File sharing solutions for SAP on Google Cloud

Google Cloud supports several file sharing solutions for SAP on Google Cloud. Which you choose depends on what you are using the file sharing solution for, whether your SAP systems extend across zones or regions, and the performance requirements of your workloads.

Supported file sharing solutions for SAP on Google Cloud

The following table shows the file sharing solutions that Google Cloud supports for SAP systems.

If you are already using one of these file sharing solutions for other purposes and the solutions meets all of the requirements of your SAP workloads, then you can use that solution for your SAP systems also.

File sharing solution Description
Filestore

Google Cloud high-performance, fully managed file storage.

For multi-zonal highly available deployments, we recommend using the Enterprise tier of Filestore (Filestore Enterprise). For information about the Filestore service tiers, see Service tiers. For a quickstart guide to Filestore Basic, see Quickstart using the Console.

NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP

A full-featured, smart storage solution that you deploy and manage yourself on a Compute Engine virtual machine.

For more information about NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP, see Overview of Cloud Volumes ONTAP.

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

A high-performance, fully managed file storage solution from NetApp that you can deploy from the Google Cloud console.

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service offers two service types: CVS and CVS-Performance. For more information, see Service types.

For SAP, you need to use NetApp Cloud Volumes Service CVS-Performance (NetApp CVS-Performance) service type, which provides several service levels. For most SAP use cases, you need to use the Extreme service level, but, if your use case doesn't require high performance, you can use the Standard or Premium service level.

For more information, see Service levels.

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes

Google Cloud NetApp Volumes is a fully managed, cloud-based data storage service that provides advanced data management capabilities and highly scalable performance.

NetApp Volumes offers three service levels types: Standard, Premium, and Extreme. For most SAP use cases, you need to use the Extreme service level, but, if your use case doesn't require high performance, you can use the Standard or Premium service level.

For more information, see the comparison table inside Key features.

File sharing solutions by SAP use case

The following table lists the most common use cases for file sharing solutions in SAP landscapes and the solutions that support the use cases.

Use case Purpose Recommended solutions
Interface directory For use as a general storage location by SAP and other software systems to pass files between servers.
  • Filestore Enterprise
  • NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
  • NetApp CVS-Performance, Extreme service level
  • Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, Premium or Extreme service level
SAP transport directory For use as an SAP storage location by SAP systems to hold shared application files in distributed or high-availability deployments, or to transport SAP files and updates between different operational environments.
  • Filestore Enterprise
  • NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
  • NetApp CVS-Performance, Standard service level
  • Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, Premium or Extreme service level
Backup directory For use by SAP or other systems as a centralized storage location for backups.
  • Filestore Enterprise
  • NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
  • NetApp CVS-Performance, Extreme service level
  • Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, Premium or Extreme service level
SAP HANA scaleout system directory For use within a single zone by SAP HANA scaleout systems to share binaries and configuration files between the SAP HANA nodes.
  • Filestore Enterprise or Basic
  • NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP
  • NetApp CVS-Performance, Extreme service level
  • Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, Premium or Extreme service level

Features supported by each file sharing solution

The following table shows the common features that SAP systems require of file sharing solutions and the solutions that support those features.

Feature Filestore Basic Filestore Enterprise NetApp Cloud Volumes ONTAP NetApp CVS-Performance Google Cloud NetApp Volumes
Disaster recovery Manual Manual Automated with Snapmirror Multi-region replication Multi-region replication
High availability Zonal service, 99.9% SLA Multi-zonal service, 99.99% SLA Multi-zone HA solution;
99.99% SLA for only the Google Cloud infrastructure		 Zonal service, 99.99% SLA Zonal service, 99.95% SLA
Snapshots/Backup Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Managed service Yes Yes No Yes Yes
Protocols NFSv3 NFSv3 NFSv3, NFSv4.1, SMB, iSCSI NFSv3, NFSv4.1, SMB NFSv3, NFSv4.1, SMB
Regional replication No No With Snapmirror Yes Yes
Regional availability All regions All regions All regions In regions where NetApp CVS-Performance is available. See the NetApp Global Regions Maps. In regions where NetApp Volumes is available. See NetApp Volumes locations.
RPO for disaster recovery Not applicable Not applicable As low as 15 minutesNote 1 As low as 15 minutesNote 1 As low as 10 minutesNote 1
Storage, minimum 1 TB 1 TB 100 GB volume with 638 GB system disk 1 TB 1 TB
Support provider Google Cloud Google Cloud NetApp for NetApp software and Google Cloud for infrastructure Google Cloud Google Cloud
Throughput performance 100 MB/s R/WNote 2 120/100 MB/s R/WNote 2 Configuration dependent. See the NetApp documentation. 128 MB/s R/WNote 3 125 MiB/s R/WNote 4

Table notes:

  • Note 1: The times shown are approximate and depend on a variety of factors, including your system and network configuration, backup intervals, and recovery procedures.
  • Note 2: With the Filestore Basic and Enterprise tiers, the volume size affects the storage speed. The R/W throughput that is shown in the table is based on a volume size of 1 TB. For more information, see Filestore service tiers. The performance of Filestore Enterprise scales to 1,200/1,000 MiB/s with a 10 TB volume.
  • Note 3: With NetApp CVS-Performance, the volume size affects the storage speed. The R/W throughput that is shown in the table is for the CVS-Performance service type and is based on a volume size of 1 TB.
  • Note 4: With Google Cloud NetApp Volumes, the volume size affects the storage speed. The R/W throughput that is shown in the table is for the lowest cost option and is based on a volume size of 1 TB.

About NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud is a fully-managed, cloud-native data service platform that you can use to create an NFS file system for SAP HANA scale-up systems on all Compute Engine instance types that are certified for SAP HANA.

NetApp Cloud Volumes Service offers two service types: CVS and CVS-Performance. The CVS_Performance service type offers different service levels. You must use the NetApp Cloud Volumes Service CVS-Performance (NetApp CVS-Performance) service type and the Extreme service level with SAP HANA.

Support for NetApp CVS-Performance in scale-out deployments is limited to specific Compute Engine instance types, as noted in the table in Certified machine types for SAP HANA.

With NetApp CVS-Performance, you can place all of the SAP HANA directories, including /hana/data and /hana/logs, in shared storage, instead of using Compute Engine persistent disks. With most other shared storage systems, you can place only the /hana/shared directory in shared storage.

SAP support for NetApp CVS-Performance on Google Cloud is listed in the Certified and Supported SAP HANA Hardware Directory.

Regional availability of NetApp CVS-Performance for SAP HANA

Your NetApp CVS-Performance volumes must be in the same region as your host VM instances.

Support for SAP HANA by NetApp CVS-Performance is not available in every region that NetApp CVS-Performance is available in.

You can use NetApp CVS-Performance with SAP HANA in the following Google Cloud regions:

Region Location
europe-west4 Eemshaven, Netherlands, Europe
us-east4 Ashburn, Northern Virginia, USA
us-west2 Los Angeles, California, USA

If you are interested in running SAP HANA with NetApp CVS-Performance in a Google Cloud region that is not listed above, contact sales.

NFS protocol support

NetApp CVS-Performance supports the NFSv3 and NFSv4.1 protocols with SAP HANA on Google Cloud.

NFSv3 is recommended for volumes that are configured to allow multiple TCP connections. NFSv4.1 is not yet supported with multiple TCP connections.

Volume requirements for NetApp Cloud Volumes Service with SAP HANA

The NetApp CVS-Performance volumes must be in the same region as the host VM instances.

For the /hana/data and /hana/log volumes, the Extreme service level of NetApp CVS-Performance is required. You can use the Premium service level for the /hana/shared directory if it is in a separate volume from the /hana/data and /hana/log directories.

For the best performance with SAP HANA systems that are larger than 1 TB, create separate volumes for /hana/data, /hana/log, and /hana/shared.

To meet SAP HANA performance requirements, the following minimum volume sizes are required when running SAP HANA with NetApp CVS-Performance:

Directory Minimum size
/hana/shared 1 TB
/hana/log 2.5 TB
/hana/data 4 TB

Adjust the size of your volumes to meet your throughput requirements. The minimum throughput rate for the Extreme service level is 128 MB per second for each 1 TB, so the throughput for 4TB of disk space is 512 MB per second. Provisioning more disk space for the /hana/data volume can reduce startup times. For the /hana/data volume, we recommend either 1.5 times the size of your memory or 4 TB, whichever is greater.

The minimum size for the /hanabackup volume is determined by your backup strategy. You can also use the Backint feature of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP to backup the database directly into Cloud Storage.

Deploying a SAP HANA system with NetApp CVS-Performance

To deploy NetApp CVS-Performance with SAP HANA on Google Cloud, you need to deploy your VMs and install SAP HANA first. You can use the Terraform configuration files or Deployment Manager templates that Google Cloud provides to deploy the VMs and SAP HANA, or you can create the VM instances and install SAP HANA manually.

If you use the Terraform configuration files or Deployment Manager templates, then the VMs are deployed with the /hana/data and /hana/log volume mapped to persistent disks. After you mount the NetApp CVS-Performance volumes to the VMs, you need to copy the contents of the persistent disks over, as described in the following steps.

To deploy SAP HANA with NetApp CVS-Performance by using the deployment files that Google Cloud provides:

  1. Deploy SAP HANA with persistent disks by following the instructions of your choice:

  2. Create your NetApp CVS-Performance volumes. For complete NetApp instructions, see NetApp Cloud Volumes Service for Google Cloud documentation.

  3. Mount NetApp CVS-Performance to a temporary mount point by using the mount command with following settings:

    mount -t nfs -o options server:path mountpoint

    For options, use the following settings:

    rw,bg,hard,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,vers=3,tcp,nconnect=16,noatime,nolock

    The option vers=3 indicates NFSv3. The option nconnect=16 specifies support for multiple TCP connections.

  4. Stop SAP HANA and any related services that are using the attached persistent disk volumes.

  5. Copy the contents of the persistent disk volumes to the corresponding NetApp CVS-Performance volumes.

  6. Detach the persistent disks.

  7. Remount the NetApp CVS-Performance volumes to the permanent mount points by updating the /etc/fstab with the following settings:

    server:path   /mountpoint   nfs   options   0 0

    For options, use the following settings:

    rw,bg,hard,rsize=1048576,wsize=1048576,vers=3,tcp,nconnect=16,noatime,nolock

    For more information about updating the /etc/fstab file, see the nfs page in the Linux File Formats manual.

  8. For the best performance, update the fileio category in the SAP HANA global.ini file with the following suggested settings:

    Parameter Value
    async_read_submit on
    async_write_submit_active on
    async_write_submit_blocks all
    max_parallel_io_requests 128
    max_parallel_io_requests[data] 128
    max_parallel_io_requests[log] 128
    num_completion_queues 4
    num_completion_queues[data] 4
    num_completion_queues[log] 4
    num_submit_queues 8
    num_submit_queues[data] 8
    num_submit_queues[log] 8

  9. Restart SAP HANA.

  10. After confirming that everything works as expected, delete the persistent disks to avoid being charged for them.