At our Executive Briefing Center in Las Vegas, I frequently engage with AWS customers, outlining our innovative process and emphasizing how our service offerings evolve based on customer feedback. A prime example of this is our commitment to optimizing AWS as an ideal environment for SAP’s suite of business solutions. Our clients have consistently expressed the need for robust EC2 instances capable of handling their extensive SAP workloads. Given that SAP installations are critical to business operations, SAP certifies specific EC2 instance types and sizes for compatibility. We collaborate closely with SAP to secure these certifications, ensuring that AWS remains a trusted host for their products.
Key Milestones in SAP on AWS
Here’s a brief overview of some key milestones we’ve achieved in this domain:
- June 2012: Expanded the variety of SAP-certified solutions available on AWS.
- October 2012: SAP HANA in-memory database became available for production use on AWS.
- March 2014: SAP HANA could run on cr1.8xlarge instances with up to 244 GB of memory, with larger test clusters possible.
- June 2014: Launched a SAP HANA Deployment Guide and AWS CloudFormation templates alongside SAP certification on r3.8xlarge instances.
- October 2015: Introduced x1.32xlarge instances featuring 2 TB of memory tailored for SAP HANA and other applications.
- August 2016: Enabled clusters of X1 instances to support production SAP HANA clusters with up to 7 nodes, totaling 14 TB of memory.
- October 2016: Released the x1.16xlarge instance with 1 TB of memory.
- January 2017: SAP HANA received certification for use on r4.16xlarge instances.
Today, diverse industries rely on AWS to run their SAP applications in production. The SAP and Amazon Web Services page showcases numerous customer success stories. My colleague Jamie Anderson recently discussed the digital transformation journey with SAP and cloud integration. He highlights the significant advantages cloud infrastructure offers compared to traditional hosting options. This is another blog post that may interest you.
Exciting Developments in SAP on AWS
We’re continually striving to enhance AWS as a platform for running SAP applications. Here’s a look at some exciting developments:
- Larger SAP HANA Clusters: You can now establish scale-out SAP HANA clusters with up to 17 nodes, accommodating 34 TB of memory.
- 4 TB Instances: The upcoming x1e.32xlarge instances will feature 4 TB of memory.
- 8-16 TB Instances: We’re in the process of developing instances with up to 16 TB of memory.
Expanding SAP HANA Clusters
I’m pleased to announce that we have partnered with SAP to certify the x1.32xlarge instances for use in scale-out clusters with up to 17 nodes (34 TB of memory). This is the largest scale-out deployment available from any cloud provider today, enabling our customers to manage extensive SAP workloads on AWS. For guidance on architecting and deploying your own scale-out cluster, consult the SAP HANA on AWS Quick Start.
Enhancing the Memory-Intensive X1 Family
Our commitment to this instance family continues as we address your needs and provide a clear growth trajectory. Later this year, we plan to introduce x1e.32xlarge instances in several AWS regions, available in both On-Demand and Reserved Instance formats. These instances will boast 4 TB of DDR4 memory (double that of the x1.32xlarge), 128 vCPUs (four 2.3 GHz Intel® Xeon® E7 8880 v3 processors), high memory bandwidth, and large L3 caches. They will be VPC-only and deliver up to 20 Gbps of network bandwidth using the Elastic Network Adapter while minimizing latency and jitter. Furthermore, they’ll be EBS-optimized by default, providing up to 14 Gbps of dedicated EBS throughput.
The Long-Term Memory-Intensive Roadmap
Understanding that planning large-scale SAP installations requires significant time, I’d like to share a portion of our roadmap. Currently, customers can operate larger SAP HANA certified servers in third-party data centers and connect them to AWS infrastructure through AWS Direct Connect. However, customers have expressed a preference for a cloud-native solution akin to what they receive with X1 instances.
To meet this demand, we are actively developing instances with even more memory! Throughout 2023 and beyond, we aim to launch EC2 instances equipped with 8 TB to 16 TB of memory. These upcoming instances, along with the x1e.32xlarge, will empower you to construct larger single-node SAP installations and multi-node SAP HANA clusters, as well as run other memory-intensive applications and services. This will also provide essential scale-up capacity when the smaller instances reach their limits.
I will share further information on our plans as soon as possible.
Join Us at SAPPHIRE
The AWS team will be present at booth 539 during SAPPHIRE, hosting a series of sessions featuring our team, customers, and partners in the in-booth theater. We will also participate in various sessions throughout the event. Here’s a glimpse of what to expect (for a complete list, check out SAP SAPPHIRE NOW 2023):
- SAP Solutions on AWS for Large Enterprises – Wednesday, May 17th at Noon. Jamie Anderson (General Manager, SAP, AWS) & Dave Wilson (VP of Business Application Services, BP).
- Overcoming Speed Barriers with SAP HANA on AWS – Wednesday, May 17th at 12:30 PM – Lisa Green (VP, SAP) and Mike Brown (Senior Director, Enterprise Systems, Zappos).
- AWS Fireside Chat with Zappos (Rapid SAP HANA Migration: Real Results) – Thursday, May 18th at 11:00 AM – Mike Brown (Senior Director, Enterprise Systems, Zappos) and Jake Smith (Senior Manager, SAP Solutions Architecture, AWS).
— Alex
P.S. If you have SAP expertise and wish to transition to the cloud, consider exploring opportunities for the Principal Product Manager (AWS Quick Starts) and SAP Architect positions. For additional insightful reading, check out this excellent resource on the Amazon employee onboarding process.
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