SAP Landscape and TCO

[Former Member]

Hi,

We are evaluating SAP Platform and trying to understand the TCO and the landscape. I have a couple of questions regarding this. Pl provide your comments/suggestions.

1. Can I install ECC6.0,Portal,BI,XI(PI?),Solution Manager and web dispatcher all in One server(that is sized properly). I know it is not a very good idea to put all in one box. But would like to know if this configuration is possible? (May be this could be a Development instance). If this is possible, can I use MCOD for a common database for all these components? (This will simplify database administration and disaster recovery?).MCOD is supported for ECC 6.0?

2. For a production scenario, I feel the landscape could be

1. Couple of application servers (Java+ABAP in one server)

2. Java SCS and ASCS (ABAP) in one server, clustered for high availability.

3. One CI for ECC6.0, Portal,XI and solution manager on a server. (With or with out MCOD)

4. Hardware load balancer (Web distpatcher not used).

How the number of servers can be reduced and also the number of databases?.

Thanks in advance.

Regards

Velu

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

This implies that for PortalXIECC, I need

1 Portal Server ,1 XI server and 1 ECC server and One Solman Server.

For HA, the configuration will have 13 servers( if i don't go for Virtualization of Servers)

Portal: CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

XI: CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

ECC:CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

I understand as per the suggestions to my thread, the total number of servers for running ECC,Portal and XI will be a minimum of 13. Adding the Dev and Quality Boxes, the total number would bea minimum of 1333=19.

Pl clarify if my understanding is correct.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Velu,

> For HA, the configuration will have 13 servers( if i don't go for Virtualization of Servers)

>

> Portal: CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

> XI: CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

> ECC:CI+Database in a cluster;min 2 Application Servers.

I only count 12 servers here, can you tell me how you arrive at 13? Are you including one server for SolMan in addition to what you state above?

Also, why do you say you need a minimum of 2 application servers for each of the above? Have you performed sizing that suggests and recommends 2 application servers each?

Best Regards,

Matt

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

> Also, why do you say you need a minimum of 2 application servers for each of the above? Have you performed sizing that suggests and recommends 2 application servers each?

No - but if you have a single application server only then your whole HA setup is useless if this application server fails (SPOF).

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

>if you have a single application server only then your whole HA setup is useless if this application server fails (SPOF).

This is inaccurate. The CI itself is an application server (unless it is just an ASCS/SCS instance, but Velu wrote CI). So, in this case, the application servers are not considered a SPOF as users could relocate to the CI, which is protected by HA.

Best Regards,

Matt

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

You're right - if the box acts as CI and users can logon - yes. He just wrote in his initial post about "a separate SCS and ASCS".

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Ahhh, yes, very good point Markus...I was looking at his post where the number of servers was listed and it said CI...not the original post...

Best Regards,

Matt

[markus_doehr2 · Accepted solution]

And about the 13 servers:

you missed the "one" (for Solution Manager) written as literal, not as number )

(I oversaw that too)

Markus

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Markus,

Another good point...maybe I should have eaten my Wheaties this morning ;-)...

Well, Venu is certainly accurate about the number of systems and instances needed, but not necessarily the number of servers. Some of the systems and instances could certainly be combined on the same servers (given they are powerful enough) without any danger to the HA setup. Now we are getting into the classic "it depends" arguments -- which is why we recommend designing a landscape with an experienced consultant!

Best Regards,

Matt

Edited by: Matt Kangas on Aug 5, 2008 10:42 AM

[Former Member]

Thanks for the inputs provided by Matt and Markus.

Solman is installed on a separate box and hence the count is 13. The CI that is installed on the DB cluster is not in the switch-over group and will be used as a DI in case of any DI server failures.

Thanks again for your time.

Regards

velu

[Former Member]

Velu,

SAP Discoverer system allows you to install several of SAP systems on a single server for training purposes and uses MCOD, this is good enough for training purposes, but in production environment, these systems need to scale and perform for the business to get ROI. All the functionality provided is no good if the system cannot perform and becomes a nightmare to manage, business will lose confidence in such setup.

If you are planning to use MCOD, the database has to be powerful to support all these applications running on it, architecture like Oracle RAC will be a good choice for a MCOD environment and scale for large loads, but will introduce administration overheads.

IBM P Series server, which use LPARS are also a option to scale SAP environments with its on-demand capabilities and partitioning, but these are not cost effective solutions, other hardware vendors will also have similar systems to scale SAP landscapes. These are single servers that can scale and make management easier.

Cheers,

Nisch

[markus_doehr2]

1. Can I install ECC6.0,Portal,BI,XI(PI?),Solution Manager and web dispatcher all in One server(that is sized properly). I know it is not a very good idea to put all in one box. But would like to know if this configuration is possible? (May be this could be a Development instance). If this is possible, can I use MCOD for a common database for all these components? (This will simplify database administration and disaster recovery?).MCOD is supported for ECC 6.0?

Yes - technically possible - but an administrative nightmare. Especially if you consider the fact, that a BI database is configured as OLAP whereas all the other databases are configured as OLTP. The needed parameters may be ambiguous and you will either "slow down" your BI or the other instances. On top it will be quite cumbersome to do system refreshes when you re-copy your production. You can´t use database copies (which are fast) but you must got the R3load-way - which is slow.

How the number of servers can be reduced and also the number of databases?.

You can do virtualization (depending what operating system you use) to reduce the physical number of boxes but you won´t get around the number of instances you need.

Markus