SAP on AWS – Part 2

AWS Services for running SAP

In this second part of SAP on AWS series, we focus more on AWS and look into the different services that are relevant for running SAP on AWS and their use cases in an SAP environment. Or in other words if you have a certain SAP workload you would like to run on AWS which service would fit your need. For the first part of this article click here.

Compute

Amazon EC2

AWS EC2 provides on-demand self-service virtual machines for installing SAP. A wide variety of EC2 instance sizes (18 of them appropriate for SAP) are available for a wide variety of SAP sizing needs providing both Windows & Linux as the base Operating System. Have complete control over the virtual machines, perform scaling, load-balancing, rapid provisioning (from SAP images) and monitor with ease. And as usual all this comes at no upfront cost and a pay by the hour model for only what you use.

Operating Systems supported: SUSE, RedHat & Windows
Databases supported: IBM DB2, MaxDB, SQL Server & now Sybase ASE too

Storage

Amazon EC2 Instance Store

Ephemeral block level storage option for use cases like SAP SWAP space and temp DB. Data stored here is lost when instance reboots so be cautious not to store anything important.

Amazon Elastic Block Storage (EBS)

It is a persistent storage available from AWS that provides storage space from 1GB to 1TB depending on your needs. Use EBS volumes with standard IOPS (upto 100) for use cases like test, dev, demo & low demand production or opt for provisioned IOPS (upto 4000) for high I/O sensitive SAP workloads like databases.

Amazon S3

Simple web-based interface for file storage, applicable for use cases like storing backup files and archiving.

Amazon Glacier

A low cost archiving solution for storing long term infrequently accessed data where retrieval times of several hours are permissible. Suitable for SAP use cases like archiving and long term backups.

AWS Import/Export

For large volumes of data, AWS has a data migration service using portable devices where internet is a concern or is slow. Best suited for use cases like huge file size backups, disaster recovery and migration of SAP systems.

Networking

Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

A private isolated area in AWS providing complete control over resources. Use a VPN or a dedicated connection like AWS Direct Connect to serve your needs. A VPN is fast and simple to setup, where as AWS Direct Connect will give you reduced network costs and increased bandwidth throughput (using upto 10gbps ports). It is good for use cases like running one of the PRD/QAS/DEV landscape or a hybrid setup.

Amazon CloudFormation

A service for quick provisioning & management of a group of AWS resources through a simple template file based on JSON. Ideal for use cases like training, disaster recovery, one-click provisioning of complete SAP landscapes.

Additional Services

VM Import/Export

This AWS service lets you import VMware, Citrix & Hyper-V images into Amazon EC2 and also export them back to on-premise. Ideal if you have golden SAP images that you would like to use on cloud.

AWS Marketplace

Search and buy pre-built SAP solutions that run on AWS, saving you some of the hassles of building and configuring SAP on cloud.

And as usual if you have any questions regarding use cases like Hybrid SAP, Backup & Disaster Recovery for SAP, demo SAP systems or would just like to discuss the feasibility of running SAP on cloud, e-mail me at sangram@cloudthat.in.

Stay tuned for the next part in this series.

WRITTEN BY Sangram Rath