VMWare supported for production instances - or not?

[Former Member]

I am really curious.

According to note "674851 - Virtualization on Windows" VMWare ESX is supported.

The "official statement" from a SAP support person in thread

says, it is not.

lifting-eyebrows-and-wondering

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Well-

I thought all of you would be interested to know about our experience.

After 2 weeks of asking everyone everywhere within HP, SAP and

Vmware, we finally got an answer -

Yes, but not for you.

By this I mean, yes indeed, vmware is fine for production in most

circumstances, such as netweaver 7.0.

However the "not for us" is due to xMII.

I was told:

"xApps are not covered by the SAP/VMWARE support agreement".

So - netweaver/erp/bi - almost anything is supported.

But that 12 MB Java Jar that is xMII is NOT supported.

In case you are wondering what torturous chain I followed to

get this answer,

I got my regional HP guy to ping his HP SAP architect,

who pinged his VMWARE TAM, who pinged his SAP

TAM in the virtualation test center in Germany.

So hello fripping Windows 2003 clustering-

as xMII isn't certified on windows 2008 yet.

-Kev

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Kevin,

thanx for that explanation.

This is really interesting...

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi all,

for your convenience we created a central page on SDN, covering virtualization from SAP's point of view.

You can find it https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/virtualization.

Best regards,

Roland Wartenberg

Enterprise Virtualization Strategist

SAP Labs Palo Alto

[Former Member]

Dear All,

i do not understand if it is possible to use VMWARE ESX 3 for virtualize

R3 4.7 Ent. edition.

This release use kernel 6.40 that support monitor for virtualized OS, but is based on SAPKB620 but from OS notes seems that SAPKB640 is required.

Thanks

Steven

[markus_doehr2]

- don't dulicate posts

- don't use closed threads

Markus

[JP_Barcenas]

Yes, VMWare ESX is supported!

See the very first heading here: []

[markus_doehr2]

...but why does the support say: "It is not" - if you ask officially in OSS?

Markus

[nelis]

Well "Supported" and "Supported in Production" is two different things.

Nelis

[markus_doehr2]

Maybe it's hairsplitting but:

674851 - Virtualization on Windows

<...>

To use an SAP application server productively on virtualized hardware, you must adhere to a number of guidelines concerning the use of the virtualization solution and the configuration of the SAP system.

<...>

Markus

[nelis]

I hope my developers and testers work productively in their DEV and TST systems.

It will be interesting to see what SAP has to say.

Nelis

[markus_doehr2]

> I hope my developers and testers work productively in their DEV and TST systems.

lol - what a subtle semantical difference...

> It will be interesting to see what SAP has to say.

yes - indeed - but I'm not sure if they will comment on this.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hello,

What I understand is : it is supported by SAP as long as the problem does not come from Vmware.

For me, it means that the problem may have to be reproduced on a non virtualised host to decide.

For a production system, the database host may not be virtualised.

To play on the safe side, we just decided to use virtualisation only for app servers.

Regards,

Olivier

[Former Member]

From what I understand it is supported (also for production environments) for both Windows and Linux:

This is what I found:

Supported Hardware

All newer x64-based CPUs available in 2008 or later are supported for virtualizing SAP systems. If you use CPUs of the first x64 generation (sold in 2006/2007), note that there are several known problems with the virtualized SAP system, including a significant impact on performance . Therefore, you need to check the list of published SAP standard benchmarks if you want to use existing hardware to virtualize your SAP system.

Here you can find the list of SAP benchmark results, based on VMware:

http://www.sap.com/solutions/benchmark/sd2tier.epx.

Supported Windows Guest Operating Systems

SAP supports Windows 64-bit for Intel and AMD processors (x64) as guest operating systems in a virtual landscape.

VMware ESX server 3.x

SAP supports this for release 6.40 and higher.

Relevant SAP Notes:

- 1056052 VMware ESX Server 3.0 configuration guideline

- 1104578 Virtualization on Windows: Enhanced Monitoring

- 1159490 Virtualization on Windows: Monitoring on VMware ESX

Kind regards,

Dave Arends

[markus_doehr2]

Hey Dave,

yes - that's the ambiguity - notes + SDN tell, it is. The support reply (from the competence center) says, it is not.

Markus

[Former Member]

Hi Markus,

That's strange indeed. I think this guy from the SAP support is wrong. Or maybe he means the xMII installation is not supported yet on VMWare.

I found also the following on the VMware site:

http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/partners/bro_sap_sapphire08_r2_q208.pdf

Look at chapter 'VMware and SAP: A Dynamic Relationship'.

VMware ESX is the only virtualization platform supported by SAP across both Linux and Windows for all environments, including Windows production. VMware has support staff on site in Walldorf linked into the SAP support framework.

Kind regards,

Dave

[Former Member]

Or maybe he means the xMII installation is not supported yet on VMWare.

I already thought so. Thanks for your answer Kevin.

[Former Member]

So, Markus, the answer is: Yes and No.

[nelis]

Hi Marcus,

Hmm interesting. Perhaps support on Windows platform for VMWare is different to Linux platform ?

In [Note 1122387 - Linux: SAP Support in virtualized environments|https://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1122387] it says "The support statement above is also valid for production environments."

I do not see this in Windows VMWare note. Typical SAP ambiguity

Regards,

Nelis