Bare Metal Solution offers bare-metal machines that are certified by SAP for SAP NetWeaver. With Bare Metal Solution, you can run SAP NetWeaver with extra-large SAP HANA instances or with Oracle databases.
Bare Metal Solution is a managed solution that provides purpose-built bare-metal machines and related infrastructure in regional extensions that are co-located and connected to Google Cloud through a managed, high-performance connection with a low-latency network fabric.
This guide covers only those aspects of Bare Metal Solution that are unique or relevant to SAP NetWeaver and SAP applications in a Bare Metal Solution environment.
For information about running SAP NetWeaver on Compute Engine instances, which includes SAP applications that run in the hybrid architecture that is described in the Supported architectures section, see the SAP NetWeaver Planning Guide.
For a full description of Bare Metal Solution, see Bare Metal Solution.
For information from SAP about SAP support for applications on Bare Metal Solution, see SAP Note 3000343 - SAP Applications on Google Cloud: Supported Products on Google Cloud Bare Metal Solutions.
Your responsibilities in a Bare Metal Solution environment
As described in the Bare Metal Solution documentation, after Google Cloud configures and provides the machines to you, you assume responsibility for licensing, installation, and maintenance of any software, such as SAP NetWeaver, the SAP applications, and the database software.
For more information about your responsibilities in the Bare Metal Solution environment, see Your responsibilities in a Bare Metal Solution environment.
Supported architectures
When running SAP NetWeaver in the Bare Metal Solution environment on SAP HANA, you must use a three-tier architecture, in which SAP NetWeaver and the application servers run on different host machines than SAP HANA.
With database servers running on Bare Metal Solution, subject to the requirements of the database server, you can use the following application server architectures:
- A hybrid application architecture, in which the database server runs in the Bare Metal Solution environment, but your SAP application servers run on Google Cloud. Because of its flexibility and lower cost, a hybrid architecture is recommended.
- An all-metal application architecture, in which all of your application servers run in the same Bare Metal Solution environment as the database server. Consider an all-metal architecture if your workload requires a lower latency between the database and the applications than the Partner Interconnect connection can provide, or if the database server requires the application servers to run on the same platform.
The following diagram shows an all-metal application server architecture. At the primary site, both the application servers and the database server run in the same Bare Metal Solution regional extension. A second regional regional extension hosts a disaster recovery site, which contains both the application servers and the database server. You can use the servers at the DR site for other purposes until you need them for recovery. Any replication between the primary and disaster recovery sites passes through the Google Cloud network.
Regional availability
The Bare Metal Solution machines that are certified for SAP applications are available only in Bare Metal Solution region extensions, which are not available for every Google Cloud region. For the full list of regions that have a Bare Metal Solution region extension, see Bare Metal Solution regional availability.
For the availability of Bare Metal Solution machines that are certified for SAP HANA, see Regional availability of Bare Metal Solution machines for SAP HANA.
Certified machine types
The following table shows the Bare Metal Solution machines that SAP certifies for SAP NetWeaver.
To check the regional availability of Bare Metal Solution regional extensions, see Regional availability.
SAP lists the certified Bare Metal Solution machine types for SAP NetWeaver in the SAP Note 3000343 - SAP Applications on Google Cloud: Supported Products on Google Cloud Bare Metal Solutions.
Bare Metal Solution machines include general-purpose (o2-standard and
o2-highmem) and memory-optimized (o2-ultramem) machine types.
| Bare Metal Solution machine types | CPU cores | vCPUs | Sockets | Memory | CPU platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| General-purpose machine types | |||||
o2-standard-16-metal |
8 | 16 | 2 | 192 GB | Intel Cascade Lake |
o2-standard-32-metal |
16 | 32 | 2 | 384 GB | Intel Cascade Lake |
o2-standard-48-metal |
24 | 48 | 2 | 768 GB | Intel Cascade Lake |
o2-standard-112-metal |
56 | 112 | 2 | 1.5 TB | Intel Cascade Lake |
| High-memory general-purpose machine types | |||||
o2-highmem-224-metal |
112 | 224 | 4 | 3 TB | Intel Cascade Lake |
The following memory-optimized Bare Metal Solution machines are certified by SAP only for SAP HANA in a three-tier architecture:
| Bare Metal Solution machine type | CPU cores | vCPUs | Sockets | Memory | CPU platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
o2-ultramem-672-metal |
336 | 672 | 12 | 18 TB | Intel Cascade Lake |
o2-ultramem-896-metal |
448 | 896 | 16 | 24 TB | Intel Cascade Lake |
Certified operating systems
The following table shows the Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) operating systems that are certified by SAP for production use with SAP NetWeaver on Bare Metal Solution servers, and their availability. If you need an OS that does not appear in the following table, then contact Google Cloud Sales.
| Operating system | Version certified by SAP | Availability for SAP NetWeaver on Bare Metal Solution |
|---|---|---|
| RHEL for SAP | 7.6 | No |
| 7.7 | No | |
| 7.9 | No | |
| 8.0 | No | |
| 8.1 | Yes. The image code is RHEL81SAP. |
|
| 8.2 | No, but you can upgrade to it from 8.1. | |
| 8.4 | No, but you can upgrade to it from 8.1. | |
| 8.6 | No, but you can upgrade to it from 8.1. | |
| 9.0 | No. Contact Google Cloud Sales. | |
| SLES for SAP | 12 SP4 | No |
| 12 SP5 | Yes. The image code is SLES12SP5SAP. |
|
| 15 | No | |
| 15 SP1 | No | |
| 15 SP2 | Yes. The image code is SLES12SP5SAP. |
|
| 15 SP3 | No, but you can upgrade to it from 15 SP2. | |
| 15 SP4 | No, but you can upgrade to it from 15 SP2. |
For more information from SAP about the certified operating systems, see SAP Note 3000343 - SAP Applications on Google Cloud: Supported Products on Google Cloud Bare Metal Solutions .
Databases
Use Bare Metal Solution servers to run SAP applications with either extra-large SAP HANA instances (up to 24 TB) or with Oracle database servers.
For more information, see:
Storage
When you place your order for Bare Metal Solution machines, you also order the amount of block and file storage that you need.
For more information about the Bare Metal Solution storage options, see:
Volume layout
After you receive your Bare Metal Solution machine, you need to configure
the required /usr/sap and /sapmnt volumes. On Linux, you also need to
format and mount the swap disk.
Storage amount
When calculating the amount of storage you need, include storage for backups and snapshots of your data.
Backups
Use Cloud Storage for persistent storage of your SAP NetWeaver backups.
You can use the following backup solutions in the Bare Metal Solution environment:
- Backup and DR Service for all Bare Metal Solution systems, application, and database servers.
- Third-party backup solutions that SAP supports.
Snapshots
With Bare Metal Solution, you can request local disk snapshots.
Snapshots are local copies only and multi-regional replication is not supported.
By default, Bare Metal Solution takes daily snapshots of the boot disk and operating system LUN at no cost. The daily snapshots are retained for seven days.
You can order snapshots of other volumes, but you need to request them when you order your Bare Metal Solution servers. You must also order any storage that is required to store snapshots of other volumes.
Networking
The networking infrastructure and setup for an SAP deployment is basically the same as it is for other workloads on Bare Metal Solution. This section covers only those aspects of networking that are unique or relevant to an SAP NetWeaver deployment on Bare Metal Solution.
Enabling your Cloud Interconnect connection and configuring access to the internet and to the Google Cloud APIs are covered in the Bare Metal Solution documentation.
You need to set up your DNS server and access to an NTP server yourself.
For more information, see Bare Metal Solution networking.
NTP
You can use the Google Cloud NTP server or you can use an NTP server of your choosing.
The steps for configuring access to the Google Cloud NTP server for Bare Metal Solution machines are similar to those for Compute Engine, but you need to set up private access to the Google Cloud APIs first.
For the Compute Engine procedure for setting up access to the Google Cloud NTP server, see Set up network time protocol (NTP) for instances.
IAM service accounts
Before an application that runs on a Bare Metal Solution machine can access Google Cloud products or services, you need to create an Identity and Access Management (IAM) service account in your Google Cloud project for authentication and access management.
When you create the service account, you create a key for authentication and you grant roles to the service account to manage access to Google Cloud resources.
If you set up a high-availability configuration for SAP NetWeaver on Linux,
you need to create a service account for the fence_gce agent, the Google Cloud
fencing device that is included with Linux distributions from Red Hat and SUSE.
You store the service account key on your Bare Metal Solution machine and specify the path to the key when you configure the agent.
For more information about authenticating applications and managing their access to Google Cloud resources, see the information about service accounts, roles, and permissions in IAM overview.
Maintenance
Google Cloud coordinates the scheduling of planned maintenance on your Bare Metal Solution machines with you and does not proceed without your approval.
If Google Cloud needs to perform any urgent, unplanned maintenance, we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible to avoid or minimize any disruption to your SAP applications.
Monitoring
For support and monitoring, Google Cloud provides the Agent for SAP, for SAP workloads running on Compute Engine instances and Bare Metal Solution servers.
As mandated by SAP, to get support from SAP and to enable SAP to meet its service-level agreements (SLAs), you must install Google Cloud's Agent for SAP on all Compute Engine instances and Bare Metal Solution servers that run any SAP system. For more information on the support prerequisites, see SAP Note 2456406 - SAP on Google Cloud Platform: Support Prerequisites .
Version 3.6 (latest) of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is the successor of Google Cloud's monitoring agent for SAP NetWeaver version 2, monitoring agent for SAP HANA version 2, and the Cloud Storage Backint agent for SAP HANA. Therefore, in addition to the collection of metrics, version 3.6 (latest) of Google Cloud's Agent for SAP includes the optional feature: Backint based backup and recovery for SAP HANA. You can opt in to these features that enable products and services such as Workload Manager for your SAP workloads.For SAP systems running on a Bare Metal Solution server, Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is required when you run SAP NetWeaver connected to any of the following databases:
- SAP HANA
- SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE)
- SAP MaxDB
- IBM Db2
You install Google Cloud's Agent for SAP on the host alongside the SAP system. For instructions about how to install and configure the agent, validate your installation, and verify that the agent is running as expected, see Install the agent on a Bare Metal Solution server.
Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is supported on Bare Metal Solution servers running Linux. Installing Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is not supported on Bare Metal Solution servers running Windows.
If you use the following RHEL or SLES "for SAP" OS images that Google Cloud provides, then Google Cloud's Agent for SAP is packaged with the OS images:
- RHEL: all "for SAP" images
- SLES: SLES 15 SP4 for SAP and later versions
High availability
For a high-availability cluster on Bare Metal Solution, you use two identical machines in the same Bare Metal Solution regional extension and the Pacemaker cluster resource manager that is provided by your Linux operating system vendor.
Both RHEL and SLES Linux distributions include the fence_gce fencing agent,
which can reset Bare Metal Solution machines to avoid split brain scenarios.
High-availability clusters for SAP NetWeaver on Bare Metal Solution
Configure clustering or a suitable high-availability solution for your business critical workloads. On Linux, we recommend Pacemaker clustering for SAP NetWeaver high-availability configurations.
With the following requirements and recommendations, set up your high-availability cluster on Bare Metal Solution by following the instructions that your operating system vendor provides:
- For the floating virtual IP addresses, you can use the standard IPaddr2 cluster resource, which uses address resolution updates in combination with Bare Metal Solution networking.
- For fencing, you have two options: network-based fencing and, if supported
by your operating system, storage-based fencing.
- For network-based fencing, you must use the Google Cloud fence
agent,
fence_gce, that is provided with your Linux operating system. Thefence_gceagent issues a Google Cloud API request to reset failed Bare Metal Solution servers in an HA cluster. - For storage-based fencing (SBD) on operating systems that support it, such as SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES), you need to order additional shared storage for the required volumes, which is attached to both servers as a multi-path Fiber Channel device. For more information about storage-based fencing, consult the SUSE high-availability guides.
- For network-based fencing, you must use the Google Cloud fence
agent,
- For shared file storage for volumes like the
/sapmnt, you can use the NFS file-sharing solution that is available to order with your Bare Metal Solution servers or you can use the Pacemaker cluster to configure a self-managed NFS cluster service.
Fencing with the fence_gce agent
Your RHEL or SLES operating system includes the fence_gce agent,
which you can use if your operating system does not support a software-based
watchdog with SBD fencing.
If your operating system supports a software watchdog with SBD fencing,
use SBD fencing instead of the fence_gce agent. SBD fencing
is recommended for SAP HANA HA clusters in Bare Metal Solution
environment.
IAM permissions that are required by the fence_gce agent
When the fence_gce fencing agent initiates a failover, the agent calls the
Bare Metal Solution API to reset the failed Bare Metal Solution server.
For authentication and authorization when the agent accesses the API, you need to provide an IAM service account for the agent in your Google Cloud project and you need to store the key for the service account on the Bare Metal Solution server.
The service account must include the baremetalsolution.service.resetInstance
permission, which is included in the predefined IAM roles
roles/baremetalsolution.editor and roles/baremetalsolution.admin.
For more information about the Bare Metal Solution API and its associated IAM roles, see the Bare Metal Solution API reference.
Configuring the fence_gce agent
You enable and configure the fence_gce agent when you define the
resources for a high-availability cluster.
For more information about configuring the fence_gce agent, including how to
confirm that your agent supports Bare Metal Solution, see
Configure the fence_gce agent.
Disaster recovery
A disaster recovery setup for an SAP system that runs in the Bare Metal Solution environment requires two Bare Metal Solution server configurations, each in a different Bare Metal Solution regional extension.
For system refreshes, use a backup and restore method. Snapshots are not supported.
Selecting a recovery site
Select a Google Cloud region for your recovery site that:
- Includes a Bare Metal Solution regional extension.
- Is as close to the primary site as possible.
- Is different than the region of the primary site.
For the availability of Bare Metal Solution regional extensions, see Regional availability.
Ordering
Bare Metal Solution servers are special order items that must be ordered before you need them.
Unlike Compute Engine virtual machines, you cannot order or provision Bare Metal Solution servers for SAP NetWeaver through the Google Cloud console. You need to contact Google Cloud Sales.
Preparing to order
Before you place your order, you need to determine the requirements of your SAP workload for the Bare Metal Solution environment. The Google Cloud Sales representative that takes your order can help you do this.
Receiving your order
When your servers are ready, Google Cloud notifies you. The notification includes the IP address and credentials that you need to log on your server.
As soon as you log on, confirm that your order is correct and that everything, including the machine, operating system, and storage, is configured correctly. If everything is correct, you can prepare to install SAP NetWeaver.
For more information about ordering a Bare Metal Solution server for SAP NetWeaver, contact Google Cloud Sales.
For additional networking information that your order will require, see Required networking information for your Bare Metal Solution order.
Support
For issues with Google Cloud infrastructure or services, contact Customer Care. You can find the contact information on the Support Overview page in the Google Cloud console. If Customer Care determines that a problem resides in your SAP systems, then you are referred to SAP Support.
For SAP product-related issues, log your support request with
SAP support.
SAP evaluates the support ticket and, if it appears to be a Google Cloud
infrastructure issue, then SAP transfers that ticket to the appropriate
Google Cloud component in its system: BC-OP-LNX-GOOGLE or
BC-OP-NT-GOOGLE.
Support requirements
Before you can receive support for SAP systems and the Google Cloud infrastructure and services that they use, you must meet the minimum support plan requirements.
For more information about the minimum support requirements for SAP on Google Cloud, see:
- Getting support for SAP on Google Cloud
- SAP Note 2456406 - SAP on Google Cloud Platform: Support Prerequisites (An SAP user account is required)
What's next
- For implementation and configuration tasks, see Deploying SAP NetWeaver on Bare Metal Solution.