FlexFrame for SAP

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FlexFrame is an IT infrastructure solution in the environment of SAP - system environments of Fujitsu Technology Solutions . It optimally supports the SAP adaptive computing concept and is the first adaptive computing platform certified by SAP.

The virtualization of SAP services (FlexFrame for SAP) as well as Oracle applications and database services ( FlexFrame for Oracle ) enables better and more flexible server utilization.

history

FlexFrame was created as a joint project by NetApp , SAP and Fujitsu Siemens Computers. The first activities began in 2001. An early prototype was jointly built in the SAP LinuxLab under the project name Bladerunner . As this project name associates, the concept mainly referred to blade servers (from Fujitsu Siemens Computers). However, not only blade servers but also rackmount servers were supported from the start. As early as 2002, the first results of the joint project were installed in production environments for customers. On the part of SAP, essential functions for decoupling SAP and DB services from the hardware have been further developed to product maturity under the name SAP Adaptive Computing Initiative. SAP announced the Adaptive Computing Controller (ACC) at SAPPhire 2004 in Orlando.

Version 3.1 was released in summer 2005. With the additional support of PRIMEPOWER servers, which are based on Sparc / Solaris, a functional expansion took place (discontinued with version 5.0 due to lack of customer demand). In addition, with version 3.1 pooling and grouping concepts were introduced, which since then have allowed outsourcing providers to operate several end customers on a jointly used FlexFrame infrastructure. In June 2007 the FlexFrame for SAP version 4.0 was released. With version 4.0, SAN storage is now also supported in addition to NAS . In addition, with version 4.0, in addition to the storage systems from NetApp, the storage systems from EMC are also supported for the first time . With the release of version 5.0 in summer 2010, the creation of virtual machines based on VMware ESXi with the guest OS Novell SuSE 10 and 11 was also supported. The SAP environment has been expanded to include components such as Business Objects Enterprise, Content Server, Master Data Management and TREX.

Components

The basic components of FlexFrame are:

  • Control Center - Two servers (as a cluster ) based on Novell SuSE SLES10 64Bit SP4 with an adapted environment. They are to be regarded as an appliance (e.g. like a toaster) and are specially preconfigured for their task. The task is to control the application nodes, i. H. with information on the boot process, directory services ( LDAP for hosts, services etc.) and more to be supplied and monitored ( FA Control Agents ).
  • Application nodes - the workhorses of the landscape. The SAP services and databases ( DB2 LUW, Oracle and SAP DB or MaxDB ) are operated here. They are equipped with FA Application Agents that automatically detect when a service fails. Operating systems of the application nodes since version 5.0 can be: Novell SuSE SLES10 64Bit, Novell SuSE SLES11 64Bit. From the point of view of SAP's Adaptive Computing , both the Adaptive Computing Controller (ACC) and the services run on computing nodes .
  • Switches - An important part of the landscape are integrated switches that redundantlyconnectall componentswith one anothervia dedicated VLANs .
  • Storage Area Network (SAN) and Network Attached Storage (NAS) - Storage systems from NetApp or EMC are the central storage of the entire FlexFrame landscape. Operating systems (shared OS) and application software are stored centrally on NAS systems. The application databases (databases, log files) can be stored either on SAN or NAS systems from the two storage providers mentioned. Only the operating systems of the two control centers are on their local disks and not on the NAS storage.

See also

Web links