Manage SAP systems in the hybrid cloud

Many companies are currently facing the cloud computing trend. In the SAP environment in particular, the pressure to reduce costs through the use of cloud services is increasing.

The first reaction is often to provide a private cloud for SAP. Private clouds for SAP are not only characterized by the cost-effective provision of SAP systems, but often also by additional features for the provision and operation of SAP systems.

Business units often want to have quick access to the latest test systems or training systems. In the traditional operation of SAP systems, the provision of new test or training systems is one of the processes that takes a lot of time.

In a private cloud, this should be prevented by allowing the business units to order new SAP systems via a central portal. Although a standardized offering does not necessarily meet all requirements, the SAP systems are delivered quickly thanks to an automated provisioning process.

While SAP systems are often created and delivered manually by various teams in the traditional environment, this must be automated in the private cloud environment. A high degree of automation is an absolute must here. This applies not only to provisioning, but also to activities such as automatic system copies or system refreshes.

SAP Landscape Virtualization Management is a solution that enables customers to offer precisely these features. SAP LVM is not a new solution, but is based on the SAP Adaptive Computing Controller and has been available to SAP customers for several years.

SAP LVM is licensed in two editions, which determine the range of functions. The Standard Edition offers all the essential features for operating your own private cloud, while the Enterprise Edition offers extended use cases.

SAP LVM integrates itself via the SAP host agents and can use them to control the SAP systems. The elementary tasks of SAP LVM include the following.

Start/Stop/Relocate

Customers can start, stop and move SAP systems via SAP LVM. SAP systems can be moved from one server to another. This can be done from one virtual machine to another VM as well as from one physical server to another physical server.

This allows SAP systems to be moved easily. SAP LVM also offers the mass execution of these operations.

Dynamic starting/provisioning of instances: If required, dialog instances can be retrieved from sleep mode and started. This is usually done before a change of month to provide additional capacity that is not needed during normal operation.

Additional application servers can be dynamically provisioned via SAP LVM. However, the features of the Enterprise Edition significantly expand the list of use cases. These include, in particular, the use cases relating to integration with manufacturers of storage solutions and virtualization solutions.

This makes it very easy for customers to implement cloning or system refreshes and thus greatly simplify the provision of new SAP systems, e.g. for training or test systems.

SAP LVM can also draw on the features of storage or virtualization manufacturers. This means that new systems can be created in just a few minutes using cloning on the basis of storage snapshots.

This is the level of automation that customers require for a private cloud for SAP. The aim is to provide the business units with new SAP systems quickly and conveniently. This is easily possible with SAP LVM. A very good overview of all use cases for both editions can be found at the following link:

https://help.sap.com/nwlvm - In addition to the features for simplifying the operation of your own private cloud, SAP LVM can also be used to connect resources from the Amazon Cloud. The configuration is extremely simple. All you need is an account on the Amazon side.

As soon as the account is configured, new resources can be dynamically added to an SAP landscape and used. The SAP LVM can take over and coordinate the control of the Amazon cloud resources. All SAP systems created in the Amazon Cloud are integrated into the landscape in the same way as on-premise resources.

By using Amazon-based resources, the landscape can be changed from a private cloud to a hybrid cloud. SAP LVM acts as the connecting piece (bridge).

This has a decisive advantage for SAP customers: the connection between the on-premise environment and the cloud environment is a piece of SAP software, and therefore SAP's support and assistance exist for this scenario.

In this way, customers using SAP LVM can carry out a simple transition to the public cloud and switch to the hybrid cloud scenario.