SAP HANA is an in-memory data platform. It is unique in the sense that it can be deployed as an on-premise appliance, or even in the cloud.  Many experts see it as a groundbreaking platform that’s perfect for carrying out analytics in real time, and for developing and deploying applications. This real-time data platform is powered by the SAP HANA database. It is basically different than any other database engine available on the market today.

When companies have to dig deep into their data sets to seek interactive and complex questions and have to work with colossal data sets that are sourced from diverse locations and are of different types, then SAP HANA is the ideal system to carry out this task. The data that the company seeks must be fresh and must be available in real time as well. Speed is also a critical factor as quick response and high interactivity are also necessary. SAP HANA can address all these issues effectively as it is designed to deal with these unique set of requirements.

The AWS Cloud offers a range of infrastructure services that make it easy for users to deploy SAP HANA in a simple and effective manner. By deploying this solution on the AWS managed Cloud, users can leverage the series of benefits associated with SAP HANA functionality. It also enables users to enjoy the high level of security and superior flexibility offered by AWS.

The ready to use SAP HANA systems on the AWS Cloud can be deployed effortlessly using the Quick Start system that incorporates the best practices from both AWS and SAP. The Quick Start makes sure that all the critical features are optimally configured to help users extract the best performance for their SAP HANA system.

The Four Important Infrastructure Components Required For SAP HANA Are:

• Memory
• Compute
• Storage
• Network

Of these, memory is the only variable and depends on the size of the data. For the other three, requirements are either preset or derived from the size of the memory. For storage, regardless of memory size, there are specific throughput requirements that must be complied with. For the network, especially the ones that have scale-out needs scenarios, a minimum network throughput is mandatory between the SAP HANA nodes, whatever the size of the memory.

AWS has been working in close collaboration with SAP over the past many years. Their work is to verify the compute and storage configurations needed for smooth running of SAP HANA workloads on their system. AWS has been able to achieve these objectives with a great degree of success.

AWS has engineered the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances. These come with varying memory sizes to satisfy the tough performance requirements of SAP for SAP HANA. These include the right core-to-memory ratios for compute. They are also doing a great job when it comes to storage and network management.

Memory and Compute:

AWS provides several EC2 instance types to provide optimal support to workloads of different types. R3 and R4 instances that are optimized for memory and the X1 instances which come with a high memory feature are ideal for SAP HANA according to experts. They come with a range of compute options for running the SAP HANA workload optimally. AWS has been introducing new instance types continuously with the latest CPU generations. They are working in close league with SAP to make sure these instances work well for SAP HANA workloads.
 
Storage

AWS offers a series of options for SAP HANA block storage. There are systems that can keep all your performance-sensitive data and log volumes fully secure and in a cost-effective manner.

Network

Network performance is another vital support factor for SAP HANA, especially for scale-out systems. AWS provides a specific amount of network bandwidth along with the latest instance families to meet the SAP HANA needs of their clients. They also provide dedicated network bandwidth for the storage backend.

Operating System (OS)

Smooth and incident-free running of SAP HANA is ably supported by SAP on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) or Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL). Both these OS distributions are supported on AWS. Apart from these, clients can also use the specific SAP HANA images for SUSE and Red Hat in the AWS Marketplace to achieve a smooth and hassle free start and running. Clients also have the option of bringing their own OS license.
 
AWS does an awesome job offering all these components for SAP HANA but the question is how users can put all these components together to build a system that complies with SAP requirements on AWS.  To make things easy for users, AWS came up with the AWS Quick Start for SAP HANA. It makes use of unique templates and custom scripts to help provision storage, networks, and other key AWS infrastructure components.
 
The Quick Start is designed to help users comply with all the operating system prerequisites for the SAP HANA installation. To make things easy, it also offers the option of installing SAP HANA software even with the software and license of users.