11

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D A T A B A S E
Oracle SAP
f
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r
Oracle database for SAP
is safe, reliable and
scalable

No. 19 Oracle for SAP, May 2010
www.oracle.com/sap
T E C H N O L O G Y U P D A T E
N E W
Request Exadata V2-Sun
Oracle Database Machine
for your SAP implementation NOW!
Oracle Exadata Storage Servers combine Oracles smart storage software and Oracles industry-standard Sun hardware to deliver
the industry's highest database storage performance. To overcome the limitations of conventional storage, Oracle Exadata Storage
Servers use a massively parallel architecture to dramatically increase data bandwidth between the database server and storage.
In addition, smart storage software offloads data-intensive query processing from Oracle Database 11g servers and does the query
processing closer to the data. The result is faster parallel data processing and less data movement through higher bandwidth
connections. This massively parallel architecture also offers linear scalability and mission-critical reliability.
Exadata Smart Flash Cache
Now with the newest release of the Oracle Exadata Storage Server, you can also achieve extreme performance for transaction
processing and consolidated mixed application workloads. Exadata Smart Flash Cache addresses the disk random I/O bottleneck
problem by transparently moving hot data to Oracles Sun FlashFire cards. You get ten times faster I/O response time and use ten
times fewer disks for business applications from Oracle and third-party providers.
Exadata Hybrid Columnar Compression
The most advanced data compression technologies are included in Oracle Exadata Storage Servers. Oracle Exadata Hybrid Columnar
Compression can, on average, reduce the size of Data Warehousing tables by 10x, and archive tables by 50x. This offers significant
savings on disk space for primary, standby and backup databases, and will improve the performance of Data Warehousing queries.
Benefits for SAP Customers

Extreme Performance for Business WarehousesImproves both query performance and concurrency by offloading intensive
query processing and data mining scoring from database servers and bringing it closer to the data.

Extreme Performance for OLTP ApplicationsAddresses the disk random I/O bottleneck problem by transparently moving hot
data to Sun FlashFire. You get ten times faster I/O response time and use ten times fewer disks for business applications from
Oracle as well as third-party providers.

Extreme Performance for Mixed WorkloadsAllows you to consolidate data warehousing, transaction processing, and mixed
workloads on a massively parallel server grid and eliminate the cost of third-party specialty hardware, security, and management
solutions.
UNVEILING
ORACLE EXADATA V2
The Worlds First OLTP Database Machine
With Sun FlashFire Technology
ORACLE EXADATA V2
The Worlds First OLTP Database Machine
With Sun FlashFire Technology
Operating System and version?
Database version?
Database size?
SAP Application Modules and release level?
Number and type of application servers running
on the existing database server?
Number and type of dedicated application servers?
Yes / No we are using BI Accelerator?
Name:
Company:
Address:
E-mail :
Please fill out the Oracle Exadata V2 for SAP request form and send (or fax) it to Faxnr.:
+49 6227 8398 199
To: Dr. Christian Graf (SAP AG) and Mr. Gerhard Kuppler (Oracle)
Regarding: Exadata V2 Sun Oracle Database Machine
Dear Sirs;
The purpose of this request is to express our interest in adopting Exadata V2 Sun Oracle
Database Machine for our SAP Applications and we are asking you for its immediate
release, once the Oracle Database 11g Release 2 for SAP is available.
Send this request to christian.graf@sap.com and gerhard.kuppler@oracle.com
(or fax this page to +49 6227 8398 199) and please answer the following questions about
your current Oracle/ SAP configurations.
Oracle Corporation
Oracle DB for SAP GTC
Altrottstr. 31
D-69190 Walldorf
Germany
Oracle database for SAP
is safe, reliable and scalable
C O N T E N T S
11
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D A T A B A S E
3 Editorial
4 Oracle Database 11g Release 2 for SAP
10 Oracle Real Application Testing (RAT) Option certified for SAP
14 Oracle Real Application Testing (RAT) at Stadtwerke Munich (SWM)
16 SAP Partitioning Engine
18 Relationship Interview Oracle Database and SAP
20 Benchmark SAP on Oracle with Fujitsu
23 Benchmark SAP on Oracle Database 11g Release 2 with Fujitsu
24 Benchmark SAP on Oracle-Solaris
28 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Rpublique Franaise, Ministre de la Dfense
30 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Southwest Airlines
34 Oracle Database Vault for SAP customers
36 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Coca-Cola Hellenic
39 Oracle Index Compression at Tyson Foods
41 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Sodexo Brazil
42 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Verizon
44 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Essent Netherlands
46 SAP on Oracle at Steelcase, HP-UX
50 Oracle Partner Connectria
52 SAP on Oracle Database at Dow Corning
54 SAP on Real Application Clusters (RAC) at Bauerfeind
58 Hosting on Oracle at Freudenberg IT
61 Oracle Partner Delta Consulting
62 Oracle Partner All4IT Group
64 Oracle Data Guard Freudenberg ITj
70 Oracle Advanced Customer Services (ACS) for SAP
74 SAP Fast Start with Oracle and HP
77 Oracle Partner IS4IT, SAP on RAC
78 Useful links Oracle Database for SAP customers
79 Imprint
3 Oracl e Database f or SAP The #1 Database saf e, rel i abl e, scal abl e, opti mi zed f or SAP customers
D E A R S A P C U S T O ME R ,
For 21 years Oracle Corporation and SAP AG has maintained an ongoing commitment to
our joint customers and have long-standing reseller and customer support agreements in
place, which provides enhanced access to Oracle database technology and world class
customer support.
In this edition, we focus on Oracle Database 11g Release 2, and the most important
technologies that benefit SAP customers in terms of return on investment, space savings
and performance.
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition comes with a wide range of options to
extend the worlds #1 database to help grow your business and meet your users performance, security and availability
service level expectations.
The innovation continues with Oracle Database 11g Release 2 to lower IT costs and deliver a higher quality of service by:
Consolidating business applications onto fast, reliable and scalable databases (Real Application Clusters RAC)
Maximizing availability and eliminating idle data center redundancy (RAC, Data Guard, online Patching)
Compressing data onto low cost storage partitions for faster performance (Oracle Advanced Compression)
Securely protecting information and enabling compliance (Oracle Advanced Compression, Oracle Database Vault)
Doubling DBA productivity and reducing the risk of change (Diagnostic Pack, integrated in BR* Tools and SAP DBA
Cockpit).
The Exadata V2 Sun Oracle Database Machine the worlds fastest for any type of database workload and the only
database machine that does online transaction processing (OLTP). Oracle Exadata Storage Software runs on each
storage server performing data-intensive processing that reduces the volume of data returned to database servers.
Smart Scans, Storage Indexes, Data Mining Model Scoring and Hybrid Columnar Compression are all components of
Oracle Exadata Storage Software that enable extreme performance.
If you would like to adopt Exadata V2 Sun Oracle Database Machine for your SAP Applications please see the Exadata
for SAP request form in this edition or on www.oracle.com/sap.
Read more about the benefits, why customers moved from single instance to Oracle Real Application Clusters for SAP
(Coca Cola Hellenic) and why Oracle database has the best cost of ownership (Tyson Food, Partitioning and Compression).
Compliance and security are getting more and more important today, please see the Oracle Database Vault for SAP article.
Please read more about the Oracle Advanced Customer Services (ACS) for SAP customers, including: database
migrations, Oracle-to-Oracle (O2O), performance tuning, health check and internal training workshops.
For more information or to see current and previous editions go to: www.oracle.com/sap.
We welcome your comments and questions, please contact us at: saponoracle_de@oracle.com
Sincerely
Gerhard Kuppler
Senior Director Corporate SAP Account,
Oracle Corporation
4
S A P C E R T I F I E D O R A C L E D AT A B A S E 1 1g
R E L E A S E 2 F U N C T I O N A L I T Y
I NTRODUCTI ON
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition
delivers industry leading performance, scalability,
security and reliability on a choice of clustered or
single-servers, running Windows, Linux, and UNIX.
It provides comprehensive features to easily manage
the most demanding transaction processing, business
intelligence, and content management applications.
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 Enterprise Edition
comes with a wide range of options to extend the
worlds #1 database to help grow your business and
meet your users performance, security and availability
service level expectations.
SAP has certified Oracle Database 11g Release 2
(please see SAP Note 1398634) with the following
details:
Only SAP products based on SAP Kernel 6.40, 7.x
and higher are certified with Oracle Database 11.2.
The certification and rollout by SAP happens in
three waves:
End of March 2010 (wave 1): major UNIX plat-
forms (AIX, HP-UX IA64, Solaris SPARC & x64)
and Linux x64 were released (done)
End of Q2/2010 (wave 2): Windows x64 and HP-
UX PA-RISC platforms are planned to be released
Windows IA64 tbd
Note:
A general release of Oracle Database 11.2 is not pro-
vided for earlier SAP releases (SAP R/3 3.1I up to and
including SAP R/3 4.6C). Similar to Oracle Database
Version 10.2, there will only be a temporary 11.2
release in direct connection with an SAP upgrade
project for these older SAP versions.
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 provides customers
more benefits: saving disk space with lower hardware
costs, more performance, higher security, better
manageability, exceeding productivity and at least in
an outstanding high availability/disaster recovery for
SAP applications.
The following provides a list of important features
available for SAP customers today and many of them
are unique to Oracle.
Oracle Real Application Clusters 11g Release 2
The SAP release of Oracle Database 11.2 RAC occurs
at the same time as the general release of Oracle
Database 11.2 in the SAP environment. For information
about Oracle RAC support, see SAP Note 527843.
It contains important details about the released RAC
configurations, like the fact that all used software stacks
with 10g RAC will continue to stay in place and can
be used with 11g RAC, so neither support for raw
devices (not supported any more with 11.2) nor ASM
is available for 11.2 RAC databases in SAP environ-
ments.
OLTP Table Compression
Oracle Database 11g introduced a new feature called
OLTP Table Compression that allows data to be
compressed during all types of data manipulation
operations, including conventional DML such as
INSERT and UPDATE. In addition, OLTP Table
Compression reduces the associated compression
overhead of write operations making it suitable for
transactional or OLTP environments as well. OLTP
Table Compression, therefore, extends the benefits
of compression to all application workloads.
Oracl e Database 11g Rel ease 2 f or SAP 5
Oracles OLTP Table Compression, part of Advanced
Compression, uses a unique compression algorithm
that eliminates duplicate values within a database
block, even across multiple columns. Compressed
blocks contain a structure called a symbol table that
maintains compression metadata. When a block is
compressed, duplicate values are eliminated by first
adding a single copy of the duplicate value to the
symbol table. When compared with competing com-
pression algorithms that maintain a global database
symbol table, Oracles unique approach offers signifi-
cant performance benefits by not introducing addi-
tional I/O when accessing compressed data.
The benefits of OLTP Table Compression go beyond
just on-disk storage savings. One significant advantage
is Oracles ability to read compressed blocks directly
without having to first uncompress the block.
Therefore, there is no measurable performance degra-
dation for accessing compressed data. In fact, in many
cases performance may improve due to the reduction
in I/O since Oracle will have to access fewer blocks.
Further, the buffer cache will become more efficient
by storing more data without having to add memory.
Since Oracle 10.2.0.2, SAP has certified the use of
Index compression to save disk space for indexes and
reduce total database size on disk. Customer experi-
ences show that even after a full database reorganiza-
tion has taken place, an additional 20% of total disk
space reduction for the whole database can be achieved
using index compression.
SecureFile Data Compression
SecureFiles is a new feature in Oracle Database 11g
that introduces a completely re-engineered large object
(LOB) data type to dramatically improve performance,
manageability, and ease of application development.
SecureFiles data is compressed using industry standard
compression algorithms. Compression not only results
in significant savings in storage but also improved
performance by reducing IO, buffer cache requirements,
redo generation and encryption overhead. SecureFile
compression provides significant storage and handles
in-line and out-of-line LOB data which are getting
more and more important in SAP applications and are
widely used in SAP products such as SAP CRM, SAP
XI, SAP NetWeaver Portal, and even in SAP ERP.
Almost all non-cluster tables in SAP ERP use out-of-
line LOBs that are unique to the Oracle database.
RMAN Backup Compression
The continuous growth in enterprise databases creates
an enormous challenge to database administrators.
The storage requirements for maintaining database
backups and the performance of the backup procedures
are directly impacted by database size. Oracle Advan-
ced Compression includes compression technology
that can dramatically reduce the storage requirements
for backup data. Due to RMANs tight integration
with Oracle Database, RMAN backup (widely used
by SAP customers) data is compressed before it is
written to disk or tape and doesnt need to be uncom-
pressed before recovery providing an enormous
reduction in storage costs.
Data Pump Compression
The ability to compress the metadata associated with
a Data Pump job was first provided in Oracle Data-
base 10g Release 2. In Oracle Database 11g, this
compression capability has been extended so that
table data can be compressed on export. Data Pump
compression is an inline operation, so the reduced
dump file size means a significant savings in disk
space. Unlike operating system or file system com-
pression utilities, Data Pump compression is fully
inline on the import side as well, so there is no need
to uncompress a dump file before importing it. The
compressed dump file sets are automatically decom-
pressed during import without any additional steps
by the Database Administrator.
Data Guard Network Compression
Data Guard provides the management, monitoring,
and automation software infrastructure to create,
maintain, and monitor one or more standby databa-
ses to protect enterprise data from failures, disasters,
errors, and data corruptions. Data Guard maintains
synchronization of primary and standby databases
using redo data (the information required to recover
a transaction). As transactions occur in the primary
database, redo data is generated and written to the
local redo log files. Data Guard Redo Transport
Services are used to transfer this redo data to the
standby site(s).
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With Advanced Compression, redo data may be
transmitted in a compressed format to reduce the
network bandwith in an efficient way. Redo transport
compression is no longer limited to compressing
redo data only when a redo gap is being resolved.
When compression is enabled for a destination, all
redo data sent to that destination is compressed.
Deferred Segment Creation
Beginning in Oracle Database 11g Release 2, when
creating a table in a locally managed tablespace,
table segment creation is deferred until the first row
is inserted. In addition, creation of segments is deferred
for any LOB columns of the table, any indexes created
implicitly as part of table creation, and any indexes
subsequently explicitly created on the table.
The advantages of this space allocation method for
customers running Oracle database underneath their
SAP applications are the following:
Empty database objects will not consume any
disk space
Very important for SAP environments as 60-70%
of all tables, lobs, indexes and partitions in an SAP
installation are empty
Makes database installation for SAP a lot faster
because creation of empty tables, LOBs, and indexes
are dramatically faster.
Oracle Data Dictionary Space queries run
substantially faster
Enhanced Add COLUMN Functionality
Before Oracle 11g adding new columns with
DEFAULT values and NOT NULL constraint required
both an exclusive lock on the table and the default
value to be stored in all existing records.
Now in Oracle 11g the database can optimize the
resource usage and storage requirements for this
operation, default values of columns are maintained
in the data dictionary for columns specified as NOT
NULL. Adding new columns with DEFAULT values
and NOT NULL constraint no longer requires the
default value to be stored in all existing records.
This not only enables a schema modification in sub-
seconds and independent of the existing data volume,
it also consumes no space. Especially for large tables,
updating table column results in reduced execution
time and space saving.
Because add column is very common within SAP
BW applications and SAP upgrades, enhanced ADD
Column Functionality leads to:
factor 10-20 performance improvement for SAP
BW during add column process
saving large amount of disk space
Bitmap Indexes
Especially SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
customers now can use Bitmap Indexes. Bitmap
Indexes are high densed indexes which need minimal
disk space. This reduces the size of a database very
effectively. Oracle is the only database vendor who
offers disk-based Bitmap Indexes.
Variable Length Datatype Representation
Also Oracle is the only vendor to provide a compre-
hensive Variable Length Datatype Representation.
With Variable Length Datatype Representation
minimum disk space is allocated. Bitmap Indexes
and Variable Length Datatype Representation are the
main reasons why the Oracle database is smaller than
databases from other vendors.
Compared to Oracle Database 10g the listed Oracle
Database 11g features give the following results:
First the size of the 11.2 database will be 3 times
smaller. So a 10.2 database with a size of 3 Terabytes
will only consume 1 TB in disk space with 11.2.
Second backups will also be smaller up to 10 times
smaller.
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SecureFile Performance
SecureFiles offer the best solution for storing file
content, such as images, audio, video, PDFs, and
spreadsheets. Traditionally, relational data is stored
in a database, while unstructured contentboth
semi-structured and unstructuredis stored as files
in file systems. SecureFiles is a major paradigm shift
in the choice of files storage. SecureFiles is specifically
engineered to deliver high performance for file data
comparable to that of traditional file systems, while
retaining the advantages of the Oracle Database.
SecureFiles offers the best database and file system
architecture attributes for storing unstructured content.
SAP customers benefit from SecureFiles because of
Significantly faster access times compared to LOBs
in SAP environments
Increased transaction throughput on SAP cluster
tables especially with RAC
Prerequisite for compression of SAP tables
containing LOBs (e.g. cluster tables)
Overall transaction throughput increases when LOB
data is stored in SecureFiles (see figure below). LOB
data stored in SecureFiles delivers equal or better
performance compared with LOB data stored in
LONG or BasicFiles (LOB implementation prior to
11g). SecureFiles improve dramatically the scalability
of SAP applications running against Oracle Database
11g RAC but also Oracle Database 11g Single Instance
benefits substantially from SecureFiles. Therefore a
clear recommendation is given to migrate all existing
LONG and Basicfile LOB data to SecureFiles.Hi
Tablespace Encryption
On many agendas security is in the forefront and for
customers becoming much more important. Oracle
has a lot of features in the area of security. Especially
for SAP customers it is now very easy to encrypt sen-
sitive data. Included within the Advanced Encryption
is the technology to encrypt all data in a tablespace.
Prior to 11g, Oracle provided security features such
as Column Encryption through Transparent Data
Encryption (TDE) and Client Server (SAP Application
Server) Network Encryption.g
Additional Encryption
Advanced Encryption within 11g includes RMAN
Backup Encryption, so no one can read data from a
(stolen) backup. In addition customers can easily
encrypt export file with Oracle Data Pump unstruc-
tured LOB data with SecureFile Encryption.
DG Secure Network Transport
Data Guard provides a secure environment and
prevents tampering with redo data as it is being
transferred to the standby database. To enable secure
transmission of redo data, set up every database in
the Data Guard configuration to use a password file,
and set the password for the SYS user identically on
every system.
More Security Database Vault
Oracle Database Vault is also certified for use with
SAP applications. With Oracle Database Vault, pro-
tective realms around SAP application database objects
can be established to prevent privileged database users
from accessing sensitive data and to enforce separation
of duties among privileged database users.
row size in KB
LONGs (9.2,10.2) LOBs (10.2,11.2) Securefiles 11.2
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SAP VBDATA Throughput (Insert/Read/Delete)
Oracl e Database 11g Rel ease 2 f or SAP
8
Real Application Testing (RAT)
Database Replay provides DBAs and system admi-
nistrators with the ability to faithfully, accurately
and realistically rerun actual production work-
loads, including online user and batch workloads,
in test environments. By capturing the full data-
base workload from production systems, including
all concurrency, dependencies and timing, Database
Replay enables you to realistically test system
changes by essentially recreating production work-
loads on the test system, something that a set of
scripts can never duplicate. With Database Replay,
DBAs and system administrators can test:
Database upgrades, patches, parameter, schema
changes, etc.
Configuration changes such as conversion from
a single instance to RAC, ASM, etc.
Storage, network, interconnect changes
Operating system, hardware migrations,
patches, upgrades, parameter changes
SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) can predict and
prevent SQL execution performance problems
caused by environment changes. SQL Performance
Analyzer provides a granular view of the impact of
environment changes on SQL execution plans and
statistics by running the SQL statements serially
before and after the changes
Direct NFS
With Oracle Database 11g Release 2, you can configure
Oracle Database to access NAS devices directly using
Oracle Direct NFS Client, rather than using the
operating system kernel NFS client. Oracle Database
will access files stored on the NFS server directly
through the integrated Direct NFS Client eliminating
the overhead imposed by the operating system kernel
NFS. These files are also accessible via the operating
system kernel NFS client thereby allowing seamless
administration.
SAP customers can benefit from Direct NFS in the
following way:
Improves throughput of NAS solutions such as
NetApp
Up to 50% more database throughput in NAS
environments with multiple NICs
Up to 20% CPU savings on database server
Works for Single Instance and Real Application
Clusters (RAC)
Works for UNIX/Linux and Windows Platforms
Highly Available Network Solution
Faster, easier and more available than any OS or
NAS based bonding or trunking solution
Direct NFS with NAS may provide higher
throughput than traditional, more complex SAN
solutions
Superior to any bonding solution faster and
easier
Better throughput than most SAN solutions
Online Patching
A regular RDBMS patch is comprised of one or more
object files and/or libraries. Installing a regular patch
requires shutting down the RDBMS instance, re-
linking the oracle binary, and restarting the instance;
uninstalling a regular patch requires the same steps.
With Oracle Database 11g, it is possible to install
single or bundle patches completely online, without
requiring the database instance to be shut down, and
without requiring RAC or Data Guard configurations.
With online patching, which is integrated with
OPatch, each process associated with the instance
checks for patched code at a safe execution point,
and then copies the code into its process space.
Snapshot Standby
Easy conversion of a physical standby database to a
reporting database A physical standby database can
be opened read/write for reporting purposes, and then
flashed back to a point in the past to be easily conver-
ted back to a physical standby database. At this point,
Data Guard automatically synchronizes the standby
database with the primary database. This allows
the physical standby database to be utilized for
read/write reporting activities for SAP applications
e.g. NetWeaver BI.
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D A T A B A S E
oracle.com/sap
saponoracle_de@oracle.com
Only Oracle Database11g
Release2 provides for
SAPcustomers
Copyright 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its a affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Oracle the # 1 Database for Deploying SAP Applications
Oracle other DBs
Best Performance & Scalability
Fully integrated, platform independent active-active clustering solution
for both SAP and database through RAC and Clusterware/SAPCTL
Dictionary only add column with default
High Performance NAS Storage through Direct NFS
Best Deployment Flexibility
Online Patching
Real Application Testing Option
Best Availability & Reliability
Updatable Standby Database
Fully integrated, platform independent active-active clustering solution
for both SAP and database through RAC and Clusterware/SAPCTL
Best Support for Very Large Databases
RMAN Backup Compression
SecureFile out-of-line LOB data compression
Deferred Segments Creation
Disk-Based Bitmap Indexes
Dictionary only add column with default
High Performance NAS Storage through Direct NFS
Best Database Security
Tablespace Encryption
RMAN Backup Encryption
Data Guard Secure Network Transport
Database Vault
Best Manageability & Self-Management
Real Application Testing Option
Online Patching
Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)
10
R E A L A P P L I C AT I O N T E S T I N G C E R T I F I E D F O R S A P
Making a change to the SAP database can represent
a significant risk to an organization. The effects of an
unexpected problem could be widely felt and have
serious consequences. For this reason, testing of chan-
ges prior to production deployment is considered
critical. The cost involved in testing using traditional
methods can be very high both in time and money.
Even after testing, many problems will only be dis-
covered in production, and as a result end-users will
suffer from poor performance or possibly even outages.
Oracle now has a new and unique testing tool for the
Oracle Database called Real Application Testing.
This Database option is comprised of two complemen-
tary features, SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) and
Database Replay. Together, these features can help
ensure that database changes do not negatively impact
SAP availability and performance. They significantly
improve the quality and lower the cost of testing
changes to the SAP database system.
SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA)
One of the key tasks for a DBA is to tune SQL state-
ments for optimal performance. Changes to database
systems (such as optimizer statistics refresh, database
upgrades, and patches) can cause the performance of
previously well tuned SQL statements to regress, which
can dramatically impact system performance for end-
users. Until now, it was difficult if not impossible to
predict how day to day operational changes to the
database will impact application SQL performance.
With SQL Performance Analyzer, or SPA, you can
now know exactly how SQL will behave after routine
system changes.
SPA automatically captures production SQL state-
ments from your SAP database and re-executes them
following a change to measure the impact. The state-
ments are executed serially, in isolation from each
other and regressed statements are automatically hig-
hlighted. Integration with SQL Plan Management
and SQL Tuning Advisor enables automatic tuning
of these statements to address any regressions prior
to a change being implemented in production.
Orchestration of the entire SPA process can be done
using Enterprise Manager, which provides a number
of workflows for testing common operations such as
Database Upgrades. There is also a Guided Workflow
which enables custom experiments to be conducted.
11
Real Application Testing was introduced in the
11g release of the Oracle Database, however, SQL
Performance Analyzer is also available for previous
releases of the Oracle Database. Consequently, SQL
Performance Analyzer can be used to test changes in
SAP environments even if there are no immediate
plans to move to Oracle Database 11g Release 2.
Some examples of changes that could be assessed
using SQL Performance Analyzer in SAP environ-
ments are:
Upgrade SAP Database from Oracle Database 10g
Release 2 to 11g Release 2
Install Database Patchset
Migration from single instance to RAC
Implement Partitioning
Implement Advanced Compression
Changes to FIX_CONTROLS parameter settings
Creation of Histograms on SAP tables
Some of these changes can actually be tested safely
on the production system, therefore removing the
need for establishing a separate test environment.
There are no SAP specific patches required to use
SQL Performance Analyzer. Further general informa-
tion on using SQL Performance Analyzer can be found
in the following documents:
Technical White Paper: SQL Performance Analyzer
Viewlet: SQL Performance Analyzer in Oracle Data-
base 11g
Oracle Database Real Application Testing Users Guide
Database Replay
Load testing today is generally done using tools that
allow testing teams to generate synthetic workloads
based on what they expect users to do on a system.
These workloads can then be replayed by application
virtual users, which simulate the end users by sub-
mitting requests to the application. Although widely
used, this approach has a number of shortcomings
when it comes to testing database level changes:
Creating the synthetic workload can take a
considerable time and requires programming
expertise
User behaviour is not well understood, so many
possible workflows are often missed in the synthetic
tests
Production scale database concurrency is near
impossible to simulate with these tools
A full application stack is required for testing as
these tools simulate end users
Database Replay makes it possible to capture a
workload on a production system with negligible
performance overhead and replay it on a test system
with the exact timing, concurrency, and transaction
characteristics of the original workload. Database
Replay is suitable for testing changes to the database
tier and anything below it, such as storage or OS
platform. This also means that tiers such as the
Web and Application Server tier are not required in
the test environment. The Database Replay capture
process has been backported and certified for SAP
databases running on Oracle Database 10g Release 2
(10.2.0.4).
Changes that Database Replay could be used to
validate include:
SAP Database upgrade from 10gR2 (10.2.0.4)
to 11gR2
Platform migration such as from Windows to
Oracle Solaris
Database Patchset install
Changes to FIX_CONTROLS parameter settings
Schema changes
Migration from single instance to RAC
Implement Partitioning
Implement Advanced Compression
Database storage changes (e.g. Direct NFS)
Tablespace encryption
Object Reorganization
Oracl e Real Appl i cati on Testi ng ( RAT) Opti on certi f i ed f or SAP
12
Database Replay is included with Oracle Database
11g. In addition, Database Replay capture can be run
against Oracle Database 10.2.0.4 and higher version.
To use Database Replay in SAP environments, Patch
9233285 is required on the Replay database.
For more technical information on using Database
Replay please refer to the following whitepaper:
Technical White Paper: Database Replay
Viewlet: Database Replay in Oracle Database 11g
Oracle Database Real Application Testing Users Guide
Results of Testing
The Oracle/SAP Development Team recently conclu-
ded comprehensive testing of SAP applications using
both SQL Performance Analyzer and Database Replay.
The testing consisted of SAP ERP and BW workloads
running in-house on the ABAP stack. Further testing
was undertaken at a large utilities customer running
the SAP IS-U (Industry Specific Utilities) module.
The objective was to use Real Application Testing
to measure the effects of Advanced Compression for
OLTP and SecureFiles on DML operations for SAP
ERP. The testing activity consisted of using Database
Replay to capture a production workload from a
10.2.0.4 SAP database. This workload was then
replayed multiple times against both compressed
and non-compressed Oracle Database 11g Release 2
databases. Key AWR metrics from the replays are
shown below.
Load Profile
Redo size/s
Logical reads/s
Block changes/s
Physical reads/s
Physical writes/s
User calls/s
Parses/s
Hard parses/s
W/A MB processed/s
Executes/s
Transactions/s
Instance Efficiency Percentages (Target 100%)
Buffer Hit %
Library Hit %
Host CPU (CPUs: 8 Cores: 8 Sockets: 4)
%User
%System
%WIO
%Idle
1)
153456,80
18748,80
459,70
3820,60
74,60
1806,50
247,20
32,70
12,50
2572,10
4,50
81,91
95,08
12,30
4,40
12,30
81,80
203407,00
18210,00
595,20
1635,80
72,00
2042,10
254,10
33,60
12,70
2834,60
4,80
91,79
95,52
12,80
4,20
11,20
81,80
32,55
-2,87
29,48
-57,18
-3,49
13,04
2,79
2,75
1,60
10,21
6,67
12,06
0,46
4,07
-4,55
-8,94
0,00
DB size after normal reorg: 3562,00 GB
DB size after reorg and OLTP + SecureFiles (med) + Index compression: 1589,00 GB
Space saved (~ 55%) 1973,00 GB
KEY AWR Metrics
Replay without
Compression
Replay with
Compression Diff%
1) normalized redo (+6,67%) is 163692/s for uncompressed run
Oracl e Real Appl i cati on Testi ng ( RAT) Opti on certi f i ed f or SAP 13
In order to further analyze the effects of Advanced
Compression on DML operations, SQL Performance
Analyzer (SPA) was used concurrently with Database
Replay. As the workload was being replayed,
SPAs automatic cursor cache capture feature was
used to capture the SQL statements into a SQL
Tuning Set. SQL Tuning Set contains the text of the
SQL statements along with their bind values,
execution plans and statistics. This was done for both
replays, with compression enabled and without
compression. In all over 5000 SQL statements were
analyzed. The table below shows the SQL Tuning
Set comparison of some the most frequently executed
DML operations in the SAP workload.
Overall the test results were very instructive. Key
findings are described as follows (note: results will
vary according to your workload):
No significant overhead observed during capture
process
Advanced Compression reduced database size by 50%
Redo generated increased by ~25%
Physical reads reduced by 60%
CPU usage stayed flat
Problems encountered:
During the testing bug # 9233285 was encountered.
Patch for this bug must be applied before using
Real Application Testing with SAP systems.
Conclusion
Real Application Testing proved a vital tool for
validating upgrade from Oracle Database 10g
Release 2 to 11g Release 2. The ability to test with
production workloads and SQL statements is
essential for testing business critical applications
like SAP and this feature will significantly mitigate
upgrade and change risk when used by experienced
DBAs.
Sample SQL Tuning Set Comparison
Compression SQL ID SQL Text Executions Elapsed
Time
Buffer
Gets
Disk
Reads
Module CPU
Time
N g9makkh1cnq94 INSERT INTO ALCLASTOOL VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 37648 180,29 152,97 1136194 32901 SAPLSALU
Y g9makkh1cnq94 INSERT INTO ALCLASTOOL VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 40434 215,54 164,10 1118975 33911 SAPLSALU
N 6kxdz6nknay0m INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSGE VALUES( :A0 , :A1 ,:A2 , :A3 , :A4... 18257 80,88 71,32 518407 9978 SAPLSALU
Y 6kxdz6nknay0m INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSGE VALUES( :A0 , :A1 ,:A2 , :A3 , :A4... 18889 92,12 74,99 532217 9615 SAPLSALU
N c42810chs804v INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSPF VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 4100 20,51 16,67 134523 3652 SAPLSALU
Y c42810chs804v INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSPF VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 4202 24,07 17,32 137029 3493 SAPLSALU
N 8wz2ywwcrh7c7 INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSMC VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 2144 12,48 9,08 77571 2758 SAPLSALU
Y 8wz2ywwcrh7c7 INSERT INTO ALGRPCUSMC VALUES( :A0 , :A1 , :A2 , :A3 , :A4... 1820 13,18 7,94 65849 2289 SAPLSALU
14
Making a change to the SAP database can
represent a significant risk to an organization.
The effects of an unexpected problem could
be widely felt and have serious consequences.
For this reason, testing of changes prior to
production deployment is considered critical.
The cost involved in testing using traditional
methods can be very high both in time and
money. Even after testing, many problems will
only be discovered in production, and as a
result end-users will suffer from poor perfor-
mance or possibly even outages.
The Real Application Testing (RAT) Option
is comprised of two complementary features,
SQL Performance Analyzer (SPA) and Database
Replay. Together, these features can help ensure
that database changes do not negatively impact
SAP availability and performance. They signi-
ficantly improve the quality and lower the cost
of testing changes to the SAP database system.
Facts instead of surprises
The IT specialists at SWM, are among the
pioneers who are using the Oracle Database 11g
Release 2 Real Application Testing option
together with the SAP application.
SWM Stadtwerke Mnchen, a public utility
and service company based in the mega city of
Munich that offers a wide range of products,
has data volumes of more than 3 Terabyte
which are being accessed by 1500 to 1800
SAP users. The CPU utilization of the pro-
duction systems is therefore extremely high.
For Christian Duschl, SAP Team-Leader System
Operations Management, the risks and con-
tingencies associated with making changes to
the SAP environment were always a high-cost
challenge: Previously, we were not able to
determine the dialog load with sufficient
precision before commissioning new systems.
Surprises were part of our day-to-day work.
Having used RAT for the first time and gai-
ned some experience with it, we believe that
this will finally become a thing of the past.
The test scenario was compressing the database
using the Advanced Compression option and
to examine the effects on system performance.
The production load of two RAC nodes was
recorded over two working days and the data-
base was transferred to a test server along with
the data volume for this period.
In a first step, the database was reorganized in
a conventional manner, without being com-
pressed. A representative 12 hour section of the
recorded production load was then replayed.
The replay contained the SAP ERP user load
only. Other applications, such as those from the
call center area (non-SAP), were not taken into
account and were filtered out during replay.
The results from the replay were later used as
a basis for further analysis. In the next step,
all tables and indexes were compressed using
OLTP Table, SecureFiles and Index compres-
sion.
Stadtwerke Munich
Services GmbH
Industry:
Utility/Public Sector
Annual Revenue:
4.2 billion
Employees:
Around 6,800
Im
S U C C E S S F U L T E S T O F O R A C L E D AT A B A S E 1 1 g
R E L E A S E 2 R E A L A P P L I C AT I O N T E S T I N G O P T I O N
AT S T A D T WE R K E MU N I C H ( S WM)
The positive results from using the RAT option for the first time enable us to look to the
future and the upcoming changes in a much calmer manner than before.
C H R I S T I A N D U S C H L ,
Teamleader System Operations Management
Oracl e Real Appl i cati on Testi ng ( RAT) at Stadtwerke Muni ch ( SWM) 15
A second run, which included exactly the same
dataset as the first run, was then tested against
the compressed database and the results were
compared with the first run.
No additional costs and less disk space
Manfred Fischer, Manager of SAP system
maintenance in information and process tech-
nology and general coordinator of the RAT
project, summarizes the results as follows:
When we were recording the basic data over
two days for the test, we couldnt find any
negative effects on the CPU or I/O load of the
production system and the dialog response
times didnt change.
The compression result was quite impressive.
The amount of disk space shrunk from almost
3.6 TB to around 1.6 TB, resulting in a space
saving of 55%.
What was even more interesting was the
effect on the CPU load when using com-
pression. The result was amazing. Thanks
to the enormous reduction in I/O of
almost 60% and considerably better uti-
lization of the main memory, the additio-
nal costs expected for compression were
compensated in full for the CPU load.
Another positive side-effect was a slight
increase in transaction throughput.
Because the hit rate of the database buffer
cache improved considerably, there was
less physical I/O to the disk subsystem.
As the solution does not show any performance
impacts, the Advanced Compression option can
be used on the SAP ERP production systems
at Stadtwerke Mnchen if necessary.
According to Manfred Fischer, SQL Perfor-
mance Analyzer (SPA) also proved to be a key
functionality. It was particularly helpful in
evaluating the performance of important
queries at statement level, which must not be
negatively impacted.
Calculated risks and cost savings
In the future, the SAP environment at Stadt-
werke Mnchen is to be split into three units
(Network, Delivery and Coresystem) which
will be designed to mirror the data volumes
in the production system and various test and
security systems, among other things.
Because each one of these segments should
have the capacity of the current system, the
data volumes will triple in the final expansion
stage.
Given such complex tasks, Christian Duschl
is giving an extremely positive conclusion
from the test results with RAT:
The positive results from using the RAT
option for the first time enable us to look
to the future and the upcoming changes
in a much calmer manner than before.
Unknown risks when making release changes,
growing data volumes or deregulating an
entire SAP system, as was the case here, loose
their fears for many users at least for the data-
base level. Using RAT will enable IT depart-
ments to demonstrate extremely positive
cost-value results to the controlling depart-
ments.
16
S A P P A R T I T I O N I N G E N G I N E R E L E A S E D B Y S A P
The SAP Partitioning Engine provides a solution for SAP on Oracle database systems that can use a
predefined set of about 30 large application tables for partitioning, based on a technology concept from
Oracle. SAP Partitioning Engine was released for customers in January 2010. The solution offers full
integration of range partitioning into SAP OLTP products (e.g. ERP).
Unlike SAP BI, partitioning is not used by default
in the SAP ERP system, for mainly historical reasons.
Today, SAP installations typically have database sizes
of around 1TB, whereas SAP customers using special
functionalities such as the SAP retail module are
running databases of 10TB and greater.
Such large databases have several challenges:
Old data must be archived, but archiving can have
a negative impact on database performance.
Deleting data from the database generates a huge
transaction load, affecting normal data processing.
Archiving very large tables can be a never-ending
job. Once archiving is complete, follow-up tasks
are needed either to rebuild fragmented indexes
and/or to free up space in the tablespaces. These
additional tasks occupy maintenance windows for
the system, reducing overall availability.
Response times to user queries and batch processing
must be guaranteed. This becomes more and more
difficult because the tables are constantly growing
in size.
Processing larger tables uses up much more time
and resources on the database as well as on the
application servers. Because of the longer runtime,
work processes take longer which means that more
powerful application servers are needed.
Fully integrated
The principle of partitioning is splitting a large
table in smaller parts, called partitions, grouping
and separating the rows of the table based on the
content of one or more columns. Rows fulfilling
the same criteria are placed in the same partition.
This also allows queries of a table to execute faster
because the data will now be grouped, instead of
being distributed across the whole table.
Complex analysis and maintenance jobs of partitioning
can be automated. Therefore, Oracle in the initial
phase of the project had developed a set of tools
that was based on Oracles own technologies, mainly
PL/SQL procedures. This worked fine for a few
installations but, it was a consulting based solution
which is useful for non-standard SAP requirements,
it should not be necessary for standard environments.
To make the innovative method available to more
customers SAP has developed their own solution,
based on the concept provided by Oracle.
The SAP Partitioning Engine is fully integrated in
the SAP system. It offers a predefined set of about
30 application tables to be partitioned based on time
based criteria. So existing non-partitioned tables will
be converted through ABAP/SAP brtools task. Also
partition maintanance is fully automated through
the internal SAP SM37 job, requiring no DBA inter-
vention.
A partitioning service for non-BI SAP systems has been
available from Oracle for several years but, until now
was not integrated into SAPs DB admin tools. The
Partitioning Engine will be available with WEB AS
6.20, SAP ECC 5.0/6.0, Business Suite 7, brtools 7.10
and running Oracle 10.2.0.4 or higher. For other
prerequisits please see SAP Note 1333328. For part-
itioning without the Partitioning Engine, please see
SAP Note Oracle Partitioning 742243 and SAP note
722188 FAQ.
Dr. Christian Graf, Development Manager, DB Platforms Oracle & Informix,
OS Platforms HPUX, Solaris, Tru64 SAP AG
SAP Parti ti oni ng Engi ne 17
The bulding concept of the SAP Partitioning Engine
is based on the following three main parts:
Analysis and Statement Creation
First part is an ABAP program, which analyzes the
content of the document column of an application
table and creates as output a DDL (Data Definition
Language) statement for the table and indexes with
suitable partition ranges. This kind of transaction
initially generates non-partitioned tables into parti-
tioned ones. This includes built-in functionality.
Such as well-known SAP tables, their partitioning
key as well as an automatic adjustment for partition
sizes. Analysis task can be done even on very large
tables in short time with the help of the underlaying
number-ranges object defined in table NRIV
(NRIV Partitioning).
Partition Transformation
Second part of partitioning engine is a new function
in the brspace tool, which reads the previously created
DDL statement and performs the online redefinition.
It includes LOB migration if the table contains long
field. The new online table generation can be done
without downtime, because brspace use Oracle
Technology (DBMS_REDEFINITION-Package).
Partitioning Care Process
Third part is also an ABAP program, specifically for
maintaining the partitioning schema. One maintaining
task done by this program is that if new transaction
data are inserted in the partitioned table automatically
additional partitions are created if needed. If the table
is archived, the number of rows stored in the oldest
partitions will decrease. The transaction of the SAP
Partitioning Engine is responsible for freeing up the
space no longer used in these partitions. The space
is freed by executing a merge operation on the old
partitions. The result is one small partition containing
the remaining rows and a lot of free space within the
tablespace, which can be used for creating new parti-
tions. This transaction can also be executed while
SAP is up and running.
Advantages and Benefits
The SAP Partitioning Engine avoids negative side-
effects when archiving by seperating historic and
current application data using range partitioning
(Oracle offers several other types of partitioning
including: list and hash partitioning, which are
normally not suitable for SAP ERP systems). Range
Partitioning has a couple of advantages or benefits:
Index and table formatting is restricted to the
partition with the data records to be archieved.
Archiving transactions and running application
transactions access different partitions of the table.
Block usage is improved by avoiding mixing old
data and new data.
Further advantage, disk space is reclaimed by
merging the partitions that are empty after
archiving and partitioning can also improve
query performance.
Using the SAP Partitioning Engine allows SAP
customers to make use of the Oracle partitioning
technology, without the need to be familiar with
Oracle programming. The predefinition of the most
common candidate tables for partitioning allows less
experienced Oracle users to benefit from this innova-
tive approach.
Starting Partitioning to select a table with SAP Partitioning
Engine (Source: SAP)
18
1.) Mr. Schulte,
the database partnership with Oracle has
thrived for more than 20 years. Can you
summarize this for us in a few key words?
Schulte:
Firstly, our intent is to continue to satisfy the tens of
thousands mutual SAP on Oracle database customers.
Our joint work has always been characterized by a
constant desire to provide mutual customers with
efficient service and support solutions for their appli-
cation needs in order to bring additional benefit to
their business and to offer optimum protection of
their investments.
Secondly, continually accelerating and optimizing
the use of safe, reliable and scalable database techno-
logy in a mission-critical application environment,
something we have achieved time and again.
And thirdly, we have enjoyed a very successful service
and support partnership with Oracle Corporation.
For the benefit of our mutual customers, we have a
long term contractual frame work and resources in
place driving this forward. The Oracle team suppor-
ting our joint relationship has been in place for more
than 10 years, this stability in personnel has been very
benefical to both SAP and our mutual customers.
The Oracle SAP resources include database develop-
ment engineers and 24 by 7 follow the sun customer
support.
R E L AT I O N S H I P I N T E R V I E W O R A C L E D AT A B A S E A N D S A P
Horst Udo Schulte, Vice President Global Partner Programs, SAP AG
Gerhard Kuppler, Senior Director Corporate SAP Account, Oracle Corporation
Listen to the Oracle webcast at www.oracle.com/sap
2.) Mr. Kuppler,
what importance does Oracle attach to the
database technology partnership with SAP?
Kuppler:
Satisfied mutual customers !
For more than 20 years Oracle has been the safe,
reliable, and scalable database of choice for SAP
customers.
The Oracle database is constantly optimized for SAP
Business Suite Applications and around the world
more than two thirds of all mid-size to high-end SAP
customers in every industry, entrust their application
deployments to Oracle databases.
Customers are running SAP applications with Oracle
databases on the same code base on Unix, Linux and
Windows operating systems.
Oracle was one of the technology partners involved
in developing SAP R/3, when SAP began developing
R/3 in 1988. Oracles database technologies and
SAPs solutions are very closely linked and perfectly
integrated with one another.
We managed to establish our Oracle database techno-
logies as the number one database amongst SAP
customers around the globe.
The very large and growing customer base expects a
cost benefit from our two companies technologies in
the long term and also to receive first-class database
support from both of us.
Oracle is deploying a significant amount of resources
at SAP HQ Walldorf Germany, Palo Alto and Tokyo
to deliver safe, reliable and scalable DB technology
and round the clock services with a great long term
commitment to the mutual customer base.
Gerhard Kuppler Horst Udo Schulte
19 Rel ati onshi p I ntervi ew Oracl e Database and SAP
3.) Mr. Schulte, Mr. Kuppler,
for you what are the main objectives for both
parties continuing to successfully drive this
relationship forwards in the future?
Schulte:
We are committed to the success of our mutual
customers.
Since 1988, SAP AG has been using Oracle as a Tier 1
development database, on which SAP develops, ports
and migrates its products to function optimally with
Oracles database technologies.
This will once again be underlined with the new
Oracle Database 11g Release 2. It will contain various
specific functionality designed and implemented for
the needs of the SAP Business Suite.
Kuppler:
Let me add, the release strategy of SAP AG for Oracle
Database versions is to certify only the terminal
release of a new database version. This strategy is
based on the overall requests of the SAP customer
community to minimize the number of version
upgrades in complex SAP environments. It has been
proven a successful roll out process with previous
terminal releases.
We are committed to maintain a productive Database
relationship with SAP to keep the mutual base and
also new SAP on Oracle customers satified and
provide them with the latest Database innovations
like: Real Applications Clusters, Database Vault and
new Oracle Database 11g functionality.
Resulting in scalable performance, cost savings,
better service levels and easy system administration.
4.) Mr. Schulte, Mr. Kuppler,
how frequently does SAP and Oracle renew their
partnership agreements?
Schulte:
We have renewed our agreement approximately
every 3 years and we plan to continue this process
for the benefit of our joint customers.
Kuppler:
With 2/3 of all mid-size to high-end SAP customers
running on Oracle databases we have a mutual
interest in doing what is best for our joint install
base.
20
In October and December 2009 Oracle and
Fujitsu strikingly demonstrated the success of
their longstanding partnership with joint press
announcements about two world record results
in a row with the SAP Business Intelligence
Data Mart Standard Application Benchmark.
The SAP BI Data Mart Standard Application
Benchmark provides a real-world indication of
enterprise database performance by measuring
system performance in handling high-volume
queries to a business warehouse system data-
base. The key figure is the number of query
navigation steps per hour against an enormous
amount of data.
The first announcement was made during
Oracle Open World about a two-tier world
record result achieved on a system comprised
of a single-node Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX300
S5 server
(1)
, Oracle Database and Oracle Real
Application Clusters on Linux. The test was also
executed on a two-node Fujitsu PRIMERGY
RX300 S5 cluster. The one-node result (320,
363 navigation steps per hour) and two-node
result
(2)
(609,349 navigation steps per hour) not
only indicated excellent scalability, but also
delivered more than 67% higher performance
per core and 3.3 times more performance-per-
processor than the highest IBM DB2 results
(3)
on the SAP BI-D Standard Application Bench-
mark.
Performance is an important factor when hand-
ling a huge amount of data and in ensuring
the acceptance of data warehouse application
users. However, it is not the only aspect to keep
in mind when deciding on a data warehouse
environment. The option of starting small and
increasing step-by-step as demands grow can
be a decisive factor as well as the high availa-
bility of the application.
P E R F O R MA N C E ME E T S S O L U T I O N S E X P E R T I S E
Oracle Database on Fujitsu PRIMERGY Cluster Delivers World Record Results
with SAP Business Intelligence Data Mart Standard Application Benchmark
Such demands urged Fujitsu and Oracle spe-
cialists to think about an advanced concept that
aligns performance with scalability and high
availability. The one and two-node benchmark
results already revealed the excellent scalability
of our PRIMERGY servers in combination with
the Oracle Database and Oracle Real Appli-
cation Clusters, says Joachim Witte, Senior
Director, Global Fujitsu SAP Competence Center.
Thus it was almost a logical next step to conti-
nue tests with more server nodes.
The following test series underlined the positive
results of the first sequence and has resulted
in a new world record. On the three-node
Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX 300 S5 cluster
throughput was increased to 900,309 query
navigation steps
(3)
, while a further all-time high
of 1,165,742 query navigation steps
(4)
was
achieved by the four-node server cluster. So
Fujitsu and Oracle were once again happily able
to jointly announce a new world record on
December 1, says Joachim Witte.
The extremely successful benchmark series is
much more than a performance boost. In fact,
it is a perfect example of outstanding perfor-
mance that is obtained and embedded in using
an intelligent concept. In comparison to tradi-
tional clusters, the dynamic solution designed
by experts from the Global Fujitsu SAP Com-
petence Center in Walldorf (Germany) also
offers high system availability because Oracle
RACs monitor the environment and automati-
cally migrate affected processes to other nodes
should a particular server fail. Furthermore,
customers have the option of starting small with
just one server node and growing step-by-step
as demands and data volumes increase.
Benchmark SAP on Oracl e wi th Fuj i tsu 21
The successful combination of cost-efficient
server technology and innovative database and
cluster technology from Oracle also underlines
that Fujitsu PRIMERGY x86 servers today
are starting to match the high performance of
enterprise servers and are thus also suitable as
a migration path for enterprise warehousing
applications from end-of-life Unix-based
systems.
Note:
The latest Fujitsu results on the SAP BI-D
Standard Application Benchmark have been
certified under the following certification
numbers:
2009036 (1) (single node), 2009037 (2)
(two nodes) and 2009045 (5) (four nodes).
Results as of October 14, 2009. For more
details, see http://www.sap.com/benchmark
(1) The SAP BI-D Standard Application
Benchmark performed on August 8, 2009
by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany has been
certified (certification number 2009036)
with the following data: Throughput/hour
(query navigation steps): 320,363.
Operating system, central server: SuSe
Linux Enterprise Server 10. RDBMS:
Oracle Database 10g Real Application
Clusters (RAC). Technology platform
release: SAP NetWeaver

7.0 (non-
Unicode). Configuration: Central server:
Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX300-S5, 2 proces-
sors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel Xeon
Processor X5570, 2.93 GHz, 64 KB L1
cache and 256 KB L2 cache per core,
8 MB L3 cache per processor, 96 GB
main memory.
(2) The SAP BI-D Standard Application
Benchmark performed on August 11, 2009
by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany has been
certified (certification number 2009037)
with the following data: Throughput/hour
(query navigation steps): 609,349.
Operating system all servers: SuSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10. RDBMS: Oracle Data-
base 10g Real Application Clusters (RAC).
Technology platform release: SAP Net-
Weaver 7.0 (non-Unicode). Configuration:
2 servers (2 active nodes): Fujitsu PRI-
MERGY RX300-S5, 2 processors / 8 cores
/ 16 threads, Intel Xeon Processor X5570,
2.93 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and 256 KB
L2 cache per core, 8 MB L3 cache per
processor, 96 GB main memory.
(3) The SAP BI-D Standard Application
Benchmark performed on October 17,
2008 by IBM in Rochester, MN, USA was
certified on October 31, 2008 (certification
number 2008063) with the following data:
Throughput/hour: 182,112 query naviga-
tion steps. Operating system, Central server:
i 6.1. RDBMS: DB2 for i 6.1. Platform
release: SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (non- Unicode).
Configuration: Central server: IBM Power
System 570, 4 processors / 8 cores / 16
threads, POWER6, 5 GHz, 128 KB L1
cache and 4 MB L2 cache per core, 32 MB
L3 cache per processor, 128 GB main
memory.
(4) The SAP BI-D Standard Application
Benchmark performed on October 14,
2009 by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany
has been certified (certification number
2009044) with the following data:
Throughput/hour (query navigation steps):
900,309. Operating system, all servers:
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. RDBMS:
Oracle Database 10g Real Application
Clusters (RAC). Technology platform re-
lease: SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (non-Unicode).
Configuration: 3 servers (3 active nodes):
Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX300-S5, 2 proces-
sors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel Xeon
Processor X5570, 2.93 GHz, 64 KB L1
cache and 256 KB L2 cache per core,
8 MB L3 cache per processor, 96 GB main
memory.
So Fujitsu and Oracle
were once again happily
able to jointly announce
a new world record.
Joachim Witte,
Senior Director,
Global Fujitsu
SAP Competence Center.
22
(5) The SAP BI-D Standard Application
Benchmark performed on October 13,
2009 by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany has
been certified (certification number
2009045) with the following data:
Through-put/hour (query navigation
steps): 1,165,742. Operating system all
servers: SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.
RDBMS: Oracle Dtabase 10g Real
Application Clusters (RAC). Technology
platform release: SAP NetWeaver 7.0
(non-Unicode). Configuration: 4 servers
(4 active nodes): Fujitsu PRIMERGY
RX300-S5, 2 processors / 8 cores / 16
threads, Intel Xeon Processor X5570, 2.93
GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and 256 KB L2
cache per core, 8 MB L3 cache per pro-
cessor, 96 GB main memory.
About Fujitsu
Fujitsu is a leading provider of IT-based
business solutions for the global marketplace.
With approximately 175,000 employees
supporting customers in 70 countries, Fujitsu
combines a worldwide corps of systems and
services experts with highly reliable computing
and communications products and advanced
microelectronics to deliver added value to
customers. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu
Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated
revenues of 4.6 trillion yen (US$47 billion)
for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009.
For more information, please see:
http://www.fujitsu.com
About Fujitsu Technology Solution
Fujitsu Technology Solutions is the leading
European IT infrastructure provider with a
presence in all key markets in Europe, the
Middle East and Africa, plus India, serving
large-, medium- and small-sized companies
as well as consumers. With its Dynamic Infra-
structures approach, the company offers a full
portfolio of IT products, solutions and services,
ranging from clients to datacenter solutions,
Managed Infrastructure and Infrastructure-as-
a-Service. Fujitsu Technology Solutions employs
more than 10,000 people and is part of the
global Fujitsu Group. For more information,
please see: ts.fujitsu.com/aboutus
SAP, SAP NetWeaver and all SAP logos are
trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP
AG in Germany and in several other countries.
All other product and service names mentioned
are the trademarks of their respective companies.
Benchmark SAP on Oracl e wi th Fuj i tsuuj
23 Benchmark SAP on Oracl e Database 11g Rel ease 2 wi th Fuj i tsu
O R A C L E D AT A B A S E 1 1 g D E L I V E R S WO R L D R E C O R D
R E S U L T F O R A T WO - T I E R C O N F I G U R AT I O N O N S A P
B U S I N E S S I N T E L L I G E N C E - D AT A MA R T S T A N D A R D
A P P L I C AT I O N B E N C H MA R K
Oracle Press Release
Oracle Database 11g Running on New Fujitsu
PRIMERGY RX600 S5 Server Raises the
Performance Bar for Business Intelligence
Application Workloads
Redwood Shores, Calif. March 30, 2010
News Facts
Oracle Database 11g set a world-record result
for a two-tier configuration on the SAP
Business Intelligence-Data Mart (BI-D)
standard application benchmark(1). On a
system comprised of one Fujitsu PRIMERGY
RX600 S5 server, equipped with the new
Intel Xeon X7560 2.26 GHZ processor,
Oracle Database 11g Release 2 on Linux deli-
vered a world-record result of 854,649 query
navigation steps per hour on the two-tier SAP
BI-D standard application benchmark.
Supporting Quotes
With this benchmark result, Oracle Database
11g Release 2 demonstrates performance leader-
ship on two-tier SAP BI-D standard application
benchmark and provides a solid proof-point
for customers seeking the best foundation for
their business intelligence applications, said
Juan Loaiza, senior vice president, Systems
Technology, Oracle.
Supporting Resources
Oracle Database
Oracle Real Application Clusters
Oracle Benchmarks
About the SAP BI-Data Mart Standard
Application Benchmark
About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the worlds most
complete, open, and integrated business soft-
ware and hardware systems company. For more
information about Oracle, please visit our
Web site at http://www.oracle.com.
Trademarks
Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of
Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may
be trademarks of their respective owners. SAP,
SAP NetWeaver and all SAP logos are trade-
marks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in
Germany and in several other countries.
Other names may be trademarks of their res-
pective owners.
Results as of March 30, 2010. For more infor-
mation, please visit
http://www.sap.com/benchmark.
The SAP BI Data Mart (BI-D) Standard
Application Benchmark performed on March
07, 2010 by Fujitsu in Walldorf, Germany,
has been certified with the following data:
(1) Throughput/hour (query navigation
steps): 854,649
CPU utilization of central server: 96%
(1 node active: 96%)
Operating system, central server: SuSE Linux
Enterprise Server 10
RDBMS: Oracle Database 11g
Technology platform release: SAP
NetWeaver 7.0 technology platform
(non-Unicode)
Configuration: 1 server (1 active node):
Fujitsu Primergy RX600-S5, 4 processors/32
cores /64 threads, Intel Xeon Processor
X7560, 2.26 GHz, 64 KB L1 cache and
256 KB L2 cache per core, 24 MB L3 cache
per processor, 128 GB main memory
Certification number: 2010011.
Contact Info:
Teri Whitaker
Oracle
+1.650.506.9914
teri.whitaker@oracle.com
Kristin Reeves
Blanc & Otus
+1.415.856.5145
kreeves@blancandotus.com
24
The key results are discussed below
How does the combination of SAP and Oracle
running on Sun compare with the competition?
For comparison purposes we can use the
benchmark results for a 2-CPU Intel system
and an 8-CPU AMD system. For these we have
recent results for Windows with SQL Server,
Linux with MaxDB, and Solaris with Oracle,
which can be used for comparison.
First, lets take a look at the 2-CPU results.
All results in the above diagram were measured
with servers that each had 2 Intel Xeon
x5570 CPUs with 8 cores and 16 threads.
The speed increase over SQL Server is 11%
when compared with Windows/SQL Server
and 20% for Linux/MaxDB.
The difference becomes more apparent in larger
systems. This demonstrates Suns and Oracles
considerable experience in the operation of
large systems. The available results for the 8-
processor AMD systems show a speed increase
for Oracle/Sun in the range of 21%-25%.
With 48 cores and 48 threads, these tested
systems have three times as many threads as
the 2-processor systems. The combination of
Oracle and the Solaris operating system is
the best combination for large SAP systems. It
offers the best load distribution over the many
threads.
If we analyze the current processor roadmaps,
we notice a trend towards more threads for all
manufacturers. Because future 2-processor
systems will also have more threads, customers
will benefit from this combination even with
smaller systems.
High-End Results
Since July 2008 the list of 2-tier SAP SD
benchmarks has been headed by a Sun M9000
system. Naturally, this benchmark used Oracle
Database 10g for the database as this ensures
optimum use of the large processing power of
the 64 CPUs with 256 cores and 512 threads.
The figure of 39,100 SAP SD users is based on
the SAP non-Unicode character set.
O R A C L E O N S O L A R I S :
B R E A K I N G S A P B E N C H MA R K R E C O R D S
In multiple SAP benchmark tests, Oracle Database on the Solaris operating system has
once again demonstrated its outstanding performance and scaling capabilities.
(Add each relevant database to diagram)
Benchmark SAP on Oracl e- Sol ari s 25
New Benchmark Version
Since 1, January 2009, there was a new
two-tier SAP ERP 6.0 Enhancement Package
4 (Unicode) Standard Sales and Distribution
(SD) Benchmark. This new release has higher
CPU requirements and fewer users compared
to the previous two-tier SAP ERP 6.0
(non-Unicode) Standard Sales and Distribution
(SD) Benchmark. For example: The new version
of the benchmark requires Unicode and the
Application layer uses a new encoding; the
response time was cut in half, form 2 seconds
to 1 second. Please refer to:
http://www12.sap.com/solutions/benchmark
/pdf/January2009newsfaq.pdf for more informa-
tion.
So far Oracle has performed two benchmarks
on Enterprise Servers with the new SAP SD
benchmark based on SAP Enhancement
Package 4 for the SAP ERP 6.0 application
(Unicode). These two results jointly top the list
of best results. A Sun M9000 system with 32
CPUs (128 cores and 256 threads) was measured
first, achieving 17,430 SAP SD users. A good
month later Oracle outperformed this result.
A Sun M9000 system with twice the number
of CPUs achieved 32,000 SAP SD users.
This result highlights the SPARC Enterprise
M9000 servers performance leadership at the
high-end of SAP SD Standard Application
Benchmark and underscores the optimal per-
formance of SAP ERP running on SPARC64
systems with the Solaris OS regardless of the
encoding methodology used in the application.
SAP with Oracle RAC
Many SAP customers are looking for a way
of migrating expensive hardware to low-cost
standard servers. At the same time they expect
the same system availability. With Oracle RAC
it is possible to increase availability and use
low-cost Intel servers.
Running the Solaris 10 operating system on a
cluster of four Sun Blade X6270 server modules,
each with two Intel Xeon x5570 quad-core
2.93 GHz processors (8 cores, 16 threads),
Oracle Database and Oracle Real Application
Clusters achieved 13,718 SAP SD-Parallel
Benchmark users, outperforming by 66 per-
cent the previous best eight processor two-tier
SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark
result with the SAP Enhancement Package 4
for SAP ERP (Unicode) held by Microsoft
SQL Server (2).
This result also delivered exceptional one-,
two- and four-node results on the Sun Blade
X6270, demonstrating the outstanding scala-
bility of Oracle Database and Oracle Real
Application Clusters. When measured from
one-, two- and four-node configurations, as
documented and certified by SAP, Oracle
Database with Oracle Real Application Clusters
demonstrated near-linear scalability, achieving
3,800(3), 7,220(4) and 13,718(1) SAP SD-
Parallel Benchmark users, respectively, while
providing a high level of performance and
availability. No other vendor has delivered
results showing this level of performance
or scalability on the Intel Xeon x5570
platform.
Additionally, the single-node result with
Oracle Real Application Clusters delivers more
performance-per-processor and per-core on the
SAP SD Standard Application Benchmark
running SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP
ERP 6.0 (Unicode) and outperforms the best
SAP SD two-tier results from IBM DB2(5)
and Microsoft SQL Server(6) with this bench-
mark result, utilizing the same number of cores.
Oracle Database
continues to outpace
the competition in
performance and
scalability. This bench-
mark demonstrates
once again that Real
Application Clusters
scales performance for
real-world complex
business applications.
Together, Oracle and
Sun are a winning
combination.
Juan Loaiza,
Senior Vice President,
Systems Technology,
Oracle.
26
AP Virtualization? Yes with Solaris Containers
On September 10, SAP Standard Application Bench-
mark certification was also achieved with a virtualized
system landscape using Oracle Database 10g and a
Sun Fire X4270 including the virtualization solution
Oracle Solaris Container (7). The SAP Sales and
Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark,
achieved on the Solaris 10 operating system with
Oracle Solaris Container (using 8 vCPUs), was sup-
ported by the out-standing performance and scaling
capabilities of the Oracle and Sun combination run-
ning SAP.
In comparison with another benchmark (8) on the
similar hardware with the same CPU type (2 proces-
sors/8 cores/16 threads, Intel Xeon Processor x5570,
2.93 GHz) from Fujitsu, which included the virtua-
lization solution VMware and database MaxDB 7.8,
the Sun Container virtualization solution was 36
percent better than VMware. The other major advan-
tages of the Solaris Containers virtualization technology
are, firstly, the price Solaris Containers is included
in Solaris like the advanced new file system ZFS and,
secondly, the superior support model. Oracle Solaris
Containers have been supported by SAP productive
systems for over four years and complete support, from
hardware to database, is now available from a single
source Hardware. Software. Complete!
http://fixunix.com/
Results as of February 1, 2010. Source: SAP,
www.sap.com/benchmark.
(0) The SAP Sales and Distribution (SD) Standard
Application Benchmark: Sun M9000, 32 processors / 128
cores / 256 threads, SPARC64 VII, 2.88 GHz, 17,430 SAP
SD Benchmark users. 95,480 SAPS. SAP Enhancement
Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g,
Solaris 10; SPARC Enterprise Server SAP certification
number: 2009038.
(01) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: IBM System 550, 4
processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Power6, 5GHz, 3,752
SAP SD Benchmark users; ; 20,520 SAPS SAP Enhance-
ment Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), DB2 9.5;
AIX 6.1; SAP certification number: 2009023.
(02) The SAP Standard Application SD (Sales and Distri-
bution) Benchmark is a two-tier ERP business test that is
indicative of full business workloads of complete order
processing and invoice processing, and demonstrates the
ability to run both the application and database software on
a single system. The SAP Standard Application SD Bench-
mark represents the critical tasks performed in real-world
ERP business environments.
(1) The SAP Sales and Distribution-Parallel (SDParallel)
Standard Application Benchmark: 4 active nodes: Sun
Blade X6270, 2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel
Xeon Processor X5570, 2.93 GHz, 13,718 SAP SD-Parallel
Benchmark users. 75,770 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package
4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g Real
Application Clusters (RAC), Solaris 10; SAP certification
number: 2009041.
(2) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: HP ProLiant DL785
G6, 8 processors / 48 cores / 48 threads, Six-Core AMD
Opteron 8439 SE, 2.8 GHz,8,280 SAP SD Benchmark,
45,350 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP
6.0 (Unicode), SQL Server 2008; Windows Server 2008
Enterprise Edition; Certification number: 2009035.
(3) The SAP Sales and Distribution-Parallel (SDParallel)
Standard Application Benchmark: 1 active nodes: Sun
Blade X6270, 2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel
Xeon Processor X5570, 2.93 GHz, 3,800 SAP SDParallel,
20,750 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP
6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g Real Application
Clusters (RAC), Solaris 10; SAP certification number:
2009039.
(4) The SAP Sales and Distribution-Parallel (SDParallel)
Standard Application Benchmark: 2 active nodes: Sun
Blade X6270, 2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel
Xeon Processor X5570, 2.93 GHz, 7,220 SAP SDParallel,
39,420 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP
6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g Real Application
Clusters (RAC), Solaris 10; SAP certification number:
2009040.
27
(5) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: IBM System 550, 4
processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Power6, 5GHz, 3,752 SAP
SD Benchmark, 20,520 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package
4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), DB2 9.5; AIX 6.1; IBM
System 550, 4 processors/8 cores/16 threads, POWER6,
5.0GH Certification number: 2009023.
(6) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: ProLiant BL460c G6,
2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel Xeon Processor
x5570, 2.93 GHz, 3,415 SAP SD Benchmark, 18,670
SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0
(Unicode), SQL Server 2008; Windows Server 2008
Enterprise Edition; IBM System 550, 4 processors/8
cores/16 threads, POWER6, 5.0GHz Certification number:
2009031.
(7) The SAP two-tier Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: Sun Fire X4270,
2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel Xeon Processor
X5570, 2.93 GHz, 2,800 SAP SDParallel, 15,320 SAPS,
SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode),
Oracle Database 10g, Solaris 10, Segmentation/CPU
utilization in non-global zones: 1 non-global zone using 8
virtual CPUs SAP certification number: 2009034.
(8) The SAP two-tier Sales and Distribution (SD)
Standard Application Benchmark: Fujitsu PRIMERGY
Model RX300 S5, 2 processors/8 cores/16 threads, Intel
Xeon Processor x5570, 2.93 GHz 2,056 SAP SDParallel,
11,230 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP
6.0 (Unicode), MaxDB 7.8, SuSE Linux Enterprise Server
10 on VMware ESX Server4.0, Segmentation/CPU utiliza-
tion in virtual machines: 1 virtual machine (VM) using 8
virtual CPUs Segmentation/CPU utilization in non-global
zones: 1 non-global zone using 8 virtual CPUs SAP certi-
fication number: 2009029.
(xx High End Result) The SAP two-tier Sales and
Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark:
M9000, 64 processors / 256 cores / 512 threads, SPARC64
VII, 2.52 GHz, 39,100 SAP SD Benchmark users. 196,570
SAPS. SAP ERP 6.0, Oracle Database 10g, Solaris 10;
SPARC Enterprise Server SAP certification number:
2008042.
(xx High End Result) The SAP two-tier Sales and
Distribution (SD) Standard Application Benchmark:
SPARC Enterprise Server M9000, 64 processors / 256 cores /
512 threads, SPARC64 VII, 2.88 GHz, 32,000 SAP SD
Benchmark users. 175,600 SAPS. SAP Enhancement
Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g,
Solaris 10; SAP certification number: 2009046.
(xx Picure1) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution
(SD) Standard Application Benchmark: Sun Fire X4270,
2 processors / 8 cores / 16 threads, Intel Xeon Processor
X5570, 2.93 GHz, 3,800 SAP SDParallel, 20,750 SAPS,
SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode),
Oracle Database 10g, Solaris 10; SAP certification number:
2009033. HP ProLiant DL380 G6, 2 Processors / 8 Cores
/ 16 Threads, Intel Xeon Processor X5570, 2.93 Ghz 3,171
SAP SD Benchmark users, 17,380 SAPS, SAP Enhance-
ment Package 4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), MaxDB 7.8,
SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10; SAP certification number:
2009006. ProLiant BL460c G6, 2 processors / 8 cores / 16
threads, Intel Xeon Processor x5570, 2.93 GHz, 3,415 SAP
SD Benchmark, 18,670 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package
4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), SQL Server 2008; Windows
Server 2008 Enterprise Edition; Certification number:
2009031.
(xx Picure2) The two-tier SAP Sales and Distribution
(SD) Standard Application Benchmark:
Sun Fire X4640, 8 processors / 48 cores / 48 threads, AMD
Opteron 8435, 2.6 GHz, 10,000 SAP SD Benchmark
users, 77,070 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP
ERP 6.0 (Unicode), Oracle Database 10g, Solaris 10; SAP
certification number: 2009049. HP ProLiant DL785 G6,
8 Processors / 48 Cores / 48 Threads, Six-Core AMD
Opteron 8439 SE, 2.8 Ghz 8,022 SAP SD Benchmark
users, 43,800 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package 4 for SAP
ERP 6.0 (Unicode), MaxDB 7.8, SuSE Linux Enterprise
Server 10; SAP certification number: 2009052. HP
ProLiant DL785 G6, 8 processors / 48 cores / 48 threads,
Six-Core AMD Opteron 8439 SE, 2.8 GHz, 8,280 SAP
SD Benchmark, 45,350 SAPS, SAP Enhancement Package
4 for SAP ERP 6.0 (Unicode), SQL Server 2008; Windows
Server 2008 Enterprise Edition; Certification number:
2009035.
Please see:
www.sap.com/benchmark for more information
Benchmark SAP on Oracl e- Sol ari s
I N C R E A S E D H I G H AV A I L A B I L I T Y, O P T I MU M
P E R F O R MA N C E
Medical corps of French Army uses Oracle Real Application Clusters (RAC)
The medical corps of the French Army uses
Oracles Real Application Clusters (RAC)
database clustering solution in applications
for human capital management (human
resources) to boost high availability and
performance. This solution offers various
benefits.
The medical corps of the French Army or
Service de Sant des Armes is famous well
beyond its national borders. The organization
has no less than 13,000 members working
in various areas and is steeped in history. It
can be found in medical establishments such
as army hospitals, rehabilitation centers,
research institutes, medication logistics and
training centers.
In order to ideally manage human capital and
human resources, a new application environ-
ment based on a new IT infrastructure has been
available to the Service de Sant des Armes
since June 2009. As IT expert Commandant
Pascal Cella from the Service de Sant des
Armes explains, Various existing HR soluti-
ons were merged to form one integrated envi-
ronment. We now have a special HR solution
developed by SAP to suit our requirements
and we are expecting it to deliver greater
efficiency, cost savings and high availability.
A Real Cluster of Benefits
Due to pre-existing general agreement with
Editors and industrials (subscription for other
non SAP solutions in accordance with French
public buying policy) the French Ministry of
Defense opted for Dell standard servers and
the Oracle RAC database clustering solution
on a Linux operating system platform as central
infrastructure components.
Using Oracle Real Application Clusters opens
up several benefits to the Service de Sant des
Armes: A much higher level of SAP high
availability, a workload distribution spread
over several cluster nodes, scaling on the data-
base side (similar to that at application level)
including performance optimizations, making
grid computing (adaptive computing) reality
and cost reductions, for example through use
of the Oracle Clusterware provided with
Oracle RAC which also ensures efficient
monitoring.
28
Industry:
Defense
Workforce:
Around 13,000
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle Database 10.2.0.4
Oracle Real Application
Clusters (RAC) 10.2.0.4
Oracle Clusterware
SAPCTL/Control Utility
Oracle Support from
Oracle Technology Center,
Walldorf (Germany)
Key Benefits:
Greater SAP stability/high
availability
Minimization of unplanned
downtimes, for maintenance
work for example
Optimized performance
when using corporate
solutions
Foundation laid for further
optimization/scaling of
SAP utilization
SAP on RAC at Rpubl i que Franai se, Mi ni stre de l a Df ense
The new human capital management solution
(SAP ERP ECC6.0), including the new infra-
structure, was implemented with the help of
system integrator Atos Origin who collabora-
ted closely with the Oracle and Dell techno-
logy and competence centers as well as SAP
during the Oracle RAC launch. According to
Commandant Pascal Cella, during the imple-
mentation there were no major problems and
everything went surprisingly fast. The team
delivered a really good job.
MCOD (Multiple Components in One Data-
base) was used for the Service de Sant des
Armes. MCOD is an SAP installation option
which allows customers to store data from
different SAP Business Suite components in
one common database.
In April 2010 the database was around 3 TB
in size (backup size) and there were 2 RAC
nodes working in the database cluster (with
Oracle Clusterware). There are a total of 11
Dell servers 2 of which are database servers.
The storage systems come from EMC. Around
1,000 users work with the new HR system on
a daily basis.
Perfect interaction, excellent experiences
In summary, Oracle Real Application Clusters
is a cornerstone of HR at the Service de Sant
des Armes. We have an incredibly impres-
sive level of SAP high availability that we
wouldnt have were it not for Oracle RAC.
The database clustering solution also helps
us gain optimum system performance. And
whats more, Oracle RAC has helped us cut
costs too, says a very satisfied Commandant
Cella.
Oracle RAC ensures that should one node fail
for whatever reason, the other node (automati-
cally) assumes its work. Users working with
the HR applications, for example in payroll
accounting, making amendments to master
HR data, or in HR reporting, dont even
notice this switch. The scheduled downtime,
for maintenance work for example, is also
minimized. And on top of that, when using
the concept approach of standard Intel servers
with Oracle RAC and Linux, infrastructure
and license costs are demonstrably lower than
those of other system approaches. Plans are
already in place to extend the HR system
environment of the Service de Sant des
Armes, in terms of both functions and user
numbers.
Rpublique Franaise
Ministre de la Dfense
Service de Sant des Armes
http://www.defense.gouv.fr/sante
We have an incredibly
impressive level of SAP
high availability that we
wouldnt have were it
not for Oracle Real
Application Clusters.
Commandant
Pascal Cella,
Ministre de la Dfense,
Service de Sant des
Armes.
29
30
O R A C L E R A C F O R S A P AT S O U T H WE S T A I R L I N E S
Oracle Database podcast with Denise
Simpson, DB Manager for Southwest
Airlines
John Brust, Oracle:
I understand it is a pretty important month
for Southwest as your airline turned 38 years
old recently?
Denise Simpson, DB Manager for
Southwest Airlines, Dallas Texas:
Yes it is a pretty big deal on June 18th.
John:
What kind of role does IT play in the airline?
Denise:
We have more than 3,400 flights a day and
more than 34,000 employees and given the
state of our economy, especially in the travel
industry, we are expected to provide innovated
solutions, play a key role in reducing costs
and increasing productivity.
John:
And so some day innovated solutions are like
you said decreasing costs, but I imagine as
well finding great ways to provide the highest
availability for your systems?
Denise:
Correct, timely solutions in a quality imple-
mentation as we can.
John:
So I imagine with 3400 flights a day high
availability is one of your main objectives?
Denise:
Correct, we have made a pretty significant
investment in Oracle RAC that for a very cost
conscience company there is definitely some
pressure to keep these systems up.
John:
What are some of the specific SLAs for system
uptime that really made you look at Oracle
Database and specifically the Oracle Real
Application Clusters?
Denise:
Theres not a defined SLA for the database,
those are more closely aligned to the applica-
tion teams which were just components of,
but many of the applications we have there
are contractual implications. There are reve-
nue generating applications so we need to
make sure those stay up to help them meet
their goal.
John:
And are you seeing three nines (999s) or four
nines (9999s) or 100% availability on any of
these systems or applications?
Denise:
We have some applications that have that
requirement and they have been successfully
meeting their goal.
John:
How many applications do you run on Oracle
RAC?
www.oracle.com/sap
SAP on RAC at Southwest Ai rl i nes 31
John:
Great, and I suppose its running well for you?
Denise:
It has been running fine.
John:
Whats the approach youve been taking to
bring new applications into the RAC environ-
ments?
Denise:
Well RAC is our strategic direction so we ask
those questions every time we evaluate a new
product. But traditionally everything we bring
in house is on a RAC environment.
John:
And youve been running RAC since Oracle
Database 9i since 2001, and on Oracle
Database 10g and Oracle Database 11g now.
Denise:
Yes
John:
Moving over to site failure, what are you
doing to manage that and are you running
Oracle Dataguard?
Denise:
We have hundreds of applications Id say 150
plus applications, in our entire environment
we probably have 160 boxes; production, dev,
QA and thats including at least one SAP
RAC cluster. For those environments we
recommend a RAC solution, but there are
some systems that dont have flexibility or
arent certified to run on a RAC environment.
John:
Denise, it is great to hear you are able to run
so many applications on Oracle RAC. When
did you begin using Oracle RAC?
Denise:
We actually implement our first RAC solution
in 2001, it was on 9.1.3. environment and it
was our internal email engine that we use inter-
nally to send itineraries back to customers
and also to facilitate our CLICK N SAVE
application.
John:
You know one of the other applications thats
been talked about before is your Rapid
Rewards program? What is that like and
how important is up time and why did you
choose RAC for that one?
Denise:
Rapid Rewards is our customer loyalty appli-
cation and one of our mission statements is
around customer service. We are very custo-
mer centric and we want to make sure that
our customers get the quality service that
they deserve and our partners and internal
customers have every piece of information
that they need. So we have a lot of dependent
systems around Rapid Rewards and Rapid
Rewards is our customers database of record.
11
g
D A T A B A S E
32
Denise:
Oracle Dataguard is what we use for our disa-
ster recovery, probably have about a quarter of
our applications represented in the secondary
data center and we practice at least once per
year with our application partners to switch
over to that site.
John:
So how do you find Oracle dataguard as far as
being able to switch over to your standby sites
using our latest releases?
Denise:
We found that it is pretty easy to configure
and weve been able to do it with less down-
time.
John:
Weve talked here about uptime and being
able to keep systems available.
What are some of the things that youve
noticed or youve been able to do to keep costs
low and keep IT efficiency high, something
thats so important to your organization.
Denise:
One of the things I think has been critical to
us and adds to our overall value is making
sure that our environment is stable, our
systems are up. Like I said, we support both
the flying and buying side of our business,
there are cash registers as well as our customer
experience, people in the field our crews, as
long as we got value for them the fact that
they have access to our systems.
John:
Well it sounds like this fits perfectly with
your airlines goal to be the low cost carrier
and to be the most productive in the sky.
Denise:
I agree with you and I must brag on my team
a little, they have been outstanding. I have 17
DBAs both development and operational and
our entire technology organization is passionate
about making sure our company is successful
and looking for ways to cut costs and generate
revenue.
John:
Great, well Denise thank you so much for
joining us, we wish you the very best.
To learn more about Oracle Real Application
Clusters and Oracle Database 11g we encourage
you to go to: oracle.com/clusters
www.oracle.com/sap
SAP on RAC at Southwest Ai rl i nes
oracle.com/security
or call 1.800.ORACLE.1
Copyright 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its a affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Database Vault
Only Oracle has a Database Vault
The only database
that prevents your IT staff
from seeing your data.
Without Oracles Database Vault,
your staff can see:
Your financial results
Your customer list
Your employees salaries
34
O R A C L E D AT A B A S E V A U L T
CERTIFICATION WITH SAP
Outsourcing, application consolidation, and
increasing concerns over insider threats have
resulted in an almost mandatory requirement
for strong controls on access to sensitive appli-
cation data. In addition, regulations such as
Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), Payment Card Industry
(PCI), and the Health Insurance Portability
and Accountability Act (HIPAA) require
strong internal controls to protect sensitive
information such as financial, healthcare, and
credit cards records. Oracle Database Vault
enforces real-time preventive controls and
separation-of-duty in the Oracle Database to
secure the SAP application data.
Oracle Database Vault Protection for SAP
Oracle Database Vault enables SAP customers
to prevent access to application data by privi-
leged database users, enforce separation-of-duty,
and provide stronger access control with multi-
factor authorization. Database Vault enforces
security controls even when a database user
bypasses the application and connects directly
to the database. Database Vault certification
with SAP applications benefits customers by:
Preventing privileged user access to
application data using protection realms
for the SAP ABAP stack and the SAP
Java stack
Enforcing separation of duty in the Oracle
Database while allowing SAP administrators
to perform their duties and protecting their
SAP administration roles
Providing SAP specific Database Vault
protection policies for SAP BR*Tools
Implementing all Database Vault protections
transparently and without any change to
the SAP application code
Preventing Privileged User Access
Database administrators hold highly trusted
positions within the enterprise. With Database
Vault realms, enterprises increase security by
preventing access to application data even if the
request is coming from privileged users. This
is especially important when a privileged
account is compromised or accessed outside
normal business hours or from an un-trusted
IP address. The regular tools used by admini-
strators to help manage and tune the Oracle
database continue to work as before, but they
can no longer be used to access SAP application
data.
Enforcing Separation-of-Duty
Database Vault helps administrators manage
operations more securely by providing fine-
grained controls on database operations such
as creating accounts, granting powerful roles,
and changing table structures. Database Vault
default separation of duty can be divided into
three categories.
Key Benefits:
Prevent privileged Oracle
Database users from
accessing SAP data trans-
parently, without any
application changes
Enable Separation of duty
within the SAP database
environment for security
and compliance
Extend and customize
Database Vault protection
for SAP to satisfy your
unique security require-
ments
Available for SAP applica-
tions with SAP NetWeaver
with SAP Kernel 7.0 (SAP
ERP 2005 or SAP version 6.1)
or higher on Oracle Database
Release 10.2.0.4
Oracl e Database Vaul t f or SAP customers 35
Related Products
Oracle Advanced Security
Transparent Data Encryption for Oracle
databases at the tablespace or column level
Built-in key management
Network Encryption, SSL
Strong authentication using Kerberos
and PKI
Oracle Label Security
Transparent row level access controls using
data labels
Multi-level security for government and
defense organizations
Flexible, policy based architecture for
commercial organizations
Oracle Secure Backup
Transparent backup and encryption of
database and operating system files to tape
Built-in key management
Based on open standards AES, 3DES
Please see more information about
DB Vault for SAP in edition #17,
www.oracle.com/sap
Protection Realms and Command Rules
for SAP
This certification provides customers with
pre-configured protection realms and com-
mand rules designed specifically for SAP
applications. These protections prevent privi-
leged user access to sensitive SAP application
data, prevent application by-pass, and protect
the integrity of the application. The scripts
for these protections can be downloaded from
the SAP Service Market Place web site.
Extending the Oracle-Supplied Security
Policies
Customers can extend the Oracle-supplied
Database Vault security policies by adding
additional command rules and realms to
accommodate their specific security require-
ments. For example, the out-of-the-box
CONNECT command rule can be customized
to restrict database connections to a specific
range of IP addresses or to a specific subnet.
Supported SAP Releases
All SAP applications with SAP NetWeaver
with SAP Kernel 7.00 (SAP ERP 2005 or
SAP version 6.1) and higher are supported
with Oracle Database Vault Release 10.2.0.4.
Oracle Database Vault Separation of Duty with SAP
Database account
management
Database Vault prevents ad-hoc creation of
database accounts unless the administrator has
the Database Vault Account Management role.
Database
administration
Database Vault security
administration
Traditional database administration tasks such
as those associated with managing tablespace
and tuning parameters remain unchanged.
Database Vault blocks ad-hoc grants of the
DBA role.
Only Database Vault security administrators
can change Database Vault SAP security
settings related to Realms and Command
Rules.
Oracle Database Role Seperation of Duty Description
36
O R A C L E R A C F O R S A P AT C O C A C O L A H E L L E N I C :
L AY I N G T H E F O U N D AT I O N F O R H I G H E R S A P
AV A I L A B I L I T Y A N D O P T I MI Z E D MA I N T E N A N C E
MA N A G E ME N T
Oracle Real Application Clusters for SAP delivers the high SAP availability thats crucial
to our business. Were also benefiting from more flexible maintenance management
thanks to the RAC option.
R O S E N I A N E V,
SAP Infrastructure Integration Leader, Shared Services
Coca Cola Hellenic IT Services LTD.
Optimum assurance against SAP
downtimes
Coca-Cola Hellenic is one of the worlds lar-
gest bottlers of Coca-Cola Company products
with sales of more than 2 billion unit cases.
It has a broad geographic reach with operations
in 28 countries serving a population of ap-
proximately 560 million people. Coca-Cola
Hellenic offers a diverse range of ready-to-drink
non-alcoholic beverages including sparkling
beverages, juice, water, sport drinks, energy
drinks, tea and coffee categories. Coca-Cola
Hellenic is committed to promoting sustainable
development in order to create value for its
business and for society. This includes provi-
ding products that meet the beverage needs
of consumers, fostering an open and inclusive
work environment, conducting our business
in ways that protect and preserve the environ-
ment and contribute to the socio-economic
development of our local communities.
It goes without saying that Coca-Cola Hellenic
has been utilizing IT and software solutions
for many years to support a range of business
processes. The company has discovered that
the best solution is a centralized IT environ-
ment that provides a wide range of services to
all 28 countries. The national companies are
linked to the data centers by WAN and VPN.
The IT systems are managed by various shared
services teams based in Sofia Bulgaria. Some
of them are responsible for SAP Administration
and SAP infrastructure integration. For the
team leader of SAP Infrastructure, Rosen Ianev,
there was a very important task to be achieved:
Providing maximum assurance against SAP
downtime and ensuring optimum SAP availa-
bility to support essential business processes.
IT waves mean new challenges
Coca-Cola Hellenic has been using Oracle as
its SAP database for a number of years and
the hardware is sourced from HP. Recently
Coca-Cola has been implementing a far-rea-
ching change affecting the use of its applica-
tions. Countries that used to use other solutions
alongside SAP are now transitioning almost
entirely to SAP.
Launching a new IT landscape with the SAP
systems becomes crucial, explains IT infra-
structure expert Ianev. As soon as the new
system environment was launched, we knew
that we had to increase SAP availability to a
higher extent than a standard OS Cluster
setup can offer. This was especially important
for the Wave 2 Sales and Distribution com-
ponent, covered by ERP and CRM systems,
which is absolutely crucial to Coca-Colas
business.
Industry:
Beverage industry
Turnover:
Approx. US$10.8 billion
Workforce:
Approx. 17,000 in sales alone
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle Database 10.2.04
Oracle Real Application
Clusters (RAC) 10.2.04
Oracle Support from
Oracle Technology Center,
Walldorf (Germany)
HW Partner:
Hewlett Packard, HP Super-
domes, HP-UX
Key benefits:
Greater SAP stability / high
availability / minimization
of unplanned downtimes
Greater maintenance
flexibility
Foundation laid for further
optimization of SAP utiliza-
tion
www.coca-colahellenic.com
SAP on RAC at Coca- Col a Hel l eni c 37
Added to this requirement was the fact that
business demands shortened the available
time window for system maintenance. The
organization simply could not afford to shut
some systems down for more than two hours
per month. Recently even these two hours
started to become an issue.
Single point of failure eliminated with
Oracle RAC
Coca-Cola Hellenic had been considering the
Oracle database clustering technology Real
Application Clusters as a possible solution
for some time. And at the end of 2008, after
talking to vendors SAP, HP and Oracle, it
was finally chosen as the preferred solution.
Rosen Ianev explains the reasons for this
choice: Oracle RAC is an efficient tailored
technology with an active/active architecture,
designed to prevent SAP database instance
from creating problems as a potential single
point of failure. This dramatically reduces the
occurrence of unscheduled downtimes. The
SAP systems database is available virtually
round the clock. Or to say it differently, it
puts us in a position to efficiently increase
SAP availability to more advanced level.
Oracle RAC also allows maintenance activities
to be completed much more effectively.
Coca-Cola Hellenic has also introduced changes
related to the SAP instances. At the same
time as implementing Oracle RAC, the SAP
Enqueue Replication Service was also installed
to eliminate the single point of failure in the
SAP Central instance.
HP MC Service Guard, is Coca-Cola Hellenic
long-standing choice of active/passive cluster
for the hardware systems (HP Superdome and
XP 24000 storage systems) running on HP
UX in versions 11.23 or 11.31.
SAP, HP, Siemens and Oracle as project
partners
The new SAP system with Oracle Real
Application Clusters together with the SAP
Enqueue Replication Service went live on
May 16, 2009. As far as users were concer-
ned, nothing had changed, recalls Rosen
Ianev. They didnt even notice that an infra-
structure changeover had taken place in the
background.
Throughout the restructuring project the SAP
infrastructure integration team at Coca-Cola
Hellenic worked closely with Oracle, HP and
the CCH Data Center outsourcing vendor
Siemens.
The different teams collaborated on the over-
all system design and implementation. The
system landscape included two servers for the
SAP instances and another two for the data-
base instances. For the core applications, SAP
ERP ECC 6.0 and CRM 5.0, there are two
Oracle Real Application Clusters systems,
each with two nodes. The SAP and database
(cluster) systems are physically separate, each
half of both located in a different data center.
The two data centers are housed in separate
buildings about 400 meters apart. Oracle
Clusterware and a high-fiber-density inter-
connect system allow the Oracle RAC nodes
to work together. Should one system fail for
any reason either an SAP or Oracle RAC
system, in either building the other takes
over. The same applies to the SAP dialog ser-
vice and SAP Enqueue Replication instances.
Oracle RAC also allows
maintenance activities
to be completed much
more effectively.
Rosen Ivaney,
SAP Infrastructure
Integration Leader,
Shared Services.
Coca Cola Hellenic
IT Services LTD.
SAP on RAC at Coca- Col a Hel l eni c 38
As of November 2009, the SAP ERP database
was 5 TB and the SAP CRM 4.0 database
was 3 TB. Currently the systems support
around 400 concurrent users.
The teams also worked hand in hand when
it came to the extensive testing and the fine-
tuning phase. All the stress and infrastructure
tests imaginable were completed in about
three weeks. The system as a whole and the
individual components were put through
rigorous testing under close to live conditions.
Whenever a problem cropped up, our partners
(Siemens, HP, Oracle) were on the case imme-
diately. We met all our project objectives,
notes Ianev.
By the beginning of December 2009 the two
RAC systems were further expanded to provide
even higher capacity and high availability in
anticipation of adding four additional countries
starting the first of January 2010. Now each
of the systems (ERP/CRM) consists of 4 RAC
nodes (2 in each DC building) and 4 virtual
servers for running SAP Application instances.
Each system has now 4 RAC instances and
9 SAP Application instances (2-3 per virtual
partition). Also on top of these the SAP
Enqueue Replication service is running to
fully protect the SAP CI as a point of failure.
Simplified picture is attached below:
We've opted for reliability
As Mr. Rosen Ianev explains, Oracle Real
Application Clusters for SAP delivers the
high SAP availability that is so crucial to our
business. And thanks to the Oracle RAC
option we benefit from more flexible mainte-
nance management.
In practice, this means that if one Oracle
RAC node fails for any reason the other
takes over, thus minimizing unplanned down-
times. Maintenance work can now be planned
and implemented more effectively and effi-
ciently, either by switching over a database
instance or redistributing the workload.
Increasing the availability of SAP has certainly
paid for itself as far as Coca-Cola Hellenic is
concerned. For our wave 2 system conversion
weve opted for reliability, and this enables us
to provide essential support for the business
side, says Ianev, summing up the project.
More, if not all, Coca-Cola Hellenic countries
will make the transition from wave 1 to wave
2 in a staggered process.
Without a doubt, Oracle RAC provides Coca-
Cola Hellenic with a versatile tool for opti-
mizing SAP in many different ways: be it
dramatically increasing SAP availability,
distributing workload over multiple cluster
nodes, scaling on the database side (as done
at the application level) while optimizing
performance, implementing grid computing
(with Adaptive Computing), or reducing costs,
for example by using the Oracle Clusterware
available with Oracle RAC, which also enables
efficient monitoring.
Ecc 6.0 P02
Transparent Application Failover on RAC
Appl. server 1
cupp0211 cupp0212 cupp0213 cupp0214
Appl. server 2 Appl. server 3 Appl. server 4
cupp0201 cupp0202 cupp0203 cupp0204
RAC CLUSTER
(with CFS)
Database host
ASCS
CRS
RAC 1
ERS
CRS
RAC 2
CRS
RAC 3
CRS
RAC 4
Enqueue
replication
RAC <-> Appl. servers primary
communication
RAC nodes
Appl. servers
SAP AS TAF failover to RAC node
Enqueue replication
T Y S O N F O O D S I S O N A R O L L WI T H O R A C L E
I N D E X K E Y C O MP R E S S I O N
DBMS/disk space reduction, improved performance/minimized I/O rate, optimized backups
Oracle Index Key Compression is again the perfect tool for us to efficiently implement our
strategy to mitigate database growth.
J E F F L E I N E N ,
Team Lead of Database Administration at Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods is consistently using SAP soft-
ware with Oracle Index Key Compression
and is achieving a number of benefits:
DBMS/disk space reduction of no less than
1.4 TB, increased performance thanks to
a minimized I/O rate, and shorter backup
times.
Tyson Foods Inc., founded in 1935 with
headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas, is one
of the worlds largest processor and marketer
of chicken, beef and pork, and the second-
largest food production company in the
Fortune 500 with annual revenues over $26
billion. The company produces a wide variety
of protein-based and prepared food products
and is the recognized market leader in the
retail and foodservice markets it serves. The
company has approximately 117,000 Team
Members employed at more than 400 facilities
and offices in the United States and around
the world.
The prominent US company spent some time
searching for an effective tool to further opti-
mize its SAP environment particularly as its
data volume was constantly on the rise. As Jeff
Leinen, Team Lead of Database Administration
at Tyson Foods, explains: Due to our data
constantly growing and also the table sizes
speed up, it became apparent in 2008 that we
needed to come up with a strategy that would
demonstrably ease the situation. In this context,
it was also necessary to find suitable tools or
solutions that would help us bring this stra-
tegy to life and turn it into a reality to our
advantage.
At Tyson Foods, SAP ERP data is increasing
by around 1.2 TB each year. Some 3,000 users
work with the company software, which is used
together with the Oracle database (version
10.2.0.4/single instance based database server
and IBM servers/storage systems running on
AIX 5.3). The majority of users are located in
the US. SAP SRM, SAP Portal and (to a limi-
ted extent) SAP BW/BI are also used. SAP
transaction and data volumes are set to rise
further due to the companys plans to expand
internationally.
www.tyson.com
Industry:
Food
Objective:
Using an effective solution to
efficiently mitigate database
growth.
Approach:
Use of Oracle 10.2.0.4 Index
Key Compression for DBMS
and disk space management
IT improvements:
Optimized SAP operation
Reduced database size
Minimized disk space
Improved I/O rate
Increased performance
Shorter backup times
Business benefits:
Cost savings
Faster use of applications
Oracl e I ndex Compressi on at Tyson Foods 39
Oracl e I ndex Compressi on at Tyson Foods 40
Expectations satisfied in full
It was an Oracle event that made Tyson Foods
decide to seriously consider Oracles Index Key
Compression feature. We were won over by
the options that were shown to us with Oracle
Index Key Compression and they fitted extre-
mely well into our strategy to slow database
growth and to minimize the SAP table sizes.
We really wanted to test this technology,
remembers Wolfgang Boedeker, a Database
Administrator in Jeff Leinens team.
The tests with Oracle Index Key Compression
(SAP Support Note 1109743), which were car-
ried out in March 2009, satisfied Tyson Foods
expectations in full. A reduction in database
size and the associated reduced disk space were
confirmed. It was these aspects in particular
that were the focus of the tests.
Before testing Oracle Index Key Compression
Tyson implemented Oracle Partitioning and
gained advantages. The Database Management
System (DBMS) team from Tyson implemented
Oracle Index Key Compression without any
problems. The project identified and defined
those SAP tables that seemed to be actually
relevant for compression. Seven main tables
were selected from around 40. The indexes on
these selected tables were then compressed with
Oracle Index Key Compression in conjunction
with the partitioning process. The Oracle fea-
ture then went live following various functional
tests.
Significant improvements achieved
Oracle Index Key Compression together with
Oracle Partitioning has been in productive
operation for slightly less than a year, and
Leinen and Boedeker both agree that the soft-
ware is profitable and causes no problems.
According to Tyson Foods statistics, using
Oracle Index Key Compression has contributed
to the reduction of the companys database size.
The company is extremely satisfied, as overall
the database has shrunk in total from around
4.5 TB by no less than 1.4 TB, which translates
to considerable savings in disk space.
There have also been considerable improve-
ments in top SAP indexes. The largest one
has seen the data volume shrink from 91 GB
to 17 GB. Database Administrator Wolfgang
Boedeker is certain that he would highly
recommend and encourage other companies to
use Index Key Compression for SAP tables.
But its not just the DBMS/disk space mana-
gement that has improved in the long term
thanks to Oracle Index Key Compression in
conjunction with Oracle Partitioning. End users
have also confirmed that SAP performance has
increased at the same time. This is a result of
the minimized I/O rates. The use of compres-
sion also helps to perform backups more quick-
ly, as there is a lower data volume to process.
As Jeff Leinen, Team Lead of DBAs, summari-
zes: Oracle Index Key Compression is again
the perfect tool for us to efficiently imple-
ment our strategy to mitigate database gro-
wth. The Oracle technology is also helping us
to perform several optimizations at once.
Without a doubt, this technology is here to
stay. We firmly believe that well achieve more
improvements with the Advanced Compression
features of Oracle Database 11g.
The Oracle technology
is also helping us to
perform several
optimizations at once.
Without a doubt, this
technology is here to
stay. We firmly believe
that we'll achieve more
improvements with the
Advanced Compression
features of Oracle
Database 11g.
Jeff Leinen,
Team Lead of Database
Administration at
Tyson Foods.
41 SAP on RAC at Sodexo Brazi l
S O D E X O D O B R A S I L C O ME R C I A L L T D A .
C O N S O L I D AT E S A L L C O MP A N Y D AT A O N T O
A S I N G L E , S H A R E D S Y S T E M
With Oracles database solutions and the assistance of Oracle Partner, Develop we are now
online 24/7, meeting system requirements precisely and providing greater support during
financial reporting periods, when more than 5,000 transactions occur per second.
D O U G L A S WI L L I A N C A L O N I D A C O S T A ,
Systems and Database Coordinator,
Sodexo do Brasil Comercial Ltda.
Sodexo do Brasil Comercial Ltda., a world
leader in workers benefits and services, was
founded in 1966 in Marseilles, France.
Sodexo employs 342,000 workers worldwide,
distributed among 29,000 operational units
in 80 countries. In Brazil, Sodexo focuses in
three main business lines: food, facilities
management, and service vouchers and cards.
Challenges
Integrate the companys administrative and
operational systems and centralize them
into a unique database to guarantee better
performance and availability
Consolidate operational records to support
many units spread across Brazil and Latin
America
Provide information managers with a real-
time solution to ensure an accurate decision
making process in a secure environment
Share information on diverse areas such as
finance and logistics to achieve added value
in each business process
Solution
Implemented Oracle Database Enterprise
Edition and Real Application Clusters
with the help of Develop, an Oracle Partner,
consolidating all data onto a single system
Enabled online access for associates and
clients to information such as billing,
customer, sales, inventory, payroll, and help
desk data
Reduced the systems weekly downtime
extensively, reaching a record of 190 days
working nonstop and providing a stable IT
environment for critical business systems
Reduced the monthly closing process from
days to hours
Improved IT system performance with Oracle
Tuning Pack which enabled around-the-clock
monitoring with Oracle Diagnostics Pack,
which sends cellular text messages to IT
staff for rapid reaction and response
Centralized the backup process for all
systems by completing backups on an
hourly basis
Broke down data and adjusted the IT
environmentwithout the permanent help
of the supplieraccelerating results delivery
Industry:
Professional Services
Annual Revenue:
US$700 million
Employees:
13,000
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle Database Enterprise
Edition
Oracle Real Application
Clusters
Oracle Partitioning
Oracle Enterprise Manager
Oracle Tuning Pack
Oracle Diagnostics Pack
Oracle Partner:
Develop
www.develop.com.br
Sodexo do Brasil
Comercial Ltda.
So Paulo, Brazil
br.sodexo.com
Fazer de cada dia um dia melhor
42
Customer:
Verizon Communications Inc.
dd
Category:
Optimized Systems: Recognition of
striking performance, scalability,
and usability enhancements
delivered with open source
solutions
Industry:
Telecom; Broadband, Wireless,
Wireline
Geography:
North America
Business challenge:
Needed a reliable and cost
effective solution for its SAP
and Enterprise Resource Planning
applications that would scale
with its growing computing
infrastructure
Migration Path:
UNIX-based SMP platform to Red
Hat Enterprise Linux on HP x86
commodity based hardware
Software:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Advanced Platform, Red Hat
Network Satellite, SAP, Oracle RAC
Hardware:
300 Dell and HP x86 commodity
servers
Benefits:
Reduced costs, improved
performance, increased
ability to scale and prepared
for future growth, increased
energy conservation efforts
V E R I Z O N C O MMU N I C AT I O N S R E D H AT I N N O V AT I O N
A WA R D WI N N E R O P T I MI Z E D S Y S T E MS
With Red Hat Enterprise Linux on standard based x86 commodity hardware, we are able to
scale our growth horizontally and meet the needs of our employee base.
MI C H A E L B L A K E ,
Director, systems and architecture
implementation, Verizon
Backround
Verizon Communications Inc., a Dow 30
company, is a global leader in delivering
broadband and other wireless and wireline
communications services to mass market,
business, government and wholesale custo-
mers. With more than 235,000 employees,
Verizon was selected for the Optimized
Systems Innovation Award for its consolidation
and standardization on Red Hat Enterprise
Linux for its SAP and Enterprise Resource
Planning applications to reduce costs, increase
performance, and allow the ability to scale for
growth. The company now runs its servers
more efficiently,with minimal need for addi-
tional equipment, and Verizon has further
bolstered its conservation efforts.
Business Challenge
With a massive global workforce of more than
235,000 employees, Verizon had an increasing
need to consolidate and standardize business
applications, most notably, its Enterprise
Resource Planning (ERP) system. Due to
Verizons acquisition business growth and the
challenges of implementing disparate systems,
and the need to serve its employees, the com-
pany needed to migrate its systems to a highly
reliable and stable platform that would scale
with the growing computing infrastructure
while simultaneously reducing costs.
Verizons existing UNIX-based IT architecture
lacked the ability to cost-effectively scale hori-
zontally with the constant business growth.
Solution
Verizon identified the need to migrate its
large proprietary UNIX-based SMP platform
to standardize on an open source operating
system running on x86 based commodity
hardware to achieve the required scalability,
reduced costs, and equivalent performance,
in regards to all of its business critical SAP
applications.
After a thorough evaluation period in 2007 of
multiple open source vendors, Verizon selected
Red Hat Enterprise Linux as the standard
operating system for the mission critical busi-
ness application migration project.
Verizon decided to deploy the SAP project
in phases. The first phase began in 2008 and
started the financial modules, taking about
6 months to complete before moving to
production. The second phase consisted of the
HR and Payroll modules and due to the better
than expected results, Verizon plans to continue
the consolidation with its reporting, warehou-
sing, and credit card processing applications.
The SAP applications were migrated from
UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced
Platform with Red Hat Network Satellite
and Proxy for Management, Provisioning, &
Monitoring running on over 300 Dell and HP
Intel/AMD based servers and Oracle RAC.
SAP on RAC at Veri zon 43
With Red Hat Enterprise Linux on standard
based x86 commodity hardware, we are able
to scale our growth horizontally and meet the
needs of our employee base, said Michael
Blake, director, systems and architecture
implementation, Verizon, The fact that Red
Hat Enterprise Linux was certified with all of
our third-party applications, such as SAP,
allowed us to make this decision confidently
and proceed quickly, as the costs continued to
mount with the previous solution.
Benefits
Migrating the systems off the proprietary
UNIX based servers to Red Hat Enterprise
Linux, allowed Verizon to reduce costs,
increased its ability to scale and prepared its
architecture for future growth, while at the
same time providing increased performance.
If migrating to Red Hat Enterprise Linux
simply allowed us to scale at a fraction of the
cost, and provided the same performance, we
would have deemed the migration a success,
said Blake, But, the real impact on the
business was the increased performance with
the same applications running on Red Hat
Enterprise Linux.
In addition to the cost savings and performance
increase, Verizon also realized a two-thirds
reduction in power usage in its data center.
This is a very real and valuable benefit and
will have a direct impact on our energy con-
servation efforts, said Blake.
Verizon was able to increase capacity, reliabi-
lity and security, allowing end users to work
more efficiently. Blake commented that, Red
Hat Enterprise Linux has eliminated perfor-
mance surges and through the consolidation
the company was able to identify bottlenecks
in the system, providing a more streamlined
environment. End users were minimally
disrupted by the change in systems but have
since noticed a more improved IT environment.
The total cost of ownership has been greatly
reduced.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is a trusted product
with excellent value and allowed us to extract
the value of the new HP C-Class hardware,
said Blake, We also saw Red Hat Network
Satellite as a strategic component to our
deployment, it enhances patch management,
and security, and without Satellite it would
be difficult to manage our systems. Satellite
simplifies this process and frees up our system
administrators for strategic business projects.
Customers Advice
For companies in similar situations, the most
critical component is to run tests, document,
and confirm the expected behavior of your
Red Hat certified applications as this will
drastically reduce the complexities of the
migration project. We knew that with Red
Hat, we could worry less about the application
certifications, and focus more on proving the
business case to secure buy-in from the entire
IT organization. By running tests and executing
numerous examples for specific teams, we were
able to prove to our internal customers, that
not only would the solution work, but it will
perform better, and at a fraction of the previous
costs, said Blake.
With Red Hat Enterprise
Linux on standard based
x86 commodity hardware,
we are able to scale our
growth horizontally and
meet the needs of our
employee base.
Michael Blake,
Director, systems
and architecture
implementation,
Verizon.
44
E S S E N T C O N S O L I D AT E S I T I N F R A S T R U C T U R E
T O R E D U C E T O T A L C O S T O F O WN E R S H I P B Y 5 0 %
Oracle technology and a good design made it possible to significantly reduce
the total cost of ownership of our IT landscape.
MA R C O S P O E L ,
Landscape Expert, Essent
Essent, the biggest energy company in the
Netherlands, supplies electricity, gas, and heat
to individual households and commercial
customers. Essent is active throughout the
energy chainfrom energy generation right
through to supplying end consumers. Essents
power stations and wind parks have a total
generation capacity of 6,000 megawatts.
Challenges
Increase computing capacity to better service
the processes
Reduce costs by standardizing and consolida-
ting IT infrastructure
Ensure high availability and performance
for business-critical systems such as
customer registration and energy
consumption forecasting, which is performed
every five minutes
Solution
Worked with Oracle Partner IBM
Nederland B.V. to implement an Oracle
Database grid with Oracle Real Application
Clusters on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
consisting of 28 Intel Xeon servers, each
with eight cores and 32 gigabytes of RAM
Achieved cost savings by migrating the
databases for large and critical applications,
such as financial reporting and energy con-
sumption, from DB2 on a mainframe to the
Oracle Database grid
Achieved availability of the Oracle Database
grid that is just as high as the mainframe
environment and established a disaster
recovery environment based on Oracle
Data Guard
Consolidated a large number of existing
Oracle databases that were running on
various machines and operating systems
Enabled SAP applications including SAP
Business Information Warehouse to run on
Oracle Real Application Clusters
Improved performance with more powerful
and cost effective hardware and the ability
to add central processing unit capacity
flexibly to the database grid
Outsourced management to partners IBM,
Getronics, and CIBER and leveraged Oracle
database packs for effective Oracle Database
grid management
Cut total cost of ownership by 50% with
cheaper hardware, better utilization of the
hardware, and simplified management
Industry:
Utilities
Annual Revenue:
US$1.26 billion
Employees:
6,000
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle Database
Oracle Real Application
Clusters
Oracle Partitioning
Oracle Diagnostic Pack
Oracle Tuning Pack
Oracle Configuration
Management Pack
Oracle Change
Management Pack
Oracle Provisioning Pack
Oracle Partner:
IBM Nederland B.V.
www.ibm.nl
Essent
Arnhem, The Netherlands
www.essent.nl
a KPN company
www.getronics.nl
SAP on RAC at Essent Netherl ands
IBMs
Fastest
Computer
SPARC
Computer
7x 6x
Faster
Response Time
Energy
Consumed
Building Faster Computers Building Smarter Planets
oracle.com/sunoraclefaster
Source: Transaction Processing Performance Council, www.tpc.org as of 11/3/09.
12-Node SPARC Enterprise T5440 server cluster, 7,646,486 tpmC, $2.36/tpmC, available 3/19/10.
IBM Power 595 Server Model 9119-FHA, 6,085,166 tpmC, $2.81/tpmC, available 12/10/08.
Copyright 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates.
Other names my be trademarks of their respective owners.
IQTest
46
S T E E L C A S E F I N D S C O MF O R T I N S A P P L AT F O R M
H P P AY P E R U S E S AV E D $ 9 0 0 , 0 0 0 O V E R T H R E E
Y E A R S
HP Integrity Superdome [servers] and Dual-Core [Intel

] Itanium

processors give us
the best price-performance ratio. Plus, HP Integrity is the next step in the evolution
of our SAP/Oracle

infrastructure.
J O N T A N N E R ,
Server Engineer, Steelcase Inc.
The leap to higher performance
Steelcase Inc. is known for innovationand
insight into the way people work. The Grand
Rapids, Michiganbased furniture manufacturer
succeeds in a global market through extensive
research and creative ideas about personal and
organizational productivity. Its Leap and Think
chairs, for example, are among the most ergono-
mic, attractive products in the world. Steelcases
leadership in creating a healthier, more pleasant
office environment has earned it a ranking in
2007 as one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens
by CRO magazine.
The US$2.9 billion office furniture company
leverages an SAP-based supply chain to link
more than 50 manufacturing facilities, 900
independent dealers, and approximately 16,000
employees worldwide. The companys North
American SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.7 system
interacts with company facilities in Asia
and Europe. Steelcase uses an SAP Business
Warehouse (BW), built on Oracle Database
10.2, to run large, complex queries for analysis,
planning, and reporting. The company chose
Oracle ten years ago as its premier database
because of Oracles market-leading performance,
integrity, and reliability.
Delivering a better user experience
Just as Steelcases laser-like focus has delivered
better work experiences to its customers, the
companys Application Technology Services
(ATS) group focuses on providing its internal
business users with a better work experience.
ATS sets its service-level agreements (SLAs)
at 99.99 percent uptime. To maintain these
levels, the staff leverages HP Services, HP
Integrity Superdome servers, HP-UX 11i,
and the HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE).
SAP is a very demanding, critical resource,
says Jon Tanner, Steelcases server engineer.
Through the years, HP has delivered the
capacity, reliability, and processing power to
run Steelcases SAP environment and roll out
new SAP tools in a timely manner. The
Integrity architecture gives us even more
performance and flexibility to drive up
resource utilization and further leverage our
IT investment.
HP customer case study:
HP Integrity Superdome servers
and Virtual Server Environment
deliver more performance and
flexibilityfor less
Industry:
Manufacturing
Technology at pace with growth
In the 1990s, the company ran its SAP system
and databases on the HP AlphaServer-Tru64
UNIX

architecture. In 2000, Steelcase

refurbished the platform with PA-RISC
processor-based HP 9000 rp-series and
Superdome servers running the HP-UX
operating system. To support additional SAP
initiatives four years later, including the SAP
Manufacturing module, the company migrated
to HP Integrity Superdome servers with
Intel

Itanium

processors under a three-year

lease through HP Financial Services.
Objective:
Gain more powerful, flexible, economical
performance for the companys SAP enterprise
resource planning (ERP) environment
Approach:
Migrate SAP and Oracle databases to HP
Integrity Superdome servers with the HP
Virtual Server Environment (VSE) for greater
flexibility and performance
Business technology improvements:
Greater utilization of computing resources
Consolidation of legacy and newer
applications in virtual partitions on
the same server
Dynamic alignment of computing resources
for varied application needs
Fewer physical servers
Less administration burden
Reduction in software images from 75 to 35
Business outcomes:
Lower TCOreduced support, maintenance,
administrative, and software costs
Investment protection for older legacy
applications
Faster response to IT demands
HP PPU savings of $900,000 over three
years compared to a straight lease
While affording substantial capacity and
flexibility, the change was cost-neutral
according to Tanner, with no impact on the
companys total cost of ownership and opera-
tional costs. We saw significant performance
increases. One user called and reported that
the job must have failed because it finished
too quickly, he says.
As the leases were about to expire, the staff
competitively bid the Integrity Superdome
servers against IBM AIX equipment. Again,
HP Superdome servers stood out as the best
choice due to their reliability, availability,
and price-performance ratio. Additionally,
by adopting the latest technology, Steelcase
lowered its maintenance expenditures.
Joint tenancy for processor architectures
For the recent migration, Orion Group
Software Engineers worked with HP Services
to size and design the Superdome solution.
Configured with three to four hard partitions
(nPars) and up to eight virtual partitions
(vPars) each, two servers support production,
while one server handles development tasks.
The development Superdome contains Single-
Core Intel Itanium 2 (9 MB cache) processors.
Using nPars and vPars, the staff can completely
isolate an application and migrate CPU
resources over to busier applications as needed.
These configurations resonate with Steelcase,
affording investment protection for older
legacy applications that must operate on PA-
8900 processor-based servers. The ability to
run certain legacy systems (a product ticketing
application and the Advanced Planning System,
which shop floor personnel use for detailed
scheduling) on virtual servers spares the staff
the trouble of upgrading applications and
purchasing new software licenses and support
contracts.
An HP Virtual Server
Environment and
HP-UX 11i allow us
to host even more
applications.
Jon Tanner,
Server Engineer,
Steelcase Inc.
SAP on Oracl e at Steel case, HP- UX
47
48
Superdomes partitioning features let us create
virtual servers and run our legacy applications
alongside newer applications, Tanner says.
An HP Virtual Server Environment enables
us to align our resources with different applica-
tion needs. Another nice thing is if we shift
to a Microsoft

platform, we can run it on

the Superdome, alongside HP-UX 11i. So we
have flexibility and investment protection.
HP VSE cushions costs
The HP Virtual Server Environment (VSE)
helps with SAP workload management. The
staff uses HP Global Workload Manager
(gWLM) to assign CPUs automatically to
multiple application workloadsincluding
to virtual and resource partitionsbased on
established policy and priorities. They also
use gWLM to move processing power around
to support the resource partitions and to
manage them manually, when necessary.
With gWLM, the staff controls virtual partition
resources from a single pane of glass, managing
workloads during failover by manually reas-
signing the workload definition to the failover
server.
The staff shifts processing power to compute-
hungry applications and manages multiple
workloads within a single operating system
instance with HP Process Resource Manager.
Steelcase also deployed HP Serviceguard,
which works as a failover mechanism in active-
active mode to guard servers, applications,
and virtual partitions. The software is a prac-
tical tool for managing Steelcases redundant
network links.
These dynamic resource capabilities, combined
with HP Pay per use (PPU) leasing through
HP Financial Services, provide Steelcase with
real-time access to reserve capacity for peak
workloads. Like many companies, Steelcase
must contend with variable SAP workloads that
undergo huge, relatively short spikes during
the day. PPU allows the company to pay only
a portion of the total cost, yet still have plenty
of capacity for processing demands.
The HP PPU program has already saved us
more than $900,000 during our previous
three-year lease vs. a straight lease program,
says Tanner. We anticipate more savings over
the next three years.
A pattern for reduced costs
Resource sharing, enabled by Integrity servers
and the VSE, helps streamline administration,
boost server utilization, and decrease software
outlays. The staff consolidated eight HP 9000
application servers on the new platform in
2006, thereby decreasing the number of
HP-UX 11i images and physical hardware
resources the company would need to purchase.
We shrunk our software footprint by half,
which also helps reduce the server admini-
stration burden and increase our teams
productivity. We couldnt continue our old
method of adding a server for every single
application and operating system with the
people resources we have today, Tanner says.
Within HP-UX 11i, Steelcase leverages
HP-UX Lightweight Directory Access Protocol
(LDAP)-UX Integration and Kerberos inter-
faces with a Microsoft Windows

Active
DirectoryHP ProLiant environment to provide
single-point user and security administration.
ProLiant servers run SAP front-end and Web
portal functions and extract data from the
back-end SAP/Oracle/Integrity systems.
ProLiant servers provide us the reliability
and availability that we like. We have the
same HP personnel servicing our ProLiant
and Integrity Superdome [servers], and we
are very pleased with the service we get,
says Tanner.
SAP on Oracl e at Steel case, HP- UX 49
It made sense to use top-notch, SAP-certified,
HP-UX-knowledgeable consultants, Tanner
notes. They went above and beyond in many
ways to educate and train us on how the pro-
ducts work. Steelcase also has an HP Proactive
24 Service contract for the Superdome envi-
ronment. We get HP technical service and
extended hardware support, adds Tanner,
that are also top-notch.
Just as office design and furniture can affect
personal and organizational productivity,
Steelcase knows that technology design
and infrastructure can influence company
productivity and impact the bottom line.
Investing in HP technology and services has
enabled us to grow and support our business.
Our senior management is pleased that we
are saving money as we provide responsive
support, Tanner concludes.
Little risk to operations
Steelcase is also pleased that HP Services
completed the changeover to the Integrity
Superdome architecture in just a month
with little risk to operations. As part of our
migration plan, HP Services maintained both
the HP 9000 and Integrity infrastructures side
by side so if we had issues, we could fall back
to the original equipment, Tanner recalls.
The implementation was surprisingly clean.
There werent any issues.
Steelcase has tapped HP consultants and
engineers in the past, for previous SAP
migrations and for assistance in transitioning
several Microsoft Windowsbased applications
to HP-UX 11i.
Virtualized, powerful, flexible computing for SAP
business processes
Primary applications
SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.7: Financials, Business Warehouse
(BW), Sales and Distribution, Shop Maintenance,
Procurement, Human Resources, Supply Chain
Management, Portal, Advanced Planner and Optimizer
(APO)
Primary hardware
3 HP Integrity Superdome servers
(24 Dual-Core Intel Itanium processors,
PA-8900 processors, 32 Single-Core
Intel Itanium 2 (9 MB cache) processors
5 HP 9000 servers
200 HP ProLiant servers
Primary software
HP Virtual Server Environment: Global Workload
Manager (gWLM),HP Process Resource Manager
(PRM), nPars (hard partitions), vParsvirtual partitions),
and Pay per use (PPU)
HP-UX 11i v2 operating system
HP Serviceguard clustering software
Oracle Database 10.2
VMware ESX Server (ProLiant servers)
Microsoft Windows 2003 (ProLiant servers)
HP Services
HP Care Pack services (Proactive 24 Service)
Pay per use leasing through HP Financial Services
C U S T O ME R S O L U T I O N AT A G L A N C E
50
C O N N E C T R I A MA N A G E D H O S T I N G A N D O R A C L E
R E A L A P P L I C AT I O N C L U S T E R S ( R A C ) D E L I V E R S
MA X I MU M U P T I ME F O R D E MA N D I N G E N V I R O N ME T S
Oracle RAC and Connectria customized managed hosting is an ideal combination of reliability
and scalability demanded by our SaaS solution.
J O H N P AT T O N ,
Managing Partner, VQS
VQS and ProgramScope
VQS is the developer of ProgramScope software,
a SaaS-based program management solution.
Development of ProgramScope started in 1997
with the idea to create a new standard in pro-
gram management software systems. Since
that time VQSs development team has conti-
nued to aggressively develop additional feature
sets and performance enhancements for its
customers in the Telecommunications industry.
ProgramScope has successfully reduced
customer budgets by 60%, as compared to
local Access databases or Excel spreadsheet
initiatives.
As a SaaS solution, ProgramScope enables
customers to rapidly implement the software
without internal IT support under a cost-
effective monthly subscription model. End
users are able to securely access ProgramScope
software 24/7 via the Internet.
Because ProgramScope is a mission-critical
application, VQSs customers depend upon
the continuous availability of the solution. As
a result, VQS engineered ProgramScope with
Oracle RAC architecture. VQS also wanted
to concentrate upon its core capabilities which
is developing and marketing software not
operating and supporting IT infrastructure.
Thus, it chose Connectria to host and manage
the Program-Scope solution.
Connectrias custom SaaS Managed Hosting
solution allowed VQS to immediately begin
offering its ProgramScope software to a broader
market, without having to build and maintain
a complex technology infrastructure or operate
a 24/7 support organization. A key component
of Connectrias custom SaaS Managed Hosting
solution was a flat monthly pricing model that
allowed VQS to accurately budget its costs and
build a profitable business model for its SaaS
offering. Connectrias ability to completely
tailor its support services to meet VQSs unique
requirements was another key component in
VQSs successful SaaS offering.
Industry:
Managed Hosting and
Data Center Outsourcing
Data Centers:
St. Louis, MO (2)
Philadelphia, PA (1)
Oracle Products & Services:
Oracle Database 10g
Oracle Database 11g
Oracle Real Application
Clusters (RAC)
Oracle Clusterware
Key Benefits:
Hosting allows IT /
management to focus
upon business needs
Oracle and Oracle RAC
expertise as an extension
of your organization
More flexibility and
scalability in use of SAP
Greater SAP stability /
high availability and
performance
Corporate Headquarters:
10845 Olive Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63141
314-587-7000 (Phone)
800-781-7820 (Toll-free)
www.connectria.com
info@connectria.com
Oracl e Partner Connectri a 51
As part of the Software as a Service (SaaS)
implementation, Connectrias engineers
provided comprehensive configuration and
integration support to assist VQS during its
launch, allowing VQS to greatly minimize
its risk. Connectria also provides 24/7 Moni-
toring, Management and Administration of
the Program Scope web front-end and Oracle
Database 11i infrastructure hosted within
Connectrias enterprise class data centers.
Connectria Managed Hosting and
Data Center Outsourcing
As an award-winning Oracle Hosting Provider,
Connectria has a strong background in 24/7
business-critical Oracle hosting, including
Oracle RAC environments, from its fault-
tolerant World Class Data Centers.
Many companies, including Oracle, rely upon
Connectria to host and manage Oracle database
environments. Running complex Oracle
environments requires an experienced technical
staff with a strong knowledge of Oracle pro-
ducts, database clustering and load balancing
technologies.
Connectria is also an experienced SAP applica-
tion hosting provider, with notable customers
such as Paramount Studios and Caterpillars
dealer network. SAP representatives and
customers interested in more information
may contact Connectria as indicated below.
Connectria Corporation
East Regional Headquarters
1060 First Avenue, Suite 400
King of Prussia, PA 19406 USA
267-523-5723 Office
610-757-5896 Mobile
sazzolina@connectria.com
52
Industry:
Manufacturing
Business Issues:
Support global growth
through dependable IT
services
Minimize IT expenditures
Extend lifespan of older
servers and storage arrays
Enhance availability and
stability
Enable innovation
Solution:
Dow Corning is able to
virtualize and manage servers
quickly and efficiently by
exploiting the Containers and
ZFS features in the Solaris 10
Operating System as a key
part of its adaptive computing
model. Further, the Solaris 10
OS has enabled Dow Corning
to substantially reduce IT costs
to support global growth.
D O W C O R N I N G C O R P O R AT I O N D E V E L O P S ,
MA N U F A C T U R E S A N D MA R K E T S A WI D E
P O R T F O L I O O F S I L I C O N - B A S E D P R O D U C T S
A N D S E R V I C E S
The stability of Solaris 10 has been simply outstanding. Its delivered additional key
functionality while continuing to provide the same outstanding level of availability to which
weve become accustomed.
K E N K A R L S ,
Manager of Network and Datacenter Engineering,
Dow Corning
Headquartered in Midland, Michigan, the
company offers more than 7,000 products
used in the manufacture of everything from
cosmetics to medical devices. About 50
percent of the companys annual sales occur
outside the United States.
Success at a glance
Industry leader Dow Corning makes more
than 7,000 types of compounds and industrial
ingredients for everything from cosmetics to
medical devices. In order to meet the needs
of its thousands of customers globally, it has
come to rely on rock-solid stability of its
global SAP infrastructurethe core of which
runs on Solaris.
To support operations at its 47 locations
worldwide, the company depends on applica-
tions such as SAP and Oracle Database 10g,
hosted on 110 Sun and third-party Solaris
based servers connected to 250 terabytes of disk
storage. Most of this infrastructure runs on the
Solaris 10 Operating System and is managed
by an IT Unix team of just three people. To
succeed, the team relies on Solaris 10 OS
features that enable virtualization, remote
management and a self-healing file system.
A key feature is Solaris Containers. Theyre
flexible, software-defined boundaries that can
be used to create virtual servers, so that
multiple environments can run on a single
server box. Solaris Containers now enable 130
virtual servers to be housed on 36 physical
servers. Virtualization has allowed us to
avoid the purchase of approximately $2 million
as compared to the traditional computing
model, says Ken Karls, manager of network
and datacenter engineering at Dow Corning.
Dow Corning has adopted a modular approach
to capacity, acquiring blocks of server resources
in anticipation to near term demand. Once
installed, these resources are allocated and
deployed using Solaris 10 Containers and ZFS.
In the past, Id have to send out individual
RFPs and POs for each request and the process
took four to six weeks, remembers Gene
Down, Senior Infrastructure Engineer at Dow
Corning. Now, I can meet the need for a new
server image in less than two hours. From a
customer viewpoint, the company is not only
saving money, but the deployment time has
been reduced by 99%.
Containers also support the companys data-
bases. We move our production data often.
We extract it from one database, back it up,
and move it to another Oracle instance. It is
much easier using Containers, since all my
Oracle instances have the same user ID num-
bers and naming conventions.
Remote offices can also be provisioned at
dramatic savings. IT can buy a single server,
which supports up to 10 Solaris Containers.
The local site gains the flexibility of 10 virtual
servers, while the team has to purchase and
manage only one. As a result, Dow Cornings
total cost of ownership (TCO) for deploying
and managing remote servers has been reduced
by 50 percent.
Another key Solaris 10 OS feature for the team
is the ZFS file system, which streamlines the
companys global IBM Tivoli Storage Manager
data protection environment. ZFS is enabling
50 percent disk compression on the fly, so in
a sense were getting 50 percent more storage
capacity, Down says. And it ensures data
integrity with a self-healing checksum feature
that catches any silent data corruption we may
have in older storage arrays. That lets us extend
the lifespan of three older disk arrays that wed
otherwise retire. By not replacing them, we
save $75,000. And were using the ZFS file
system to pool their 34 terabytes. We have
re-purposed them as the equivalent of a virtual
tape library, enabling disk-to-disk-to tape
data protection while avoiding a six-figure
expenditure for a new library.
The ZFS file system is also being deployed on
new servers and storage systems, such as the
Sun StorageTek 6140 array and 2540 arrays
being used for Oracle, TSM and Documentum.
Since the ZFS file system can be used to pool
storage elements into volumes, Dow Corning
is starting to replace the Veritas Storage
Foundation software.
Another advantage for the team in working
with Sun was using Suns partner competency
centers to pilot installation techniques. Weve
used the competency centers a lot, especially
when we were getting started, Down recalls.
Often, we would have Oracle people sitting
right beside Sun and SAP people to solve a
problem, or figure out the best upgrade path.
The impact that the UNIX IT team has made
using Solaris 10 OS has been recognized with
one of four awards Dow Corning gives annually
for outstanding IT improvements within the
company. External consultants have recognized
the IT teams achievements, too. They deter-
mined that were delivering service at a sub-
stantially lower TCO than the benchmark
companies with which we are being compared,
Down concludes.
Business Results:
$2 million in server hardware
cost avoidance
99% reduction in server
deployment time (4-6 weeks
reduced to 2 hours)
50% reduction in total cost of
ownership providing and
managing remote servers
50% gain in storage capacity
where Solaris 10 ZFS file
system disk compression is
utilized
$50,000 saved in storage
purchase avoidance due to
Solaris ZFS file system
Six-figure virtual tape library
purchase avoided due to the
Solaris 10 OS
No unplanned production
system downtime in the past
1.5 years
Products/Services/Solutions:
Solaris 10 Operating System
Sun Fire V215 Server
Sun Fire V445 Server
Sun StorageTek 6140 Array
Sun StorageTek 2540 Array
Sun StorageTek 9990V
System
SAP on Oracl e at Dow Corni ng 53
54
Profile: Bauerfeind AG
Bauerfeind AG is a leading manufacturer of
medical aids such as compression stockings,
supports, orthoses, orthopedic insoles and shoes,
prosthetic components and measuring techno-
logy. The midsize family business, founded
in Zeulenroda, Germany in 1929, employs
around 1650 people at two sites in Germany
(Zeulenroda and Remscheid) and at 15 subsi-
diaries in Europe, the U.S. and the United
Arab Emirates. Its products are marketed
around the world by over 70 distributors.
Since 2005 there has also been an online
ordering system for German-speaking trade
partners.
In IT, good design is everything
Bauerfeind, now in its 80th year, is a highly
innovative company with no less than five
awards to its credit for product innovation
and design. The JT20 prosthetic knee joint
won the iF gold award, the iF product design
award and the red dot design award.
The SofTec

Coxa hip orthosis was also honored

with the iF product design award and the
red dot design award. As well as assessing the
overall design the jury was also interested in
the degree of innovation, functionality, and
durability of the product.
Bauerfeind utilizes powerful IT systems across
all business areas, and the IT team is conti-
nually evaluating key factors such as constant
availability, speed, flexibility, agility, low costs,
and minimal maintenance. It was for this
reason that Bauerfeind became an early adopter
of leading SAP and Oracle solutions, and in
fact we previously reported on the companys
successful use of the Oracle Database index
compression option.
The Oracle RAC cluster solution is an excellent way of increasing scalability and system
stability while reducing administrative workload. The whole system scales extremely
well and peak loads are now a rare occurrence. We also saved a lot of money on hardware
and third-party licenses. I warmly recommend Oracle RAC for SAP.
A L E X A N D E R K F E R L E I N ,
Data Centre/SAP Basis Manager, Bauerfeind AG
R E D U C E D A D MI N I S T R AT I V E WO R K L O A D
A N D C O S T S
Industry:
Manufacturer of medical aids
(compression stockings sup-
ports, orthoses, orthopedic
insoles and shoes,prosthetic
components)
Workforce:
1650 worldwide
Oracle Products:
Oracle Database 10g (10.2.04),
Oracle RAC Real Application
Clusters, 4 nodes
Benefits:
Excellent scalability
Assurance of constant
availability, better than
with HACMP technology
Reduced administrative
workload and costs
Lower hardware and license
costs (HACMP / TSM)
Straightforward imple-
mentation
SAP:
40 central systems, ERP
ECC6.0, Internet Sales 5.0,
CRM 4.0 with Mobile Sales,
NetWeaver 2004s, (BI 7.0,
XI 7.0, EP 7.0), Solution
Manager, GTS 7.1
Infrastructure:
IBM: 2x Power 570 (16 CPUs,
196GB RAM), 2x Power6 570
(8 CPUs, 92GB), 2x Power 520
GPFS tiebreaker nodes, 8x
JS22 Blade Power6 (4 CPUs,
32GB), 2 mirrored SVC clusters
in SAN. Operating system AIX
5.3 TL8 / 6.1 TL2 SP2, LPARs
uncapped
Bauerfeind AG + Projekt
www.bauerfeind.com
24 x 7 x 365
The dynamically evolving markets created by
globalization are confronting businesses with
new challenges in relation to their IT landsca-
pes. The company simply cannot afford a system
failure or excessive response times for its web
portal (used 24 hours a day, 365 days a year)
and all other critical software applications.
The computing resources of the 40 central
SAP systems need to respond quickly to
changing load requirements. This presents
Bauerfeinds IT team with an ongoing chal-
lenge. Added to this are the roundthe- clock
availability requirements and ever smaller
maintenance windows for updates, backups
and troubleshooting. The workload this placed
on the SAP Basis administration team, who
often had to cram a lot of work into one week-
end, coupled with the companys dissatisfaction
with the existing HACMP cluster solution,
meant that a new, powerful, easy-to-use cluster
solution was needed.
The aim was to achieve better scalability
(allowing the system to be expanded by simply
adding new hardware instead of costly replace-
ments), greater system stability, a reduction in
administrative workload, and a reduction in
the costs of licenses and IT infrastructure.
Fast migration, excellent scalability
Impressed with the Oracle Database as the
standard database for SAP, in April 2008 the
company began evaluating the Oracle RAC
technology and ways of implementing it for
SAP. After attending a workshop at the Oracle
Database for SAP Global Technology Center
in Walldorf, Germany and quickly obtaining
SAP approval, it was decided in June 2008 to
introduce the new cluster solution. The team
headed up by Alexander Kferlein opted for
SAP BW/BI as a suitable entry-level system.
Once the system had been converted to Unicode
and the GPFS was up and running, the Oracle
RAC tests got underway in September 2008.
Encouraged by the promising first results,
and the excellent support from Oracle SAP
experts, the team successfully converted the
BI development and QA system to Oracle
RAC in October/November 2008. To validate
the planned next steps it was decided to perform
more availability and flexibility tests. The
results were so successful that the first two
RAC cluster nodes with SAP BW/BI went
into productive operation on IBM Power6 570
in December 2008.
Impressed by the smoothness of the conversion
process and the resulting benefits, from
December to January the team began to port
the SAP ERP development and QA system.
There were a few teething problems with
performance, but these were quickly resolved
by increasing the shared_pool_size to 3GB,
adding new database patches (including
blocking at database level), additional tuning
in the GPFS, and updating various database
parameters. Since the end of January 2009,
SAP BI and the ERP QA / development system
have been in smooth, powerful productive
operation on two nodes. Remarkably, this was
after a testing and conversion phase of just
four months.
There have even been
cases where neither we
nor our users have noticed
a cluster node failure
because with Oracle RAC
the system balances itself
so well on the remaining
servers!
Alexander Kferlein,
Data Centre/ SAP Basis
Manager at Bauerfeind AG.
SAP on RAC at Bauerf ei nd 55
56
Great scalability, but what about the costs?
Taking full advantage of the scalability of the
Oracle RAC cluster solution, in March 2009
Bauerfeind replaced the existing IBM Power6
570 servers with low-cost IBM JS22 blades.
This added two smaller database instances the
existing two RAC nodes to make a total of four
nodes. As a result the company was able to
eliminate the TSM license fees while benefiting
from the excellent scalability of the overall
system. Peak loads are now a rare occurrence.
Alexander Kferlein comments: There have
even been cases where neither we nor our users
have noticed a cluster node failure because with
Oracle RAC the system balances itself so well
on the remaining servers! And as he points
out, it is obviously essential to have enough
application servers.
Benefits gained- Excellent scalability
Assurance of constant availability, better
than with HACMP technology
Reduced administrative workload and costs
Lower hardware and license costs
(no HACMP/ no TSM)
Straightforward implementation
Users do not notice any failures that
do occur
Goal achieved
Moving on
As a result of the consistently good results
achieved, and in particular the excellent
support from the Oracle Database SAP
technology team in Walldorf, SAP ERP
with Oracle RAC went into productive
operation in June 2009. Bauerfeinds other
systems with high availability requirements
are to follow suit by the end of 2009.
Once that is complete, Alexander Kferlein
is sure to be reporting back on the process
at SAP and Oracle events and sharing some
invaluable tips.
oracle.com/sap
saponoracle_de@oracle.com
Only Oracle Database11g
Release2 provides for
SAPcustomers
Copyright 2010, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its a affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Oracle the # 1 Database for Deploying SAP Applications
Oracle other DBs
Fully integrated, platform independent active-active
clustering solution for both SAP and database through
RAC and Clusterware/SAPCTL
Enhanced Add COLUMN Functionality
High Performance NAS Storage through Direct NFS
Online Patching
Real Application Testing Option
Updatable Standby Database
RMAN Backup Compression, RMAN Backup Encryption
SecureFile out-of-line LOB data compression
Deferred Segments Creations
Disk-Based Bitmap Indexes
Tablespace Encryption
Data Guard Secure Network Transport
Database Vault
Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)
58
O U R S A P C U S T O ME R S R U N O R A C L E
F R E U D E N B E R G I T D E L I V E R S S MB S A P H O S T I N G
S O L U T I O N S O N O R A C L E R D B MS
Freudenberg IT relies on its years of SAP/Oracle
hosting expertise and its unique dual data center
concept to guarantee large enterprise service
levels to SMBs - but at SMB prices.
We support SAP applications on HP-UX, AIX,
Linux, and Windows platforms with the Oracle
database, we are able to deliver the value, secu-
rity, reliability, and scalability our customers
require, stated Scott LaBouliere, SVP of
Hosting Operations for Freudenberg IT USA.
Why Freudenberg IT prefers Oracle RDBMS
Rock solid operational reliability
Highly scalable regardless of database sizes
Supported across multiple operating systems
Platform independent
Established monitoring and management
tools integrate into Freudenberg ITs Global
Active Monitoring System
Architecture designed for multi-user
Enterprise level I/O
Excellent disaster recovery options
Freudenberg IT is committed to providing
SAP hosting services to small-to-medium
sized businesses (SMBs) since larger outsour-
cing service providers often fail to provide the
correct balance of service quality and price
that is demanded by SMBs. Freudenberg IT
maintains its own data centers and full-time
employees and does not subcontract SAP
operations. In addition they have:
SAP/Oracle hosting focus and expertise
(certified SAP Global Hosting Partner)
Standard dual data center concept in all
locations worldwide for cost effective disaster
prevention/recovery as a standard customer
service offering
4-zone security model (building, office,
datacenter, logical) with access control and
24/7 camera surveillance
Redundancies in the data center
infrastructure (Power, UPS, HVAC,
communication lines)
Standardized platforms and vendor
agreements worldwide (SAP, Oracle, IBM,
HP, EMC, NetApp, VMware, Cisco)
Standardized proactive monitoring and
support of all hosted systems worldwide
24/7 International Call Center using a
Follow-the- Sun concept
Flexible service level agreements with
performance penalties
Data centers located in Germany, China,
and United States wherever your business
may be.
Freudenberg IT LP
601 Keystone Park Drive,
Suite 600 Morrisville,
North Carolina 27560
Phone: +1 (866)-705-6385
Fax: +1 (919) 321-0258
info@freudenberg-it.com
www.freudenberg-it.com
Hosti ng wi th Oracl e at Freudenberg I T 59
SAP/Oracle Hosting Service Packages
Freudenberg IT has developed two main service
offerings that incorporate standard disaster
recovery using its dual data center concept.
The two data centers are connected with fiber
optic connections (owned and operated by
Freudenberg IT). This avoids the high tele-
communication costs typically incurred when
maintaining a Disaster Recovery concept
between two data centers (Note: there is no
usage charge for this line). Standard to all
hosted systems, regardless of which data center
they are in, is tape library backup to the other
data center. Additionally, all hosted 3-system
SAP landscapes will have their Quality Assu-
rance system located in the other data center.
In this way, Freudenberg IT has standardized
disaster recovery for all of its customers at no
additional charge.
In the case where the data center with a
Production system becomes inoperable, the
Quality Assurance system along with the tape
backups can be used to recreate the Production
system and bring it online. In the case where
the data center with the Quality Assurance
system and the tape backups becomes inopera-
ble, the Production and Development systems
will still be running. The Quality Assurance
system will be recreated and the tape backups
redirected to the tape drive unit in the remai-
ning data center.
SAP Application servers are allocated to
customer SAP systems based on the number
of SAP users. These application servers are
also distributed between both data centers so
that at least half the Application Servers will
still be available in the case where one of the
data centers becomes inoperable. Freudenberg
IT does not charge extra when additional
application servers are required to maintain
agreed upon service levels.
Freudenberg IT is responsible for all LAN lines
within each data center. WAN lines into each
data center can either be dedicated to each
customer or shared (i.e. Freudenberg IT Inter-
net Lines using SONET with multiple path
redundancy) using VPN access. The choice of
network security concept, communication line
carrier, data line type, bandwidth, associated
network devices, the backup data line method,
and actual location of the WAN entry point
(the customers location(s) and/or a Freudenberg
IT data center) is mutually agreed upon bet-
ween the customer and Freudenberg IT and is
defined in the hosting contract service levels.
Hyper-FIT ERP Hosting Package
This hosting package is designed for customers
looking to run their SAP applications on the
highly-scalable Intel architecture. The hardware
platform is HP/Intel servers running Linux or
Windows with an Oracle database. System
Availability commitments range from 99. 5%
to 99.9%. These platforms run with a shared
EMC or NetApp enterprise storage device.
Virtualization Option: This architecture pro-
vides added flexibility in load-balancing and
enables capabilities to reduce both planned
and unplanned outages. This architecture can
support either Windows or Linux, and utilizes
virtualization capabilities through bare-metal
products.
High-Availability Option: This architecture
leverages virtualization capabilities through
bare-metal products, as well as advanced
enter-prise storage solutions. Data mirroring
is used across the two data centers, supported
with stand-by virtual servers at the opposite
data center. This provides for an Availability
of 99.9%, and an improved Recovery Time
Objective (RTO), and Recovery Point Objective
(RPO) beyond the standard 24 hours and 4
hours respectively.
Our average production
system availability since
2005 has been over 99.97%
with Oracle we are able
to deliver the value, security,
reliability, and scalability
our customers require.
Scott LaBouliere,
SVP of Hosting Operations
for Freudenberg IT USA
60
FIT Professional ERP Hosting Package
This hosting package is designed for a higher
level of hardware redundancy. The hardware
platform is either HPs Integrity servers run-
ning HP-UX, or IBM p-series servers running
AIX. Each of these servers run with an Oracle
database and a shared EMC or NetApp enter-
prise storage device.
Advanced Mirror Option: This add-on
package is for customers with large amounts
of data who need to reduce RTO and the RPO
even further. The Professional package is en-
hanced with immediate and automatic mirro-
ring of data at the CPU/OS level to 2 SAN
storage devices one in each data center.
(CPU/OS-based mirroring is used for server
boot disks as well). When the Production
system and/or data center becomes inoperable,
the SAN storage device in the other data center
contains the entire customers data up to the
last successful data write transaction. It is
reconfigured and attached to the Quality
Assurance system, the SAP instance is started
and brought up as the recovery Production
system. SAN-based RPO is less than 1 minute.
Similar capabilities are offered by our NAS
storage solutions as well.
Plus Shadow Option: This add-on package
is for customers with large amounts of data
who need to reduce overall RTO and RPO
who also need a low RTO and RPO when
logical database errors occur (e.g. user error
resulting in mass deletion of master data).
The entire production (active) SAP landscape
is shadowed with a passive SAP landscape in
the other data center. Using Oracle Data
Guard in Redo Apply mode, DB redo logs are
copied to the shadow landscape on a regular
basis. At pre-determined periods (e.g. every
4 hours) the redo logs will be applied to the
shadow database to keep it consistent with
the Production database. This increases system
availability to 99.9% or higher. When the
customer becomes aware of a logical database
error, they immediately contact Freudenberg
IT with a critical call. Hosting personnel
immediately shutdown the shadowing process.
After analysis of the redo logs, the shadow
database can be updated to reflect the pro-
duction database just before the logical error
occurred. The shadow system becomes the
Production system and original Production
system will be recreated and assume the role
of shadow system. Shadow-based RTO is less
than 1 hour (no need to reconfigure the Quality
Assurance system or attach the other SAN
storage device) and RPO is less than 1 minute
before the logical error (but all data entered
after the logical error will not be available in
the shadow database so the customer must
have all SAP users cease their work as soon as
the logical error is detected).
Interested in a cost-effective SAP/Oracle
hosting solution? Please contact:
info@freudenberg-it.com
www.freudenberg-it.com
Dual Data Center Concept Diagram
Freudenberg IT specializes in SAP hosting, SAP and MES consulting, and EDI. As an international SMB IT service provider, Freudenberg IT has
16 different office locations in North America, Europe and Asia and operates SAP-certified data center locations in Durham, North Carolina;
Weinheim, Germany; Suzhou, China; and Singapore, and Malaysia. Freudenberg IT holds SAP Hosting and Services Partnerships along with SAP
Special Expertise Partnerships in Business Intelligence, CRM, BPC, HCM, Enterprise Portals, Financial Supply Chain Management and NetWeaver.
Freudenberg IT has also developed its own MES (Manufacturing Execution System) solution called the Adicom Software Suite, which ensures the
seamless flow of real-time information between the plant floor and the enterprise in the areas of Logistics, Production and Labor Management.
Hosti ng wi th Oracl e at Freudenberg I T
Oracl e Partner Del ta Consul ti ng 61
Delta
For additional
information regarding
Delta Consulting,
please visit our website
at www.go-delta.com
or contact:
Jack Tomb, Partner at
610-558-1730.
Delta Consulting, Inc. is an SAP-focused consultancy offering extensive SAP consulting
services and Software Components for its SAP Customer Base. Delta has a deep rooted
belief that the successful implementation of an SAP solution involves much more than
installing software it requires the integration of people, processes and technology.
Our extensive SAP expertise and multi-disciplinary business backgrounds makes Delta
consultants uniquely qualified to effectively deliver a broad range of SAP solutions.
D E L T A C O N S U L T I N G
As a certified SAP Services Partner for over
11 years and a member of the Oracle Preferred
Partner Program (OPP), Delta Consulting is
pleased to announce its selection by Oracle
to extend its agreement to provide support
services for Oracle Real Application Clusters
(RAC). Using SAP with Oracle RAC offers
a unique solution for SAP customers already
running Oracle by providing them with a total
solution that provides high availability and
scalability. Our team includes highly skilled
and experienced Oracle DBAs who are trained
and certified in SAP basis administration.
Oracle Database 11g is the highly scalable and
reliable database for mission critical SAP solu-
tions. Our commitment and focus on this
technology enables Delta Consulting to bring
the best practices for migrating an existing
SAP installation from a single instance Oracle
database to a multiple instance Oracle RAC
cluster database configuration.
Services to be provided by Delta Consulting
include:
RAC Implementations
Database Migrations
Tuning and Performance Optimization
Backup/Recovery and Hot Standby Solutions
Over two-thirds of all mid-sitze to high-end
SAP customers run their applications on Oracle.
With SAPs endorsement and certification of
Oracle Database 11g, the motivation to im-
plement RAC include:
Higher Availability
New Requirements
Maintenance window negotiation
More and more work places rely
on SAP ERP
More Flexibility
Dynamical growth by adding servers
Better reuse of equipment
Cost Savings
Buy cheaper servers (scale out)
Reduce maintenance costs
Want to increase the ROI on your existing
SAP system? Working with Delta Consulting,
we can help you explore areas where you can
leverage industry best practices and make
current processing even more efficient. We
offer a wide array to help you take advantage
of your SAP investment.
Delta Consulting, Inc.
5 Christy Drive, Suite 109
Chadds Ford, PA 19317
Toll Free: 1-888-461-5553
Phone: 1-610-558-1730
E-mail: info@go-delta.com
Website: www.go-delta.com
62
I T S T R AT E G Y A N D T R A N S F O R MAT I O N : A L L 4 I T ' S
S T R AT E G I C I T E F F E C T I V E N E S S P R O F E S S I O N A L S
H E L P O R G A N I Z AT I O N S O P T I MI Z E I N V E S T ME N T S ,
T R A N S F O R M C A P A B I L I T I E S A N D A C H I E V E
G R E AT E R B U S I N E S S V A L U E F R O M I T
Founded in 1997, All4it was surrounded by
senior consultants to issue an advisory service
for high value-added technology around the
Oracle database for SAP: Consulting,
technology and outsourcing.
Through large projects at the enterprise level,
All4it now offers a range of vertical services,
from physical infrastructure, to the business
borders of the information systems.
In particular, All4it has managed to distinguish
this market that supports projects involving
very large databases and infrastructure SAP
and respecting the strength core business of
its customers. Specifically, All4it led many
successful ECC/ Oracle database migrations
and major implementations of new Oracle
features (RAC, partitioning, charset migration,
environment split/ merge, key index com-
pression, Flashback, Data Guard, and now,
Database Vault) in compliance with the rules
of SAP ERP and BI support.
The partnership between Oracle database &
SAP and All4it is historic. First, from the
origin of its employees and then thanks to
the permanent will to better meet its
customers utilizing the technologies offered
by Oracle. Recently Decathlon, leader in
distribution of sports items, was wining by
the acquisition of SAP Award, thanks to
migration ECC5.0 conducted jointly with
All4it.
Today, as part of strategy partners, Oracle
chose All4it for its ability to manage end-to-
end projects.
From a practical point of view, All4it invested
in programs Oracle for SAP Organization:
Global Technology Center, RAC training
program, to be perpetually aware of best
practices.
In Paris at the event Fujitsu-Siemens to the
Palais des Congrs (FSC- Future IT), All4it
was implementing a platform RAC-10g/ SAP-
ECC6 to demonstrate the capabilities of solution
FlexFrame for SAP Solution.
In summary, the success of All4it builds on
the following key drivers:
- Understanding of the issues customers
upstream phase of study and design
- Project monitoring and control
- Proposals of the best technologies, federation,
implementation, skills transfer
- Integration of technologies offered by
manufacturers like IBM, HP and others
and finally propose optimizations in
outsourcing of the operation to free up
budgets ...
Industry:
Consulting & outsourcing
Locations:
Luxembourg
Belgium
France
Annual Revenue:
12,5 M
Employees:
135
For additional information
regarding All4it, please visit
our website at www.All4it.com,
or contact Olivier Lambert at
+33 6 08 73 09 92
All4it Group
All4it focuses his offer on a SAP ERP on Oracle database delivery solutions
Oracl e Partner Al l 4i t Group
oracle.com/sap
saponoracle_de@oracle.com
Source: IDC, Worldwide Relational Database Management Systems 2007 Vendor Shares , IDC #212840, June 2008.
Copyright 2009, Oracle. All rights reserved. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its a affiliates.
Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Database
1
Vendor Share
Oracle 44.3%
IBM
21%
Microsoft
18,5%
Oracle Database
Trusted by 280,000 Customers Worldwide
#
64
Keywords:
Data recovery, SAP, Data Guard, LogMiner, Flashback
Query, high availability, user error, application error,
logical corruptions, physical corruptions, corrupt
blocks.
About FIT:
Freudenberg IT is the international IT service provider
for outsourcing and consulting around SAP and
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). Pre-con-
figured SAP Solutions offer the security of global
operating standards combined with specific client
requirements. The IT service provider designs,
implements and optimizes IT infrastructures, runs
IT-systems in an SAP environment and has developed
its own MES-solution, the Adicom

Software Suite.
With a sales share of more than two thirds in the
independent market, Freudenberg IT is the most
successful German IT spin-off. The company
employs more than 500 associates at 16 locations in
Europe, America and Asia. The IT service provider
is part of the Freudenberg Group.
D AT A R E C O V E R Y WI T H O R A C L E D AT A G U A R D , L O G MI N E R
A N D F L A S H B A C K Q U E R Y I N A N S A P E N V I R O N ME N T
1. Introduction
Oracle Data Guard, LogMiner and Flashback Query
are standard functionalities of Oracle Enterprise
Edition. Oracle Data Guard is Oracles foremost
disaster recovery solution. Freudenberg IT uses Oracle
Data Guard to protect SAP systems running on Oracle.
As well as offering protection against corruptions in
the file system, at Freudenberg IT, Data Guard also
protects against logical errors caused by defective user
programs. Changes to the production system only take
effect in the physical standby database after a set delay
of several hours, in a process known as a delayed
apply. Oracle LogMiner allows redo logs to be ana-
lyzed. This analysis enables the reconstruction of the
SQL statements created when the data was changed
and the associated UNDO statements. Correct data-
sets can then be recovered from a given point should
any logical errors occur. Oracle Flashback Query is one
variant of the Flashback technologies that form part
of Oracle Database. It allows you to query table con-
tent at a point in the recent past using information
in the UNDO tablespace. Freudenberg IT also uses
Flashback Query to reconstruct original data after a
program error. This article explores the Oracle Data
Guard, Oracle Flashback Query and Oracle LogMiner
technologies. The practical benefits are illustrated by
means of case studies where customer datasets have
been successfully recovered with the aid of these basic
technologies. The challenge in the examples described
was that, owing to the particular error situations, it
was not possible to simply restore the entire database
from a backup. Instead, it was necessary to restore
individual data areas (i.e. individual tables or parts of
table content) without affecting or destroying other,
still intact fields.
D R . T H I M O B A S T U C K
Freudenberg IT
Weinheim, Germany
65
2. Oracle Data Guard, LogMiner and Flashback
Query: An Overview
High Availability of the whole infrastructure as well
as reliability of customer data is top priority for any
business that provides SAP hosting to end customers.
Successful data recovery after an unforeseen error
depends on an in-depth knowledge of SAP products
and the database technologies they are based on.
Oracle Database offers numerous functionalities for
building high-availability, fault-tolerant systems.
Freudenberg IT uses Oracle Data Guard, LogMiner
and Flashback Query in many hosted customer SAP
systems.
2.1 Oracle Data Guard
Oracle Data Guard ensures high availability, data
protection, and disaster recovery for enterprise data.
Data Guard provides a comprehensive set of services
that create, maintain, manage, and monitor one or
more standby databases to enable production Oracle
databases to survive disasters and data corruptions.
Data Guard maintains these standby databases as
copies of the production database. Then, if the pro-
duction database becomes unavailable because of a
planned or an unplanned outage, Data Guard can
switch any standby database to the production role,
minimizing the downtime associated with the outage.
With Data Guard, administrators can optionally im-
prove production database performance by offloading
resource-intensive backup and reporting operations to
standby systems. Data Guard is part of Oracle Enter-
prise Edition. Beginning with Oracle Database 11g
Data Guard enables read-only access to the physical
standby database for queries while continuously ap-
plying changes. This requires a license for the Active
Data Guard option. Data Guard may be combined
with other Oracle high-availability functionalities
such as Real Application Clusters (RAC), Flashback
Database and Recovery Manager (RMAN).
2.2 Oracle LogMiner
LogMiner is an Oracle Database component that has
been available since Version 8i. It provides an inter-
face for analyzing the content of online and archived
redo logs. All changes to user data implemented in the
database or the databases data dictionary are logged
as redo entries in the redo logs.
Possible areas of use include:
Identifying the start time of a logical corruption
Defining the necessary actions to perform a
fine-grained recovery at transaction level
Performing trend and capacity analyses for tuning
measures
Auditing previous transactions in the database
2.3 Oracle Flashback Query
Oracle Flashback Query is one of the various Flash-
back technologies that form part of Oracle Database.
Flashback technologies enable very flexible responses
to human errors, which according to various studies
are the cause of around 40% of application failures.
In many cases these errors result in logical corruptions
of the data. In other words, although the SQL state-
ment is syntactically valid as far as the database is
concerned, it produces logical inconsistencies at appli-
cation level.
Typical user errors include inadvertently deleting
datasets, making incorrect changes to datasets, and
accidentally deleting tables. Oracle Flashback techno-
logies allow the user to view historical datasets,
perform change analyses, retrieve deleted tables, and
quickly reset the entire database to a point in the past.
Oracle Database 9i introduced the Flashback Query
functionality, which enables to query tables at a point
in the recent past. In Oracle Database 10g the techno-
logy was expanded to allow flashback across all levels:
database, table, row, and transaction. The functions
added in Oracle Database 10g include Flashback
Database, Flashback Table, Flashback Drop, Flashback
Versions Query, and Flashback Transaction Query.
Oracle Database 11g also introduced Flashback Data
Archive to store long-term historical information
about individual tables and their changes.
The advantage of the Flashback technologies is that
they allow a specific part of the database to be repaired
with surgical precision, according to the error situa-
tion, without having to resort to a global media
recovery.
Oracl e Data Guard Freudenberg I T
66
3. CASE STUDIES
3.1 Case Study 1:
Data Extraction from Standby Site (Data Guard)
Problem: A user error has resulted in several million
datasets being deleted from three customer tables (Y*).
Result: One entire department was unable to process
orders, paralyzing a considerable proportion of the
customers retail business.
Customer requirement: To reset the datasets of the
affected tables to the status they had approximately
three hours before in the QA system.
Solution: The customer used Data Guard with a
physical standby database running four hours behind
the primary site in managed recovery mode, using
the delayed apply.
As soon as it was discovered that data in the pro-
duction system had been damaged, managed recovery
of the standby database was stopped. Three hours
had elapsed since the user error occurred. Thanks to
the set four-hour delay, the content of the standby
database had not been affected by the error. This
meant that the correct data could be extracted and
made available in the QA system.
The following steps were taken:
Standby: managed recovery stopped: recover
managed standby database cancel;
Standby: standby site recovered to a customer-
specified point immediately before the error:
recover standby database UNTIL TIME
`2008~03~06:l5:20:00`;
Standby: standby site opened in read-only mode:
alter database open; shown in alert.log
Physical standby database opened for
read only access.
Standby: standby site tables exported:
exp sapdat/<passwd>
file=export_YINT0l0l.dmplog=YINT0l0l.log
tables=YINT0l0l indexes=no direct=yes etc.
Standby/QA system: export data transferred:
scp...
QA system: status of QA tables backed up:
create table YINT0l0l_backup as select *
from YINT0l0l; etc.
QA system: SAP stopped
QA system: QA tables renamed:
alter table YINT0l03 rename to
YINT0l03_orig;
QA system: menu-guided import of previously
mentioned exports: imp...
QA system: SAP started
QA system: customer given green light to check /
extract data from the QA system
Standby: managed recovery restarted after customer
approval: alter database recover managed
standby database disconnect from session;
QA system: following completion of data extraction
and customer approval, imported tables dropped
and ..._orig renamed
Duration of measures taken: approximately 1 hour,
including customer consultation
Because of interdependencies with various other
tables in the SAP system it was not possible to reset
the tables directly in the production system (this is
also not supported by SAP). In addition, some small
areas of the table (data for other departments) were
still intact and it was essential not to reset them. For
these reasons the data was made available in the QA
system. From there it was read out using SAP stan-
dard methods and applied in the production system.
Oracl e Data Guard Freudenberg I T 67
3.2 Case Study 2:
Data Reconstruction from Redo Logs (LogMiner)
Problem: Data has been distorted over several days
by a defective program. In the KNMT table, a deve-
loper error resulted in several thousand datasets out
of an approximate total of 120,000 being distorted
over the course of a week: all non-key fields, in parti-
cular the essential KDMAT and POSTX fields
have been set to empty.
Result: The distortion has damaged the link between
Internal material number and Customer material
number, so the customer (a retailer) was unable to
process incoming orders.
Customer requirement: To reconstruct the original
data content replaced by empty. To add to the
problem, the datasets had been updated several times
during the week but the required information was
deleted after the first update.
Solution: This customer had activated supplemental
logging of the database (alter database add
supplemental log data;). This allowed the redo
logs to be fully analyzed with LogMiner (otherwise,
in the case of chained rows, the analysis could have
yielded datasets with the result Unsupported).
The following steps were taken:
Redo logs restored to new directory from start of
data distortion (approx. 300 redo logs of 140 MB
each).
Analysis scripts (SQL scripts) generated, each
evaluating 10 redo logs (split into smaller jobs).
Sample script:
orapll> cat redo_analyze_l34303.sql
/* Analyze redo log no. l34303 trough
l343l2 */
...
~~ Define redo logs to be analyzed:
execute dbms_logmnr.add_logfile{
`/oracle/Pll/oraarch2/Pllarchl_l34303.dbf`,
dbms_logmnr.new
execute dbms_logmnr.add_logfile{
`/oracle/Pll/oraarch2/Pllarchl_l34304.dbf`,
dbms_logmnr.addfile
execute dbms_logmnr.add_logfile{
`/oracle/Pll/oraarch2/Pllarchl_l34305.dbf`,
dbms_logmnr.addfile
...
~~ Start LogMiner using Online Catalog:
execute dbms_logmnr.start_logmnr{OPTIONS =>
dbms_logmnr.DICT_FROM_ONLINE_CATALOG
~~ Query relevant SQL_Redo and SQL_UNDO
statements:
select SCN, to_char{TIMESTAMP,`DD~MON~YYYY
HH24:MI:SS` as TIMESTAMP, SQL_REDO,
SQL_UNDO from v$logmnr_contents where
SEG_NAME=`KNMT`,
spool off
Sample result - see Figure 1:
Figure 1: Sample output of above LogMining; SQL_REDO contains the defective instructions (in red boxes), SQL_UNDO contains the
deleted KDMAT and POSTX data to be recovered (in green boxes)
68
The result of the above SELECT statement was fur
ther analyzed with a shell script. The SQL_UNDO
entries where for the corresponding SQL_REDO
KDMAT a value other than empty was replaced
by empty were backed up to a file in order to
recover the original state of KDMAT.
Information forwarded to the customer for checking
and/or further selection.
Updates (SQL undos) of unambiguous datasets, as
confirmed by customer, executed (customer checked
and confirmed interdependencies with other tables
and requested that in this special case the SQL
undos be applied directly to the production system).
Customer performs manual correction of the remai-
ning (ambiguous) datasets using standard SAP
input methods.
Various alternative solutions were discussed with the
customer in advance, but because the data distortion
happened gradually and went unnoticed while the
system continued to operate, LogMining was the only
realistic way of correcting the problem. All other
options would have resulted in data loss or would have
required tremendous time and efforts.
3.3 Case Study 3:
Reconstruction of Changed Fields in SAP Pool Table
(LogMiner)
Problem: Data in the SAP pool table T030K
(Tax Accounts Determination) has been deleted by
an incorrect transport (user error).
Result: Impersonal account deleted in the production
system.
Customer requirement: Name deleted values.
Solution: As in Case Study 2, supplemental log-
ging of the database was activated, so LogMining
appeared to be the most appropriate option. Unlike
the previous case, however, table T030K was not
created at database level but in the SAP table pool
ATAB. So as far as the database was concerned, there
was only the ATAB table, the entries in which
concealed the pool table. This had to be taken into
account and evaluated during the LogMining process.
The data was reconstructed as follows:
Table pool to which T030K belongs was identi-
fied (SAP transaction se11): here ATAB.
Time of error established (defective transport
request imported: start+end).
Redo logs created during this period (a few minutes)
identified and restored.
LogMining commenced as in Case Study 2 to
reconstruct the data; system searches for undo state-
ments relating to changes in ATAB containing
the table name T030K:
select SCN, to_char{TIMESTAMP,`DD~MON~YYYY
HH24:MI:SS` as TIMESTAMP, SQL_UNDO from
v$logmnr_contents where SEG_NAME=`ATAB`
and SQL_UNDO like `%T030K%`,
SCN TIMESTAMP
~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SQL_UNDO
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2205l7473 29~SEP~2008 l6:l3:50
insert into "SAPDAT"."ATAB"{"TABNAME",
"VARKEY","DATALN","VARDATA" values
{`T030K`,`ll0PYINVSTD9`,`40`,HEXTORAW
`00280030003000300030003l003500340036003600
300030003000300030003l00350034003600360030`
,
The SQL_UNDO contains the key fields of
T030K as one character string (here: 110PYIN
VSTD9) and the respective values as HEX.
The VARKEY column in the ATAB table
contains the values of the key fields MANDT,
KTOPL, KTOSL, MWSKZ of the T030K
table as a combined string: 110PYINVSTD9.
In accordance with the table description, this pro-
duces 110=MANDT, PYIN=KTOPL, VST=KTOSL
and D9=MWSKZ.
After the HEX length, the VARDATA column
indicates the HEX values of the KONTS and
KONTH columns in the T030K table.
Oracl e Data Guard Freudenberg I T 69
New tables exported from production system:
exp sapdat/<pwd> file=exp_cepc_restore.dmp
log=exp_cepc_restore.log
tables=\{cepc_2009_06_25_22_04_00,cepct_
2009_06_25_22_04_00\
Files copied and imported into development system:
imp sapdat/<pwd> file=exp_cepc_restore.dmp
full=Y
Tables created in ABAP dictionary to allow access
to the data from SAP (to achieve this, the tables
were renamed again to satisfy the SAP naming
convention).
Customer performs normal transport of correct,
checked data into production system using stan-
dard SAP methods.
In this example the original data required was made
available within about an hour (including analyses
and discussion with the customer), enabling the
customer to transport the correct data into the pro-
duction system a short time later (after checking).
For the system in question, with a database of around
2 TB, providing a temporary system restore (point-
in-time recovery just before error) would have taken
several hours, not to mention the considerably greater
time and hardware resources required.
4. Summary:
Oracle Database offers numerous functions for high
availability and data security. This includes architec-
tural concept-based features such as Real Application
Clusters (not described in this paper) and Oracle
Data Guard, and built-in features such as LogMiner
and Flashback technologies. This paper deals with
Data Guard, LogMiner and Flashback Query. As can
be seen from the case studies, these functionalities
some of them unique on the market enabled
Freudenberg IT to respond flexibly to a wide range of
error situations in the hosted SAP environments and
quickly restore availability of the particular SAP appli-
cation. It made no difference whether the problem
was the result of physical corruptions caused by a
hardware defect or a logical corruption caused by a
user program error.
This HEX representation can be converted into
and read in ASCII in this example:
(00001546600000154660. This results in an
insert in the pool table T030K with the values:
key: MANDT=ll0
KTOPL=PYIN
KTOSL=VST
MWSKZ=D9
values: KONTS=0000l54660
KONTH=0000l54660
Data made available to the customer, who can
then re-enter it in the system using standard SAP
methods.
3.4 Case Study 4:
Data Recovery in the Undo Area (Flashback Query)
Problem: A user error has resulted in obsolete statu-
ses of the CEPC and CEPCT tables (Profit center
master data) being transported from the develop-
ment system to the production system.
Result: No new customer datasets could be created.
Customer requirement: Make the original statuses
of the production tables available.
Solution: Although the table changes occurred about
20 hours ago, the before images of the data could
still be reconstructed as a result of a sufficiently large
undo tablespace, such that a Flashback Query of the
two tables yielded the table status prior to the import
of the defective transport request. These statuses
were copied to a new (temporary) table to enable the
customer to check them and compare them with the
currently available data and make any necessary
corrections.
The following steps were taken:
Time of error established from SAP transport log;
result: 25.06.2009 ~ 22:04:22
Data from old status copied to new table
(in production system), e.g.:
SQL> create tables sapdat.cepc_2009_06_
25_22_04_00 as
{select * from sapdat.cepc as of
timestamp
to_timestamp{`2009~06~25:22:04:00`,
`yyyy~mm~dd:hh24:mi:ss`,
Table created.
70
O R A C L E A D VA N C E D C U S T O ME R S E R V I C E S F O R S A P
Database Servi ces f or SAP Envi ronments
Oracle Support for SAP
A key attribute to the deep customer focused
partnership with SAP, is SAPs requirement
for a permanent onsite technical staff. These
Centers of Expertise staff SAPs Oracle
Development Level Support queue and provide
immediate assistance for a wide range of
activities ranging from critical issue support
to production down outage situations. The
Centers, located in Walldorf, Tokyo and Palo
Alto, also assist SAP customers with a wide
range of proactive support in areas such as
management of increasing data volumes, per-
formance optimization, setup of high availabi-
lity solutions and data exchange between the
SAP system and other Oracle databases. The
SAP-Oracle integrated support model draws
from over 20 years of close-in collaboration
and delivers a highly responsive and anticipatory
level of service.
Oracle Direct Customer Support Through
Advanced Customer Services
In addition to the integrated support with SAP,
many customers choose to engage Oracle
Support directly to help achieve even greater
performance and ROI from their SAP-Oracle
configured environment. These services are
available through Oracles Advanced Customer
Services (ACS) organization. Advanced
Customer Services experts deliver personalized
services directly to customers worldwide to
maximize performance and increase productivity
for all Oracle systems.
SAP works in partnership with Oracle to
provide quality system support. Many of our
joint customers however, require even higher
levels of support for their database environ-
ments to leverage maximum Oracle capabilities.
Our annualized services take support to the
next level, explains Larry Abramson, Senior
Vice President, Oracle Advanced Customer
Services.
The services provide for three levels of annuali-
zed operational support, Assisted Services
Engagements and onsite Technical Skill
Workshops. As SAP certifies new versions of
Oracle databases, as with Oracle Database 11g,
that deliver greater speed, scalability and
reduced IT costs, Oracle Advanced Customer
Services has the expertise and certifications to
help customers adopt and leverage this tech-
nology for SAP applications. In addition, onsite
assistance in deploying and leveraging Oracle
database features such as Database Vault,
DataGuard, Partitioning and RAC is available
to ensure proper configuration and set ups with
SAP application requirements. All Advanced
Customer Services Database Services for SAP
Environments are delivered by Oracle experts
who are skilled in maximizing Oracle techno-
logy contributions to overall system perfor-
mance, stability and recoverability.
Oracle with SAP Expert Guidance
Tailored to Your Business
Database Services for SAP Environments offers
three levels of annualized services that can be
combined with engagements and workshops
to meet your specific needs.
Advanced Support Assistance facilitates and
expedites service requests through a single
point of contact. Your Service Delivery Manager
(SDM) ensures that the right people and orga-
nizations are aligned with meaningful action
plans resulting in more efficient and effective
issue resolution.
Business Critical Assistance combines service
request resolution with proactive advice and
assistance tailored to your specific operations
and projects. Your SDM coordinates the efforts
of a team of engineers who develop background
capabilities on your company and your IT goals,
and then assist with ensuring a successful out-
come for each of your projects.
Oracl e Advanced Customer Servi ces ( ACS) f or SAP 71
Solution Support Center offers our most
comprehensive service, with a team of focused
engineers that are deeply aware of your environ-
ment, operations and projects. This focused
team of engineers is available to you through
a direct access hotline to provide assistance for
critical Service Requests and a range of proactive
services including assessments and root cause
analysis.
Oracle/SAP- Oriented Workshops and
Engagements
To build your IT staffs capabilities and confi-
dence in optimizing the Oracle database in an
SAP environment, our workshops are created
and delivered by specialists who know how SAP
applications interact with Oracle databases.
With the content drawn from a long history
of technical partnership with SAP, Oracle
Advanced Customer Services provides the fol-
lowing Technical Skill Workshops:
Fundamentals of Oracle database for SAP
ERP (Level I)
Oracle Advanced Performance Tuning for
SAP ERP (Level II)
Oracle Expert for SAP (Level III)
Oracle Database 11g for SAP Business Suite
Technical Skills Workshop
Oracle Database Administration for SAP
Business Intelligence
Oracle Real Application Clusters for SAP
SAP ERP ABAP Tuning with Oracle
database Platform
In addition to established portfolio of work-
shops, a new workshop, Oracle Security for
SAP ERP Customers is now available on
request.
Designed to help customers deal more effec-
tively with external and internal compliance
and security requirements, the workshop focu-
ses on how to leverage the Oracle database
features to safeguard their deployments at the
database level. Key areas include: database-user
security, auditing, network security, Transparent
Data Encryption and Oracle Database Vault.
To further enhance the value, these Technical
Skill Workshops can be modified and enhanced
to help ensure alignment with your specific
situation and goals. Technical Skill Workshops
are specific to your company and are scheduled
based on availability.
Many customers find that deep Oracle and
SAP experience and expertise is necessary to
improve database performance and system sta-
bility, when upgrading or moving the database
or when leveraging Oracle database features.
Our most popular engagements include:
Database Health Check
Database Partitioning
SAP ERP Administration Concepts
Review and Proof of Concepts
Hot Standby/Data Guard Implementation
Backup/Restore/Recovery
RAC Setup Assistance
HW Migration O2O/Oracle (Advanced
Customer Services as Provider)
HW Migration Assistance O2O Packages
(Advanced Customer Services as Assistance)
Database Migration Assistance
Database Reorganizations
With Advanced Customer Services Database
Services for SAP Environments you enjoy a
preferred relationship with Oracle subject-mat-
ter experts, IT professionals, and developers to
maximize the value of your Oracle environ-
ment.
72
Database Healthcheck/Performance Analysis
Performance is a primary key to success in the
introduction and operation of an SAP system
for all SAP customers. Our specially trained
staff, not only knows the Oracle database in
detail, but is also trained in the intricacies of
Oracle in a SAP environment. Both at the be-
ginning of a deployment and at regular intervals
over the application life-cycle, Database
Healthchecks can ensure proper configuration
and tuning for optimum performance.
High Availability/Backup Concepts
Unavailability of the SAP system leads to cata-
strophic problems for most customers, both
logistically and financially. In order to minimize
the risk of unplanned downtime in a mission
critical environment, IT organizations must
proactively plan for failover and recoverability.
Oracle database products enable different
approaches, such as hardware clusters, mirror
technologies, standby databases, RAC and Data
Guard. Oracle Advanced Customer Services
can advise on the comparative advantages and
disadvantages of these different approaches as
it applies to your particular situation and, of
course, assist with the implementation of the
chosen solution.
Oracle RAC Enablement for SAP
The Real Application Clusters (RAC) option
enables the distribution of your database
instance across different servers, or nodes. This
offers new possibilities in the area of high avai-
lability of an Oracle database system, and also
provides greater flexibility in the dimensio-
ning and scalability of system resources.
Oracle Advanced Customer Services provides
professional services, in the areas of planning,
technical workshops and implementation, to
assist you with enabling RAC for your SAP
environments.
Database Migration Services for SAP
The majority of all SAP ERP installations run
on an Oracle database. The Oracle Advanced
Customer Services for SAP group is certified
by SAP for database migrations and can assist
companies who wish to migrate their SAP
Business Suite installation from a non-Oracle
database to Oracle. A much valued aspect of
Oracles migration services is the deep fami-
liarity of the change from a DBA perspective.
Oracle Advanced Customer Services can assist
your staff in executing a migration plan while
familiarizing them with the new database
operations.
Oracle to Oracle Database Migrations (O2O)
Extremely Fast and Smooth Database
Migrations for SAP Systems
Because standard tools require long transfer
times, many situations require more than 48
hours to migrate a database. Oracle provides
O2O migration Services to shrink the total
transfer time. Based on a set of services, pro-
cedures and tools, Oracle Advanced Customer
Services can help customers achieve a signifi-
cantly faster process, typically at a speed of
100 to 150 GB per hour. This means systems
can now be migrated within bound time-frames
that could not be handled previously using
standard tools. In addition, applying Oracle
Streams enables an online approach for O2O
migrations. The service set is based on Oracle
technologies, and support migrations of SAP
ERP as well as BI/BW systems. Systems using
this advanced migration approach remain
fully within SAP supportability requirements.
Oracl e Advanced Customer Servi ces ( ACS) f or SAP 73
Oracle Partitioning for SAP Customers
Oracle Partitioning is an option to Oracle
Database 10g Enterprise Edition (also along
with Oracle Database 11g certification). At a
technical level, Oracle Partitioning allows
tables and indexes within a database to be
subdivided into smaller pieces. Oracle can
partition a table by ranges of values, so for
example, the data for Jan 1, 2010 through
Jan 31, 2010 can reside in its own partition.
Oracle can also partition a table by a list of
values, so, for example, North American data
is in one partition, while the European data is
in another partition. Partitioning is a critical
feature for managing large databases.
Partitioning is the feature that allows a database
to scale for very large datasets while maintaining
consistent performance, without an unduly in-
creased need for hardware resources or admini-
strative efforts. Oracle Partitioning is embedded
into the core database engine and supported by
Oracles administrative tools.
From an SAP application perspective, partitio-
ning is completely transparent. Thus, no chan-
ges need to be made to the application or to
the SQL statements in order to use partitioning.
Partitioning for SAP has been supported since
SAP Release 4.6C (see SAP Note 742243)
for the SAP Kernel 6.20.
Oracle Database 11g!
With the many new capabilities and enhance-
ments of Oracle Database 11g, such as
Advanced Compression, DirectNFS, Secure-
files and Online Patching, enthusiasm and
advanced demand continues to build for fast
deployment. In addition, Database Vault is
now certified by SAP for supportability.
Advanced Customer Services stands ready to
advise and assist SAP users in efficiently and
smoothly upgrading to Oracle Database 11g
in line with SAP supportability requirements.
Technical workshops are in development to
help your IT staff become aware and comfor-
table in deploying and supporting the many
new features of Oracle Database 11g.
Whether through our ongoing support and
partnership with SAP, or directly with your
IT organization, Oracle Advanced Customer
Services deliver personalized services with deep
experience operating with SAP applications.
For further information please contact us:
saponoracle_de@oracle.com
11
g
D A T A B A S E
74
In order to help small businesses and midsize
companies implement SAP Business All-in-One,
SAP offers a fast-start program. The purpose
of the program is to dramatically reduce the
time and skill required for new installations,
to cut costs while minimizing risk.
This web-based umbrella program accelerates
the process, from the requirements analysis
and the selection of hardware and software to
proposals for process optimization within the
organization.
Lead generation is handled by an easy-to-use
referral program. General information about
the companys sector is entered in the web-
based configurator and the system uses this
information to select the relevant SAP partner.
The system then suggests a configuration for
hardware, software and licenses and produces
a cost estimate. The core of the fast-start pro-
gram is the installation wizard, which assists
with pre-installation with the relevant SAP
partner and is used to prepare, control and
implement the automatic installation procedure
on the customers system.
Web-based testing and installation are perfor-
med on site using SAP standard processes and
best practices, with maximum efficiency and
minimum personnel requirements. SAP soft-
ware is optimized for Novell SUSE Linux
Enterprise servers, Microsoft Windows Server
2008 and SAP MaxDB. On the hardware side,
customers can choose from HP, IBM, Intel and
Fujitsu systems.
Configuration without the Constraints
Now that SAP has opened up what was once
a very restricted choice of partners, the way
is open for SAP Value Added Resellers (VARs).
HP is one of the first partners who joined the
SAP fast-start program and developed a broad
range preconfigured solutions. With the help
of pre-configured hardware and software, as
offered by HP with its Factory Express pro-
gram, SAP estimates that installation time
can be cut from around five days to just five
hours with the fast-start program.
To support customers using SAP Business
All-in-One together with an Oracle database
HP and Oracle developers were looking for
the right patch set with the appropriate para-
meters for the Oracle database. The process was
optimized by using Oracle procedures. The
team now has access to a container of pat-
ches, from which the installation including
the necessary parameters can be carried out
and the necessary patch sets put together.
This package-based approach means that on-
site installation no longer demands advanced
database knowledge.
J O I N T T E S T I N G O F A U T O MAT I C O R A C L E D AT A B A S E
I N S T A L L AT I O N ( F A S T S T A R T ) O N H P S Y S T E MS
S U C C E S S F U L L Y C O MP L E T E D
SAP Fast Start wi th Oracl e and HP 75
The Oracle database installation process is
started automatically as part of SAP installation
by entering a few pieces of key information,
without the need for additional manpower.
This process, the time saved and the high
level of security mean massive cost savings
for customers and partners alike.
Testing has been successfully completed for
system environments in the low-end mid-mar-
ket with 60 to 300 users. The pre-installation
of Oracle databases has now been made much
simpler, not only on HP UX but also on
Windows and Linux platforms.
Premium Design with Value Added
SAP currently has a portfolio of around 500
best practices, specific adaptations of the SAP
standard to so-called microindustries as used
by SAP partners, which effectively contribute to
operational management as a quality knowledge
source. Three of these best practice templates
for service, manufacturing and wholesale can
already be used for the fast-start program.
These developments open up a new chapter in
the old debate as to whether IT should be
unconditionally subordinate to internal
processes or whether the organization should
in certain cases adapt its processes to the IT
infrastructure. Preconfigured systems like
those offered by the SAP fast-start program
in collaboration with qualified partners con-
tribute additional, high-quality information
and knowledge about a companys operations,
sector, processes and IT.
For customers, especially midsize companies,
when it comes to new installations the scales
may well tip towards adapting internal pro-
cesses to these preconfigured knowledge pack-
ages. And these offer only limited functionality
without the knowledge stored in databases.
Only the Oracle Database
provides for SAP customers...
Best
Performance
& Scalability
Best
Deployment
Flexibility
Best
Availability
& Scalability
Best
Support for
Very Large DBs
Best
Database
Security
Best
Manageability
& Self-Management
76
77 Oracl e Partner I S4I T, SAP on RAC
P E O P L E , K N O WL E D G E , P R O J E C T S , A N D I S 4 I T =
4 S U C C E S S F A C T O R S T O H E L P Y O U G E T A H E A D !
Contact:
Michael Jilg
Area Manager
IS4IT GmbH
Gruenwalder Weg 28b
82041 Oberhaching/Germany
Tel: +49 89 638 98 48 22
e-mail: michael.jilg@is4it.de
The main task of IS4IT, as a manufacturer-
independent IT-consulting firm, is solving our
clients technical problems through the
application of our IT-specialists expertise.
We provide IT services individually-tailored to
your specific requirements. With the help of
around 85 consultants across Germany, we
provide a full range of services, from analysis,
conception, and planning, to final
implementation to the production process.
SAP Basis and SAP Infrastructure have success-
fully been our main focus for many years.
From the very beginning, our activities have
included solving problems of server- and
storage virtualization, as well as HA cluster.
In addition to handling such projects, we also
provide our customers with SAP technical
maintenance in accordance with Service Level
Agreements.
78 Usef ul l i nks Oracl e database f or SAP customers
Oracle Database Global Technology Center for SAP
http://www.oracle.com/sap
Customer Success Stories, SAP on Oracle
http://www.oracle.com/newsletters/sap/archive.html
Events
http://www.oracle.com/newsletters/sap/events.html
Some OSS Notes Oracle and SAP
1021844 Extension of Oracle 9.2 maintenance until July 31, 2008
1027012 Details about MOPatching
1043380 Unicode Migration Optimizations, Efficient Table Splitting for Oracle Databases
1045847 Unicode Migration Optimizations
105047 + 742243 + 722188 Partitioning and Oracle Functionality supported by SAP
1086956 + 1058988 Instant Client
1109743 Index Compression
1125923 + 966117 + 966073 Flashback Database
1169872 Unicode Migration Optimizations
1173954 Support of Oracle for VMWare and XEN
1259767 Management of online redo log files
1272951 Changes in BR*Tools Studio 7.10
1279682 Support for Oracle data encryption
1324684 Creating encrypted RMAN backups using BR*Tools
1324930 BR*TOOLS, Creating encrypted EXPDP exports with BRSPACE
1325304 Conversions between heap-organized tables and IOTs
1329848 Oracle Support for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V
1330038 Oracle 9.2 Sustaining Support
1333328 SAP Partitioning Engine
1339724 Oracle 10.2 extended Support
1351051 Support of Oracle for HP-UX Itanium Integrity VM
1355140 Oracle Database Vault for SAP
1358126 Oracle 10.2.0: Patches for Oracle Database Vault
1358277 Oracle 10.2.0: Configuration Scripts for Database Vault
1360603 Reorganizing and rebuilding individual partitions
1374807 Freezing single kinds of statistics
139863 Oracle 11g Roadmap
1398634 Oracle 11g Release 2
156548 Supported database and operating system releases for SAP Kernel version 4.6x
23875 Supported database and operating system releases for SAP Kernel version 3.1
407314 Supported database and operating system releases for SAP Web Application Server 6.x
524816 Enqueue Service for RAC SAP-Enqueue-Service
527843 Oracle RAC support in the SAP environment
5740897 Licensing
581312 Licensing
581320 FAQ Oracle RAC for SAP
592393 FAQ Oracle
598678 Oracle9i: New functions (composite SAP Note)
669902 Oracle9i: Setting the national character set to UTF8 (This note is valid also for Oracle 10g)
701235 Compressed Data Segments
705608 SAP RAC specific monitors
720886 Oracle Database 10g: Integration into the SAP environment
740897 Info about the Oracle license scope; required Oracle options
819655 Upgrade to SAP NW 2004s ABAP ORACLE
819829 Oracle Database 10g: Instant Client 10.x on Unix
819830 Oracle Database 10g: Additional Information on upgrade:UNIX
820062 Oracle Database 10g: Patch sets/patches for 10.1.0
828268 Oracle Database 10g: New functions
830576 Parameter recommendations for Oracle 10g
830982 HW fine tuning for SAP on RAC environment
836517 Oracle database 10g: Preparation for SAP-upgrade
838725 Oracle database 10g: New database statistics
841728 Oracle Database 10g: Software installation wizzard 10.2.0
850306 Oracle Critical Patch Update
85838 Supported database and operating system releases for SAP Kernel versions 4.5x and 4.0x
871096 Oracle Database 10g: Patch sets/patches for 10.2.0
885167 Upgrade to SAP NW 2004s Java ORACLE
921594 Inst. SAP NetWeaver2004s SR1 - UNIX: Oracle
925871 Customer Care Support' for Oracle 9.2
932722 Upgrade to Oracle 10.2 during a database copy
936441 Unicode Migration Optimizations
940794 Releasing Oracle 10.2 versions for older SAP versions
940811 Oracle Database 10g: Migration from 32-bits to 64-bits
960280 R3load export tuning for split tables with Oracle
973450 Advanced Security (Network Encryption)
974876 Advanced Security (Transparent Data Encryption)
990955 Oracle Datamining Connector 2.1 for SAP
998004 Update the Oracle Instant Client on Windows
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