SOLUTION BRIEF

Brocade High-Availability Architecture for SAP HANA on IBM POWER Solutions

Building an SAP HANA High-Availability Solution Digital transformation and the speed of flash are pushing mission-critical storage environments to the limit, with users expecting data to be access-ible anywhere, anytime, on any device. Given these demands, an unreliable infrastructure can have a significant and lasting impact on a business—from lost revenue and dissatisfied customers to regulatory compliance issues. Today’s organizations therefore need a high-availability solution to ensure business continuity for their most critical business applications.

HANA is a single in-memory platform that helps organizations leverage their data so they can take fast action and accelerate innovation in this new digital economy. By combining SAP HANA with IBM and Brocade® technologies, organizations can further speed up transaction processing and real-time analytics to meet the most demanding business requirements while increasing business continuity.

By leveraging the increased compute capabilities of IBM POWER8 server platforms, the storage virtualization features of IBM Spectrum Virtualize and the IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) appliance, as well as the low latency, scalability, and extension of Brocade Gen 6 Fibre Channel networking solutions, organizations can create a high-availability IT storage infrastructure that will thrive in this new era.

Avoiding the High Business Costs of Downtime Beyond being an enterprise-class application, SAP HANA is a business-critical application that organizations cannot afford to have fail. Any downtime results in high business costs. By analyzing the cost of this downtime, organizations can determine how to build a high-availability solution to meet their needs. For example, how much money would be lost if a single transaction failed? What are the direct costs of not having a mission-critical application online? Also, just as important, organizations need to understand the legal and regulatory ramifications of having their systems unavailable. They will need to consider all of these factors to assess the full impact of workload downtime, which will ultimately dictate their infrastructure requirements.

HIGHLIGHTS • IBM high-availability solutions for SAP

HANA help protect and accelerate critical business applications.

• IBM POWER8 servers provide up to four times the performance for SAP HANA versus x86.

• IBM SAN Volume Controller provides site-to-site replication and virtualization for all back-end storage.

• IBM flash storage accelerates critical business solutions through performance gains.

• IBM Spectrum Control, IBM Spectrum Protect, and IBM Spectrum Copy Data Management software provide integrated data protection and management.

• Brocade Gen 6 SAN switching and extension solutions provide performance and reliability for high-availability infrastructure, with advanced fabric insight to reduce or eliminate failures.

2

Organizations can minimize the business, legal, and regulatory impact of downtime by building a high-availability SAP HANA solution. SAP HANA con figurations provide a distributed solution across many systems for efficient data processing performed in the main memory. In addition, SAP HANA with IBM POWER8 servers integrates into existing environments and leverages IBM POWER8’s multithreading for up to four times better performance than x86 platforms. These solutions are built with flexible storage arrays connected by a Fibre Channel network purpose-built for storage traffic. As a result, these Storage Area Networks (SANs) can maintain very deterministic, fast response-time performance and allow data to be moved to different locations for protection.

The IBM SVC storage platform with the Brocade SAN infrastructure provides performance, flexibility, simplified man-age ment, and protection by virtualizing block storage arrays and offering advanced storage services, such as data copy, snapshots, and remote replication. Brocade Gen 6 SAN products provide the infrastructure that enables the IBM SVC to access and virtualize the various storage arrays. Also, Brocade extension technology transports data to multiple locations to meet tiered disaster recovery and business resilience strategies.

By deploying SAP HANA using IBM Power Systems, IBM SVC, IBM Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and Brocade SAN components, organizations gain a complete solution with the performance and high availability required for mission-critical analytics applications.

Planning for Disaster RecoveryOnce IT organizations have identified their most critical applications, they should determine the maximum downtime the business can withstand and the application recovery point. The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO) represent the maximum amount of downtime (RTO) and data loss (RPO) that a business can endure and still survive.

Figure 1 helps define the RTO/RPO parameters. The Recovery Time Objective is the length of time from the initial failure (the disaster) until the application is fully restored and available. The Recovery Point Objective is the amount of data that an organization can withstand losing when a disaster occurs. The RPO is determined by calculating the amount of data-in-flight—both in volatile locations (for example, over the network or in volatile memory) and in non-volatile locations—when a disaster strikes. Data in the write process is most vulnerable to loss and therefore must be fully committed by the storage subsystem(s) to ensure its secure storage.

The total data loss depends on two factors: the amount of data being transported or replicated to another array for safe-keeping and whether the data writes were occurring in a synchronous or asynchronous manner. The IBM SVC platform provides advanced storage services and support for both syn chronous or asynchronous replication methods. Additionally, IBM SDS offerings, such as IBM Spectrum Copy Data Man-age ment and IBM Spectrum Protect, manage data copies, backup, and archiving for long-term retention and data protection.

If an application requires no data loss in the event of downtime, then synchronous data replication from one array to another must be implemented. If minimal data loss for the application is acceptable, then an asynchronous data replication method can be deployed and exposure to data loss can be kept to a few seconds. To determine the appropriate exposure to data loss, IT organizations need to first consider the needs of the business, which will dictate the RTO and RPO parameters. These parameters will in turn help define the infrastructure needed to meet these requirements.

Application RunningData In-Flight

Recovery Point Objective(RPO)

Recovery Time Objective(RTO)

DisasterOccurs

ApplicationBack Online

Time

PotentialData Loss Time to

Recover

Figure 1: Disaster Recovery and RTO/RPO planning timeline.

3

The IBM-Brocade Architecture for SAP HANAFigure 2 shows an architectural example of a solution from IBM, SAP, and Brocade configured to provide enterprise-level high availability. As noted earlier, the SAP HANA and IBM POWER8 combination provides a better way to run in-memory databases thanks to the IBM Power System’s compute platform, which is faster and more powerful than x86. In addition to increased performance from the IBM Power Systems platform, SAP HANA solutions provide automatic failover and recovery to keep applications online.

To ensure that application failover occurs seamlessly and with consistent performance when workloads are moved, organizations must have storage virtualization across a deterministic storage network. The IBM SVC virtuali-zation appliance and Brocade (IBM

b-type) Fibre Channel storage networking products are key components to main-taining high performance, maximum efficiency, and universal access to the storage arrays, regardless of the location of the server running the SAP HANA application.

High-availability architecture planning begins with establishing the primary and secondary sites. The primary site is the location where the enterprise application resides under normal operations, or non-failover scenarios. The secondary site is a different location that duplicates the same solution as the primary site and operates in an active, operational state so applications quickly fail-over to the site. For failover and failback to occur correctly and ensure business continuity, all aspects of the architecture—including the application software, compute platforms, IP networking, storage, and storage networking—need to be in place.

Most enterprise solutions deploy storage networks to allow all servers to access locally shared storage. (For example, Figure 2 shows two Brocade switches per site.) This configuration provides complete resilience for the local envi ron-ment while also enabling simple expansion as application requirements grow.

The IBM SVC appliance can virtualize the chosen storage arrays connected through the SAN. This allows organizations to choose the storage arrays and data to be utilized in the SAP HANA deployment. For long-distance solutions, the IBM SVC platform offers both synchronous and asynchronous replication. Highlights of the IBM SVC replication include:

• A remote copy relationship is created between two volumes using either Fibre Channel or IP.

• These two volumes are the primary and secondary volumes (or master and auxiliary volumes).

• The synchronous Metro Mirror feature from IBM (see Figure 3) provides zero data loss.

• For the asynchronous Global Mirror (see Figure 4), IBM provides two options:

– Traditional Global Mirror, which provides non-configurable RPO of a couple seconds

– Global Mirror with Change Volumes, which allows configurable RPO times

• The storage administrator can easily alternate between the three replication modes.

BrocadeG620

BrocadeG620

SVC SVC

Brocade7800/7840

Storage Replication

V7000 V7000

FS900 FS900

FibreChannel

FibreChannel

(Other Storage Supported) (Other Storage Supported)

Brocade7800/7840

IP WAN

Power8 Power8

Copy DataManagement

IBMSpectrumCopy Data

Management

Backup

IBMSpectrum

Protect

Monitoringand Control

IBMSpectrum

Control

Figure 2: Example of an IBM-Brocade high-availability/disaster recovery architecture for SAP HANA.

4

Figure 3 shows how the synchronous IBM Metro Mirror feature ensures data integrity by following these steps:

1. All write operations are received and acknowledged at the local and remote storage systems before returning Write Complete to host.

2. Network bandwidth is sized for the peak write-data rate of all primary volumes.

3. RPO is zero.

Figure 4 shows how the asynchronous IBM Metro Mirror feature provides fast local response times and allows long-distance replication using these steps:

1. Writes sent to primary storage are immediately acknowledged back to the host and then sent to the secondary site with sequence numbers to ensure proper order for data consistency at the disaster recovery site.

2. Network bandwidth is sized for the peak write-data rate of all primary volumes.

3. RPO: Some data loss may occur (data-in-flight).

The IBM storage replication options allow organizations to use either FCIP (Fibre Channel over IP WAN) or native IP links across the WAN to connect the primary and secondary sites. For either method, the IBM SVC units are bound together for replication and drive the data transport between the mirrored volumes1.

ServerWrite 1 4 Write

Acknowledgment

Write Issued toSecondary Storage

2

3

Storage WriteComplete Acknowledgment

ServerWrite 1 2

Write Issued toSecondary Storage

3

WriteAcknowledgment

Figure 3: Synchronous IBM Metro Mirror flow.

Figure 4: Asynchronous IBM Global Mirror flow.

1 When using SVC replication for SAP HANA solutions, FCIP is required for distance and performance reasons.

5

Designing High-Availability Infrastructure with Brocade TechnologyIT organizations can design a high-availability infrastructure several different ways using Brocade storage network switches and extension technologies. One design provides discrete transport links between sites, with each link supporting one remote replication instance for a one-to-one ratio. Another design allows for a more scalable architecture that collapses and consolidates multiple replication transports onto fewer links using a tightly integrated platform, such as the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch.

Both designs support advanced security through IP WAN encryption (IPsec), greater link efficiency through WAN-Optimized TCP and hardware-enabled compression, and higher availability with automatic, transparent IP WAN circuit failover in case of circuit failure. In addition, organizations can increase WAN visibility and simplify management of these infrastructures with Brocade Fabric Vision® technology. This powerful technology provides deep insight into critical data flows occurring both in local storage networks as well as across the long-distance WAN, enabling fast and predictive warning and error notifications. These integrated security, performance, efficiency, availability, and management benefits have made Brocade the leader in long-distance solutions for more than 20 years.

Brocade storage networking solutions help organizations address the most critical challenges of long-distance solutions:

• Cost: Network circuits are the most expensive element in distance solutions due to the recurring nature of the cost. To mitigate these costs, organizations need to carefully determine their bandwidth requirements. Using the tools found on their storage devices and arrays, they can gauge the maximum performance needed. In addition, by using data compression between the primary and secondary sites, organizations can greatly reduce the overall cost of the long-distance links. Compression can occur at any one of the following devices: the storage arrays, the Brocade storage network (for extended Fibre Channel links), or the Brocade 7800/7840 (for extended FCIP links).

• Network resiliency: Since the goal of the solution is to provide business resiliency, the availability of the inter-site links must be built into the architecture. For example, in storage networking, there are multiple Fibre Channel paths to the same storage array, reducing single points of failure. This same redundancy and resiliency can be built into long-distance solutions. Brocade recommends that organizations have two or more separate network paths, supplied by two different service providers, between the sites. Moreover, organizations should use two or more extension platforms for these independent network connections.

• Long-distance performance: Network distance and network impairment (for example, packet loss) are two elements that negatively impact the performance of replicated data. Brocade extension technology, embedded within the Brocade 7840 and 7800, improves data flow performance by using large blocks of data versus small blocks that burn up system resources. Testing shows that these WAN acceleration features deliver similar performance both locally and at virtually unlimited distances, and recover from WAN link failures transparently with no interruption to the application. Organizations should check with their storage vendor and Brocade to verify what distance can be supported.

• Security: Security breaches are a major concern due to data sensitivity, cost to the business, and negative publicity. Data going outside of the data center must be handled with the utmost care to avoid any breaches. Organizations can enable hardware-based encryption on Brocade platforms to eliminate this threat, without a performance penalty.

6

Figures 5 and 6 illustrate the two network designs: one supporting small, discrete data transfers, and the other supporting a more scalable, integrated configuration.

Figure 5 shows a typical deployment for a more discrete environment. This configuration connects the servers to the storage arrays through redundant Fibre Channel switches (or fabrics for larger networks). The long-distance extension switches connect directly to the storage arrays that support remote data replication. This configuration may be used if organizations need to conserve ports on the Fibre Channel switch for future expansion of server connectivity.

The alternative approach is shown in Figure 6. In this scenario, the extension platforms are connected directly to the Fibre Channel switches. The storage arrays performing the mirroring send the replication traffic through the fabric switches and out to the extension devices. These deployments are used when storage administrators prefer a single SAN fabric to manage and Fibre Channel fabric switches have enough ports to support server, storage, and the extension connectivity.

Server

SVC SVC

FC

FC FC

IP WANFC

FC Switch

FC Switch

Extension Switch

Extension Switch

Server

Storage

FC

FC

FC Switch

FC Switch

Extension Switch

Extension SwitchIP WAN

Storage

Server

FC

FC

FC

FC

FC

FC

FC Switch

FC Switch Extension Switch

Extension Switch

Server

FC

FC

FC Switch

FC SwitchExtension Switch

Extension Switch

IP WAN

IP WAN

SVC SVC

Storage Storage

Figure 5: A two-site configuration with single remote replication requirements and high availability.

Figure 6: An alternative two-site configuration with single remote replication requirements and high availability.

7

Figure 7 shows a highly scalable environment that offers the greatest opportunity for hardware and network consolidation. Brocade directors and extension platforms fit into these large-scale storage deployments, providing the connectivity for solutions that can support:

• Disk/tape/open systems/mainframe

• Heterogeneous storage systems

• Large bandwidth

• High throughput

Organizations can integrate and consolidate multiple storage flows across the network using the advanced features of Brocade switching and extension technologies. The consolidation of the different replication methods and flows over the network links can be shared to maximize efficiency, but the flows can also be logically segmented, giving each data flow independence from the others.

The Brocade (IBM b-type) SAN portfolio offers a variety of systems that can be used to build these solutions. Following are descriptions of just a few of these systems. For an overview of the entire portfolio, visit www.brocade.com.

Brocade (IBM b-type) SwitchingTo meet dynamic and growing business demands, organizations must deploy and scale applications quickly. This requires deploying servers with higher Virtual Machine (VM) densities and all-flash array storage to help those applications scale to support thousands of users. To realize the full benefits of these architectures, organizations need a network that can deliver the performance necessary to handle increased IO pressure from the higher VM densities and lower latencies of all-flash arrays. With storage networks becoming increasingly important to overall

application performance, they also must be easier to administer and manage. By treating the storage network as a strategic part of a highly virtualized environment, organizations can increase optimization and efficiency, even as they scale their environments.

The Brocade G620 Switch is an example of a platform that meets the demands of hyper-scale virtualization, larger cloud infrastructures, and growing flash-based storage environments by delivering market-leading Gen 6 Fibre Channel technology and capabilities. It provides a high-density building block for increased scalability, designed to support growth, demanding workloads, and data center consolidation in small to large-scale enterprise infrastructures. Delivering unmatched 32/128 Gbps performance, industry-leading port density, and integrated network sensors, the Brocade G620 accelerates data access, adapts to evolving requirements, and drives always-on business.

BROCADE G620 SWITCH HIGHLIGHTS

• Provides high scalability in an ultra-dense 1U, 64-port switch to support high-density server virtualization, cloud architectures, and flash-based storage environments

• Increases performance for demanding workloads across 32 Gbps links and shatters application performance barriers with up to 100 million IOPS

• Enables pay-as-you-grow scalability—with 24 to 64 ports—for on-demand flexibility

• Provides proactive, non-intrusive, real-time monitoring and alerting of storage IO health and performance with IO Insight, the industry’s first integrated network sensors

• Enables VM visibility in a storage fabric

Server

FC/FICONDirector

FC/FICONDirector

FICONTape Storage

FICONDisk Storage

FC TapeStorage

FC DiskStorage

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

FCor IP

PrimarySite

SecondarySite

Server

FC/FICONDirector

FC/FICONDirector

IP WAN

IP WAN

FICONTape Storage

FICONDisk Storage

FC TapeStorage

FC DiskStorage

Figure 7: A large-scale high-availability configuration supporting multiple types of remote replication.

8

to monitor VM performance, identify VM anomalies, and optimize VM performance

• Increases resiliency by automatically discovering and recovering from device or network errors

• Leverages Brocade Fabric Vision technology to simplify administration, quickly resolve problems, increase uptime, and reduce costs

• Simplifies troubleshooting with real-time and historical visibility via a single dashboard

Brocade (IBM b-type) ExtensionToday’s organization is under pressure to keep pace with the growing avalanche of data traffic between data centers and the changes driven by virtualized application workloads within Fibre Channel and IP storage environments. Also faced with rising Service Level Agreement (SLA) requirements and recovery expectations, enterprise data centers need their disaster recovery infrastructure to ensure fast, continuous, and easy replication of mission-critical data to anywhere in the world. Given these demands, storage admini stra tors need a way to replicate large amounts of data quickly, securely, reliably, and simply while minimizing operational and capital expenses.

To address this challenge, the Brocade 7840 Extension Switch with Brocade Fabric Vision technology delivers unprecedented performance, strong security, continuous availability, and simplified management to handle the unrelenting transfer of data between data centers. A purpose-built data center extension solution for Fibre Channel and IP storage environments, the Brocade 7840 is designed for high-speed, secure transport of data between data centers while maintaining uptime. This

enterprise-class solution enables storage and mainframe administrators to optimize and manage the use of WAN bandwidth, secure data over distance, minimize the impact of disruptions, and maintain SLAs.

BROCADE 7840 EXTENSION SWITCH HIGHLIGHTS

• Moves more storage data between data centers to meet increasing disaster recovery objectives with industry-leading performance and scalability

• Encrypts storage data flows over distance at full line rate without a performance penalty

• Provides load balancing and network resilience with Brocade Extension Trunking to increase WAN utilization and protect against WAN link failures

• Consolidates Fibre Channel, FICON, and IP storage traffic from heterogeneous devices for high-speed, high-availability, and secure transport between data centers

• Delivers holistic management over distance for greater control and insight

• Achieves always-on business operations with non-disruptive firmware upgrades

• Extends proactive monitoring between data centers to automatically detect WAN anomalies and avoid unplanned downtime

• Enables pay-as-you-grow scalability with capacity-on-demand upgrades

Brocade System Management The use of virtualization, flash storage, and automation tools has allowed applications and services to be deployed faster while shattering performance barriers. The unprecedented number of application and service interactions has also increased the complexity, risk, and instability of mission-critical operations. As a result, IT organizations need flexible

storage networks that can adapt to dynamic environments and performance requirements for high-density virtualization, flash storage, and cloud infrastructures. To achieve SLA objectives, IT administrators also need new tools that can help ensure non-stop operations, quickly identify potential points of congestion, and maximize application performance, while simplifying admini-stration. Brocade Fabric Vision technology helps organizations meet these challenges by providing unprecedented insight and visibility across the storage network.

BROCADE FABRIC VISION TECHNOLOGY HIGHLIGHTS

• Provides powerful, integrated monitoring, management, and diagnostic tools to simplify administration, increase operational stability, and reduce costs

• Deploys 20 years of storage networking best practices in one click with predefined, threshold-based rules, actions, and policies

• Automatically detects degraded application or device performance with IO Insight, the industry’s first integrated network sensors to monitor device latency and IOPS performance

• Enables VM visibility in a storage fabric with VM Insight, an integrated tool for monitoring VM performance, identifying VM anomalies, and optimizing VM performance

• Eliminates nearly 50 percent of main-tenance costs and common network problems with proactive monitoring and advanced diagnostic tools

• Helps save up to millions of dollars on CapEx costs by eliminating the need for expensive third-party tools through integrated monitoring and diagnostics

© 2017 Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 11/17 GA-SB-7001-00

Brocade, the B-wing symbol, and MyBrocade are registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc., in the United States and in other countries. Other brands, product names, or service names mentioned of Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. are listed at www.brocade.com/en/legal/brocade-Legal-intellectual-property/brocade-legal-trademarks.html. Other marks may belong to third parties.

Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or implied, concerning any equipment, equipment feature, or service offered or to be offered by Brocade. Brocade reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time, without notice, and assumes no responsibility for its use. This informational document describes features that may not be currently available. Contact a Brocade sales office for information on feature and product availability. Export of technical data contained in this document may require an export license from the United States government.

Corporate Headquarters San Jose, CA USA T: +1-408-333-8000 info@brocade.com

European Headquarters Geneva, Switzerland T: +41-22-799-56-40 emea-info@brocade.com

Asia Pacific Headquarters Singapore T: +65-6538-4700 apac-info@brocade.com

Learn MoreFor additional information about Brocade, IBM, and SAP solutions covered in this brief, visit:

• Brocade SAN (IBM b-type) Solutions

• IBM System Storage SAN Volume Controller and Storwize V7000 Replication Family Services

• SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems and IBM Storage Guides

About BrocadeBrocade networking solutions help organizations achieve their critical business initiatives as they transition to a world where applications and information reside anywhere. Today, Brocade is extending its proven data center expertise across the entire network with open, virtual, and efficient solutions built for consolidation, virtualization, and cloud computing. Learn more at www.brocade.com.

SummarySAP HANA is considered a business-critical application by many organizations. To ensure business continuity and avoid or minimize costly downtime, organizations need a high-availability infrastructure purpose-built for SAP HANA. However, developing, designing, and deploying a high-availability solution is a process. For best results, organizations must identify their network bandwidth requirements, the required resiliency of the solution, the potential impact of distance on performance, and the security needed to transport data outside the enterprise environment.

Brocade (IBM b-type) switching and extension solutions allow organizations to meet these high-availability demands without a performance penalty. Together, SAP, IBM, and Brocade solutions provide flexible storage deployments that deliver maximum performance and continuous availability to keep businesses running seamlessly.