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Dell Technologies has certified the following PowerFlex File models for SAP HANA:
The PowerFlex File solution is offered with the PowerFlex R650 node in three different configurations: S, M, and L in combination with PowerFlex storage-only nodes. The PowerFlex R650, R750, and R840 models are the only PowerFlex storage-only nodes that are included in the certification and supported for PowerFlex File storage for SAP HANA.
A single PowerFlex File cluster supports a maximum of 16 nodes and a minimum of two nodes. A PowerFlex File cluster requires the same PowerFlex File models; it is not possible to mix models in a cluster.
The following table shows the hardware specifications for the available PowerFlex File models:
PowerFlex File model | CPU | Memory | Network | Storage-only nodes |
PowerFlex File R650S
| 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 5317 2.8G, 12C, 150W | 128 GB: 16 x 8 GB RDIMM, 3200 MT/s, single rank | 4 x 25 GbE | PowerFlex R650 or PowerFlex R750 or PowerFlex R840 |
PowerFlex File R650M
| 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6346 3.1G, 16C, 205W | 256 GB: 16 * 16 GB RDIMM, 3200 MT/s, dual rank | 4 x 25 GbE | PowerFlex R650 or PowerFlex R750 or PowerFlex R840 |
PowerFlex File R650L
| 2 x Intel® Xeon® Gold 6348 2.6G, 28C, 235W | 256 GB: 16 * 16 GB RDIMM, 3200 MT/s, dual rank | 4 x 25 GbE or 4 x 100 GbE | PowerFlex R650 or PowerFlex R750 or PowerFlex R840 |
The PowerFlex storage cluster consists of four or more PowerFlex storage nodes. The PowerFlex server component is installed on every PowerFlex storage node in the cluster. Each of these nodes contributes its local storage to the system. The back-end traffic shares the same PowerFlex data networks. No client components are installed on this node. PowerFlex MDM runs on the PowerFlex storage-only nodes.
PowerFlex storage-only nodes are based on PowerEdge servers and include PowerFlex R650, PowerFlex R750, and PowerFlex R840 servers. These nodes run an embedded operating system and can scale out without additional compute power. The base configuration of a PowerFlex rack storage-only deployment is a minimum set of PowerFlex storage-only nodes and fixed network resources.
Note: PowerFlex storage-only nodes are designed to provide storage capacity. Only the Powerflex R650, R750, and R840 storage-only nodes are included in the certification and supported for SAP HANA.
SAP has certified PowerFlex File storage for SAP HANA for use with NAS and the NFS protocol and with the Dell custom HA/DR STONITH provider. For more information about the host and network requirements for the NAS connectivity protocol, see Network design considerations.
To determine the PowerFlex File storage system model and the disk capacity for an SAP HANA TDI deployment, you need the following information:
An SAP HANA node can be either a single (scale-up) SAP HANA server or an SAP HANA worker node that is part of an SAP HANA multi-host cluster.
The Dell SAP engineering team performed extensive validation testing on the PowerFlex File R650L model in accordance with the SAP HANA-HWC-ES-1.1 certification scenario, using the SAP HANA hardware configuration check tool (HCMT). The tests validated that PowerFlex File meets and exceeds the SAP performance requirements and ensures the highest availability for database persistence on disk.
The engineering team determined the PowerFlex File node scalability of PowerFlex File R650M and PowerFlex File R650S models by extrapolating from the PowerFlex File R650L test results and using the performance characteristics of those models. Depending on the workload, the number of SAP HANA hosts that you can connect to a PowerFlex File model can be higher or lower than the number specified in Table 3.
Note: SAP recommends that TDI customers run the SAP HANA 2.0 HCMT tool in their environment to ensure that their specific SAP HANA TDI implementation meets the SAP performance criteria.
Multiple SAP HANA nodes can be connected to PowerFlex File storage up to a recommended maximum number. The following table shows these specifications:
PowerFlex File model | Number of SAP HANA worker nodes per file node or node pair |
PowerFlex File R650S
| 10 / 20 |
| 14 / 28 |
PowerFlex File R650L
| 22 / 44 |
The performance of PowerFlex File nodes scales linearly up to a maximum cluster size of 16 file nodes. Therefore, a cluster of 16 PowerFlex File R650L nodes can support up to 352 SAP HANA nodes, a cluster of 16 PowerFlex File R650M nodes can support up to 224 SAP HANA nodes, and a cluster of 16 PowerFlex File R650S nodes can support up to 160 SAP HANA nodes.