Oracle is proud to announce that customers may now deploy Oracle databases for SAP Business Suite based on SAP NetWeaver 7.x technology platform on Oracle Exadata Database Machine X9M and Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M in their data centers.
About Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M
The recently introduced Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M uses the latest Intel 3rd Gen Xeon® Scalable processors with 24% more available cores, PCIe 4.0 IO and flash storage, a 100 Gb/s network fabric, and increased storage. As a result, it provides up to 87% more IOs for transactional workloads and 80% more throughput for analytics – all at the same price as X8M systems. Exadata X9M platforms combines Intel® Optane™ persistent memory with innovative Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) algorithms that bypass the network and I/O stack, eliminating time-consuming CPU interrupts and context switches, reducing latency, and improving overall system performance.
SAP NetWeaver® and Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M Architecture
Oracle manages all aspects of the Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M infrastructure deployed in customers’ data centers, including firmware upgrades, virtualization host (Dom0) patches, and updates and patches for database tools and Oracle Grid Infrastructure to an image server that runs on the control plane server, which is also part of the Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M infrastructure.
Figure 1: Architecture overview of Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M with SAP NetWeaver
Customers are responsible for managing all aspects of the VM clusters (DomU), such as creating databases, providing updates and patches for database tools and Oracle Grid Infrastructure, and uploading and installing SAP-specific bundle patches.
Exadata Cloud@Customer Infrastructure
Each Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M platform contains a predefined number of KVM-based virtualization hosts and Exadata storage servers, all connected by multiple high-speed, low-latency, 100 Gigabit Ethernet network links that are managed by intelligent Exadata software. Multiple Oracle RAC instances may be configured to run on virtual machines on Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M infrastructure. In addition, customers with smaller systems can add incremental Exadata storage servers without increasing the number of database servers, providing up to 769 TB of usable storage and 576 storage processing cores in a total of up to 12 storage servers. As a result, customers with large amounts of data can increase storage capacity while reducing their overall costs.
| SYSTEM |
NUMBER OF COMPUTE NOTES |
NUMBER OF EXADATA STORAGE SERVERS |
| Exadata Cloud @Customer Base System |
2 nodes (4 to 48 OCPUs and total 656 GB RAM) |
3 to 12 |
| Exadata Cloud @Customer Quarter Rack |
2 nodes (4 to 124 OCPUs and total 2780 GB RAM) |
3 to 12 |
| Exadata Cloud @Customer Half Rack |
4 nodes (8 to 248 OCPUs and total 5560 GB RAM) |
6 to 12 |
| Exadata Cloud @Customer Full Rack |
8 nodes (16 to 496 OCPUs and total 11,120 GB RAM) |
12 |
Table 2: Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M configurations
Workload Size
You may estimate the size needed for your SAP installation by using the SAP Quick Sizer tool and determine the Oracle Database Exadata Cloud@Customer Rack Shape needed for your SAP workload. The following table shows the current Rack Shapes certified by SAP.
| RACK SHAPE |
OCPUS1 |
TOTAL MEMORY |
TOTAL USABLE STORAGE CAPACITY |
| Gen 2 Exadata Cloud @Customer Base System |
4 to 48 |
656 GB |
74 TB |
| Gen 2 Exadata Cloud @Customer Quarter Rack |
4 to 124 |
2780 GB |
192 TB |
| Gen 2 Exadata Cloud @Customer Half Rack |
8 to 248 |
5560 GB |
384 TB |
| Gen 2 Exadata Cloud @Customer Full Rack |
16 to 496 |
11,120 GB |
769 TB |
Figure 3: Exadata X9M Cloud@Customer sizing
1 To run an SAP NetWeaver workload, you need the minimum number of OCPUs
Presales and consulting teams from Oracle can help you to determine a valid size for your planned SAP landscape in the cloud.
Oracle Database for SAP with Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M
All options and features are certified for SAP NetWeaver of the following Oracle Database releases for Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M:
• Oracle Database 19c
• Oracle Database 12c Release 2 (12.2.0.1)
The support includes Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC), Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM), and Oracle Database In-Memory for on-premises deployments of SAP NetWeaver. We recommend using Oracle Database 19c on Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M to benefit from the persistent memory features available with Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M. Certification also includes the use of Storage Expansion Servers for X9M.
Conclusion
Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M is ideal for SAP customers who want cloud benefits but cannot move their databases to the public cloud for various reasons: sovereignty laws, industry regulations, corporate policies, security requirements, network latency, or the impracticality of moving databases away from other tightly coupled, on-premises IT infrastructure. With Exadata Cloud@Customer X9M customers not only benefit from the performance and availability of the best platform for Oracle Database, but also gain the simplicity, agility, elasticity, and consumption model of the cloud deployed in their data centers.
Resources
Read the official deployment whitepaper (PDF)
Oracle Database, Cloud and IT Infrastructure for SAP