ESXi Host
UCS Service Profile
The ESXi host provides the platform where virtual machines are running on. The service profile contains the configuration of the hardware in a Cisco UCS environment. Service Profile Templates or vSphere Auto Deploy can be used to ease the ESXi deployment process. In this example, a standalone service profile creation is shown.
For each vSwitch, it is recommended to configure two uplink interfaces with MTU 9000 as trunk. The VLAN assignment takes place in the port group configuration of the vSwitch.
In order to get the best performance for virtualization, certain BIOS features should be enabled. The c-states can be controlled by the hypervisor and do not necessarily have to be disabled. It depends on the performance needs vs. power saving aspects how balanced this configuration should be.
VMware vSphere screenshot
Although the use of VM-FEX is optional, it is recommended to enable all Intel Direct IO features.
Network
SAP HANA has different types of network communication channels to support the different SAP HANA scenarios and setups. It is recommended to consult the SAP HANA TDI - Network Requirements whitepaper.
Source: SAP SE
On the basis of the listed network requirements, every server must be equipped with two 1 or 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 Gigabit Ethernet is recommended) interfaces for scale-up systems to establish communication with the application servers and users (client zone). If the storage for SAP HANA is external and accessed through the network, two additional 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 8-Gbps Fibre Channel interfaces are required (storage zone). Scale-out systems need a 10 Gigabit Ethernet link for internode communication (internal zone). When using multiple ESXi hosts in a vSphere Cluster with enabled DRS, at least one additional 10 Gigabit Ethernet link is required for vMotion traffic.
For the internal zone, storage zone and the vMotion network, it is recommended to configure jumbo frames end-to-end.
The network traffic can be consoliated by using the same vSwitch with several load-balanced uplinks.
Storage
The storage system must be certified as part of an appliance, independent of the appliance vendor, or must be certified as SAP HANA TDI Storage in the Certified SAP HANA Hardware Directory.
It is recommended to physically separate the the origin (VMFS LUN or NFS export) of the datastores providing data and log for performance reasons. Additional performance classes can be distinguished:
Category | Read Performance | Write Performance |
OS boot disk | medium | low |
/hana/shared | medium | low |
/hana/data | very high | high |
/hana/log | high | very high |
backup | low | medium |
It is also recommended to consult the recommendations from the storage hardware partners:
EMC: Tailored Datacenter Integration Content
NetApp Reference Architecture: SAP HANA on VMware vSphere and NetApp FAS Systems
NetApp Configuration Guide: SAP HANA on NetApp FAS Systems
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