Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements

Unit 1: SAP HANA SR File System Requirements

SAP HANA SR file system requirements
File systems available with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

• SLES supports several file systems

o XFS
o Ext4
o Btrfs
o ......
• Storage is required for two major purposes on an SAP HANA
node:
o Operating System
− OS/Swap/GRUB boot partition
o SAP HANA
− Installation media
− Data
− Transaction logs
− Program binaries

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SAP HANA SR file system requirements
File system for the operating system

• For the SLES operating system, use Btrfs

o Using Btrfs for the SLES operating system is one of the
components that moves a system toward zero downtime
• Btrfs features include:
o Snapshots
− For example, a snapshot can be taken before applying patches
o System rollback
• Integration with zypper
o Automatic creation of “before” (pre) and “after” (post) snapshots

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SAP HANA SR file system requirements
Supported file systems for SAP HANA data and transaction logs

• Not every file system supported by SLES is supported by

SAP HANA
o Only file systems that have been tested successfully are
supported by SAP HANA
• SAP HANA supports the following file systems:
o GPFS
o NFS
o XFS
• Supported file systems are listed in the SAP HANA hardware
directory

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SAP HANA SR file system requirements
Checking which file systems are supported by SAP HANA

• How do you check which file systems are supported by SAP 1

HANA? 2
o Access the SAP HANA hardware directory
o Choose “Certified Appliances”
o Expand “File System”
− The supported file system types for SAP HANA are listed

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SAP HANA SR file system requirements
Linux file system-related SAP Notes

• SAP Notes are a source of current information

about everything related to SAP products
• Two useful SAP Notes related to file systems on
Linux when hosting SAP applications are:
o 405827 “Linux: Recommended file systems”
o 1999930 “FAQ: SAP HANA I/O Analysis”

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Thank You!

Contact Information:
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Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements
Unit 2: Planning the SAP HANA Storage
Planning the SAP HANA storage
Overview of the storage requirements

• A system hosting SAP HANA on SLE HA requires storage for:

o SAP HANA data
o SAP HANA transaction logs
o SAP HANA program binaries
o SAP HANA installation and update files
o SUSE Linux Enterprise operating system
• In an SAP HANA system replication configuration on a two-
node cluster, both hosts require locally accessible storage
for SAP HANA
o For SAP HANA SR scale up, no shared storage is required
• The cluster will be using disk-based fencing and will
therefore require shared storage

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
SAP HANA storage requirements

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
The SAP HANA file system structure on Linux

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
The SAP HANA data and transaction log storage

• The data and transaction log storage is unique to an

instance of SAP HANA
o In an SAP HANA system replication configuration, there is a
primary and a secondary instance
• The data and transaction log storage is not shared between
nodes in the SUSE Linux Enterprise HA cluster
o The data and transaction logs are replicated using HANA SR
• The storage could be:
o Physically local to the node
o Provided by an external storage solution, e.g. SAN

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
The SAP HANA installation source

• The SAP HANA installation files are stored centrally on

shared storage
• This is typically an NFS server
o The NFS service can run on an SLE HA cluster to make it highly
available
• SAP media
o Share the downloaded SAP media sets
− For example, mount the media on each node in the folder
/sapcd
o Before running the installation, copy the downloaded archive
installation media locally to each node
− Extract the archive locally
− Having the media available locally avoids locking and
permissions problems

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
The SAP HANA installed binaries

• The binaries are installed on storage local to each node

• The binaries are installed in:
o /hana/shared/<SID>
− Yes, the folder structure has a folder “shared” in the path, but in
a scale-up scenario this is not a shared folder
• Although the binaries are local, the node accesses
these binaries using symbolic links
o The links are in the /usr/sap/<SID> directory structure
− For example: /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/exe

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
Sizing storage

• Sizing storage for SAP HANA requires an SAP expert

• There is no direct link between the SAP HANA database size
and the storage needed for the transaction logs
• The transaction logs need to store the redo transactions
between two savepoints
o A savepoint is the act of writing the SAP HANA data to persistent
storage
o By default, savepoints occur every 5 minutes
• The amount of redo entries depends on the number
of transactions
• SAP has redo log sizing guidance available from:
o https://assets.cdn.sap.com/sapcom/docs/2015/03/74cdb554-
5a7c-0010-82c7-eda71af511fa.pdf

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Planning the SAP HANA storage
SAP HANA storage summary

• Shared storage is recommended for:

o Installation archive
o Typically, the installation archive is hosted on an NFS server
• Locally accessible storage for SAP HANA is required for:
o Data
o Transaction logs
o Program binaries
o Extracted installation files

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Thank You!

Contact Information:
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Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements
Unit 3: Sharing the SAP HANA Installation Media
Sharing the SAP HANA installation media
Demonstration – Make the SAP HANA installation archive available to the
nodes

• The SAP HANA installation media has been downloaded

• The installation media will be made available to the
systems using an NFS server

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Sharing the SAP HANA installation media
Demonstration summary – Make the SAP HANA installation archive
available to the nodes

• The SAP HANA installation media archive has been

downloaded
• On a dedicated disk, a file system to host the NFS exports
has been prepared

• A folder structure for the NFS shares has been prepared

• The SAP HANA installation archive has been copied into the
folder that will be exported

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Sharing the SAP HANA installation media
Demonstration summary – Make the SAP HANA installation archive
available to the nodes

• YaST was then used to configure the NFS server

• YaST was run as the root user
• From the “Network Services” group → “NFS Server”

• The NFS server was configured to start when the system

boots up
• The directory /export/HA1/sapcd was exported
o This directory contains the SAP HANA installation archive

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Sharing the SAP HANA installation media
Demonstration summary – Make the SAP HANA installation archive
available to the nodes

• The NFS security option no_root_squash was configured on

the export

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Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements
Unit 4: Accessing the SAP HANA Installation Media from
the Nodes
Accessing the SAP HANA installation media from the nodes
Demonstration – Configure the nodes to access the SAP HANA installation
media

• The following steps must be performed on both

nodes
• A mount point for the NFS share will be created
• From the nodes, we will check the NFS export is
accessible
• The NFS share will be configured to mount
automatically
• The NFS share will be mounted
• A local folder will be created to contain the
extracted SAP HANA installation files
• The SAP HANA archive will be extracted to the local
folder
• Now the first node has access to the SAP HANA
installer files, the same tasks will be repeated on
the second node

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Accessing the SAP HANA installation media from the nodes
Demonstration summary – Configure the nodes to access the SAP HANA
installation media

• The mount point was created

• From the nodes, we checked the NFS export was accessible

• The NFS share was configured to mount automatically

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Accessing the SAP HANA installation media from the nodes
Demonstration summary – Configure the nodes to access the SAP HANA
installation media

• The NFS share was mounted

• A local folder, /hana-installer was created

• The archive was extracted to /hana-installer

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Accessing the SAP HANA installation media from the nodes
Demonstration summary – Configure the nodes to access the SAP HANA
installation media

• Once the first node was configured, the same configuration was performed on
the second node

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Thank You!

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Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements
Unit 5: Creating Storage Locations for the SAP HANA
Binaries, Data, and Logs
Creating storage locations for the SAP HANA binaries, data, and logs
Demonstration – Create the storage locations for the SAP HANA binaries,
data, and logs

• The available storage devices on the nodes will be

checked
o The storage is already attached to the nodes
• An xfs file system will be created, then configured to
automatically mount on /usr/sap
• Partitions containing an XFS file system for the SAP
HANA binaries, data, and transaction logs will be created
• The procedure above will then be repeated on the
system that will become the second node in the cluster

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Creating storage locations for the SAP HANA binaries, data, and logs
Demonstration summary – Create the storage locations for the SAP HANA
binaries, data, and logs

• The storage devices available to the nodes was checked

o The storage was already attached to the nodes

• An xfs file system was created on one of the devices

• The xfs file system was configured to automatically mount
on /usr/sap by adding it to /etc/fstab

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Creating storage locations for the SAP HANA binaries, data, and logs
Demonstration summary – Create the storage locations for the SAP HANA
binaries, data, and logs

• The partitions and file systems with labels for the SAP HANA
binaries, data, and transaction logs were created

• The complete procedure above was repeated on node02

• NOTE: The storage for SAP HANA binaries, data, and logs
still needs to be configured to mount when the systems
boots
o We will complete this configuration task in the next unit
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Thank You!

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Week 2: SAP HANA Storage Requirements
Unit 6: Mounting the SAP HANA Storage on the Nodes
Mounting the SAP HANA storage on the nodes
Demonstration – Mount the SAP HANA storage on the nodes

• The configured file systems available will be checked

• Entries will be added to /etc/fstab to automatically mount
the file systems for the SAP HANA binaries, data, and
transaction logs
• The mount points required for the file systems will be
created
• The fstab configuration will be tested and the file
systems mounted

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Mounting the SAP HANA storage on the nodes
Demonstration summary – Mount the SAP HANA storage on the nodes

• The configured file systems were checked

• Entries were added to /etc/fstab to automatically mount the

file systems for the SAP HANA binaries, data, and
transaction logs

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Mounting the SAP HANA storage on the nodes
Demonstration summary – Mount the SAP HANA storage on the nodes

• The mount points were created

• The fstab configuration was tested and the file

systems mounted

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Thank You!

Contact Information:
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