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Storage Configuration Best Practices for SAP HANA TDI with Dell Unity Storage
Executive summary Introduction Technology overview and considerations Storage design recommendations for Dell EMC Unity arrays for SAP HANA
Overview
SAN connectivity
Virtual provisioning recommendations and data services
Unity scalability
No data available.
Capacity requirements
Competing workloads
Configuring Unity storage for HANA using Dell EMC Unisphere for Unity Accessing Unity storage from the SAP HANA nodes Conclusion References

Virtual provisioning recommendations and data services

Home > Workload Solutions > SAP > Guides > SAP HANA TDI Guides > Storage Configuration Best Practices for SAP HANA TDI with Dell Unity Storage > Virtual provisioning recommendations and data services

Virtual provisioning recommendations and data services

  • Unity arrays can use Dell EMC Virtual Provisioning™ to provide capacity to an application. The capacity is allocated using Virtual Provisioning data devices and provided through storage pools based on the disk technology and RAID type.

    SAP HANA persistence (data and log) for production installations

    For SAP HANA production installations, Dell EMC recommends using flash drives for the SAP HANA persistence (data and log volumes) to meet the SAP HANA KPIs.

    Using flash devices provides benefits for SAP HANA production installations as follows:

    • Sub-millisecond latencies for small block sizes on the log volume
    • Reduced SAP HANA startup times when data is read from the data volume
      into memory
    • Reduced SAP HANA host auto-failover times in scale-out deployments when
      a standby node takes over the data from a failed worker node
    • Reduced SAP HANA backup times when the backup process needs to read
      the data from the data volume

    RAID protection

    Flash drives successfully meet the SAP HANA performance KPIs for the SAP HANA persistence. Dell EMC recommends the following RAID protection for SAP HANA production systems:

    Traditional pools

    • Unity all-flash models with RAID 5 8+1 on the extreme performance tier
      for both data and log devices.
    • Unity hybrid models use RAID 5 8+1 (flash) on the extreme performance
      tier for both data and log devices.

    If there is not enough flash capacity available, you can use a
    FAST VP enabled storage pool RAID 5 8+1 (flash) on the Extreme performance tier for data devices and RAID 5 4+1 (SAS) on the performance tier for log devices.

    • A single RAID group RAID 5 8+1 (flash), capable of supporting up to three SAP HANA nodes.

    Dynamic pools

    • Supported with Unity OE 4.2 version or later on all-flash models
    • Dynamic pools use the largest RAID width possible with the number of drives specified at the time of creation. Use RAID 5 for dynamic pools for both data and log devices.

    Storage pools

    Dell EMC recommends creating one storage pool for all SAP HANA data volumes and log volumes in a Unity array when using both an all-flash and a hybrid model.

    • As of OE 4.2, for all-flash models, create one dynamic storage pool on the extreme performance tier (flash).
    • For hybrid models, create one traditional all-flash pool or (optionally) a FAST VP-enabled traditional storage pool across the performance tier (SAS) and the extreme performance tier (flash).

    SAP HANA persistence for SAP HANA nonproduction installations on Unity hybrid models

    Although the SAP performance KPIs do not apply to SAP HANA nonproduction installations, those installations are still critical components in an overall SAP landscape. Dell EMC recommends using the SAS drives for all SAP HANA nonproduction installations on the Unity hybrid models when you provision storage.

    SAP HANA installation (/hana/shared/) on Unity hybrid models

    When using NAS in Unity arrays to provide the NFS share for the SAP HANA scale-out systems, the NL-SAS or SAS drives are sufficient when you provision additional capacity for the /hana/shared on the Unity hybrid models.

    Operating system boot image on Unity hybrid models

    Using the NL-SAS or SAS drives for the OS boot image on the Unity hybrid models is sufficient.

    Unity compression

    In Unity OE version 4.1 and later, Unity compression is supported on THIN LUNs and can be enabled during the LUN creation process, or enabled and disabled at a later time. The storage compression rates achieved for the SAP HANA database are typically lower than for traditional databases. This is because the SAP HANA column store compresses automatically and optimizes the compression after any changes. For best performance, Dell EMC therefore recommends not enabling Unity compression for SAP HANA production installations. For more information on Unity compression, see the EMC Unity: Compression Overview White Paper.