Skip to main content
NetApp Solutions SAP

SAP HANA on NetApp AFF Systems with NFS - Configuration Guide

Contributors netapp-mschoen kevin-hoke
PDFs

The NetApp AFF A-Series and AFF C-Series product families have been certified for use with SAP HANA in tailored data center integration (TDI) projects.

Marco Schön, NetApp

This certification is valid for the following models:

  • AFF A150, AFF A20, AFF A250, AFF A30, AFF A400, AFF A50, AFF A70, AFF A800, AFF A900, AFF A90, AFF A1K

  • AFF C250, AFF C30, AFF C400, AFF C60, AFF C800, AFF C80

    Note NetApp AFF C-Series requires NetApp ONTAP 9.13.1 or later

A complete list of NetApp certified storage solutions for SAP HANA can be found at the Certified and supported SAP HANA hardware directory.

This document describes the ONTAP configuration requirements for the NFS protocol version 3 (NFSv3) or the NFS protocol version 4 (NFSv4.1).

Note Only NFS versions 3 or 4.1 are supported. NFS versions 1, 2, 4.0, and 4.2 aren't supported.
Note The configuration described in this paper is necessary to achieve the required SAP HANA KPIs and the best performance for SAP HANA. Changing any settings or using features not listed herein might cause performance degradation or unexpected behavior and should only be done if advised by NetApp support.

The configuration guides for NetApp AFF systems using FCP and for FAS systems using NFS or FCP can be found at the following links:

The following table shows the supported combinations for NFS versions, NFS locking, and the required isolation implementations, depending on the SAP HANA database configuration.

For SAP HANA single-host systems or multiple hosts that do not use Host Auto-Failover, NFSv3 and NFSv4 are supported.

For SAP HANA multiple host systems with Host Auto-Failover, NetApp only supports NFSv4, while using NFSv4 locking as an alternative to a server-specific STONITH (SAP HANA HA/DR provider) implementation.

SAP HANA NFS version NFS locking SAP HANA HA/DR provider

SAP HANA single host, multiple hosts without Host Auto-Failover

NFSv3

Off

n/a

NFSv4

On

n/a

SAP HANA multiple hosts using Host Auto-Failover

NFSv3

Off

Server-specific STONITH implementation mandatory

NFSv4

On

Not required
Note A server-specific STONITH implementation is not part of this guide. Contact your server vendor for such an implementation.

This document covers configuration recommendations for SAP HANA running on physical servers and on virtual servers that use VMware vSphere.

Note See the relevant SAP notes for operating system configuration guidelines and HANA-specific Linux kernel dependencies. For more information, see SAP note 2235581: SAP HANA Supported Operating Systems.

SAP HANA tailored data center integration

NetApp AFF storage controllers are certified in the SAP HANA TDI program using both NFS (NAS) and FC (SAN) protocols. They can be deployed in any of the current SAP HANA scenarios, such as SAP Business Suite on HANA, S/4HANA, BW/4HANA, or SAP Business Warehouse on HANA in either single-host or multiple-host configurations. Any server that is certified for use with SAP HANA can be combined with NetApp certified storage solutions. See the following figure for an architecture overview of SAP HANA TDI.

Figure showing input/output dialog or representing written content

For more information regarding the prerequisites and recommendations for producti SAP HANA systems, see the following resource:

SAP HANA using VMware vSphere

There are several options for connecting storage to virtual machines (VMs). The preferred option is to connect the storage volumes with NFS directly out of the guest operating system. Using this option, the configuration of hosts and storage does not differ between physical hosts and VMs.

NFS datastores and VVOL datastores with NFS are supported as well. For both options, only one SAP HANA data or log volume must be stored within the datastore for production use cases. In addition, Snapshot-based backup and recovery orchestrated by NetApp SnapCenter and solutions based on this, such as SAP System cloning, cannot be implemented.

This document describes the recommended setup with direct NFS mounts from the guest OS.

For more information about using vSphere with SAP HANA, see the following links: