Flyer Sap Tcoroi Customers de

TCO and ROI Analysis of SAP
Landscapes using VMware

Technology
TCO and ROI Analysis of SAP Landscapes using

VMware Technology
Version 1, September 2009
Contents
1
2
3
Executive Summary ...............................................................................1

Introduction ...........................................................................................3
Overview of the TCO/ROI Methodology ................................................5
3.1
3.1.1
3.1.2
3.1.3
3.1.4
3.2
The Four TCO Categories ................................................................................ 5

Downtime ..............................................................................................................6
Operation ..............................................................................................................6
Administration ....................................................................................................... 7
Hardware and Software ......................................................................................... 7
Direct and Indirect Costs ................................................................................. 7
TCO Calculation and Improvements for Virtualized SAP Systems ....... 8

4.1
4.1.1
4.1.2
4.1.3
4.2
4.2.1
4.2.2
4.2.3
4.3
4.3.1
4.3.2
4.3.3
4.4
4.5
4.5.1
4.5.2
4.5.3
4.6
4.6.1
4.6.2
4.6.3
4.7
4.7.1
4.7.2
4.7.3
4.8
4.8.1
4.8.2
4.8.3
4.9
4.9.1
4.9.2
4.9.3
TCO Calculation for SAP Data Center Server Hardware .................................. 8

Requirements and Sizing for New and Reused Hardware.......................................9
Methodology for Calculation of Hardware Requirements ......................................9
Productivity Improvement with New Hardware ................................................... 10
SAP Data Center Storage .............................................................................. 11

TCO Calculation for Data Center Server Storage ................................................. 11
Calculation of Storage Requirements................................................................... 12
Storage Productivity Improvement...................................................................... 12
SAP Data Center Networking ........................................................................ 12

TCO Calculation for Data Center Networking ...................................................... 13
Methodology for the Calculation of Network Requirements ................................ 13
Productivity Improvement due to Network Virtualization.................................... 13
Data Center Server Space.............................................................................. 13

Data Center Power and Cooling .................................................................... 14
TCO Calculation for Data Center Power and Cooling ........................................... 14
Calculation of Power and Cooling Requirements ................................................. 15
Productivity Improvement ................................................................................... 15
SAP Data Center Provisioning ....................................................................... 16

TCO Calculation for Server and Software Provisioning ........................................ 16
Methodology for the Calculation of Provisioning Savings .................................... 16
SAP Deployment Provisioning Improvement ....................................................... 16
SAP Data Center Server Administrative Costs ............................................... 17

TCO Calculation for SAP Administrative Costs..................................................... 18
Methodology for the Calculation of SAP Administrative Costs ............................ 18
Improvement ....................................................................................................... 18
Reduced Business Risk................................................................................... 19

TCO Calculation for Business Risk ........................................................................ 19
Methodology for the Calculation of Business Risk................................................ 19
Improvements ..................................................................................................... 20
SAP Clustering............................................................................................... 20
TCO Calculation for SAP Clustering ..................................................................... 20
Methodology for the Calculation of SAP High Availability ................................... 21
Improvement ....................................................................................................... 21
4.10
SAP and VMware Server Load Balancing....................................................... 21
4.10.1 TCO Calculation for Load Balancing..................................................................... 22

4.10.2 Improvement ....................................................................................................... 22
4.11
SAP Installation and Upgrades ...................................................................... 22
4.11.1
4.11.2
4.11.3
4.11.4
4.12
SAP Software and Hardware Maintenance.................................................... 23
4.12.1
4.12.2
4.12.3
4.12.4
4.12.5
4.12.6
4.12.7
4.13
SAP Installation ................................................................................................... 22

SAP Downtime Minimized Upgrade Method ....................................................... 23
SAP Resource Minimized Upgrade Method ......................................................... 23
Building Up an SAP Landscape ............................................................................ 23
SAP Support Packages......................................................................................... 24
SAP Kernel Patches ............................................................................................. 25
Industry-Standard (x86) Hardware Maintenance ................................................. 25
Non-Industry Standard Hardware and Software Contracts .................................. 25
SAP Enhancement Packages ............................................................................... 25
TCO Calculation for SAP Maintenance................................................................. 26
Improvement ....................................................................................................... 26
SAP Planned Downtime ................................................................................ 26
4.13.1 Methodology for the Calculation of SAP Planned Downtime ............................... 27

4.13.2 TCO Calculation for SAP Planned Downtime ....................................................... 27
4.13.3 Improvement ....................................................................................................... 27
VMware Infrastructure investment ..................................................... 28

5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
Investment for SAP Physical to Virtual Migration ............................... 31

6.1
6.1.1
6.1.2
6.2
6.2.1
6.2.2
VMware Infrastructure Licensing ................................................................... 28

VMware Infrastructure Training..................................................................... 28
VMware Virtualized SAP Environment Design and Planning ......................... 29
Heterogeneous or Homogenous SAP Migration Costs .................................. 29
System Copy Categories ............................................................................... 31
SAP Heterogeneous System Copy ....................................................................... 31
SAP Homogenous System Copy .......................................................................... 31
Physical to Virtual Migration ......................................................................... 31

VMware Converter ............................................................................................... 31
Customer P2V SAP Migration Costs..................................................................... 32
Use Case Scenarios Before and After Virtualization ............................ 33

7.1
7.2
7.2.1
7.2.2
7.2.3
7.2.4
7.2.5
7.3
7.3.1
7.3.2
7.4
7.4.1
7.4.2
SAP Solution Architecture ............................................................................. 33

Customer SAP Solution-Based Landscapes ................................................... 34
SAP Landscapes Before Virtualization ................................................................. 34
SAP Landscapes After Virtualization.................................................................... 36
Annual Hardware and Software Cost Savings ...................................................... 38
Annual A/C and Power Savings ............................................................................ 38
Annual Cooling Costs for SAP Servers .................................................................. 39
Deploying an SAP Solution with VMware Templates .................................... 39

Cost of Deploying a Solution Before Virtualization .............................................. 39
Cost of Deploying a Solution After Virtualization ................................................. 40
High Availability and Clustering..................................................................... 41

SAP Database ...................................................................................................... 42
SAP Message and Enqueue Service ..................................................................... 42
7.4.3
7.4.4
7.4.5
7.5
7.5.1
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.6
7.6.1
7.6.2
SAP Front End Client Systems ....................................................................... 45

Client Systems Before Virtualization.................................................................... 45
Capital Investment in VMware VDI ......................................................................46
Client Systems After Virtualization ...................................................................... 47
SAP Upgrades and Patches ........................................................................... 47

Upgrades and Patches Before Virtualization ........................................................ 48
Upgrades and Patches After Virtualization ..........................................................49
TCO Reduction: Three Case Studies .................................................... 51

8.1
8.2
8.3
8.4
8.5
8.6
8.7
8.8
VDI
HA and Clustering Before Virtualization............................................................... 43

HA and Clustering After Virtualization ................................................................. 44
Summary of SAP clustering and VMware high availability ................................... 45
TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 1 ......................................................... 51

TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 2 ......................................................... 53
TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 3 without VMware VDI ....................... 55
TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 3 with VMware VDI............................. 57
Customer 1 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs.................... 59
Customer 2 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs ................... 61
Customer 3 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs ................... 63
Customer 3 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs and VMware
...................................................................................................................... 65
Virtualizing Large Enterprise Applications with VMware vSphere ......67
TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology
White Paper
1 Executive Summary
This study examines how VMware software reduces total cost of ownership (TCO) for SAP
landscapes. It focuses on three German reference customers, representing three different
industry sectors with different numbers of concurrent SAP users.
SAP Customer Descriptions
Customer
1
Industry sector
Automotive
Pharmaceutical
Government
Implementation Scenario
Heterogeneous SAP migration from a
mainframe to x86
Heterogeneous SAP migration from a
UNIX Cluster/Oracle to x86 hardware
Homogeneous SAP migration from
X86 physical servers into virtual with
VMware Converter
Concurrent SAP Users

400
200
100
Source: VMware partner AddOn

These customers have virtualized their entire SAP infrastructure together with the associated
databases. Some of the data was collected during the project phase using in-house
questionnaires. All three customers run productive SAP systems on VMware Infrastructure 3.
The projects have been finalized to the customers complete satisfaction. The detailed results
for a three-year calculation before and after the SAP landscape virtualization have been
combined and can be found in the appropriate chapters following.
The following tables summarize the TCO and return on investment (ROI) calculations for the
three companies based on their successful migration from physical SAP environments to
VMware infrastructure. All pre-defined customer objectives have been fully achieved.
The cost savings for SAP planned downtime is based on an estimate of $120,000 US per hour,
which can vary in different use cases. The contribution to the TCO in this study is weighted at 30
percent. The planned downtime reduction is achieved with the use of VMware VMotion and the
simplification of building clusters.
Please note that all monetary amounts in this document are expressed in $US.
TCO Savings with VMware Virtualization
Customer
Customer 1**
Customer 2
Customer 3***
Customer 3****
Total costs
without
VMware
Infrastructure*
$1,991,280
$ 772,131
$ 252,765
$ 399,165
Total costs with

VMware
Infrastructure
$372,321
$131,628
$128,546
$240,646
Savings
TCO in %
$1,618,962
$ 640,503
$ 124,219
$ 158,519
81
83
49
40
* Reference prices based on customer information and quotes for pre-virtualization

environment
** Value for simplified SAP Upgrade is included
***Value for VMware VDI is not included
****Value for VMware VDI is included
1
White Paper
TCO savings with VMware Virtualization Including Costs of Planned Downtime *

Customer
Customer 1***
Customer 2
Customer 3****
Customer 3*****
Total costs
without
VMware**
$ 5,447,283
$ 4,228,131
$10,188,765
$10,335,165
Total costs with

VMware
$2,100,321
$1,859,628
$5,312,546
$5,424,646
Savings
TCO in %
$3,346,962
$2,368,503
$4,876,219
$4,910,519
61
56
48
48
*Achieved through VMotion and simpler cluster build

**Reference prices based on customer information and quotes for pre-virtualization
environment
*** Includes value for simplified SAP Upgrade
****Value for VMware VDI is not included
*****Value for VMware VDI is included
Customers 1 and 2 used UNIX and mainframe hardware before moving to virtualizing on
industry-standard x86 systems.
Customer 3 used x86 systems before and after virtualization. For most medium-sized business
customers this example fits best.
Break even for all three customers was between one and six months.
Customer Objectives for SAP Virtualization with VMware
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Objectives
Reduction of hardware costs
Reduction of hardware and software maintenance
costs
Reduction of hardware costs
Reduction of hardware maintenance costs
Reduction of cluster costs
Reduction of cluster software and maintenance
Reduction of external consultant know-how
requirements
Achieved
Yes
Yes
Yes
Source: customers
Replacing expensive mainframe and UNIX systems with x86 and VMware virtualization
technology reduces costs significantly1. Furthermore, customers achieve more flexibility and
higher availability with all their SAP systems as well as simplified maintenance operations.
This study looks at the first three years after virtualization. Once the SAP solutions have been
virtualized and encapsulated in virtual machines, further projects such as a technology refresh
(migration to faster hardware and storage) become much easier. Moreover, external consultant
costs can also be reduced.
1
All customers had shared storage infrastructure in place prior to virtualization. As a result, the
virtualization projects did not introduce additional costs in that area.
White Paper
2 Introduction
This document provides a detailed overview of how three organizations use VMware
virtualization technology to reduce TCO and increase ROI for their SAP solutions.
TCO is usually several times higher than merely the procurement costs. In addition to license
costs for software, it is also necessary to consider hardware costs, maintenance fees, personnel
costs for implementation and operation, and expenses for user training and licenses. The
calculation of the total cost of ownership provides important information for planning and
implementing projects and consolidating system landscapes, (defined as optimally combining
components from different scenarios and integrating them on one physical server, as far as
possible). Increasing cost pressures for companies make it necessary to merge systems, data,
applications, and access to programs, and thereby achieve corresponding savings. There are
various models for calculating TCO, including those devised by analyst firms Gartner Group and
Alinean, each of which takes different costs into account.
The common goal of all TCO models is to split the total costs into blocks to identify the cost
drivers within the system landscape. In this study, together with three customers with different
user requirements from different industry sectors, we have analyzed TCO and ROI using the
VMware/Alinean model. For SAP landscapes several adjustments were necessary. In addition,
SAP aspects like clustering, deployment and patch scenarios enhance this model.
Several other TCO/ROI methodologies for VMware are available, but no single one covers the
specific requirements and approaches for mission-critical Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
applications such as SAP. Nearly all enterprise core business processes can be represented by
this software.
SAP software is complex, with many dependencies related to customer needs. High availability,
flexibility, scalability and reliability are key requirements for its users. Before SAP solutions can
be used, many customizations are required. SAP is a multi-user environment, where 500 or
more users can work simultaneously in the same system. Different operating systems and
database platforms are supported by SAP, including UNIX, Windows, and Linux. (In conjunction
with VMware, however, only Windows and Linux operating systems are supported.) These
conditions make it necessary to adhere carefully to specific requirements when installing,
supporting, maintaining and upgrading an SAP landscape.
To understand the benefits of running SAP solutions on VMware virtualization technology and
the resulting calculation and measurement methods for the TCO/ROI study, this paper explains
technical issues, procedures and best practices for running SAP solutions successfully in a
virtualized environment. Following these procedures will result in customer cost savings.
To summarize:
This document describes a number of different areas where customers can save time and reduce
costs by running SAP solutions on VMware virtualization platforms.
Another topic is the performance improvement observed after virtualization. For example,
background jobs run 40 percent faster than they did on the older hardware.
White Paper
This TCO/ROI study was validated together with our partner AddOn, which hosts the SAP
Virtualization Competence Center in Europe. The study analyzes three different projects
planned and implemented by this partner.
The intention of this paper is to help organizations quantify the current before VMware cost
of ownership for SAP solutions-based landscapes. The study shows the after VMware
scenario, quantifying the cost savings and the initial investments to set up and deploy the
virtualized SAP data center.
The methodology uses proven financial techniques, industry research, VMware field and
customer data and user-provided metrics to quantify the values. The TCO/ROI analysis formula
subtracts the after VMware scenario from the before VMware scenario to document the
change in TCO and other benefits from the VMware solution over a three-year period.
The ROI analysis formula compares the savings with the incremental investments as a
percentage to illustrate the ratio of returns versus investment (ROI = Total Cumulative Savings /
Total Cumulative Investments).
White Paper
3 Overview of the TCO/ROI Methodology

SAP recommends securing the productive SAP ERP system (PRD) with one or two additional
systems in front called Development (DEV) and Quality Assurance (QAS).
Furthermore, all other SAP solutions such as SAP Enterprise Portals, SAP Exchange
Infrastructure Systems and SAP Business Warehouse (Business Intelligence) should be handled
in the same way. The collection of three independent systems for each SAP solution is called an
SAP landscape.
The customers in this study, regardless of the number of users working concurrently, have
followed this recommendation. As a result, these customers have to manage several servers
with different requirements and high availability criteria.
For all three reference customers in this study, physical DEV and QAS systems were underutilized in terms of CPU and memory consumption.
One way to reduce the total costs of servers is to improve asset utilization through workload
consolidation. Over a 24-hour period, we have seen utilization of DEV and QAS systems at less
than 20 percent of x86 and other hosts (UNIX, mainframe) computing capacity. One of the
reference customers has a worldwide presence and, as a result, some of its systems have no idle
periods. Nevertheless, the customer is not an exception to the rule: most of its physical systems
are under-utilized.
Using these utilization values we can consolidate SAP DEV and QAS systems with a ratio of 4 or
5 to 1. This means that five SAP systems can be hosted on one well-sized VMware ESX host
server. The number of virtual machines that can be hosted on one ESX host server is always
dependent on the underlying physical hardware. The SAP PRD system is in all three customer
cases a mission-critical enterprise solution. SAP defines some prerequisites for such systems:
The SAP release must be supported, together with the VMware software
The resources of SAP virtual machines should not be over-committed.
In this study, all calculation parameters for hardware and software vendors are anonymous.
This allows a better comparison among the three analyzed project implementations, focusing
on the VMware benefits and features for SAP Landscapes.
3.1 The Four TCO Categories

For our SAP / VMware study, we have chosen the Alinean/Gartner model with adapted
contribution values for SAP implementations. This best reflects the Cost of Operation of an
SAP solution. Costs are divided into four major categories. The following table shows the four
cost categories and their contribution to the TCO.
Cost Category
Contribution to TCO
Downtime
30%
Operation
40%
Administration
10%
Hardware, software
20%
White Paper
SAP Application Activities

Planned and unplanned downtime
Users affected
SAP maintenance
Support
Deployment
Maintenance
Process and planning
Upgrades
Energy consumption
Asset management
Firmware upgrades
Procurement
Training (IS, end-user)
Hardware, software
Additional management software
Supplies
Cost categories and their contribution to TCO

Source: Kagermann, Henning Prof. SAP Press book SAP-Solutions
3.1.1 Downtime
Controlling and reducing the downtime of a dedicated SAP system is a critical success factor in
an enterprise. External consultants work in DEV systems, while most of the SAP application
users work in the productive SAP system. In the event of massive failure or disaster, hundreds
of SAP users are unable to read and write business data from the ERP system. One of our
reference customers operates in the automotive sector. He told us that in the event of an
unavailable SAP system, supply trucks would not be able to deliver or charge parts. The whole
logistics department would come to a standstill. There are many examples of the business need
for high application availability; without it, the business loses money.
Downtime can be due to a user waiting for a service desk problem to be resolved, to planned
maintenance, or to unplanned failures (e.g. network outage, database outage, application
outage, etc.).
3.1.2 Operation
Day-to-day operation of an SAP system requires a great deal of attention. The architecture of
an SAP system consists of:
Operating system
Database
SAP software release
Additional SAP servers for the dialog instance
Each component must be integrated and monitored separately with system management
software. SAP has an integrated Computer Center Management System (CCMS), but it only
allows control and monitoring of an individual SAP system itself. Commonly, complex business
processes are spanned over other application solutions as well. There is a need for additional
system management software to take precedence and control over all business system
members.
6
White Paper
Operational elements comprise the technical staff resources including in-house staff,
contractors, and outsourced management and support contracts. Included in this accounting
are costs by operation subcategory (Technical Services, Planning and Process Management,
Database Management and Administration, and Service Desk) and, for actual data collection,
expense responsibility (Corporate IS, Business Unit IS).
To help in evaluating this cost we have obtained global values from IS management and have
evaluated management time surveys.
3.1.3 Administration
Sometimes SAP administration interferes with SAP operation. However, we focused on asset
management, firmware and hardware upgrades, procurement and training (for both IT staff
and end-users).
3.1.4 Hardware and Software

SAP places very restricted requirements on hardware for different SAP solutions. For a
productive use of SAP systems on virtualized hardware, SAP supports the virtualization
solutions VMware ESX version 3.x. SAP exclusively supports 64-bit Windows as the
operating system for virtual machines on AMD and Intel processors. On these operating system
versions, all SAP applications (based on SAP NetWeaver Application Server ABAP and Java)
that are supported on physical hardware are also supported on virtualized hardware.
3.2 Direct and Indirect Costs

Besides the classification into categories, we have split the calculation of costs into
direct (budgeted) costs

indirect (unbudgeted) costs
Direct (budgeted) costs are the capital, fees, and labor costs spent by the corporate IT
department and business unit IS groups for delivering information technology services and
solutions to the organization and users. Direct costs capture actual costs for all direct expenses
related to clients (mobile and desktop), servers, peripherals, and the network in the distributed
computing environment.
Indirect (unbudgeted) costs measure the efficiency of IT in delivering expected services to
end-users. If IT management and solutions are efficient, users are less likely to be burdened
with self- and peer support as well as downtime. If IT management and solutions are inefficient,
users typically must spend more time supporting themselves and each other (self- and peer
support) and are affected by more downtime.
Indirect costs by definition cannot be measured directly and there is not always a direct causal
relationship. But efficient IT spending can have a direct positive impact on end-user
productivity. On the other hand, inefficient spending or cuts can cost an organization more
because of lost productivity.
A very good example of indirect costs is energy costs. All three reference customers handle
power for the SAP server as global costs.
White Paper
4 TCO Calculation and Improvements for Virtualized SAP

Systems
4.1 TCO Calculation for SAP Data Center Server Hardware
SAP data center server workloads can be consolidated with virtualization. Customers generally
achieve a consolidation ratio for SAP development, quality assurance, training, and demo
systems of between 4:1 and 5:1, depending on hardware.
In mission-critical SAP environments, customers typically use a dedicated VMware ESX
instance for the SAP production system, because SAP strongly advises against overcommitment of system resources for production environments.
Prices used in this study are based on systems with two-core and four-core sockets from Intel
and AMD. After consolidation, unneeded system hardware can be reused or reallocated to
other applications and future server purchases can be delayed or avoided.
The following table shows x86 hardware prices only:
Annual Costs of Certified Servers for SAP Systems*
CPU Capacity (Socket)
1 CPU
2 CPU
4 CPU
8 CPU
16 CPU
32 CPU
Annual Server Cost

$ 5,000
$ 7,500
$17,300
$33,000
$45,000
$77,000
*Source: Internal customer information. Prices include chassis, CPUs, 32 GB RAM, and two
local disks. Network and SAN are tallied separately.
Within this document, when we refer to reuse of an application server we mean reuse as a
VMware ESX host, because most of the reusable SAP servers are certified for VMware ESX as
well. This is an important factor in the TCO/ROI calculation and lowers the cost for purchasing
ESX host systems. All three reference customers described here have purchased new multi-core
server equipment for VMware ESX version 3.5.
To calculate servers for both the As Is and Projected environments, the consolidation
savings are considered over the entire analysis period. We have examined the amortized server
capital cost and the annual support and maintenance contract costs for the current installed
base, as well as costs for the consolidated environment.
For the TCO data center hardware calculation we have used the formula:
Annual SAP hardware and software savings = Total servers * (cost per server) As Is Total
servers with VMware ESX * (cost per server/useful life) Projected
Useful life in SAP hardware cycles = 3 years.
White Paper
4.1.1 Requirements and Sizing for New and Reused Hardware

Reducing the number of physical servers definitely has a positive impact on the TCO
calculation, but the virtualized SAP infrastructure must meet at least the same or, preferably,
achieve even better performance values, availability, scalability, and reliability as the physical
environment.
To meet these demands, all three customers in this study have gone through an SAP
virtualization assessment. This service is offered and delivered by VMware and AddOn
Systemhaus, a VMware partner located in Walldorf, Germany. VMware and AddOn jointly host
the SAP Virtualization Competence Center (http://www.vcc-sap.com). The assessment
evaluated performance values of the existing physical SAP servers over a specific time period
(in this case, between four and six weeks) to obtain information about the sizing of the VMware
ESX hardware and the number of VMware ESX instances necessary to virtualize the existing
SAP servers.
Typical daily business workload and sporadic peaks occur in this measurement window.
4.1.2 Methodology for Calculation of Hardware Requirements

VMware Capacity Planner is a tool used in the SAP Virtual Assessment. The tool discovers and
catalogues relevant server information, and measures performance values over a defined time
period. The measured data is stored locally or can be transferred to a VMware store called
https://optimize.vmware.com.
Hardware discovery occurs after the tool is installed and properly configured. The following
figure shows an example of a Capacity Planner report on discovered systems and includes
information about the server chassis.
Figure 1 following shows an extract of an SAP server performance assessment:
White Paper
Figure 1: Extract of Workload Characteristics of Customer SAP Systems

After evaluating the data over a period of time, the number of VMware ESX instances is
calculated.
SAP Assessments help to calculate the number and sizing of the VMware ESX host servers
needed to provide robust and well-scaled SAP systems in a virtualized environment.
4.1.3 Productivity Improvement with New Hardware

All three customers have reported performance improvements with their virtualized SAP
systems.
According to the SAP basis team of one reference customer, after successful migration of the
productive SAP system with approx. 400 concurrent SAP users, they have seen a dramatic
improvement in SAP system performance.
Hardware
As Is
Projected (in a VM)
Av. Response Time

in SAP
900 ms
568 ms
DB Request Time in
SAP
500 ms
326 ms
DB Direct Read
in SAP
9.5 ms
5.2 ms
Av. CPU-Time
177 ms
10 ms
The most surprising effect is the runtime of a Material Requirements Planning (MRP)
background job. Physical hardware calculates the job in 10,000 seconds; with the virtualized
infrastructure it takes only 6,000 seconds.
Another customer has assigned more memory to the SAP system in the virtual machine,
because legacy hardware did not have enough physical memory to increase the total amount.
This has a positive impact on performance because of the settings of database and SAP buffers,
e.g. the SAP Parameter abap/buffersize for the Advanced Business Application Programming
(ABAP) programming buffer.
10
White Paper
4.2 SAP Data Center Storage

There are several ways to connect VMware ESX hosts to shared storage. Shared storage is a
prerequisite for using the VMware High Availability (HA) feature. The following access
technologies can be used with VMware and SAP solutions.
Source: VMware
All of the reference customers use Fibre Channel technology, because iSCSI and NAS currently
have 10 Gbit/sec network hardware limitations (driver availability) and prerequisites (10
Gbit/sec switches). Nevertheless, using iSCSI or NAS can dramatically reduce costs for the
network infrastructure. With NAS and iSCSI, no Fibre Channel assets are necessary.
4.2.1 TCO Calculation for Data Center Server Storage

One of the key cost factors in implementing a SAN architecture is the need for every server to
be connected to a shared storage. This connection requires an investment in purchasing,
deploying, and managing host bus adapters (HBA) to connect the servers to SAN fabrics. Each
virtualized SAP system reduces the cost of implementing a SAN by reducing the number of
SAN switches and HBAs needed.
All of the customers in this study already have a Fibre Channel SAN; therefore an investment in
new storage technology was not necessary.
The following algorithms were used to calculate the storage TCO in this study:
Savings on HBA = ((Number of HBAs) * Price per HBA)/Life per Server) As Is (same)
Projected
Savings SAN switches = ((Number of SAN Switches) * (Price per HBA) / (Life per Server) As
Is (same)) Projected
Each server is calculated with 2 HBA for trespassing reasons.
SAN switches are calculated with 24 ports.
11
White Paper
4.2.2 Calculation of Storage Requirements

We used the inventory function of the Capacity Planner tool to analyze how many servers As
Is had HBAs built in, since these HBAs were consequently attached to the SAN fabric as well.
As a result, we got a percentage As Is of servers attached to the SAN. In the projected
environment we assume 100 percent of servers are attached to shared SAN. Attached to shared
storage, these new servers become highly available because they can leverage the VMware HA
feature.
As part of the VMware Virtualization Check, we obtained the I/O requirements for traffic
between the SAN and the physical SAP machines. They are shown in Figure 1, in the Disk
columns showing utilization in Transactions per second and MB per second. In addition, we
checked and proved the results in the SAP systems with the help of SAP mechanisms (e.g. SAP
Transaction ST04).
Typically, a Fibre Channel Disk in a SAN environment is able to deliver 180 I/O per second.
Taking the storage RAID level into consideration, the number of disks needed in a SAN can be
calculated.
4.2.3 Storage Productivity Improvement

In the beginning of SAP migration project discussions, customers were very skeptical about
gaining SAN improvements from SAP virtualization.
From a performance point of view they were right; there is no big difference between accessing
data from a raw device (i.e. without using the VMware vStorage Virtual Machine File System)
physically or virtually. Once we explained VMware Storage VMotion, however, customers
saw the advantages immediately. This feature allows the movement of complete SAP system
data (virtual OS, SAP and database files included) to other storage areas while the SAP system
is up and running, and what is particularly exciting even to other SAN boxes, regardless of
vendor and access type (iSCSI, NAS or Fibre Channel). Just imagine how difficult it is to migrate
data from one SAN storage provider to another. The cost benefit of this capability is hard to
calculate in a study such as this one, but many external consultant days can certainly be saved.
Another benefit for one of the reference customers was the ability to simplify his SAP offline
backup strategy. Other features like data reduplication have not been analyzed. Specific
storage tools from different vendors are being used by the customers, but this is outside the
scope of this study.
4.3 SAP Data Center Networking

An efficient SAP system has to communicate over the network, with adequate response times,
with hundreds of SAP front end applications. SAP systems are typical client-server systems: a
query is sent from the client; the result set is calculated and sent back by the server.
To satisfy availability and Service Level Agreement (SLA) policies, typical physical SAP servers
have redundant network team-enabled cards built in.
12
White Paper
4.3.1 TCO Calculation for Data Center Networking

The number of physical network components, and thus the necessity of implementing different
team-enabled drivers for different operating systems, is reduced with VMware virtualization
technology. With fewer physical servers attached to the network, fewer switches, ports, NICs,
and cables are required to provide server connectivity for the corporate network. One customer
said: After virtualization, we completely filled one office room with useless network cables.
For this study we used the following equation to calculate savings on networking components:
Annual network savings = round UP (Number of servers * Number of NICs per server *
Number of ports per NIC) / Number of ports per network switch) As Is (Same) Projected
4.3.2 Methodology for the Calculation of Network Requirements

The total number of network cards is delivered by the discovery function of Capacity Planner in
the Inventory section. We were able to see how many network cards in the SAP systems were
built in, and with the aid of Capacity Planner, we could see the network traffic in MB/second.
4.3.3 Productivity Improvement due to Network Virtualization

There are many NIC vendors in the market, each with different firmware, ports, and device
drivers. With virtualization there is no need to pay particular attention to these details, because
the network mechanism is part of the VMware tools.
Apart from cost reduction and administrative simplification, one of the biggest benefits of
virtualization for SAP projects is the ability to change the virtual network card connection to
other defined virtual switches on the fly. Customers can clone complete SAP virtual machines
for fallback, backup reasons, for the creation of a test system, or for freezing errors for
reproduction during an upgrade. Due to identical hostnames and IP-addresses, the cloned
virtual machine is redirected to an internal switch with no physical connection to the enterprise
LAN. This switch reduces the risk of generating problems and errors in enterprise networks.
It also saves time and costs for consultant services, since changing hostnames in SAP
environments requires adjustments in operating system environment variables, share or mount
points, SAP profiles, and SAP tables. An SAP system with ABAP and JAVA stacks is even more
complex.
4.4 Data Center Server Space

A reduction in the number of physical servers and SAN and network switches means reclaiming
valuable data center space. Expansion of future data center facilities and power requirements
can be avoided. Typically, special infrastructure (cooling racks and power systems, disaster
resilience) is required for larger SAP systems due to redundant power supplies, multiple CPUs,
and memory requirements.
As a result of discussions with the customers who took part in this study we concluded that, for
this TCO analysis and all three reference customers, the countable monetary value of saving a
few square meters is low. As a result we have decided to exclude server, storage, and network
space calculations from this study. One customer did avoid having to perform a cooling
13
White Paper
efficiency upgrade of his air conditioning thanks to virtualization, but this is discussed in the
next section.
4.5 Data Center Power and Cooling

SAP systems are typically installed and integrated in the common customer data center. The
largest SAP customer has implemented a redundant failover data center and replicates the
storage data asynchronously to the failover site with SAN storage tools.
Power consumption in a data center can be divided into three categories:
Operating power for the computing infrastructure, including server hardware, network switches,
SAN components
Network critical physical infrastructure (NCPI), such as transformers, uninterruptible power supplies
(UPS), power wiring, fans, lighting
Cooling power for air conditioners, pumps, humidifiers
4.5.1 TCO Calculation for Data Center Power and Cooling

Virtualization allows the number of physical servers to be reduced, along with related
networking and data center infrastructure. As a result, power consumption for operation and
cooling decreases.
Power saving is calculated by the differences in operating system power consumption and
cooling power of hardware before (As Is) and after virtualization (Projected), as follows:
Annual Server Cooling Power per Server = Operating Power per Server * Cooling Load
Factor * Airflow Redundancy / Airflow De-rating
To be fair, we have to acknowledge that, because of higher CPU utilization caused by higher
consolidation ratios, a VMware ESX host system requires more cooling and energy than a
physical server that is used less optimally.
In addition to power consumption, servers produce heat and require substantial cooling to keep
running. Furthermore, the analyzed data centers have shown so-called hot spots, in which heat
density is greater than in other areas. Data centers require additional airflow to account for
inefficiencies related to humidification. Humidification is required to reduce damage resulting
from a static discharge.
We used British Thermal Units (BTUs) for the calculation of the cooling device costs. One BTU is
the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one
degree F. This is the standard measurement for the amount of energy in fuel as well as the
amount of output of any heat generating device.
3.41 million BTU = 1000 KW/h2
http://www.physics.uci.edu/~silverma/units.html
14
White Paper
100 servers retired is equivalent to taking 122 cars off the streets per year. A typical car over
an annual operating period produces nearly 12,000 pounds of CO2 emission or 600 gallons
of fuel)3
The electricity average price per hour in Germany in 2008 = USD $0.28 per 1 KW/h.
The data center operating hours of the participating customers = 8736 (24/7/52) hours.
4.5.2 Calculation of Power and Cooling Requirements

The operating power consumed by server hardware has been calculated by adding up the
power ratings of each server in the data center. Because this number represents the maximum
power used, it should be de-rated to achieve steady-state power consumption. In SAP
environments we have seen an average running load factor of 50 percent and higher. This
indicates that X86 servers consume between 50 - 70 percent of maximum rated power on
average. For the TCO calculation we used BTUs available for the cooling environment and the
average energy price per KWh in Germany in 2008 (see section 4.5.1). Together with the
customers, we analyzed the operating manuals of the server and cooling units, in order to work
out how many KW/h are used before and after virtualization.
The following table shows the power consumption of an X86 server:
Server with
1 CPU
2 CPUs
4 CPUs
8 CPUs
16 CPUs
32 CPUs
Power Watt/h
Power / Day
in kWatt
475
550
1150
1600
4400
9200
11.4
13.2
27.6
38.4
105.6
220.8
Power / Year in
kWatt
4161
4818
10074
14016
38544
80592
Cost / Year @
$0.28 kW/h
$ 1,165
$ 1,349
$ 2,820
$ 3,924
$10,792
$22,565
Source: Power Consumption: Alinean 2007 and average electrical power price in Germany in
2008
4.5.3 Productivity Improvement

The best improvement we saw was in a customer data center that was filled with physical
hardware where the cooling system was operating at its limit. Decreasing the amount of
physical hardware with virtualization saved the customer from having replace its cooling
environment.
With regard to energy and power consumption, there are a number of social and economical
aspects to be considered as well. Under the heading Green IT and carbon reduction,
customers can use these savings as an instrument to show the companys contribution to the
fight against global warming. For simplicity, we have not taken these criteria into consideration
in our calculation model.
Shulz, Garry, Storage Power and Cooling Issues Heat Up, May 21, 2007
http://www.enterprise storageforum.com.
15
White Paper
4.6 SAP Data Center Provisioning

With virtualization, it is easier to acquire, set up and deploy SAP hardware and software to
meet increasing demand. Typical customer SAP landscapes consist of development, quality
assurance, and productive systems. One customer in this study enhanced the landscape with a
training system and an SAP Solution Manager.
The hardware setup consists of server unpack, network and power cabling, rack installation,
and disk setup. The SAP software deployment includes the installation of the operating system,
database and the SAP software. In a physical environment, a high availability cluster-enabled
software must be installed as well.
4.6.1 TCO Calculation for Server and Software Provisioning

Provisioning savings are measured as the working hours saved in not having to provision
servers manually. The savings are calculated by multiplying the hours and the saved hourly
wage of an SAP basis administrator.
For the installation of an SAP system we have calculated two full-time administrator days (16
hours) = Person hours per Provisioning Event. Included in the installation are the pre- and
post- installation steps of an SAP Solution.
Annual data center SAP deployment provisioning savings = (Systems provisioned per year *
Person hours per provisioning event * Average hourly labor rate for SAP basis staff) As Is
(Same) Projected
+
Annual data center server provisioning savings = Server provisioning per year * Person
hours per server * Person hours per provisioning event * Average hourly labor rate for SAP
basis staff) As Is (Same) Projected * 0.5 (improved deployment time)
Person hours per provisioning event = 3 hours
Average hourly labor rate for basis staff = US$45
4.6.2 Methodology for the Calculation of Provisioning Savings

With the aid of the SAP Virtualization Check we discovered the count of physical SAP systems,
size of the SAP landscape, and consequently the number of VMware ESX host servers required
to meet the performance and HA requirements for the virtualization project. With the aid of the
HR department and in collaboration with the stakeholders, we created an average hourly wage
for the SAP basis administrator for each customer. Besides the normal server installation, the
SAP software deployment is considered and added to the TCO.
4.6.3 SAP Deployment Provisioning Improvement

VMware virtualization technology enables very fast deployment times to build up SAP
landscapes. Depending on the systems involved, we can reduce the provisioning time for a
three-system SAP landscape from six days to just under three days, for a 50 percent reduction
in deployment time.
16
White Paper
Initial SAP deployment savings = (Initial SAP Deployment) As Is (Same) Projected * 0.5
(improved deployment time with VMware template technique)
4.7 SAP Data Center Server Administrative Costs

Reducing the number of physical assets helps to lower administrative costs. Physical server
administration includes changing the amount of physical memory and adding more CPUs
(sockets) to asset inventory, and managing security, disaster and recovery planning, as well as
compliance management, vendor and contract management, chargeback and financial budget
management.
In terms of software, fewer monitoring tools are necessary, which also reduces administrative
costs.
The following table lists additional physical resource requirements for newer SAP releases.
Resource requirements for newer SAP releases
SAP Release
SAP R/3 Enterprise (4.7)
SAP ECC 5.0*
SAP ECC 6.0**
Additional CPU
Usage
Baseline
10%
15%
Additional Memory
Usage
Baseline
10%
20%
Additional Disk
Space
Baseline
5%
10%
Source: *SAP Note 778774

**SAP Note 901070
The reason for higher CPU and memory usage is that newer SAP releases need additional
indexes, use larger table rows, support more database users or show different behavior of the
cost-based optimizer of the databases.
Like every other software vendor, SAP follows a specific support and maintenance strategy.
Some customers have to upgrade to a newer SAP release due to the extended maintenance
costs.
17
White Paper
Figure 2: SAP Maintenance Strategy
4.7.1 TCO Calculation for SAP Administrative Costs

Reducing the number of physical servers can reduce server administration labor costs, allowing
reallocation of resources to more strategic uses.
Total server FTE (Full Time Equivalent) = Total physical servers / Physical servers per FTE
Total server administration labor costs savings = Total server FTEs required * Average
annual burdened salary of SAP basis administrators) As Is (same) Projected
4.7.2 Methodology for the Calculation of SAP Administrative Costs

We pooled the information for the salary and external consultant support from the SAP basis
team. The salary information was obtained directly from the employees. This kind of
information is very critical, and no HR department was willing to give detailed information
about the average annual salary. However, to verify what we learned from the employees we
compared the information with an IDC|Alinean survey conducted in 2007.
4.7.3 Improvement
As the SAP enterprise solution evolves to address more complex business problems, new
versions of SAP software and current capabilities are introduced. VMware virtualization can
provide capacity on demand for SAP functionality with minimal service interruption.
18
White Paper
After the virtualization of physical SAP systems was completed, incentive pay for overtime of
the SAP Basis Team was reduced by 20%. Subsequently, fewer people have been necessary to
administrate the SAP Landscapes. External consulting services have been reduced.
All three customers benefit by encapsulating their SAP systems into a virtual machine. Figure 2
shows how long SAP estimates the lifetime for an SAP NetWeaver Version (6.40, 7.00), with the
aid of mainstream maintenance. Typical hardware amortization, due to lifetime and service
contracts with the vendor, is between three to four years. As a result, SAP customers need to
redeploy the SAP release to a new piece of hardware once during its lifecycle. Due to operating
system and database dependencies, these are complex projects. All three reference customers
need support from different vendors and consultants (e.g. storage vendor, SAP consultants) for
these hardware refresh cycles.
With virtualization, SAP systems can be cold migrated to any new VMware-certified system
with no change to the core SAP application inside the virtual machine.
4.8 Reduced Business Risk

In case of a disaster, virtualization reduces risk because if provides hardware independence and
built-in mechanisms to reduce the downtime of SAP systems. Traditional disaster recovery
solutions require redundant productive hardware. An active-passive cluster for the database is
also a mandatory failover mechanism to prevent downtime. Server configuration and complex
multi-step processes in bare-metal environments are difficult and time consuming.
4.8.1 TCO Calculation for Business Risk

The following mathematical algorithm is used in this study.
Data center server disaster recovery savings = (Amount of disasters per year * Recovery
time * Downtime cost per hour) As Is (Amount of disasters per year * Recovery time * 25
percent (Reduced recovery time with VMware) * Downtime cost per hour) Projected
The 25 percent reduction of recovery time is achieved with VMware Consolidated Backup in
combination with third-party backup and recovery solutions.
4.8.2 Methodology for the Calculation of Business Risk

In our projects we have tried to investigate the downtime costs per hour. These costs include
the labor for IT and the indirect impact of lost user productivity.
Unfortunately, opinions and calculations varied greatly within the companies; therefore we
deferred to a study from IDC|Alinean published in 2007. IDC|Alinean costs for downtime for
typical applications are shown in the next table.
19
White Paper
Cost per Application Downtime/Hour

Application Type
Collaboration and Messaging
ERP *
Infrastructure/Productivity Tools
Line of Business Applications
Retail / Point of Sale
Scientific / Technical
Supply Chain Management
Trading
Cost per Downtime Hour by Application

$ 60,000
$120,000
$ 42,000
$120,000
$400,000
$ 85,000
$120,000
$600,000
* SAP solutions are ERP applications

Source: IDC/Alinean
Alternative formula:
Downtime cost per hour = (Productivity impact to SAP end-user in %)* End-user burdened
salary + costs for, say, production stop, delivery bottlenecks, contract penalty, loss of
reputation
4.8.3 Improvements
VMware virtualization works alongside SAP solutions to deliver enhanced infrastructure and
high availability of applications for critical business functions. Using VMware infrastructure,
customers can implement a unified disaster recovery (DR) platform that allows many
production SAP virtual machine servers to be recovered in the event of a failure, without
investing in an exact replica of the production hardware. VMware infrastructure capabilities
such as VMware VMotion, VMware High Availability (HA) and VMware Consolidated Backup
(VCB) deliver enhanced levels of availability to virtualized SAP environments.
4.9 SAP Clustering

Two of the reference customers require an uptime of 24 hours 7 days a week, because they
have worldwide subsidiaries across global time zones with different working hours.
Virtualization helps to reduce both planned and unplanned downtime.
In a physical environment, SAP offers SAP cluster solutions in conjunction with database and
storage vendors, which must be additionally implemented. This situation is described in one of
the case studies below.
4.9.1 TCO Calculation for SAP Clustering

Clustering implementation costs are higher than hardware and software costs. We have used
the following formula:
Annual SAP high availability savings = ((Hourly labor rate for IT system administrator staff)
* (Person hours to implement and test an SAP cluster) * Size of SAP solution + (Costs for
additional cluster software) + (Volume of additional server costs)) As Is (Same) Projected.
20
White Paper
The SAP customers told us that to implement an initial physical SAP Cluster you need
approximately five work days. An additional eight hours in maintenance time is necessary
for SAP support stack scenarios in comparison to a NON-cluster environment.
4.9.2 Methodology for the Calculation of SAP High Availability

We worked with the customers to analyze the need for SAP high availability. Traditionally, each
SAP productive system is a candidate for SAP high availability, as described earlier. With
VMware virtualization, all SAP solutions including those in DEV and QAS can benefit from the
VMware HA feature, at no additional cost.
Together with the customers, we analyzed the average baseline prices for the following
products:
Microsoft Cluster
HP/Digital TruCluster
HP ServiceGuard
IBM HACMP
On average, the price for a two-node cluster in Unix environments is approximately $20,000 per
year. A Microsoft Cluster is calculated at approximately $2000 per year.
The customers told us that the implementation of an initial SAP Cluster requires approximately
five additional work days. An additional eight hours is necessary in SAP support stack scenarios
in comparison to a NON-cluster environment.
4.9.3 Improvement
VMware HA provides cost-effective high availability for SAP applications running in virtual
machines. In case of a physical server failure, SAP virtual machines can be automatically
restarted on other servers within the pool that have spare capacity. VMware HA minimizes
downtime and IT service disruption, while eliminating the need for dedicated stand-by
hardware. It provides high availability across the entire virtualized IT environment, without the
cost and complexity of failover solutions tied to either operating systems or specific
applications. The VMware HA feature is part of the enterprise license and can be activated in
five minutes for each kind of SAP solution.
The customers in this study report that single point of failure components like message server,
enqueue service and database components run reliably and need no additional attention from
cluster service monitor components. To monitor these SAP components, SAP CCMS features
are used. VMware heart beat alarm settings prevent unresponsive SAP operating systems.
4.10 SAP and VMware Server Load Balancing

SAP provides distributed transaction processing, automated load balancing, and replicated
service framework offering high levels of scalability and resource optimization for the
application environment. SAP environments also have a built-in logon group load-balancing
mechanism. This mechanism can be combined with the VMware Distributed Resource
Scheduler feature to assist with optimizing the infrastructure resources used by SAP and nonSAP applications.
21
White Paper
4.10.1 TCO Calculation for Load Balancing

There are no real formulas to calculate a TCO value for load balancing. The load balancing
mechanism in VMware can guarantee the performance values and thresholds defined in service
level agreements.
4.10.2 Improvement
VMware infrastructure solutions support load balancing capabilities by addressing resource
management across the entire data center infrastructure and across multiple distributed SAP
application servers. VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) dynamically allocates and
balances computing capacity across a collection of hardware resources aggregated into logical
resource pools. VMware DRS continuously monitors utilization across resource pools and
intelligently allocates available resources among the virtual machines based on pre-defined
rules that reflect business needs and changing priorities. When an SAP virtual machine
experiences an increased load, VMware DRS automatically allocates additional resources by
redistributing virtual machines across the physical servers. VMware DRS optimizes IT
environments to align resources with business goals, while ensuring flexibility and efficient
utilization of hardware resources.
4.11 SAP Installation and Upgrades

SAP solutions can run in physical environments on different operating systems and database
platforms. Only Windows and Linux (Red Hat, SUSE) operating systems are supported in a
VMware virtual infrastructure. There are some pre-configuration steps on the operating system
level that are required before an SAP installation takes place.
4.11.1 SAP Installation

The installation steps in a virtualized environment are the same as in the physical world and can
be performed in two days. With a virtualized environment, however, we have seen three
benefits in SAP installation scenarios.
SAP software DVD media management can be simplified

Installation steps can be captured and recovered with the help of the VMware snapshot manager in
VMware vCenter
Once an SAP system is installed, templates and clones can be made easily
In all three customer projects, the required SAP media DVDs were copied to a VMFS Disk and
attached as a temporary installation drive. After installation, this drive can be reassigned to
other virtual machines.
An SAP installation typically consists of four phases:
Installation of the operating system

Installation of the database
Installation of the SAP executable
Initial import and load of the database with tables, fields, and data
After each successful installation phase, a VMware snapshot was made to allow roll back to a
know clean state in case of a serious error.
22
White Paper
SAP upgrades consist of two phases:
Prepare
SAPup
In the SAPup phase there are two methods for importing the new release objects into the
database. These methods are:
Downtime-minimized
Resource-minimized
The following is a brief explanation of both SAP upgrade methods.
4.11.2 SAP Downtime Minimized Upgrade Method

Due to the size and volume of SAP packages (SAP support packages, SAP add-on installation
packages, and SAP add-on upgrades), import of the packages has a large impact on the
duration of system downtime, when no end-user is able to work. To reduce the downtime when
importing SAP support packages, the downtime-minimized import mode assists with
importing the majority of the objects during production operation of the system. In this mode,
the objects are imported into the database in an inactive state, in which they are largely
invisible to the system. The system can continue to be used productively.
For this upgrade methodology, we strongly advise against the using VMware snapshots while
end-users are working productively. Data can be lost in the case of a rollback to older
snapshots.
4.11.3 SAP Resource Minimized Upgrade Method

In resource-minimized environments, the system is down during SAP package import. The
advantage of this method is that the database log files do not really increase, because no endusers produce additional data. This method is faster than downtime-minimized, but causes
more downtime for the productive system.
With this method, VMware snapshots can prevent longrunning backup jobs performed by
different departments and people.
4.11.4 Building Up an SAP Landscape

Once an SAP system is installed in a virtual environment, VMware templates and the clone
mechanism can be used to create an SAP landscape of two to five systems. SAP recommends
the establishment of a three system landscape with development, quality assurance, and
productive systems.
4.12 SAP Software and Hardware Maintenance

From time to time, SAP publishes changes and corrections to its solutions in support packages.
These support packages are first applied to the development systems. After a successful test
they are implemented in the downstream systems. Maintenance of the physical machines is
also necessary, including such activities as doing a firmware upgrade of a network card, a Host
Bus Adapter Controller, or the addition of more memory or CPU capacity.
23
White Paper
4.12.1 SAP Support Packages

An SAP system consists of different software layers, also called software components. All layers
are regularly updated using support packages; that is, errors are corrected and new functions
are provided.
The SAP system should always be kept at the current correction status to prevent errors in the
standard release. In addition to the standard functions in an SAP system, additional functions
are sometimes required for a particular industry solution (IS).
Each SAP support package has a stack number based on an SAP release number. If a customer
has different SAP solutions and components, he has to deal with different SAP support package
stacks.
In the table below the stack number 15 was released in the first quarter for SAP ERP 6.0. The
next, number 16, is scheduled for August 2009.
Support packages and add-ons are installed in ABAP with an SAP transaction called SPAM and
SAINT. For the Java stack a tool called JSPM (Java Support Package Manager) is used.
SAP Support Package Schedule for 2009 and SAP Solutions
24
White Paper
We recommend instantly rolling back SAP virtual machines using snapshots during patch
problem resolution.
4.12.2 SAP Kernel Patches

The executable SAP programs are written in C and called SAP kernel. Each SAP release and
SAP solution has its own subset and version of these executables. The programs must be
patched from time to time, due to database, operating system, and release dependencies.
Replacing these SAP programs causes SAP system downtime.
SAP kernel patching is a procedure in which the SAP programs are exchanged with current
versions. Most of the up-to-date SAP release kernels are downward compatible. During the
startup of the SAP system, these kernel programs are distributed to all attached SAP instances
to make sure that every host or VM has the same patch version and functionality.
VMware patches can be tested concurrently on multiple configurations (different versions of
OS, SAP, Web, etc.) that are hosted on the same physical system.
4.12.3 Industry-Standard (x86) Hardware Maintenance

New computer equipment is usually sold with a warranty. The guarantee period in Germany is
two years, but some vendors offer longer warranties. If the computer fails during the warranty
period, the vendor should resolve any hardware problems at no additional cost. In addition, a
customer can obtain an extended support and maintenance contract.
On average, we calculate using the following values for x86 hardware maintenance:
Server Type
2* Quad - Core
4* Quad - Core
Reaction Time (Hours/Days/Year)

13/5/1
24/7/1
Price (USD)
$450
$840
Source: Customer contracts
4.12.4 Non-Industry Standard Hardware and Software Contracts

Two customers replaced their SAP systems running on non-x86 hosts with clustered
environments with x86 technologies. The maintenance costs for the non-x86 hosts are
significantly higher.
Type
Hardware
Software
Reaction Time (Hours/Days/Year)

24/7/1
-
Price (USD)
$46,000
$20,700
We recommend dynamically reassigning SAP virtual machines with VMware VMotion to other
systems while performing maintenance or changes on the current physical system, thus
causing minimal disruption to end-users.
4.12.5 SAP Enhancement Packages

The enhancement package for the SAP ERP application provides new or improved software
functionality that can be implemented in a modular fashion. There is no need for a major
25
White Paper
upgrade. New features and technical improvements can be applied while the core software
remains in place.
The enhancement packages include collections, or bundles, of enterprise services. Each bundle
provides new services as well as documentation on how the services can assist with extending
and reconfiguring processes or groups of related processes. Each bundle includes explanations
of relevant processes, groups of processes, and roles, along with descriptions of business
objects and tips on how to implement the new services.
4.12.6 TCO Calculation for SAP Maintenance

SAP maintenance is one of the major cost drivers for the reference customers. However, SAP
patches, new SAP releases, are useful and necessary for reasons of new business functionality,
security, and stability.
The calculation here is based on database sizes of nearly 500 GB.
SAP maintenance savings = ((SAP installation savings) As Is + (SAP upgrade savings) As is +
(SAP patch savings)) As Is (Same) Projected * 0.75 improved by VMware
SAP installation savings (initial three-system landscape) = (2 work days * three systems *
Hourly labor rate for IT system administrator staff per consultant) As Is (3 days for three
systems * Hourly labor rate for IT system administrator staff or consultant)
SAP upgrade savings = ((5 work days * 1 DEV system + 3 days * 1 QAS system + 3 days * 1
PRD system) * Hourly labor rate for IT system administrator staff or consultant) As Is 0.8
*(same* Hourly labor rate for IT system administrator staff or consultant) Projected
SAP patch savings (complete support package stack) = (2 days * Hourly labor rate for IT
system administrator staff) As Is 0.75 * (2 days * Hourly labor rate for IT system
administrator staff) Projected
The SAP patch saving and the SAP upgrade factors of 0.75 and 0.8 are achieved by using
VMware snapshot and clone technologies.
4.12.7 Improvement
The new VMware clone and template technologies can save time and lower costs. Faster
change management with fewer system resource requirements can be achieved using new test
patches concurrently on multiple configurations (different versions of OS, SAP, Web etc.) that
are hosted on the same physical system. With VMware snapshots, the backup times for
milestones in SAP patch upgrade scenarios can be accelerated and resource utilization can be
minimized.
4.13 SAP Planned Downtime

Planned downtime expenses are the annual losses in productivity due to planned unavailability
of the SAP system. SAP planned downtime can be categorized as:
Hardware maintenance (adding more memory, adding more CPUs, firmware upgrades to the
controller, and so on)
26
White Paper
SAP software maintenance (adjusting SAP parameters such as memory, buffers, security settings,
etc.)
Applying new support pack stacks
Offline backups
4.13.1 Methodology for the Calculation of SAP Planned Downtime

In the SAP virtualization projects, we evaluated these criteria together with the customer's endusers. We performed some end-user surveys and discussed the results with the IS
management. For customers with 24/7 uptime, the reduction of planned downtime is equal to
the downtime of the production system.
4.13.2 TCO Calculation for SAP Planned Downtime

The SAP planned downtime depends on the company policies of the customer. The following
values are taken from SAP customer surveys. A customer with 24/7 operation hours has the
following prerequisites per year.
Annual SAP planned downtime for maintenance*
Planned Downtime for
Maintenance
Hardware**
SAP Software per
Central Instance***
Hours Unavailable
4
16
Unavailable
per Year in %
0.05
0.18
Cost
$ 480,000
$1,920,000
* At least two SAP patch stacks per year per eight hours each
** $120,000 for SAP ERP
***The contribution to TCO in the final calculation is 30 percent
In this study the calculation of SAP planned downtime is the same as for SAP unplanned
downtime.
4.13.3 Improvement
With VMware VMotion technology, the planned downtime for hardware maintenance becomes
zero. While the SAP system is up and running, a hot migration to another VMware ESX host
machine can be performed. Internal service level agreements can be fulfilled more satisfactorily
with VMotion.
Offline backups can be completely replaced by VMware Consolidated Backup, with the aid of
snapshot technology. VMware Consolidated Backup provides an easy-to-use, centralized
facility for LAN-free backup of virtual machines. Consolidated Backup simplifies backup
administration, reduces the load for VMware ESX host machines, and can reduce SAP
downtime.
27
White Paper
5 VMware Infrastructure investment

To achieve expected TCO savings, there must be an investment in VMware virtualization
solutions. Customers must take four areas into consideration:
VMware infrastructure licensing

VMware infrastructure training
VMware infrastructure design and planning
Heterogeneous or homogenous SAP migration costs
5.1 VMware Infrastructure Licensing

Deploying a virtual infrastructure requires a onetime cost of purchasing VMware software
licenses, as well as annual support und subscription costs. For an SAP solution as a missioncritical application, the VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition is required. The Enterprise
edition includes ESX, VMFS, vCenter Management Server, Virtual SMP, VMotion, VMware HA,
VMware DRS, and VMware Consolidated Backup.
The model derives the cost of software by dividing by two the total number of processors
(socket) after virtualization. One Enterprise Edition server license for every two CPUs is
required after consolidation.
Recurring fees vary, depending on the type of support and subscription program purchased.
VMware provides Gold and Platinum level support contracts. Due to the need for 24 hours/7
days a week support for their SAP environments, two customers chose the Platinum Support
model and pay 25 percent (21 percent) of the purchase price annually. We used the Enterprise
Edition for the TCO calculation.
VMware VI Edition
VI Enterprise Edition
License Cost
VI Enterprise Edition
License Units
VirtualCenter
Management Server
License Cost
Subscription Factor
Description
Unit price VI
Value
Units to purchase
Unit price VC
Percentage of unit price

that yields annual fee
$5,750
Number of CPUs / 2
Source
VMware Commercial
Price List*
Calculated
$5,000
VMware Commercial
Price List
21% (Gold)
25% (Platinum)
VMware Commercial
Price List
*Source: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/vi_pricing.pdf
TCO calculation:
Initial purchase = VI enterprise license cost * VI enterprise license units + VC management
server license cost
5.2 VMware Infrastructure Training

A training class is available for VMware virtualized SAP environments. This class can be found in
the official SAP training catalog. For calculation purposes, the number of classes required is
dependent on the number of administrators who require training. In addition, customers have
28
White Paper
attended the AD310 course classes for a better understanding how a virtualized SAP
environment can be management efficiently.
Training Class Costs

Class Title
AD310: Install and Configure VMware for SAP
Administration (5 days)*
Course Cost*
$4,500
*Source: SAP Education Training Catalog http://www.sap.com/education

TCO calculation:
Initial VMware infrastructure trainings costs = AD310 * SAP Administrators * course cost
Initial costs for knowledge transfer
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Number of Administrators
3
2
1
Cost*
$ 13,500
$ 9,000
$ 4,500
*Source: Customer
5.3 VMware Virtualized SAP Environment Design and Planning

An SAP / VMware migration requires dedicated planning and design of the virtualized VMware
servers and SAN requirements, along with the adjustment of the SAP systems. Such a
virtualization check, offered by multiple VMware SI partners, is used as the basis for the TCO
calculation.
Cost of SAP Virtualization Check Offered by a VMware Partner
Consulting Package
SAP Virtualization Check (dependent on size of SAP landscape)
Cost
$7,000
TCO calculation:
Initial virtualization check costs = Amount of SAP landscapes * Fee
Initial cost for SAP Virtualization Checks
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Number of Virtualization
Checks
1
1
1
Cost
$7,000
$7,000
$7,000
5.4 Heterogeneous or Homogenous SAP Migration Costs

To facilitate the migration of physical SAP systems to a virtualized VMware environment, a
certified SAP and VMware migration consultant is needed. The time for the consultancy
depends on the SAP database size. For databases smaller than 500 GB, twelve days are
assumed (5-Dev, 3 QAS, 3 PRD, 1-STDBY).
29
White Paper
Typical Costs per Day for a Certified SAP Migration Consultant in Germany
Service
Certified SAP and VMware Consultant
Cost per Day

Approx. $2,400
Source: VMware Partner

TCO calculation:
Initial Certified Consultant Costs = Number of days * Cost per day
30
White Paper
6 Investment for SAP Physical to Virtual Migration

An SAP system migrated to other platforms with different databases and/or operating systems
is called a heterogeneous SAP system copy. If databases and operating systems remain the
same, the migration is called a homogenous SAP system copy. The procedures and tools are
supplied by SAP. In the case of heterogeneous SAP system copies, SAP strongly recommends
the engagement of a certified SAP Migration Consultant. For homogenous SAP system copies,
there is no specific SAP recommendation. The table following shows the decisions made by the
three customers in this study on changing the operating system and the database for their
physical to virtual (P2V) migration.
Customer Changes to Operating System and Database for Virtualization
Customer
Operating System
Database Change
SAP System Copy
Change
Procedure
Customer 1
X
X
Heterogeneous
Customer 2
X
Heterogeneous
Customer 3
Homogenous
6.1 System Copy Categories

6.1.1 SAP Heterogeneous System Copy
A heterogeneous system copy is defined as one in which either the operating system or the
database system or both are changed. A benefit of this kind of migration is the reorganization
of the database and the combination of SAP Unicode features. In SAP terminology, the
database is exported to the file system and imported into the target system.
6.1.2 SAP Homogenous System Copy

A homogeneous system copy is defined as one in which the target system uses the same
operating system and database as the source system. The database contents are copied from
the source system to the target system. This can be done by restoring a backup or with
database export/import tools.
6.2 Physical to Virtual Migration

6.2.1 VMware Converter
VMware vCenter Converter is able to run on a wide variety of hardware and supports most
commonly-used versions of the Microsoft Windows and Linux operating systems. VMware
Converter is also a powerful tool for converting SAP systems. The following tasks can be
performed with this migration tool:
Quick and reliable conversion of physical machines (locally or remotely) into virtual machines
without any disruption or downtime.
Performance of complete multiple conversions simultaneously with a centralized management
console and an intuitive conversion wizard.
Conversion of other virtual machine formats such as Microsoft Virtual PC and Microsoft Virtual
Server or backup images of physical machines such as Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery or
Norton Ghost to VMware virtual machines.
31
White Paper
Restoration of VMware Consolidated Backup (VCB) images of virtual machines to run virtual
machines.
Cloning and backup of physical machines to virtual machines as part of a disaster recovery plan.
6.2.2 Customer P2V SAP Migration Costs

All three reference customers planned their P2V projects together with a VMware partner who
provides VMware Certified Professionals and SAP Certified Consultants.
The VMware Converter exists in two versions: stand-alone or integrated in vCenter. The standalone VMware Converter is available free of charge and can be used while the systems are
running. When converting hosts with SAP systems, conversion takes place while the systems
are down.
The number of consulting days and the costs are listed in the following table.
Initial Consulting and Service Costs for P2V Migration
Customer
Number of SAP
Systems
Consultant Days*
Cost**
Customer 1
10
$24,000
Customer 2
$14,400
Customer 3
$14,400
*Consultant Day = 8 hours

**Consultant Fee = $2,400.00 per day
32
White Paper
7 Use Case Scenarios Before and After Virtualization

In this chapter we describe some special SAP issues and procedures and explain how customers
save costs with VMware tools.
IT departments face two key challenges in change management: patch testing and testing
upgrades for compatibility with standard corporate hardware, operating systems, and
application configurations. IT organizations traditionally need to procure identical hardware
and create testing environments that mirror the operating system and application
configurations of the production environment.
A typical and recommended SAP landscape consists of DEV, QAS and PRD systems.
Customers also host other SAP systems for training and testing purposes. With VMware
infrastructure, SAP basis teams are able to clone productive systems on the fly and create a set
of virtual machine libraries that mirror the productive environment. They can then be used for
provisioning the test environment. The latest patches and upgrades can be tested on these
virtual machines running SAP applications, eliminating the need to have dedicated hardware to
perform these tests. Patches can be rolled into production with minimal interruption to endusers. In the event of problems, the virtual machines can be instantly rolled back using the
VMware snapshot features.
For the purposes of clarification, a short explanation of SAP products and business solutions
follows.
7.1 SAP Solution Architecture

The SAP Business Suite is one of the world's most comprehensive families of adaptive business
applications, providing best- of-breed functionality built for complete integration, industryspecific functionality, unlimited scalability, and easy collaboration over the Internet.
Individually, SAP Business Suite applications help customers manage their most critical
business processes. Collectively, they form a tightly-integrated suite that adds value to every
facet of a customers business, including its interactions with partners, suppliers and endcustomers. The core product from SAP is called SAP ERP. In addition to ERP software, other
key SAP products and solutions are available:
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Suite (SAP BI)

Customer Relationship Management (SAP CRM)
Supply Chain Management (SAP SCM)
Supplier Relationship Management (SAP SRM)
Human Resource Management Systems (SAP HRMS)
Product Life Cycle Management (SAP PLM)
Process Integration (PI) (Message broking, Message workflows)
Enterprise Portal (EP)
SAP Knowledge Warehouse (KW)
The SAP Business Suite applications are based on the SAP NetWeaver platform, a technology
and integration platform. SAP NetWeaver enables rapid but controlled business process
changes. Through its enterprise services repository, the platform incorporates business
functionality in the form of ready-to-use enterprise services and process components. It also
provides an integrated platform of composition technologies for orchestrating business
33
White Paper
processes, composing applications and deploying innovative solutions. SAP NetWeaver

consists of an ABAP and/or J2EE Stack.
SAP enterprise applications can be deployed on a two- or three-tier architecture. In terms of
software deployment, the three-tier client-server architecture consists of a presentation layer,
an application layer, and a database layer. In terms of hardware deployment these three layers
can run separately on different computers or together on the same computer, depending on
the requirements and size of the SAP solutions being deployed by each customer. The
presentation and application server layers can be distributed over multiple computers. The
three-tier architecture targets the support of large numbers of users. The two-tier architecture
is usually sufficient for many small and midsize companies, as well as for sandbox,
development, training and test systems.
A complete SAP implementation may consist of hundreds of systems with different SAP
applications running on dedicated servers. Depending on the application and the time of
monthly processing, many SAP environments may have a low server utilization rate. Those with
low utilization rates may be worthwhile targets for virtualization with VMware virtualization
technology.
7.2 Customer SAP Solution-Based Landscapes

In the following chapters we show, in detailed scenarios, what benefits the customers obtained
with the virtualization of their SAP system landscapes. First we explain what the SAP landscape
and systems included prior to being virtualized; then we show the reduction of physical
infrastructure after virtualization.
7.2.1 SAP Landscapes Before Virtualization

All customers in this study drive an SAP ERP installation with additional dialog instances. As a
result, we focus only on this kind of SAP solution-based landscape in this study.
Customer 1:
This customer's company was founded as a family business in 1849 in Germany and has been a
supplier to the automotive industry since 1920. This company operates in the automotive
sector, with more than 3,000 employees and more than 400 concurrent SAP users worldwide.
This customer uses SAP ERP systems attached to SAP Content Server systems (file based) for
its CAD drawings.
The SAP R/3 Release 4.7 landscape consists of five SAP systems: DEV, QAS, PRD, EDU, SOL.
DEV = SAP Development System
QAS = SAP Quality Assurance System
PRD = SAP Productive System
EDU = Education System
SOL = SAP Solution Manager
These SAP systems originally ran in a mainframe environment. After virtualization the systems
were upgraded to SAP Release ECC 6.0.
34
White Paper
Due to internal SLA (Reliability, High Availability) requirements, two hosts run in parallel as a
cluster. The hosts run several SAP central instances with different port numbers. The SAP
database files are located on a Fibre Channel SAN environment from the same vendor.
This customer has its own dedicated SAP / VMware infrastructure. The VMware ESX host
servers are used exclusively for the SAP infrastructure.
Aggregated Annual Hardware, Storage, and Network Costs for One Mainframe Host
Costs before Virtualization
SAP Hardware Mainframe (4-way, 64 GB
RAM)*
Operating System (4 CPUs)**
Hardware Maintenance
Software Maintenance
SAP Network
SAP Storage (HBAs + Port)
Console
Total
No. of Units
1
Total Cost
$219,000
1
1
1
4 Network Cards
2
1
-
$ 24,700
$ 46,000
$ 21,000
$
767
$ 1,540
$ 1,800
$314,807
* The pre-virtualization hardware costs for this customer are based on a vendor quote of
Q42007.
** Cluster is part of the operating system
The objective of this customer was to reduce the cost of hardware, hardware maintenance, and
software maintenance.
Customer 2:
Customer 2 operates in the pharmaceutical sector. The company is located in Germany and has
more than 2,300 employees. Its SAP PRD systems handles more than 200 concurrent SAP users
on a UNIX cluster, all running on the same cluster with different port numbers. The initial SAP
release was 4.6C. Since then the SAP systems have been upgraded to SAP ECC 6.0 within the
virtualized infrastructure.
The DEV, QAS and PRD SAP systems for the commercial SAP modules were hosted on one
Unix cluster with two hosts. The SAP database files are located on a SAN box attached via Fibre
Channel.
Aggregated Annual Hardware, Storage, and Network Costs for One UNIX Host
Costs before Virtualization
SAP Hardware Unix Cluster (4-way, 32 GB
RAM)*
Operating System (4 CPUs)
Cluster Software
Hardware Maintenance
SAP Network
Total
No. of Units
1
1
1
1
2 Network Cards
2
-
Total Cost
$88,500
$ 3,050
$20,000
$ 8,000
$ 780
$ 300
$ 1,480
$122,110
* The pre-virtualization hardware costs for this customer are based on the original purchase
price rather than todays price, since this type of hardware is not available anymore.
35
White Paper
The objective of this customer was to reduce the costs for hardware, hardware maintenance,
and cluster software.
Customer 3:
Customer 3 is a federal government institution for policy, research and practice in the field of
vocational education and training. The SAP systems, based on release SAP ECC 6.0, originally
ran on x86 hosts used by 100 SAP end users.
The SAP landscape consists of DEV, PRD and SAP Solution Manager together with SAP
Enterprise Portal 7.0 for using the SAP package Employee Self Service. The SAP Enterprise
Portal landscape also includes DEV and PRD systems. In addition, the customer works with an
SAP BW landscape, with DEV and PRD, attached to the SAP portal enterprise for BEX queries.
Each SAP solution originally ran on a dedicated server.
Aggregated Annual Hardware, Storage and Network Costs for One x86 Host
Costs Before Virtualization
SAP Hardware X86 (2-way, 8 GB
RAM)
Operating System
Cluster Software
Hardware Maintenance (24/7)
SAP Network
Total
No. of Units
1
1
1
1
1
2 Network Cards
1
-
Total Cost
$ 7,500
$ 1,000
$ 2,000
$ 1,100
$
0
$ 250
$ 1,400
$13,250
The customers objective was to reduce costs for the cluster software for productive SAP BW,
SAP Enterprise Portal, and SAP ERP. A further objective was saving external consultant knowhow for other SAP projects.
7.2.2 SAP Landscapes After Virtualization

Customer 1:
Previously on two mainframes, the virtualized SAP systems were distributed to three VMware
ESX hosts based on x86 technology. The customer also virtualized some of the network
services including domains, DNS, WINS, DHCP, and so forth. (Analyses of these other
virtualized services are not included in this documentation.) This customer has its own
dedicated SAP / VMware infrastructure that is, the VMware ESX hosts run the SAP
infrastructure exclusively.
36
White Paper
Aggregated Annual Hardware, Storage, and Network Costs for One x86 VMware ESX Host
for Customer 1
Costs after Virtualization
ESX x86 Server (4 Socket)
Operating System
Cluster Software
VMware Enterprise Edition
SAP Network
Total
No. of Units
1
1
Total Cost
$ 17,300
$
0
$
0
$ 3,834
$ 1,100
$ 2,800
$
300
$ 1,480
$26,814
2
1
1
2 Network Cards
2
-
Customer 2:
Two UNIX clusters were replaced by two ESX host systems. The following diagram shows the
distribution of the SAP systems and the SAP instances to the VMware Infrastructure. The
systems are distributed to different systems in case of a failover.
for Customer 2
Operating System
Cluster Software
SAP Network
Total
No. of units
1
1
2
1
1
2 Network Cards
2
-
Total Cost
$ 7,500
$
0
$
0
$ 1,917
$ 1,100
$ 1,400
$ 300
$ 1,480
$13,697
37
White Paper
Customer 3:
This customer also virtualized all running SAP systems to two ESX host servers, implemented in
a VMware cluster.
for Customer 3
Operating System
Cluster Software
SAP Network
Total
No. of Units
1
1
Total Cost
$ 7,500
$
0
$
0
$ 1,917
$ 1,100
$ 1,400
$
300
$ 1,480
$13,697
2
1
1
2 Network Cards
2
-
7.2.3 Annual Hardware and Software Cost Savings

The following table summarizes the cost savings experienced by all three customers for SAP
hardware and software after virtualizing, as well as the savings resulting from replacement of
the cluster environment with VMware HA.
Annual Cost Savings for Customer Hardware and Software for SAP Solution Landscape
Physical Architecture
Hardware and
No. of
Software Costs
Servers
Customer 1
2
Customer 2
2
Customer 3*
5
Cost
$ 629,614
$244,220
$ 66,250
VMware Architecture
No. of
Cost
Servers
3
$80,442
2
$27,394
2
$27,394
Savings
$549,172
$216,826
$ 38,856
Savings in
%
87
89
59
* The x86 hardware was three years old.

The new hardware generation offers more cores with better performance results. The new
server models today contain 10 times more memory capacity compared to the older models.
7.2.4 Annual A/C and Power Savings

The next table shows the power costs and savings for each customer.
Annual Power Costs and Savings*
Customer 1**
Customer 2***
Customer 3
No. of
Servers
2
2
5
Cost
$9,021
$5,641
$6,745
VMware Architecture
No. of
Cost
Servers
3
$8,462
2
$2,698
2
$2,698
Savings
$ 559
$2,943
$4,047
Savings in
%
6
52
60
* Cost $0.28 KW/h

** Mainframes use more power than x86 systems
*** Different number of CPUs
38
White Paper
7.2.5 Annual Cooling Costs for SAP Servers

To eliminate the heat produced by an SAP server, an investment of almost the same amount of
energy is required.
Annual Cooling Costs and Savings for SAP Server and Mainframe*
Customer 1**
Customer 2***
Customer 3
No. of
Servers
2
2
5
VMware Architecture
No. of
Cost
Servers
3
$8,462
2
$2,698
2
$2,698
Cost
$9,021
$5,641
$6,745
Savings
Savings in
%
6
52
60
$ 559
$2,943
$4,047
* Cost $0.28 KW/h

** Mainframes use more power than x86 systems
*** Different number of CPUs
7.3 Deploying an SAP Solution with VMware Templates

Once the decision to install an SAP ERP solution is made, the SAP landscape must be installed
and deployed. Typically, initial installation and deployment occurs only once. Upgrade and
patch scenarios occur later on a regular basis.
Sometimes, however, the SAP technologies make it necessary to install additional SAP
solutions together with the central SAP ERP system. SAP Business Warehouse (BI) and SAP
Solution Manager are good examples. With SAP BW, an SAP Enterprise Portal is helpful for
creating new queries with the SAP Business Query Designer and Explorer (SAP BEx). To obtain
the latest SAP patch stacks from the SAP Service Marketplace on a regular basis, it is
mandatory to use the SAP Solution Manager with the feature Maintenance Optimizer
(MOPZ). The SAP Solution Manager is based on the SAP NetWeaver Platform and has the
same technical platform as an SAP ERP system.
7.3.1 Cost of Deploying a Solution Before Virtualization

Typically, an installation of an SAP solution takes at least two days. The customers use different
numbers of SAP systems per SAP landscape.
Aggregated SAP Server, Administrative and Deployment Costs per Clustered SAP Solution
Landscape Before Virtualization
Customer
Physical Provisioning and Administrative Cost for one SAP Solution Landscape
Provisioning
Number
No. of
Hours
Total
Cost
SAP CI
Hours
Customer 1
Setup Host
OS + DB
SAP Software
SAP Cluster
Administrative
Costs
2
5
5
1
2
3
5
16
40
8
6
25
80
40
16
Total
Customer 2
$ 270
$1,125
$3,600
$1,800
$ 720
$7,515
Server HW
$ 270
39
OS + DB
SAP Software
SAP Cluster
Administrative
Costs
White Paper
3
3
1
5
16
40
8
15
48
40
16
Total
Customer 3
$ 675
$2,160
$1,800
$ 720
$5,625
Server HW
OS + DB
SAP Software
SAP Cluster
Administrative
Costs
3
5
16
40
8
6
6
3
5
Total
15
30
96
120
40
$ 675
$1,350
$4,320
$5,400
$1,800
$13,545
Average hourly labor rate = $45

OS=Operating system
DB=Database
HW=Hardware
Customer 3 runs three SAP solutions: SAP ERP, SAP BW and SAP Portal. To save cluster nodes,
the SAP DEV systems also run as cluster nodes. The SAP BW solution ran as a single ABAP Java
Stack Application together with SAP Portal.
Aggregated SAP Server, Administrative and Deployment Costs for Clustered SAP Solutions
Before Virtualization
Customer
Number of SAP Landscapes
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
1
1
3
Total Costs for SAP
$ 7,515
$ 5,625
$13,545
Annual Costs for all

SAP System
Landscapes (3 years
lifetime)
$2,505
$1,875
$4,515
7.3.2 Cost of Deploying a Solution After Virtualization

With VMware virtualization technology, the time needed for setting up a complete SAP
landscape can be dramatically reduced with VMware templates. In a virtualized environment
the initial installation time for the first SAP system in the SAP landscape remains the same as in
the physical world. Once the first system is set up, it can become an SAP template, allowing
downstream SAP systems to be deployed in half a day. Overall, an initial three-system SAP
landscape can be deployed and adjusted in three days.
Initial Aggregated SAP Server, Administrative and Deployment Costs with VMware
Infrastructure
Physical Provisioning and Administrative Costs for one SAP Solution Landscape
Customer
Provisioning
Number
No. of
Hours
Total
Cost
SAP CI
Hours
Customer 1
40
Set up Host
OS + DB
SAP Software
VMware
Administrative
Costs
3
5
5
3
3
White Paper
3
2.5
8
5
8
9
12.5
40
15
24
$ 405
$562.50
$ 1,800
$ 675
$ 1,080
Total
Customer 2
$4,522.50
Server HW
OS + DB
SAP Software
VMware
Administrative
Costs
2
3
3
2
2
3
2.5
8
5
8
6
7.5
24
10
16
$ 270
$337.50
$ 1,080
$ 450
$ 720
Total
Customer 3
$2,857.50
Server HW
OS + DB
SAP Software
VMware
Administrative
Costs
2
6
6
2
2
3
2.5
8
5
8
6
15
48
10
16
$ 270
$ 675
$ 2,160
$ 450
$ 720
Total
$ 4,275
Average hourly labor rate = $45
OS=Operating system DB=Database HW=Hardware VMware= Setup VI and configuration
Initially Aggregated SAP Server, Administrative and Deployment Costs per High
Availability SAP Solution Landscape with VMware Infrastructure*
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Number of SAP
Landscapes
1
1
3
Before
Virtualization
$ 7,515
$ 5,625
$13,545
After Virtualization
$4,522
$2,857
$4,275
Saving in %
40
49
68
*See 4.6.3
7.4 High Availability and Clustering

SAP systems are mission-critical for most companies, which means there is a need for a failover
and switching scenario. SAP systems have three critical Single Point of Failure (SPOF)
components:
Database (Database Vendor)

Message service (SAP)
Enqueue service (SAP)
Besides redundant network interface adapters, switches, routers, DNS Servers, RAID Levels
and Storage (NAS, SAN), these components must be secured via a cluster solution.
41
White Paper
7.4.1 SAP Database

An SAP application consists of one or more instances of an application server. Each instance
can run on a separate server, but it is also possible to operate multiple instances on one host.
An SAP instance can provide different service types. The standard SAP services, which can be
configured on all instances of the SAP component, are dialog, batch, update, and spool work
processes. The failure of an SAP instance, on which these standard services are configured,
causes a termination and rollback of all transactions currently processed within this instance.
Database consistency is guaranteed at all times. Terminated transactions can be repeated on
one of the remaining instances.
If the SAP database is not available, all running work processes are still pending. In a cluster
environment, the DBMS fails over to another node, and the work processes have a built-in
recurring polling mechanism and reconnect themselves once the database is up and running
again.
7.4.2 SAP Message and Enqueue Service

Apart from the standard services, there are two other services that exist only once. They are
supplied by the message service and the enqueue service and are potential single points of
failure. The SAP instance running both of these services is called the central instance (CI). In
case of a stand-alone or enqueue replication service, the enqueue service is operated separately
from the other SAP services and independently of the other application servers. Since the
message server can also be operated separately from the other application servers, both of
these critical components can be restarted faster than a complete application server.
The enqueue service is a critical component of the SAP system. It administers locks using
enqueue objects within SAP transactions that can be requested by applications to ensure
consistency within the SAP system. Since the lock table is held in the main memory of the
enqueue server, a server failure without additional replication mechanisms results in a loss of
locks held. To maintain consistency, all open transactions are rolled back after the enqueue
server is restarted.
The enqueue replication service enables the lock table to be replicated on a second server, the
so-called replication server. A copy of the lock table is maintained and permanently updated on
this server. If the enqueue service fails, a new enqueue service is started on the replication
server using a failover solution (cluster, partner solution) and this replication service creates a
new lock table based on the copy of the lock table. This enables the enqueue service, and
therefore the whole SAP component, to continue operation almost without interruption. If the
enqueue service fails, transactions are no longer terminated, so that work can be continued
transparently.
42
White Paper
The solution is platform-independent. It can be used in the same way for both high-availability
environments and normal environments (that is, without the replication server).
SAP hardware partners provide the cluster technology for the enqueue server and its
replication server, which is required for the enqueue service to operate without interruption. To
avoid the single point of failure with the message server, this service must simply be restarted.
It can be restarted automatically within a few milliseconds using cluster technology.
7.4.3 HA and Clustering Before Virtualization

All customers in this study have secured their productive, physical SAP solution landscapes with
the aid of different cluster solutions offered by different vendors.
The cluster license costs are included and aggregated in the hardware and software costs.
The initial SAP cluster installation costs are included in the SAP server and SAP software
deployment costs.
All customers usually need approximately five days to set up a two-node cluster. These
values were provided by the customers.
Customers report that in an SAP productive cluster environment they need about four
additional hours per cluster node for patching and testing a clustered SAP system. The SAP
patch procedure in an SAP cluster is described in detail in the SAP patch manuals.
New SAP patches are released at least twice a year.
Every patch scenario in an SAP cluster needs additional attention and mechanisms to
implement SAP support patches. Special database tools and procedures, virtual hostnames,
additional IP addresses, redundant SAP licenses, switching the nodes in a specific sequence,
replacing executables manually, testing, etc. are only some of the technical efforts involved.
The following table shows the annual planned downtime, given the number of available
patches per year and clustered SAP central instances.
43
White Paper
Annual Planned Downtime Costs for SAP Cluster Central Instances
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
No. of
Servers
Number of
SAP
Clustered
Central
Instances
Additional
Downtime
in Hours
due to a
Cluster
2
2
5
1
1
3
8
8
24
Downtime for
SAP PRD
Hardware and
Software
Maintenance in
Hours
8 + 16 = 24
8 + 16 = 24
20 + (16 * 3) = 68
Total
Hours
Planned
Downtime
per year
Cost
32
32
92
$ 3,840,000
$ 3,840,000
$11,040,000
Assumptions:
SAP ERP system $120,000 downtime per hour
Two SAP patch stacks per year
Four hours downtime per server per year
Eight hours downtime per SAP patch
7.4.4 HA and Clustering After Virtualization

VMware Infrastructure offers a powerful high availability feature that allows SAP customers to
completely replace their SAP cluster implementation. In case of a VMware ESX host server
failure, all the SAP virtual machines restart on one of the available VMware ESX hosts. This
behavior can be controlled by VMware cluster settings and VMware Distributed Resource
Scheduler (DRS). With the VMware HA feature no additional activities are necessary for
SAP hostnames
SAP IP addresses
SAP database and tools
SAP message server
SAP enqueue server
SAP licenses
SAP cluster tests
HA also simplifies SAP patch scenarios. The following table shows the planned downtime in an
SAP cluster with VMware High Availability.
Annual Planned Downtime for SAP Infrastructure with VMware HA
Customer
No. of
Servers
No. of SAP
Clustered
Central
Instances
Additional
Downtime
in Hours
due to a
Cluster
Customer 1
Downtime
Total for SAP
PRD Hard- and
Software
Maintenance in
Hours
0 + 16 = 16
Customer 2
0 + 16 = 16
Customer 3
0 + (16 * 3) = 48
Total Hours
Planned
Downtime
per Year
Costs
16
$1,920,000
16
$1,920,000
48
$5,760,000
Assumptions:
Two SAP patch stacks per year
44
White Paper
Four hours downtime per server per year

Eight hours downtime per SAP patch
7.4.5 Summary of SAP clustering and VMware high availability
VMware mechanisms such as VMotion and HA can reduce planned downtime for hardware and
software maintenance by up to 50 percent.
Comparison of Annual Planned Downtime and Costs*
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Before
Virtualization
in Hours
32
32
92
After
Virtualization
in Hours
16
16
48
Saving in
Hours
Saving in
%
16
16
44
50
50
48
Contribution
to TCO
30%
30%
30%
Savings**
$ 576,000
$ 576,000
$1,584,000
*SAP ERP system $120,000 downtime per hour

**30% contribution to TCO, see above
7.5 SAP Front End Client Systems

SAP software has evolved from mainframe computing to three-tier architecture consisting of
the database layer, application (business logic) layer, and user interface layer. The advantage of
having a client-server architecture is the possibility of making changes or scaling one layer
without having to retool the whole system.
The SAP product name R/3 stands for runtime system three and the client-server
environment provides a set of business applications for the system. The R/3 architecture allows
distribution of the workload to multiple PCs connected in a network. The SAP runtime system is
designed in such a way that it distributes the presentation layer, application logic, and the data
management to different computers.
In our study the customers have between 100 and 400 SAP end users, most of them using
Microsoft Windows-based PCs. The front end application installed and used for SAP systems is
called the SAP GUI, SAP logon(PAD).
Each PC usually needs to be replaced every three years. In the meantime, they require hands-on
additions and changes, operating system and application patches, upgrades, security,
configuration and user management, service activities, support and administration.
7.5.1 Client Systems Before Virtualization

According to a 2006 Gartner survey, a typical desktop in the SAP environment costs $488 per
PC per year to manage and support.
Annual TCO Comparison of PCs with Server-based Computing
PC Technical Services
User Adds and Changes
Hardware Configuration
Hardware Deployment
Software Deployment
Current (As Is) Annual Cost per Desktop

$ 11
$ 26
$ 7
$ 121
45
White Paper
Application Management
Backup, Recovery, Archiving
Service Desk
Security Management
IT Administration
Total per desktop per Year
$ 32
$ 7
$ 239
$ 30
$ 15
$488
Source: Gartner June 15, 2006

The costs over three years for a PC are $1,464.
Only Customer 3 with approximately 100 SAP end users deployed VMware Desktop
Infrastructure (VDI) for the SAP logon application.
Annual Costs for SAP PCs with VMware VDI
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
Number of Concurrent SAP

Users
400
200
100
Annual Cost for all PCs

$195,200
$ 97,600
$ 48,800
7.5.2 Capital Investment in VMware VDI

Pricing for VMware VDI is based on a list price of $150 per concurrent user and is packaged into
two bundled offerings: the VMware VDI Starter Edition and the VMware VDI Bundle 100 Pack.
Both bundles include VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition for VDI (which consists of
VMware ESX 3.5 and VMware vCenter 2.5) and the VMware Virtual Desktop Manager 2. The
VMware VDI Starter Edition, which covers 10 virtual desktops, has a list price of $1,500.00.
We calculated the cost of VDI based on the VMware Bundle 100 Pack for Customer 3. The
VMware VDI Bundle 100 Pack includes 100 virtual desktops for the list price of $15,000.
Customers may add additional licenses by purchasing in increments of 10, based on the list
price of $150 per concurrent user. The following tables show the costs for the VDI Bundle 100
Pack as well as the costs for additional infrastructure hardware.
Software Investment in VMware VDI over Three Years

Number
VMware VDI Software
100
Total
Source: VMware price information
Cost of Additional Hardware Required for VDI over Three Years
Additional Components
Description
Number
ESX host servers
2 * Quad Core,32 GB 1
RAM
SAN
2 Ports per ESX
4
10 GB per user
Central Storage per 100 *10 =1TB
User
Total
Cost
$15,000
$15,000
Cost
$ 22,500
$ 4,400
$ 6,000
$32,900
46
White Paper
7.5.3 Client Systems After Virtualization

With VMware VDI, customers can avoid expenditures to refresh SAP front end desktop PCs.
Pricing for VMware VDI in our analysis is based on a list price of $150 per concurrent user. The
following table shows that the reduction in annual cost per client system with VMware VDI is
US$274.00
Annual TCO Comparison of PCs with VMware VDI
PC Technical Services
Reduction with
VDI in %
User Adds and Changes
80
Hardware Configuration
30
Hardware Deployment
30
Software Deployment
60
Application Management
30
Backup, Recovery, Archiving
100
Service Desk
60
Security Management
50
IT Administration
50
Total per desktop per year
Annual cost per desktop in with

VMware VDI
$ 2
$ 18
$ 5
$ 49
$ 22
$ 0
$ 96
$ 15
$ 7
$ 214
The following table shows the calculated three year cost savings for Customer 3 with 100 SAP
front end users before and after virtualization.
Customer
Customer 3
Costs before
Virtualization
$146,400
Costs after
Virtualization
$112,100
Savings
Saving in %
$34,300
23
7.6 SAP Upgrades and Patches

VMware snapshot technology is a very fast backup and recovery tool for existing SAP systems.
This tool provides the UNDO button for faulty and incomplete SAP upgrades and SAP patch
scenarios.
VMware hot clone technology offers a complete system cloning mechanism for pre-testing
upgrades and SAP patches, while the SAP system is still up and running.
From a technical point of view, the process for performing SAP upgrades and SAP patches are
similar. Both maintenance functions use the same SAP tools and transport mechanisms. These
procedures manipulate database dictionary information, executables, and customizing tables.
To minimize downtime, both allow import of new data and patches while end users are still
working and processing transactional or master data.
The following diagram illustrates SAP procedure for importing inactive sources.
47
White Paper
Source: SAP
All three customers use this function to minimize downtime. But in case of an unsolvable error,
a backup must be applied to recover the system to the starting point. In this case, user data
created in the uptime phase can be lost.
At the start of an SAP patch or upgrade installation, an online backup of the database is
performed, which is only consistent in combination with the database transaction logs. A 500
GB database takes approximately five hours for such a disk backup. In many enterprises a
specific department is responsible for backup and recovery practices involved in SAP patches
and upgrade scenarios.
7.6.1 Upgrades and Patches Before Virtualization

An SAP upgrade typically occurs only once in three years. In a traditional SAP upgrade scenario,
first the SAP DEV system, then the SAP QAS and finally the SAP PRD are upgraded. The
following table shows a time calculation for an SAP upgrade in a productive physical SAP
environment with a 500 GB database before the environment was virtualized. The partner
company that was responsible for this SAP upgrade provided the report on the number of days
required.
SAP upgrade scenarios
Customer
Customer 1
Customer 2
Customer 3
No. of Systems in an
SAP Landscape
5
3
2
No. of SAP Landscapes
Days in Total
1
1
3
17
11
24
SAP DEV 5 days First system More days for preparation and troubleshooting
SAP QAS 3 days Experienced SAP upgrade
SAP PRD 3 days Experienced SAP upgrade
SAP Other 3 days Experienced SAP upgrade
48
White Paper
One customer had a problem with the upgraded SAP DEV system, because several items of
data necessary for testing the new SAP release were missing. Typically, before an SAP upgrade,
customers perform a classical SAP system copy from SAP PRD to SAP DEV. The time required
for this process is not accounted for in the table above.
7.6.2 Upgrades and Patches After Virtualization

The customers were able to use a new upgrade strategy in the virtualized environment with
VMware cloning and snapshot technology. During the process, running SAP production
systems were cloned into an empty virtual machine. The upgrade was tested in this new virtual
machine and any errors were analyzed. After successfully upgrading the system, the customizer
and developer made the new SAP release adjustments in the non-critical virtual machine,
recording the changes into SAP change requests. This can be done over a longer time period
without time pressure.
Once the system had met all customer requirements, the productive system was upgraded.
Afterwards all recorded SAP change requests were applied. Then, instead of making SAP
system copies, the data of the productive SAP system was exported and imported to the test
systems.
There are three advantages to using this scenario:
Time and cost savings
Consistent SAP system landscape
No time limitations for developer and customizer
The following table shows the time usage for this new upgrade procedure for a three-system
SAP landscape.
New SAP Upgrade Procedure with VMware Technology
Customer 1 Project
SAP System
Procedure VMware /
Sequence
SAP
Step 1
PRD
HOT Clone PRD2
Step 2
PRD 2
SAP Upgrade
Step 3
PRD 2
Development /
Customizing
Step 4
PRD
Step 5
QAS
Step 6
DEV
Step 7
EDU
Step 8
TST
Total Days
* Export not necessary anymore
SAP Upgrade
SAP Export/Import
SAP Import*
SAP Import*
SAP Import*
Days
1
5
Varies; not timecritical; parallel to
PRD
3
1
1
1
1
13
49
White Paper
We gathered the following data before and after virtualization for one of the customer projects.
Initial Cost and Time Savings in SAP Upgrade Projects
SAP
Upgrade
Customer 1
SAP Systems
for Upgrade
5
Days Before
Virtualization
17
Days After
Virtualization
13
Saving
in Days
4
Savings*
$9,600
Savings
in %
24
*Fee of $2,400 per day for an SAP Consultant
50
White Paper
8 TCO Reduction: Three Case Studies

This chapter provides detailed information about the TCO savings and ROI achieved by three
customers using VMware Infrastructure combined with powerful multi-core x86 hardware to
virtualize their SAP systems.
The calculation in the following tables shows costs both with and without SAP planned
downtime reductions that were achieved by replacing clusters with VMware HA and reducing
planned downtime for hardware maintenance with VMware VMotion. Many customers argue
that planned downtime is free of charge as it is reserved in the SLAs as a maintenance task.
Nevertheless, productive time can be gained back by reducing planned downtime. A company
with worldwide production facilities can do business during this time that would have been lost
before virtualization was in place.
8.1 TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 1

As shown in the following tables, Customer 1 achieved an 81 percent reduction in overall total
cost of ownership over three years, and the return on investment period for the virtualization
project was three months.
Customer 1 Three-Year TCO
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
24,000
13,500
$
$
$
(7,000)
(24,000)
(13,500)
Direct Costs
Investment Virtualization Check
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes Hardware Maintenance
- Includes Network Costs
- Includes OS, Cluster
- Includes VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$ 1,888,842
$
7,515
$
40,800
$ 1,937,157
$
$
$
$
241,326
4,523
31,200
321,549
$
$
$
$
1,647,516
2,992
9,600
1,615,608
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends VDI
SAP Planned Downtime
Total Indirect Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
25,386
25,386
50,772
$
$
$
$
$
1,677
1,677
3,354
Total Cost of Ownership
$ 1,991,283
372,321
1,618,962
27,063
27,063
54,126
51
White Paper
Customer 1 Return On Investment

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
24,000
13,500
$
$
$
$
$
235,726
280,226
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$ 1,647,516
$
2,992
$
9,600
$
559
$
559
$
$
$ 1,661,226
$
$
$
2,800*
2,800
$
$
2,800*
2,800
Savings
Total Cumulative Investments

$
280,226
Total Cumulative Savings
$ 1,661,226
Total Return on Investment
593%
ROI Time Frame
(in months)
*VMware software maintenance (25 percent Platinum) cost per year
$
$
559
559
$
$
559
559
$
$
1,118
$
$
1,118
$
$
283,026
1,662,334
587%
285,826
$ 1,663,462
582%
52
White Paper
8.2 TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 2

As shown in the following tables, Customer 2 achieved an 83 percent reduction in overall total
cost of ownership over three years, and the return on investment period for the virtualization
project was two months.
Customer 2 Three-Year TCO
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
9,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
732,660
5,625
738,285
$
$
$
$
82,182
2,858
115,440
$
$
$
$
650,478
2,767
622,845
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
$
$
$
$
16,923
16,923
33,846
$
$
$
$
$
8,094
8,094
16,188
$
$
$
$
$
8,829
8,829
17,658
772,131
131,628
640,503
(7,000)
(14,400)
(9,000)
53
White Paper
Customer 2 Return On Investment en Investment for

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
9,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
109,782
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
732,660
2,767
2,943
2,943
$
$
2,943
2,943
$
$
2,943
2,943
741,313
$
$
5,886
$
$
5,886
$
$
109,782
741,313
675%
$
$
111,182
747,199
672%
$
$
112,582
753,085
669%
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
* VMware software maintenance (25 percent Platinum) cost per year
54
White Paper
8.3 TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 3 without VMware VDI
As shown in the following tables, Customer 3 achieved a 49 percent reduction in overall total
cost of ownership over three years for its SAP data center, and the return on investment period
for the virtualization project was six months. These figures do not include the customers
desktop virtualization project TCO and ROI.
Customer 3 Three-Year TCO Without VDI
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes HBA
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
(7,000)
(14,400)
(4,500)
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
212.295
$
$
$
$
82,182
4,276
112.358
$
$
$
$
116,568
9,269
99.937
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
$
$
$
$
20,235
20,235
40,470
$
$
$
$
$
8,094
8,094
16,188
$
$
$
$
$
12,141
12,141
24,282
252,765
128,546
124,219
55
White Paper
Customer 3 Return On Investment Without VDI

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
105,282
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
4,047
4,047
220,389
$
$
$
$
$
4,047
4,047
8,094
$
$
106,682
228,483
214%
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
$
$
105,282
220,389
209%
$
$
$
4,047
4,047
-
8,094
108,082
236,577
219%
56
White Paper
8.4 TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 3 with VMware VDI
As shown in the following tables, Customer 3 achieved a 40 percent reduction in overall total
cost of ownership over three years for its SAP front end client deployment with VMware VDI,
and the return on investment period for this part of the virtualization project was six months.
Customer 3Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership with VDI
Without VMware
VDI
With VMware
VDI
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes HBA
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
(7000)
(14,000)
(4,500)
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
212.295
$
$
$
$
82,182
4,276
112.358
$
$
$
$
116,568
9,269
99.937
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
20,235
$
20,235
$ 146,400
$
$ 186,870
$
$
$
$
$
8,094
8,094
112,100
128,288
$
$
$
$
$
12,141
12,141
34,300
58,582
240,646
158,219
399,165
57
White Paper
Customer 3 Return on Investment with VDI

Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
Includes Hardware Maintenance
Includes Network Costs
Includes OS, Cluster
VMware Licenses
Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
105,282
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
4,047
4,047
11,433
$
$
$
4,047
4,047
11,433
$
$
$
4,047
4,047
11,433
231,822
19,527
19,527
$
$
105,282
231,822
220%
$
$
106,682
251,349
236%
108,082
270,876
251%
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
58
White Paper
8.5 Customer 1 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs

As shown in the following tables, when costs of planned downtime are included in the analysis
Customer 1 achieved a 61 percent reduction in overall total cost of ownership over three years,
and the return on investment period was two months.
Customer 1 Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
24,000
13,500
$
$
$
(7,000)
(24,000)
(13,500)
241,326
4,523
31,200
321,549
$
$
$
$
1,647,516
2,992
9,600
1,615,608
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes HBAs
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$ 1,888,842
$
7,515
$
40,800
$ 1,937,157
$
$
$
$
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends VDI
SAP Planned Downtime*
$
27,063
$
27,063
$
$ 3,456,000
$ 3,510,126
$
25,386
$
25,386
$
$ 1,728,000
$ 1,778,772
$
1,677
$
1,677
$
$ 1,728,000
$ 1,731,354
$ 5,447,283
2,100,321
3,346,962
* see chapter 7.4.5
59
White Paper
Customer 1 Return on Investment Including Costs of Planned

Downtime
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
24,000
13,500
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
235,726
280,226
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$ 1,647,516
$
2,992
$
9,600
$
559
$
559
$
$ 576,000
$ 2,237,226
$
$
576,000
577,118
$
$
$
$
283,026
2,814,344
994%
2,800*
2,800
$
$
2,800*
2,800
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
280,226
2,237,226
798%
$
$
559
559
$
$
$
$
559
559
576,000
577,118
285,826
$ 3,391,462
1187%
60
White Paper

and the return on investment period was two months.
Customer 2 Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
9,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
732,660
5,625
738,285
$
$
$
$
82,182
2,858
115,440
$
$
$
$
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
16,923
$
16,923
$
$ 3,456,000
$ 3,489,846
$
8,094
$
8,094
$
$ 1,728,000
$ 1,744,188
$
8,829
$
8,829
$
$ 1,728,000
$ 1,745,658
$ 4,228,131
$ 2,368,503
1,859,628
(7,000)
(14,400)
(9,000)
650,478
2,767
622,845
* see chapter 7.4.5
61
White Paper
Customer 2 Return On Investment including Costs of Planned

Downtime
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
9,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
109,782
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
732,660
$
2,767
$
$
2,943
$
2,943
$
$
576,000
$ 1,317,313
$
$
2,943
2,943
$
$
2,943
2,943
$
$
576,000
581,886
$
$
576,000
581,886
$
109,782
$ 1,317,313
1200%
$
111,182
$ 1,899, 199
1708%
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
112,582
$ 2,481,085
2204%
62
White Paper

and the return on investment period was one month.
Customer 3 Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership of
Without VMware
Infrastructure
With VMware
Infrastructure
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes HBA
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
(7000)
(14,000)
(4,500)
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
212.295
$
$
$
$
82,182
4,276
112.358
$
$
$
$
116,568
9,269
99.937
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
20,235
$
20,235
$
$ 9,936,000
$ 9,976,470
$
$
$
$
$
8,094
8,094
5,184,000
5,200,188
$
12,141
$
12,141
$
$ 4,752,000
$ 4,776,282
$ 10,188,765
5,312,546
4,876,219
* see chapter 7.4.5
63
White Paper
Customer 3 Return On Investment Including Costs of Planned

Downtime
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- VMware Licenses
- Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
105,282
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
198,750
$
13,545
$
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,804,389
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,592,094
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,592,094
$
$
$
$
108,082
$ 4,988,577
4616%
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
105,282
2,074,389
1714%
106,682
3,396,483
3184%
1
64
White Paper
8.8 Customer 3 TCO /ROI Summary with Planned Downtime Costs and
VMware VDI
As shown in the following tables, when VMware VDI and costs of planned downtime are
included in the analysis Customer 3 achieved a 48 percent reduction in overall total cost of
ownership over three years, and the return on investment period was one month.
Customer 3 Three-Year Total Cost of Ownership of
Without VMware
VDI
With VMware
VDI
Savings
Direct Costs
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
- Includes HBA
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Total Direct Costs
$
$
$
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
(7000)
(14,000)
(4,500)
$
$
$
$
198,750
13,545
212,295
$
$
$
$
82,182
4,276
112,358
$
$
$
$
116,568
9,269
99,937
Indirect Costs
Power Costs
Cooling Costs
SAP Frontends
$
20,235
$
20,235
$ 146,400
$ 9,936,000
$ 10,122,870
$
$
$
$
$
8,094
8,094
112,100
5,184,000
5,312,288
$
12,141
$
12,141
$
34,300
$ 4,752,000
$ 4,810,582
$ 10,335,165
5,424,646
4,910,519
* see chapter 7.4.5
65
White Paper
Customer 3 Return On Investment including Costs of Planned

Downtime and VMware VDI
Year 1
Year 2
Year 3
Investments
Investment SAP P2V
Investment Training
Investment Hardware
Includes Hardware Maintenance
Includes Network Costs
Includes OS, Cluster
VMware Licenses
Includes HBAs
Total Investments
$
$
$
7,000
14,400
4,500
$
$
$
$
$
79,382
105,282
$
$
Server Hardware
SAP Deployment
SAP Upgrade
Power Cost
Cooling Cost
SAP Frontend VDI
Total Savings
$
198,750
$
13,545
$
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
11,433
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,815,822
$
$
$
1,400*
1,400
$
$
1,400*
1,400
Savings

ROI Time Frame
(in months)
$
$
105,282
1,815,822
1725%
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
11,433
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,603,527
$
4,047
$
4,047
$
11,433
$ 1,584,000
$ 1,603,527
$
106,682
$ 3,419,349
3205 %
108,082
$ 5,022,876
4647%
66
White Paper
9 Virtualizing Large Enterprise Applications with VMware

vSphere
VMware began delivering the next generation of VMware Infrastructure, renamed VMware
vSphere 4, in May 2009. VMware vSphere 4 delivers a number of technical enhancements
including:
More virtual processors per virtual machine (from 4 to 8)

More virtual NICs per virtual machine (from 4 to 10)
More memory per virtual machine (from 64 GB to 255GB)
A 3x increase in network throughput (from 9 Gb/s to 30Gb/s)
A 3x increase in the maximum recorded I/O operations per second (to over 300,000)
A new maximum recorded number of transactions per second - 8,900.
Distributed power management, which automatically assesses server bandwidth requirements of
applications at various times of day. During off-peak hours, DPM consolidates virtual machines on
fewer servers and powers down unnecessary hardware.
Thin provisioning with VMware vStorage provides dynamic storage allocation that increases
automatically when needed.
A new Fault Tolerant feature for single-processor virtual machines
This new version opens the way for customers with large SAP implementations, such as the
ones described in this study, to pursue virtualization and its TCO benefits with full confidence
that their SAP solutions will meet or even exceed performance SLAs.
67
White Paper
Copyright 2009 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved. This product is protected by U.S. and
international copyright and intellectual property laws. VMware products are covered by one or
more patents listed at http://www.vmware.com/go/patents.
VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or
other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their
respective companies.
68

Flyer Sap Tcoroi Customers de

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Flyer Sap Tcoroi Customers de

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

TCO and ROI Analysis of SAP

Landscapes using VMware

TCO and ROI Analysis of SAP Landscapes using

Version 1, September 2009

Executive Summary ...............................................................................1

The Four TCO Categories ................................................................................ 5

Direct and Indirect Costs ................................................................................. 7

TCO Calculation and Improvements for Virtualized SAP Systems ....... 8

TCO Calculation for SAP Data Center Server Hardware .................................. 8

SAP Data Center Storage .............................................................................. 11

SAP Data Center Networking ........................................................................ 12

Data Center Server Space.............................................................................. 13

SAP Data Center Provisioning ....................................................................... 16

SAP Data Center Server Administrative Costs ............................................... 17

Reduced Business Risk................................................................................... 19

SAP and VMware Server Load Balancing....................................................... 21

4.10.1 TCO Calculation for Load Balancing..................................................................... 22

SAP Installation and Upgrades ...................................................................... 22

SAP Software and Hardware Maintenance.................................................... 23

SAP Installation ................................................................................................... 22

SAP Planned Downtime ................................................................................ 26

4.13.1 Methodology for the Calculation of SAP Planned Downtime ............................... 27

VMware Infrastructure investment ..................................................... 28

Investment for SAP Physical to Virtual Migration ............................... 31

VMware Infrastructure Licensing ................................................................... 28

Physical to Virtual Migration ......................................................................... 31

Use Case Scenarios Before and After Virtualization ............................ 33

SAP Solution Architecture ............................................................................. 33

Deploying an SAP Solution with VMware Templates .................................... 39

High Availability and Clustering..................................................................... 41

SAP Front End Client Systems ....................................................................... 45

SAP Upgrades and Patches ........................................................................... 47

TCO Reduction: Three Case Studies .................................................... 51

HA and Clustering Before Virtualization............................................................... 43

TCO and ROI Summary for Customer 1 ......................................................... 51

Virtualizing Large Enterprise Applications with VMware vSphere ......67

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

Concurrent SAP Users

Source: VMware partner AddOn

Total costs with

* Reference prices based on customer information and quotes for pre-virtualization

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

TCO savings with VMware Virtualization Including Costs of Planned Downtime *

Total costs with

*Achieved through VMotion and simpler cluster build

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

3 Overview of the TCO/ROI Methodology

3.1 The Four TCO Categories

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

SAP Application Activities

Cost categories and their contribution to TCO

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

3.1.4 Hardware and Software

3.2 Direct and Indirect Costs

direct (budgeted) costs

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

4 TCO Calculation and Improvements for Virtualized SAP

Annual Server Cost

TCO and ROI of SAP Landscapes Using VMware Technology

4.1.1 Requirements and Sizing for New and Reused Hardware

4.1.2 Methodology for Calculation of Hardware Requirements