updates on further product innovation. With over three decades of close collaboration and co-innovation with SAP, we continue to deliver RISE with SAP on Azure and integrations with SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud, allowing customers to innovate with services from both SAP BTP and Microsoft. Our new integrations enhance security through multi-layer cloud protection for SAP and non-SAP workloads, while our AI and Copilot platform provides unified analytics to improve decision-making for customers. Samsung C&T's Engineering & Construction Group is a leader in both the domestic and international construction industries. It recently embarked on the ERP Cloud transformation with RISE with SAP on Azure to enhance its existing ERP System, which is optimized for local environment, to support the global business expansion by transitioning to RISE with SAP on Azure. “Samsung C&T’s successful transition to RISE with SAP on Azure serves as a best practice for other Samsung Group affiliates considering cloud-based ERP adoption. It also demonstrates that even highly localized operations can be integrated into a cloud-based environment that supports global standards.” Aidan Nam, Former Vice President, Corporate System Team, Samsung C&T SAP on Azure also offers AI, Data, and Security solutions that enhance customers' investments and help unlock valuable information stored within ERP systems. When Danfoss, a global leader in energy-efficient solutions, began searching for new security tools for business-critical SAP infrastructure, it quickly leveraged Microsoft Sentinel solution for SAP applications, to find potential malicious activity and deploy multilayered protection around its expanding core infrastructure thereby achieving scalable security visibility. “With Microsoft Sentinel and the Microsoft Sentinel solution for SAP applications, we’ve centralized our security logs and gained a single pane of glass with which we can monitor our SAP systems,” Kevin Cai, IT Specialist in the Security Operations Center at Danfoss We are pleased to announce additional SAP on Azure product updates and details to further help customers innovate on the most trusted cloud for SAP. Simplified onboarding of SAP BTP estate with the new agentless data connector for Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for SAP applications is now fully SAP HANA aware offering unparalleled protection for SAP S/4HANA environments. Public Preview of SAP OData as a knowledge source making it easy to add content from SAP systems to Copilot Studio. The new storage and memory optimized Medium Memory Mbv3 VM Series (Mbsv3 and Mbdsv3) is now SAP certified, delivering compute capabilities with IOPs performance of up to 650K. The Mv3 Very High Memory series now features an expanded range of SAP-certified VM sizes, spanning from 24TB to 32TB of memory and scaling up to 1,792 vCPUs. General Availability of SAP ASE (Sybase) database backup support on Azure Backup. SAP Deployment Automation Framework now supports validation of SAP deployments on Azure with public preview of SAP Testing Automation Framework (STAF), automating high availability testing process to ensure SAP systems reliability and availability. The Inventory Checks for SAP Workbook in Azure Center for SAP Tools now comes with New Dashboards for Enhanced Visibility. Let's dive into the summary of product updates and services. Extend and Innovate Microsoft Sentinel Solution for SAP Business applications pose a unique security challenge with highly sensitive information that can make them prime targets for attacks. Attackers can compromise newly discovered unprotected SAP systems within three hours. Microsoft offers best in class security solutions support for SAP business applications with Microsoft Sentinel. The new agentless data connector is our first party solution that re-uses customers’ SAP BTP estate for drastically simplified onboarding. In addition, new strategic third-party solutions have been added to the Microsoft Sentinel content hub by SAP SE and other ISVs making Sentinel the most effective SIEM for SAP workloads: SAP LogServ: RISE, addon for SAP ECS internal logs -infra, database, etc. (Generally Available) SAP Enterprise Threat Detection (Preview) SecurityBridge (Generally Available) Microsoft Defender for Endpoint for SAP applications We are thrilled to announce a major milestone made possible through the deep collaboration between SAP and Microsoft: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) is now the first NextGen antivirus solution that is SAP HANA aware. This joint innovation allows organizations like COFCO International to protect their SAP landscapes seamlessly and securely, without disruption. This groundbreaking capability sets MDE apart in the cybersecurity landscape, offering unparalleled protection for SAP S/4HANA environments — all without interfering with mission-critical operations. Thanks to close engineering collaboration, MDE has been carefully trained to recognize SAP HANA binaries and data files. Specialized detection training ensures MDE accurately identifies these critical components and treats them as known, trusted entities — combining world-class cybersecurity with SAP-native awareness. API Management SAP Principal Propagation (for simplicity often also referred to as SSO) is the gold standard for app integration – especially when it comes to 3rd party apps such as Microsoft Power Platform. We proudly announce that SSO is now password-less with Azure. Microsoft Entra ID Managed Identity works seamlessly with SAP workloads such as RISE, SuccessFactors and more. Cut your maintenance efforts for SAP SSO in half and become more secure in doing so. Find more details on this blog. Teams Integration In addition to the availability of the SAP Joule agent in Teams and Copilot, the “classic” integration of Teams with products like SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud is available as well. What started as “Share links to the business context (apps) in chats” has now evolved to Adaptive Card-based Loop components, Chat, Voice and Video calls integrations in contact cards and To Dos in Teams. Users of SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud can stay in their flow of work and access their business-critical data from with SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud or connected Teams applications. Copilot Studio – SAP OData Support in Knowledge Sources Knowledge Sources in Copilot Studio enhance generative answers by using data from Power Platform, Dynamics 365, websites, and external systems. This enables agents to offer relevant information and insights to customers. Today, we announce the Public Preview of SAP OData as a new knowledge source. Customers and partners can now add content from SAP systems to Copilot Studio. Users can query the latest status of Sales Orders in SAP S/4HANA, view pending Invoices from ECC, or query information about employees from SAP SuccessFactors. All you need to do is connect to the relevant SAP OData services as a knowledge source in Copilot Studio. Copilot Studio will not duplicate the data but analyze the data structure and create the relevant queries on demand whenever a user asks a related question. The user context is always kept ensuring roles and permissions in the SAP system are taken into account. Head over to product documentation to read more and get started. New SAP Certified Compute and Storage Thousands of organizations today trust the Azure M-series virtual machines to run some of their largest mission-critical SAP workloads, including SAP HANA. Very High Memory Mv3 VM Series We are excited to unveil updates to our Mv3 Very High Memory (VHM) series with the addition of a 24TB VM, a testament to our ongoing commitment to innovation. Building on our past successes, this series integrates customer insights and industry advancements to deliver unmatched performance and efficiency. It features advanced capabilities for diverse workloads, powered by the 4th generation Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8490H processors, which offer faster processing speeds and better price-performance. You can learn more about our new Mv3 VHM here link. Below is the summary of the recently released Mv3 VHM SKUs. (New) Standard_M896ixds_24_v3: Designed for S/4HANA workloads, with 896 cores and SMT disabled for optimal SAP performance. It is SAP certified for OLTP (S/4HANA) Scale-Up/4-node Scale-Out, and OLAP (BW4H) Scale-Up operations. Standard_M896ixds_32_v3: Designed for S/4HANA workloads, with 896 cores and SMT disabled for optimal SAP performance. It is SAP certified for OLTP (S/4HANA) Scale-Up/4-node Scale-Out, and OLAP (BW4H) Scale-Up operations. Standard_M1792ixds_32_v3: Designed for S/4HANA workloads, with 1792 cores. It is SAP certified for OLTP (S/4HANA) Scale-Up/2-node Scale-Out, and OLAP (BW4H) Scale-Up operations. The new VM Size provides robust memory and CPU power, ensuring exceptional handling of large-scale in-memory databases. With 200 Gbps bandwidth and adaptable storage options such as Premium Disk and Azure NetApp Files (ANF), these VMs deliver speed and flexibility for SAP HANA configurations. Medium Memory Mbv3 VM Series The new Mbv3 series (Mbsv3 and Mbdsv3), released in September 2024, featuring both storage-optimized and memory-optimized are now certified as SAP certified compute VM as of March 2025. The new Mbv3 VMs are based on the 4th generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, scale for workloads up to 4TB, and deliver with NVMe interface for higher remote disk storage performance. It offers up to 650,000 IOPS providing a 5x improvement in network throughput over the previous M-series families and up to 10GBps of remote disk storage bandwidth, providing a 2.5x improvement in remote storage bandwidth over the previous M-series families. Details of SAP Certified Compute Mbv3 VMs are here link. SAP on Azure Software Products and Services Azure Backup for SAP We are pleased to announce the general availability of backup support for SAP ASE database running on Azure virtual machines using Azure Backup. SAP ASE databases are mission critical workloads that require a low recovery point objective (RPO) and a fast recovery time objective (RTO). This backup service offers zero-infrastructure backup and restore of SAP ASE databases with Azure Backup enterprise management capabilities. Key benefits of SAP ASE database backup 15-minute RPO with point-in-time recovery capability. Striping to increase the backup throughput between ASE Virtual Machine (VM) and Recovery services vault Support for cost-effective backup policies and ASE Native compression to lower backup storage costs. Multiple databases restore options including Alternate Location Restore (System refresh), Original Location Restore and Restore as Files. Recovery Services Vault that provides security capabilities like Immutability, Soft Delete and Multiuser Authentication. SAP Testing Automation Framework (STAF) While deployment automation frameworks like SAP Deployment Automation Framework (SDAF) have streamlined system implementation, the critical testing phase has largely remained a manual bottleneck – until now. We are introducing the SAP Testing Automation Framework (STAF), a new framework (currently in public preview) that automates high-availability (HA) testing for SAP deployments on Azure. STAF currently focuses on testing HA configurations for SAP HANA and SAP Central Services. Importantly, STAF is a cross-distribution solution supporting both SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) and RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), reflecting our commitment to serve the diverse SAP on Azure customer base.. STAF uses modular architecture with Ansible for orchestration and custom modules for validation. It ensures business continuity by validating configurations and recovery mechanisms before systems go live, reducing risks, boosting efficiency, and ensuring compliance with standards. You can start leveraging its capabilities today by visiting the project on GitHub at https://github.com/azure/sap-automation-qa. To know more about the framework please visit our blog: Introducing SAP Testing Automation Framework (STAF) Azure Center for SAP solutions Tools and Frameworks We are pleased to introduce three new dashboards for Azure Inventory Checks for SAP, enhancing visibility into Azure infrastructure and security. These dashboards offer a more structured, visual approach to monitoring health and compliance. Here are the new dashboards at a glance Summary Dashboard: Offers a snapshot of your Azure landscape with results from 21 key infrastructure checks critical for SAP workloads. It highlights your environment’s readiness and identifies areas needing attention. Extended Report Dashboard: This view presents the Inventory Checks for SAP in a user-friendly dashboard layout, with enhanced navigation and filtering. AzSecurity Dashboard: This dashboard presents 10 key Azure security checks to provide insights into configurations and identify vulnerabilities, ensuring compliance and safety. These dashboards transform raw data into actionable insights, allowing customers to quickly assess SAP infrastructure on Azure, identify misconfigurations, track improvements, and prepare confidently for audits and reviews. SAP + Microsoft Co-Innovations Microsoft and SAP are continually innovating to facilitate business transformation for our customers. This year, we are strengthening our partnership in several areas including Business Suite, AI, Data, Cloud ERP, Security, SAP BTP, among others. Please ensure that you check out our blog to learn more about the significant announcements we are making this year at SAP Sapphire.Introducing the SAP Testing Automation Framework: Elevating SAP System Testing on Azure
In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, ensuring that enterprise systems perform flawlessly is non-negotiable. As businesses increasingly rely on SAP systems to run their critical operations, testing becomes an essential pillar of operational excellence. Traditionally, SAP system testing has been manual, time-consuming, and prone to gaps. Addressing these critical aspects, Microsoft has introduced the SAP Testing Automation Framework (STAF), an open-source orchestration tool developed to validate SAP deployments on Microsoft Azure. It enables you to assess system configurations against SAP on Azure best practices and to automate various testing scenarios, with an initial focus on high availability (HA) testing. What is the SAP Testing Automation Framework? The SAP Testing Automation Framework is an open-source orchestration tool engineered to validate SAP deployments on the Microsoft Azure platform. Its core purpose is to help customers ensure their SAP systems run smoothly by proactively identifying potential issues. It achieves this by simulating system failures, verifying that configurations adhere to best practices, and automating the entire testing process to save time and improve accuracy. The framework is built on a modular, configuration‑as‑code model using standard tools. The tests are defined in version‑controlled Ansible playbooks, and custom Python modules handle in‑depth checks of both your SAP systems and Azure resources. Key Features: Configuration Validation: It checks whether the configurations of SAP HANA scale-up or SAP Central Services align with established SAP on Azure best practices and guidelines. High Availability Functional Testing: It simulates multiple test cases to ensure that the failover mechanisms are effective. With SAP HANA databases and SAP Central Services as prime examples, this testing validates that when a component fails, the system can gracefully recover without disruption. This helps identify potential issues during new system deployments. Detailed Reporting: The framework collects detailed telemetry from SAP components and test execution where it captures event sequences, detection timings, failover durations, and system responses. It compiles this data into a comprehensive HTML report with clear pass/fail outcomes and timestamps. Optionally, you can stream logs to Azure Log Analytics or Data Explorer. Extensible and Pipeline-ready: All framework operations, Ansible playbooks, and custom python modules are defined as code, making them ideal for integration with CI/CD pipelines. You can invoke STAF immediately after your deployment and installation step via SAP Deployment Automation Framework, running comprehensive HA tests before promoting changes. SAP System High Availability Functional Testing The initial and most prominent capability of the SAP Testing Automation Framework is its comprehensive High Availability (HA) functional testing for critical SAP components hosted on Microsoft Azure. The framework targets scenarios involving SAP HANA scale-up database and SAP Central Services (ASCS/SCS) deployed in a two-node cluster on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), providing a cross-distribution solution for our diverse SAP on Azure customer base. For supported configuration, see support matrix. The SAP Testing Automation Framework employs a systematic approach to validate the robustness of SAP system HA setup. It verifies the configuration and captures the entire sequence of events in an HA scenario: from initial failure detection, through isolation of the faulty component (including fencing), to resource migration, service recovery on the standby node, and implicitly, the consistency of data upon successful recovery. Upon completion of the tests run, STAF compiles results into a clear, HTML‑based report that details configuration compliance checks and functional test outcomes, complete with timestamps and pass/fail statuses. The report also includes logs from /var/log/messages to provide context. This comprehensive validation of the HA process flow is fundamental to building confidence in the resilience of the SAP system on Azure. Getting Started with the SAP Testing Automation Framework The SAP Testing Automation Framework is available as an open-source project on GitHub for the community to use and contribute. You can find the code and documentation in the official repository: Azure/sap-automation-qa: This is the repository supporting the quality assurance for SAP systems running on Azure.. The project is currently in a public preview stage. So, feedback and contributions are welcome to help improve its capabilities. To start using the framework, you have a couple of options depending on your environment: SAP system manually deployed (not using SDAF): If you want to validate manually configured high availability of SAP system, you can run the framework in a standalone mode. This involves deploying the management server (for example, an Ubuntu VM that will orchestrate the tests), configuring it with details of your SAP landscape (cluster nodes, IPs, etc.), and then executing the provided playbooks or scripts to run the HA tests. The repository provides guidance on how to configure the necessary variables and run the test scenarios for a Pacemaker cluster environment. Integration with Deployment Pipelines: For those who already use automated deployment tools like the SAP Deployment Automation Framework (SDAF) for Azure, the testing framework can integrate directly into those pipelines. The framework is designed as a natural extension to SDAF, so it can leverage the same configuration context and Azure resources defined during deployment. This allows you to embed HA testing into your continuous delivery process, every time you deploy or update an SAP environment, the pipeline can automatically run the HA tests and surface any issues before you even hand the system over to end-users or application teams. Call to Action & Community Engagement The SAP Testing Automation Framework, in public preview stage, is a significant step forward in reducing misconfigurations and manual effort in high availability deployment of SAP system on Azure. We encourage you to explore the framework, share your feedback, or contribute. During this public preview, we recommend using framework for new greenfield production high availability deployments that are not yet live, or on non-production environments. Appendix and References Set up Pacemaker on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) in Azure | Microsoft Learn Set up Pacemaker on RHEL in Azure | Microsoft Learn Azure Virtual Machines HA for SAP NW on RHEL | Microsoft Learn Azure VMs high availability for SAP NetWeaver on SLES | Microsoft Learn Azure/sap-automation-qa: This is the repository supporting the quality assurance for SAP systems running on Azure. Azure/sap-automation: This is the repository supporting the SAP deployment automation framework on AzureJoin Microsoft at SAP Sapphire 2025
I’m thrilled to be back at SAP Sapphire this year alongside my colleagues from Microsoft! Sapphire is an event I always look forward to as it provides a great opportunity to celebrate the successes of our customers and partners as well as share big announcements and product updates. Whether you’re joining us for pre-day events, engaging in sessions during Sapphire, or enjoying the networking opportunities, there’s something for everyone. Read on to learn more about what’s in store: Previewing exciting innovation for SAP on the Microsoft Cloud Data & AI: At Sapphire, we will be sharing key updates on SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) on Azure and how you can use Azure Databricks with SAP BDC. We will also be sharing the progress on the joint integration between Microsoft Copilot and SAP Joule, helping accelerate business outcomes and increase end-user productivity. SAP BTP on Azure: Together with SAP, we are ensuring our customers can use the latest SAP Business Technology (BTP) services on Microsoft Azure in their preferred regions. We are excited to share the launch of two new datacenter regions for SAP BTP on Azure – Canada (Toronto) and China (Hebei). With this announcement, SAP BTP is now available in 10 Azure datacenter regions, including Brazil, launched late last year. Thanks to incredible demand from our joint customers, SAP has also added several additional BTP services on Azure. New services include SAP Build Apps, SAP Build Code, SAP AI Core and Joule. You can view all the existing BTP services and regions on Azure on the SAP Discovery Center. To stay up-to-date on future plans for service and region roll-out, visit the SAP roadmap explorer. RISE with SAP Customer Spotlight – Nestlé: This multinational organization with over 2,000 brands in 188 countries has operations that are as large as they are complex. Nestlé executed one of the largest RISE with SAP migrations in the world on Azure where they could build a future-ready enterprise, leveraging AI-driven solutions. Their need for a platform that could deliver innovation and reliability at scale along with a robust infrastructure made Azure the clear choice. To hear more about their transformation story, make sure to attend the session at Sapphire: Nestlé’s journey from SAP on-premises to RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure. Join us at SAP Sapphire 2025 Sessions you don’t want to miss We’re bringing a dynamic lineup of 10 in-person sessions across both Orlando and Madrid, featuring insights from Microsoft and SAP experts. Don’t miss the chance to dive into the latest on RISE with SAP, SAP Business Suite, SAP BTP, and Data and AI on the Microsoft Cloud—plus hear real-world stories from customers who are already driving results through the Microsoft and SAP partnership. Register now using the links below. Session Number Date and Time Nestlé’s journey from SAP on-premises to RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure PAR1165 Wednesday, May 21 2:30pm-2:50pm EDT Microsoft Federal’s cloud landscape transformation with SAP NS2 SER2695 Tuesday, May 20 4:30pm-4:50pm EDT Unlock innovation for SAP ERP with AI, SAP BTP, and more on Microsoft Azure PAR1166 Wednesday, May 21 2:00pm-2:20pm EDT Accelerating procurement transformation with SAP Ariba solutions SPM2624 Wednesday, May 21 2:00pm-2:20pm EDT Joule and Microsoft 365 Copilot: AI-enabled productivity in action BAI2594 Tuesday, May 20 11:30am-11:50am EDT (Madrid) - Modernizing the SAP Software Landscape at ANDRITZ PAR1307 Wednesday, May 28 11:30am - 11:50am CEST ASUG Pre-Day Sessions Harnessing SAP's AI Innovations: Joule, Generative AI, and Business AI ASUG104 Location: S320GH Monday, May 19 1:00pm-5:00pm EDT ASUG Power Peer Group Unlock the value of SAP BTP: Lessons learned from ASUG members BTP3093 Location: ASUG Booth Theater Tuesday, May 20 2:00pm-2:40pm EDT Celebration night! We are excited to be the exclusive sponsor of the celebration night concert, which is always a highlight at Sapphire. The evening will feature two special performances by the Zac Brown Band at the American Garden Theatre at Epcot®, scheduled for 8:15 PM and 9:45 PM. Come celebrate with us! Come find us at our booth! Microsoft and SAP are at the forefront of AI transformation and are excited to showcase the interoperability of our AI agents at Sapphire. The video below shows a sneak peek of what’s possible but if you’d like to learn more, come talk to our subject matter experts from Microsoft on-site to help address any questions and foster connections. Find us at Booth #409 in Orlando and Booth #9.333 in Madrid Networking Events Beyond the sessions and booth experiences, our partners are hosting special social and networking events you can join: Home - PwC at SAP Sapphire 2025 RSVP: Lemongrass Invites You for Cocktails and Apps! Syntax Annual Sapphire Party IBM Sapphire Client Appreciation reception We are looking forward to a great Sapphire and I hope to see you there!SAP on Azure Product Announcements Summary – SAP TechEd 2024
We are excited to be part of SAP TechEd Virtual 2024 as a diamond sponsor. Microsoft Azure continues to play a leading role in expanding SAP RISE deployments, enabling clients to seamlessly integrate their SAP assets on Azure with those in RISE.SAP System Refresh and Cloning operations on Azure NetApp Files with SnapCenter
Discover the power of SAP HANA on Azure NetApp Files with seamless system refresh and cloning operations using SnapCenter. This innovative solution leverages Azure NetApp Files snapshot and volume cloning capabilities to provide end-to-end workflows for data protection and SAP system refresh operations. Whether you need to create system copies for testing, address logical corruption, or perform disaster recovery failover tests, SnapCenter ensures quick and efficient processes, saving you time and resources.
Migrating over 200 TB SAP Oracle Database to Azure with Lemongrass Cloud Platform Migrate
Co-Authors Ravi Athmakuri Vinaykumar Jangamshetty Amandeep Kalsi Sachin Ghorpade Overview In this blog post, we will cover SAP on Azure solution and Lemongrass Cloud Platform Migrate solution and how it helped to migrate over 200 TB Oracle on SAP system to Azure with 80% less downtime than SAP standard migration. Customer Environment and Challenges The process of migrating an SAP solution implemented 20 years ago to Azure can present multiple challenges and we will discuss the key challenges faced by customers who want to take advantage of Azure’s scalability, flexibility and performance. Non-Unicode SAP Systems Non-Unicode systems are incompatible with newer SAP environments, especially SAP S/4HANA, which requires Unicode. Non-Unicode systems also limit integration with modern applications and languages. Large Database (over 200 TB) Migrating a very large database requires robust data transfer solutions, especially for environments that are sensitive to downtime. Big Endian Platforms (IBM Power, SUN/HP, Mainframe) Platforms like IBM Power typically run-on Big-Endian architecture, whereas most cloud environments and databases are on Little Endian, which complicates data migration. Most of the public cloud environment and including SAP HANA, runs on Little Endian. (Heterogenous Migrations) Lack of Database Compression Without compression, the database may be significantly larger than necessary, increasing costs and migration complexity. SAP Heterogeneous migration and Key Challenges SAP heterogenous migrations are a common technique used to solve the challenges above. Heterogeneous migrations in SAP involve shifting an SAP system across different operating systems, Hardware platform or databases, often involving a platform change such as migrating from Oracle on AIX to Oracle on Linux. While heterogeneous migrations can deliver significant performance improvements and allow for platform modernization, they are also complex and pose specific challenges. We will discuss those challenges in this section before we move to the next section to address those challenges. Downtime Management Minimizing downtime is essential to avoid business disruption. However, with large datasets and complex dependencies, reducing downtime during migrations can be challenging. Large databases introduce additional complexities, including prolonged data transfer times, which can delay the migration. Extended Data Transfer Times Data transfer time directly affects the overall migration timeline, especially for remote data centers or cloud migrations. When migrating to a cloud platform or a distant data center, network latency can slow down data transfer, leading to increased downtime. Configuring parallel processes during migration can significantly reduce data transfer time. However, improperly configured parallelism can lead to resource contention and migration failures. Ensuring Data Consistency Data consistency is crucial in SAP migrations, as any mismatches can lead to severe application and transactional issues. Employ SAP tools like R3load and the Migration Monitor, which perform integrity checks during data transfer. It’s also best to run multiple post-migration checks and test cycles to validate data consistency. Mock Runs Migrating between platforms can surface unexpected issues, from compatibility problems to unoptimized configurations. Run mock migrations and testing to identify potential bottlenecks, without affecting the running production systems. Next, we’ll explore SAP on Azure and the Lemongrass Cloud Platform (LCP) Migrate solution, focusing on how it modernizes and optimizes SAP systems on Microsoft Azure. SAP on Azure and LCP Migrate addresses key challenges like downtime, large data volumes, network performance, and data consistency. SAP on Azure Solution The architecture and solution for hosting a 200+ TB SAP Oracle Database on Azure discussed in detail in another blog post: “Scalability in the Cloud: Migrating over 200 TB SAP Oracle Database to Azure”. This blog explores SAP on Azure solutions that minimize migration downtime, focusing on the need for strong parallel processing, high storage, and network throughput. Migration Parallel Processing We utilized Azure's Mdsv3 series VMs, featuring Intel’s Sapphire Rapids processors with DDR5 memory. Mdsv3 SKU provides higher SAPS than previous generations, allowing increased parallelization during critical SAP import stages of migration. Storage and Network Throughput Azure VM SKUs are equipped with right-sized storage and network technology to meet the migration downtime requirement. The Mdsv3 VMs incorporate Azure Boost technology, which enhances storage efficiency and performance by offloading tasks to Azure Boost FPGA. This offload improves security, reduces jitter, and lowers latency, while also enhancing network performance with up to 200 Gbps bandwidth and strengthened network security. Storage Leveraged Azure NetApp Files (ANF) for the SAP data and redo file systems to provide required throughput with low latency. ANF enabled us to adjust throughput dynamically to support different phases of the migration, without causing any outages to the operational Oracle system. Network Connectivity For private connectivity between on-premises and Azure, we used Azure ExpressRoute. This solution, facilitated by connectivity providers, bypasses the public Internet, offering enhanced reliability, faster speeds, consistent latency, and superior security compared to standard Internet connections. Azure ExpressRoute played a vital role in shipping data between on-prem to Azure to achieve the downtime requirement. Azure Monitoring Leveraged Azure Monitoring and dashboard to monitor the real time metrics of CPU, IO and Network throughput during the migration process to catch any hot spots so that can be dynamically addressed without interrupting the migration process. LCP Migrate LCP Migrate is a proprietary technology product developed by Lemongrass for migrating very large databases (5TB-250TB) from source on-prem to Microsoft Azure. We dive into LCP Migrate and its role in modernizing and optimizing SAP systems, addressing the critical challenges of downtime, large data volumes, network performance, and data consistency. By implementing LCP Migrate, customers have been able to meet business downtime requirements. Using LCP Migrate, SAP Complex migrations like these can be achieved with minimal downtimes using the incremental approach by moving high volume passive data during uptime (Migrate all stable range data during uptime in the week(s) prior to offline phase) along with light weighted triggers (Record all changes to data since start of online migration) on these and lower volume active data during the cutover (Migrate all changed data and all remaining data during offline phase). Mock system deployed by using LCP Migrate in parallel to production to validate end to end business processes. The LCP Migrate approach is based on the SAP Supported tooling like Migmon, R3load with tuning across these. Historically, a comparative analysis of migration methodologies focused on downtime based on the larger database sizes, as illustrated below: LCP Migrate also offers various solutions like SAP Non-Unicode to Unicode Conversions along with Migrate, Upgrades with Migrate, Plugin service to SUM DMO and many more optimizations. Using LCP Migrate solution, we have made sure that the data transfers during the cutover event to optimal number where the throughput was consistent. LCP Migrate solution incorporates automation tools, including Ansible, scripting, and custom dashboards, to facilitate real-time monitoring of migration activities. Database Compression Constructed a standardized template-based framework for SAP ERP/SCM/BW/CRM on Oracle Database, aligned with SAP on Azure and SAP on Oracle best practices, and seamlessly integrated with LCP Migrate migration and Unicode conversion processes. By leveraging Lemongrass’s refined templates and process, we can attain a compression ratio exceeding 65% on target databases concurrently with the migration. Some of the Advantages which we gain with this is smaller database size, Lower maintenance for disk allocation, HA/DR, Backup maintenance, more efficient use of the Oracle buffer pool due to a higher data density, Improved system performance, and fewer extrusions must be made from the buffer pool and overall improvement in the Business Processes. Operationally, advanced compression is utilized to maximize the database's compression benefits. While basic compression generally requires less CPU than advanced compression, it also applies an ILM policy that periodically compresses data which has been decompressed due to DML activity. This process introduces additional CPU load, negating some of the CPU savings. Therefore, using advanced compression with minimal CPU overhead may be more beneficial for overall performance. Conclusion A technically sound, well-executed and successful migration of a large-scale SAP system to Azure, leveraging the advanced capabilities of LCP Migrate. The LCP Migrate solution proved to be a valuable tool for complex SAP migrations, offering a robust and efficient approach to minimize downtime and maximize system performance. By addressing the challenges of heterogeneous migrations and leveraging innovative technologies, Lemongrass has demonstrated its expertise in delivering successful SAP migrations to Microsoft Azure. References About Lemongrass - Company Overview eBook – Lemongrass SAP on Azure Video – Lemongrass Cloud Platform (LCP) Video – Lemongrass Cloud Platform Migrate (LCP Migrate) Video – Lemongrass Minimum Downtime Operations (MDOTM) Video – Lemongrass and Microsoft Talk All Things RISE with SAP
