Technical white paper HP AppSystem for SAP HANA Distributed architecture with 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage Table of contents Executive summary... 2 Introduction... 2 Appliance components... 3 3PAR StoreServ storage... 3 Enclosure, blades, and power supplies... 5 SAN switches... 7 LAN switches... 7 NFS servers... 8 Cables and transceivers... 9 Assembled, tested, and installed... 9 Summary... 9 For more information... 10
Real-time decisions based on realtime information Business leaders make real-time decisions; they should do it with real-time information at their fingertips. That is the premise of HP AppSystems for SAP HANA. SAP HANA in-memory database provides lower latency to information when combined with HP Converged Systems. HP Converged Systems provide increasing processing power, memory size, and networking capability to process and relocate large volumes of information quickly. 2 Executive summary HP AppSystem for SAP HANA in a scale-out, or distributed, architecture provides a highly available and resilient HANA inmemory database. This appliance can range in memory size from 2 to 8TB. This configuration, in an appliance delivery model, provides the following benefits. Fully vetted hardware and software infrastructure architected by HP product engineers to host HANA and certified by SAP Assembled and tested as a unit before shipment to customer datacenters HP on-site Installation and configuration Each release is subject to a full suite of validation and verification tests Redundant network pathways for resilient highly available access to components and data Disk redundancy using mirroring or parity Each compute engine is an HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure with four HP ProLiant BL680c G7 four socket servers. This is a total of sixteen sockets for 160 cores of high performance computing and 2TB of RAM. Each c7000 enclosure is paired with an HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 four node controller with forty-eight 900GB SAS disks for maximum availability and performance. Twice the compute and storage density of the previous model and significantly better storage performance An in-memory database requires high performance storage for data and log storage to preserve the integrity and availability of information across shutdown and fail-over scenarios. The HP AppSystem for SAP HANA relies on HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage and HP Networking switches to best meet this requirement. Each 2TB compute block is connected through redundant storage area network (SAN) paths to its own highly available 3PAR storage unit with redundant controllers. The SAP HANA platform, running on SUSE Enterprise Linux, provides the basis to dramatically increase the performance of your applications. Customers are adopting HANA quickly because they value the ability to aggregate and analyze data in real-time. HANA compression, in-memory caching, and connections to big data technologies provide key elements in the formula for faster response times. HANA is a database and must be integrated into your environment and applications to be useful. The purchase of an HP AppSystem for HANA includes the installation and startup of HANA. Loading operational data and integration with your applications are additional to this effort. It is important for the success of your HANA implementation to engage the HP sales team to plan the extract, transform, and loading of data into HANA and integration with your applications. Target audience: This paper is intended for technical solution architects, IT managers, decision makers and HANA system administrators who want to learn more about HP AppSystem for HANA scale-out appliance with 3PAR StoreServ storage. Introduction HP and SAP have joined forces to deliver SAP HANA in-memory database in a resilient highly available appliance configuration. This compelling database technology brings a new and exciting foundation for business innovation. In-memory platforms represent a technological shift in the way companies deal with data because it enables the processing
of massive quantities of real-time data in server main memory to provide significantly faster query results. The HANA appliance may be positioned as an operational data platform, or as a side-car 1 configuration for analytics. With HP AppSystems for SAP HANA, you have some great choices. This paper describes the scale-out configuration that uses HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 storage technology that provides high availability features, for example, mesh-active architecture, intelligent data striping, and Persistent Cache in four node configurations eliminating performance impacts that result from unplanned component failures. Figure 1 provides an overview of the components in a 4TB single rack configuration. An expansion rack is available to extend the solution to 8TB. Figure 1: HP AppSystem for SAP HANA distributed architecture with 3PAR StoreServ Appliance components In this review of the components, the rear of the devices are also shown; this will show most of the available connections. 3PAR StoreServ storage The HANA data and log partitions for each instance are directly serviced by the 3PAR through the Virtual Connect (VC) SAN ports and use the SAP storage API to manage the mounting of these volumes. The HANA shared directory is managed by the NFS servers; that directory is also mounted from a volume on the 3PAR storage. Each c7000 enclosure is paired with an HP 3PAR StoreServ 7400 unit that has four controllers for maximum performance and redundancy. Each 7400 hosts forty-eight 900GB 6G serial attached SCSI (SAS) 10k RPM disks. The high performance of the 7400 is required to support and sustain the high throughput and provide the assurance of data integrity required of 1 A sidecar scenario is where HANA is a secondary database that is periodically loaded with the tables necessary for off-line queries. These queries take advantage of all the benefits and speed enhancements of HANA, yet the existing business infrastructure stays intact and operational. 3
today s enterprise class databases. Figure 2 is a front view of the 7400 with the disk cartridges, and Figure 3 is the rear view with the SAN and LAN ports, controller interconnects, and management ports. Figure 2: 3PAR StoreServ 7400 front view From the rear view of the 7400, we can see four controllers. These controllers operate in pairs, but share all the metadata and pathways to the disks to provide high availability and redundant paths. Figure 3: 3PAR StoreServ 7400 rear view Service processor Each 7400 is matched with a service processor. These units are important for setup, monitoring health, preserving performance statistics, and providing high levels of service using predictive support analysis and a call home support link. The service processors are not part of the data operational chain, therefore redundancy is not required. The 3PAR service processor front view is shown in Figure 4. Figure 4: 3PAR service processor front view The rear view, Figure 5, shows the ports used to connect to the service processor for maintenance and to the LAN for connection to the 3PAR StoreServ 7400. Figure 5: 3PAR service processor rear view 4
Enclosure, blades, and power supplies The compute component includes the c7000 Platinum enclosure, four BL680c G7 blades, redundant Virtual Connect (VC) Flex-10/10D Ethernet (LAN) modules, redundant VC FlexFabric modules, redundant power supplies, and redundant cooling fans. HP c7000 Platinum enclosure Integrating next generation technologies in a modular design helps protect blade server investments and IT infrastructure. The HP BladeSystem c7000 Platinum enclosure delivers the most advanced architecture with the highest performance yet. On the front, Figure 6, reside the blades, power supplies and Onboard Administration (OA) screen. On the rear, Figure 7, are the VC modules, the OA modules, and the cooling fans. The AppSystem options allow from one to four of these enclosures (with full blade, VC modules, fans, power supplies, OA, etc.) as compute engines. Each full enclosure includes 160-cores and 2TB RAM for a maximum of 640-cores and 8TB RAM with four enclosures in two racks. Figure 6: Enclosure front view with blades BL680c G7 blade 2 The blades, see Figure 6, host SAP HANA on SUSE Enterprise Linux. In a distributed (scale-out) architecture, the blades can all be active, or some may be assigned to standby duty. As an example, for higher availability, one configuration may provide three active blades with one blade as a standby. If a failure in a HANA instance or blade occurs, the standby blade may be automatically assigned and take-over the failed instance or blade s function. 2 HP BL680c G7 hp.com/servers/bl680c 5
Each blade includes: Four Intel Xeon E7-4870 2.4 GHz 10-core processors with 30MB of cache each 3 512 GB (32*16GB) HP SmartMemory PC3L-10600R ECC Registered RAM 4 Two internal 300 GB disks in a mirrored configuration 1GB flash backed cache Six embedded NC553i 10Gb FlexFabric adapter ports Two NC553m VC 10Gb 2-port FlexFabric mezzanine adapters 5 SAP HANA Platform SUSE Enterprise Linux Figure 7: Enclosure rear view with I/O modules 3 Intel E7-4870 processor http://ark.intel.com/products/53579 4 16 GB PC3L-10600R RAM http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10286079 5 NC553m FlexFabric adapter http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10294824 6
Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D module 6 In slots 1 and 2, see Figure 7, are two VC Flex-10/10D Ethernet modules configured as a redundant pair. Each module has thirty ports for a total effective full-duplex bandwidth of 600Gb, and ten dedicated SFP+ uplink ports, which can be 1 or 10GbE. These ports are separated into networks for data, client access, and other management and internal links. Virtual Connect FlexFabric module 7 In slots 5 and 6, see Figure 7, are two VC FlexFabric modules configured as a redundant pair. Each Virtual Connect FlexFabric module provides eight adjustable downlink connections (to the blades). These ports may be configured in various patterns: six Ethernet and two Fibre Channel, six Ethernet and two iscsi, or eight Ethernet. For this appliance we use the Fibre Channel configuration. The SAN ports are assigned to data traffic, and the LAN ports are assigned to management traffic. Onboard Administrator In slots OA1 and OA2, see Figure 7, are the two Onboard Administration modules. These are also a redundant pair that provides installation and administrative access to the internal workings of the enclosure and predefined blade and I/O module slot personalities and assignments. SAN switches Two HP AM868B 8/24 top of rack (ToR) storage area network (SAN) switches are used to provide redundant SAN fabrics. This switch is configured with 24 full fabric ports. See the product page for features, benefits, and other resources. 8 These two switches are assigned to two separate fabrics known as top and bottom. There are no connections on the front of this device. Figure 8 shows the front of the switch and Figure 9 the rear. Figure 8: HP AM868B 8/24 ToR SAN switch front view Figure 9: HP AM868B 8/24 ToR SAN switch rear view LAN switches Two HP JC772A 5900AF-48XG-4QSFP+ high density ultra-low latency ToR Ethernet switches provide redundant paths for the appliance high availability traffic. This LAN switch has 48 fixed 1/10-GbE SFP+ ports for device traffic and 4 QSFP+ 40- GbE ports used for cross-link traffic between expansion racks. 9 Figure 10 shows a rear view. Figure 10: LAN switch rear view 6 VC Flex-10/10D module http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10440121 7 VC FlexFabric module http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10264435 8 HP AM868B 8/24 SAN Switch http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.aspx?sku=10443542 9 HP 5900AF-48XG-4QSFP+ Switch http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/networking/products/switches/hp_5900_switch_series/index.aspx 7
HP 5900 Switch Series enables scaling of the server edge with 1GbE and 10GbE ToR deployments to new heights with highdensity 48-port solutions delivered in a 1U design; the high server port density is backed by 40 GbE QSFP+ uplinks to deliver the availability of needed bandwidth for demanding applications. The ports on these switches are assigned to virtual LANs as appropriate for the traffic. The LAN switches Ethernet and serial management ports are on the front of the LAN switch as show in Figure 11. Figure 11: LAN switch front view NFS servers A pair of HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 servers host SUSE Enterprise Linux, HP Serviceguard, and NFS Toolkit for high availability shared network file services. The network file services (NFS) are used to share the HANA image across the blades and are configured in a clustered pair to provide highly available NFS servers. These servers host the required /hana/shared directory that is required to host a distributed and highly available environment. Figure 12 shows the front view of a DL380p, and Figure 13 shows the rear view of an NFS server. Figure 12: HP DL380p front view Figure 13: HP DL380p as configured for NFS Central Management Console An HP DL380p Gen8 server hosts the Central Management Console (CMC) and acts primarily as an access point to the HANA appliance; access to the other components of the appliance is available through this single entry point. This simplifies the network and connectivity to different devices within the appliance. Figure 14 shows the rear view of the CMC server. This appliance hosts the management console for 3PAR StoreServ 7400, and other appliance management and support tools. Figure 14: HP DL380p as configured for CMC 8
HP support, if requested, may access the appliance through the CMC via the management network during a virtual classroom with appropriate customer administration personnel. Cables and transceivers There are over 100 interconnecting cables connecting the components in the appliance; most are LAN and SAN cables. Also included in the appliance are the appropriate transceivers. Assembled, tested, and installed Once the appliance is purchased, a process is started. (To order an AppSystem, please contact your HP sales representative.) A site preparation document with all the pertinent information is filled in that is required to assemble and configure the appliance to conform to the site environment. The appliance is assembled, racked, cabled, software is loaded, and the appliance is tested at the HP Factory Express integration facility. The appliance is carefully packaged and shipped to the site. An HP Customer Engineer unpacks the appliance, moves it into location, and connects it to the site. An HP team is engaged to assist with final configuration and bringing HANA online. After this point, if additional service engagements have been ordered, these services may take over to help extract, transform, and load data from existing systems into HANA and help integrate HANA with existing systems. Summary HP AppSystem for SAP HANA distributed architecture with 3PAR StoreServ 7400 provides twice the density of the previous version of the scale-out appliance and significantly improved storage performance. It is an excellent scale-out in-memory database appliance ranging from 2TB with 160-cores to a maximum of 8TB with 640-cores that, once installed, is ready to integrate with your data and applications. It is easy to order with predefined components, assembly, installation, and configuration capable of providing state-of-the-art real-time access to your information. 9
For more information HP AppSystem for SAP HANA hp.com/go/hana HP ProLiant and SUSE Enterprise Linux hp.com/go/proliantsles HP 3PAR hp.com/go/3par HP c7000 Enclosure, blades, Virtual Connect, etc. hp.com/go/bladesystem HP Networking hp.com/go/networking HP Virtual Connect hp.com/go/virtualconnect HP Onboard Administrator hp.com/go/oa HP BL680c G7 hp.com/servers/bl680c HP DL380p Gen8 hp.com/servers/dl380 HP Virtual Connect FlexFabric 10Gb 24-port module http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product/sku/10264435 HP Virtual Connect Flex-10/10D http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product/sku/10440121 HP 8/24 Full Fabric Ports SAN Switch http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product/sku/10443542 HP 5900 48 port switch http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/networking/products/switches/hp_5900_switch_series/index.aspx HP Serviceguard and Linux hp.com/go/sglx HP Serviceguard Linux documentation hp.com/go/linux-serviceguard-docs SAP HANA http://help.sap.com/hana SUSE Enterprise Linux suse.com/documentation/sles11 To help us improve our documents, please provide feedback at hp.com/solutions/feedback. Sign up for updates hp.com/go/getupdated Copyright 2013 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein. Intel and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. 4AA4-6839ENW, October 2013