Plan Oracle Database implementation for SAP NetWeaver

This guide provides details that you can use to plan the implementation of Oracle Database 19c or later, on Oracle Linux, that supports SAP NetWeaver based applications running on Google Cloud.

For information about how to deploy an Oracle Database 19c or later on Oracle Linux for SAP systems running on Google Cloud, see Deploy Oracle Database for SAP NetWeaver.

Licenses

To run an Oracle Database with SAP systems on Google Cloud, you need to bring your own license (BYOL) for Oracle Database 19c or later.

You also need to purchase Oracle Linux Premier Support. For more information, see the SAP note 3408032 - Oracle Linux: operating system support process.

For information about running an Oracle Database 19c with SAP NetWeaver based products and solutions, see the SAP note 2799900 - Central Technical Note for Oracle Database 19c.

Google Cloud basics

Google Cloud consists of many cloud-based services and products. When running SAP products on Google Cloud, you mainly use the IaaS-based services offered through Compute Engine and Cloud Storage, as well as some platform-wide features, such as tools.

See the Google Cloud platform overview for important concepts and terminology. This guide duplicates some information from the overview for convenience and context.

For an overview of considerations that enterprise-scale organizations should take into account when running on Google Cloud, see the Google Cloud Well-Architected Framework.

Interacting with Google Cloud

Google Cloud offers three main ways to interact with the platform, and your resources, in the cloud:

  • The Google Cloud console, which is a web-based user interface.
  • The gcloud command-line tool, which provides a superset of the functionality that Google Cloud console offers.
  • Client libraries, which provide APIs for accessing services and management of resources. Client libraries are useful when building your own tools.

Google Cloud services

SAP deployments typically utilize some or all of the following Google Cloud services:

Service Description
VPC networking

Connects your Compute Engine instances to each other and to the internet.

Each compute instance is a member of either a legacy network with a single global IP range, or a recommended subnet network, where the instance is a member of a single subnetwork that is a member of a larger network.

Note that a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) network cannot span Google Cloud projects, but a Google Cloud project can have multiple VPC networks.

To connect resources from multiple projects to a common VPC network, you can use Shared VPC, so that the resources can communicate with each other securely and efficiently by using internal IP addresses from that network. For information about how to provision a Shared VPC including requirements, configuration steps, and usage, see Provision Shared VPC.

Compute Engine Creates and manages compute instances with your choice of operating system and software stack.
Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk

You can use Persistent Disk and Google Cloud Hyperdisk:

  • Persistent Disk volumes are available as either standard hard disk drives (HDD) or solid-state drives (SSD). For Balanced Persistent Disk and SSD Persistent Disk volumes, PD Async Replication provides asynchronous replication of SAP data between two Google Cloud regions.
  • Hyperdisk Extreme volumes provide higher maximum IOPS and throughput options than SSD Persistent Disk volumes.
  • Compute Engine enables default encryption at rest, including content inside Persistent Disk and Hyperdisk volumes. For more information about disk encryption and possible encryption options, see About disk encryption.
Google Cloud console

A browser-based tool for managing Compute Engine resources.

Use a template to describe all of the Compute Engine resources and instances you need. You don't have to individually create and configure the resources or figure out dependencies because the Google Cloud console does that for you.
Cloud Storage You can store your SAP database backups in Cloud Storage for added durability and reliability, with replication.
Cloud Monitoring

Provides visibility into the deployment, performance, uptime, and health of Compute Engine, network, and persistent storage disks.

Monitoring collects metrics, events, and metadata from Google Cloud and uses these to generate insights through dashboards, charts, and alerts. You can monitor the compute metrics at no cost through Monitoring.
IAM

Provides unified control over permissions for Google Cloud resources.

IAM lets you control who can perform control-plane operations on your compute instances, including creating, modifying, and deleting instances and persistent storage disks, and creating and modifying networks.

Pricing and quotas

You can use the pricing calculator to estimate your usage costs. For more pricing information, see Compute Engine pricing, Cloud Storage pricing, and Google Cloud Observability pricing.

Google Cloud resources are subject to quotas. If you plan to use high-CPU or high-memory machines, then you might need to request additional quota. For more information, see Allocation quotas.

Compliance and sovereign controls

If you require your SAP workload to run in compliance with data residency, access control, support personnel, or regulatory requirements, then you must plan for using Assured Workloads - a service that helps you run secure and compliant workloads on Google Cloud without compromising the quality of your cloud experience. For more information, see Compliance and sovereign controls for SAP on Google Cloud.

Deployment architecture

For SAP NetWeaver based applications running on Google Cloud, a conventional single-node Oracle Database instance comprises of the following components:

  • A Compute Engine instance that runs your Oracle Database.

  • If you're using XFS file system, then you need Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk volumes for the following drives. We strongly recommend that you use Hyperdisk volumes.

    Drive contents Linux directory
    Oracle installation

    /oracle/DB_SID
    /oracle/DB_SID/origlogA
    /oracle/DB_SID/origlogB
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapdata1
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapdata2
    Oracle mirror

    /oracle/DB_SID/mirrlogA
    /oracle/DB_SID/mirrlogB
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapreorg
    /oracle/DB_SID/saptrace
    /oracle/DB_SID/saparch
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapbackup
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapcheck
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapdata3
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapdata4
    /oracle/DB_SID/sapprof
    Backup of offline redolog file /oracle/DB_SID/oraarch
    SAP NetWeaver installation /usr/sap
    SAP NetWeaver directory containing mount points for shared file systems /sapmnt

  • If you intend to use Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) to manage storage for your Oracle Database, then you need Persistent Disk or Hyperdisk volumes for the following drives. We strongly recommend that you use Hyperdisk volumes.

    Drive contents Linux directory
    Oracle installation /oracle
    Oracle ASM disks

    For information about identifying storage requirements for Oracle ASM, including redundancy level, disk group layout, and disk sizes, see the following:
    SAP NetWeaver installation /usr/sap
    SAP NetWeaver directory containing mount points for shared file systems /sapmnt

  • Optionally, you can expand your deployment to include a NAT gateway, which lets you provide internet connectivity for your compute instance while denying direct internet connectivity to them. You can also configure your compute instance as a bastion host that lets you establish SSH connections to the other compute instances on your private subnet. For more information, see NAT gateways and bastion hosts.

Different use cases might require additional devices. For more information, see the SAP documentation SAP on Oracle.

Resource requirements

In many ways, running an Oracle Database in an SAP NetWeaver based system is similar to running it in your own data center. You still need to think about computing resources, storage, and networking considerations.

For information from SAP about resource requirements for running an Oracle database, see the SAP note 2799900 - Central Technical Note for Oracle Database 19c.

Compute instance configuration

To run an Oracle Database for SAP NetWeaver based applications on Google Cloud, SAP has certified the use of all Compute Engine machine types, including custom machine types. However, if you run the Oracle database on the same compute instance as the SAP NetWeaver or Application Server Central Services (ASCS), then you must use a compute instance that is certified by SAP for use with SAP NetWeaver. For information about the Compute Engine machine types that you can use to run SAP NetWeaver, see the SAP NetWeaver planning guide.

For information about all of the machine types available on Google Cloud and their use cases, see Machine families resource and comparison guide in the Compute Engine documentation.

CPU configuration

The number of vCPUs that you need to run an Oracle Database depends on your SAP application load and your performance objectives. You must allocate a minimum of 2 vCPUs to your Oracle Database installation. For the best performance, scale the number of vCPUs and the size of your block storage until your performance objectives are met.

Memory configuration

The memory that you allocate for your Oracle Database depends on your use case. The optimal amount of memory for your use case depends on the complexity of the queries you're running, the size of your data, the amount of parallelism you're using, and the level of performance you're expecting.

Storage configuration

By default, Compute Engine automatically creates a boot disk when you create an instance. You provision additional disks for your database data, logs, and, optionally, database backups.

For the volumes of your Oracle Database instance, use disks that satisfy your performance requirements. For information about factors that determine Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk performance, see About Hyperdisk performance and About Persistent Disk performance, respectively.

For mission-critical workloads, we strongly recommend that you use Hyperdisk volumes. For more information about block storage for your Oracle Database, see Block storage.

Supported Oracle Database versions and features

To use Oracle Databases with SAP NetWeaver based applications running on Google Cloud, SAP has certified the following:

  • Oracle Database 19c or later
  • The database must use the Unicode character set.
  • The database must use a file system that has been validated by Oracle. While you can use Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM), Oracle recommends using a file system for the Oracle database.
  • You must have a Premier Support subscription for your Oracle Database.

Real Application Clusters (RAC) and Pacemaker based high-availability (HA) solutions are not supported.

For more information, see the SAP note 3559536.

Supported operating systems

To use Oracle Databases with SAP NetWeaver based applications running on Google Cloud, SAP has certified the following operating systems:

  • Oracle Linux 9 or Oracle Linux 8, with the following kernel:

    • UEK 7: 5.15.0-1.43.4.2.el9uek.x86_64 or later
    • UEK 7: 5.15.0-202.135.2.el8uek.x86_64 or later

    You can get these images from Compute Engine. For more information, see Oracle Linux.

To use Oracle Linux for running Oracle Database with SAP NetWeaver, you must also ensure the following:

  • You've purchased Oracle Linux Premier Support.
  • All components of your SAP system run the same Oracle Linux version. This includes the database, app servers, and any other closely-coupled auxiliary system.
  • Your compute instances must be able to retrieve additional software and updates from the Unbreakable Linux Network (ULN) either directly using HTTPS or a ULN proxy.
  • If you're using Oracle Linux 9.5, then the minimum version of Oracle Database that you must use is 19.26.

While using Oracle Database based installations, to make the SAP Central Services instance highly available, you need to ensure the following:

  • A Compute Engine instance that runs Oracle Database or any other closely-coupled auxiliary system must use a supported operating system, as mentioned earlier in this section.
  • As an exception to the preceding requirement, a compute instance that runs the SAP Central Services instance like the ASCS or the ERS, can use any SAP-certified OS as long as that compute instance doesn't host the Oracle Database or has any Oracle software installed.

For more information, see the SAP note 3074643 - OLNX: FAQ: if Pacemaker for Oracle Linux is supported in SAP Environment.

Deployment considerations

This section provides information for planning the aspects such as deployment location, block storage, user identification and access control, network, and backup and recovery for your Oracle Database.

Plan regions and zones

When you deploy a Compute Engine instance, you must choose a region and zone. A region is a specific geographical location where you can run your resources, and corresponds to one or more data center locations in relatively close proximity to each other. Each region has one or more zones with redundant connectivity, power, and cooling.

Global resources, such as pre-configured disk images and disk snapshots, can be accessed across regions and zones. Regional resources, such as regional static external IP addresses, can only be accessed by resources that are in the same region. Zonal resources, such as compute instances and disks, can only be accessed by resources that are located in the same zone. For more information, see Global, regional, and zonal resources.

Google Cloud regions and zones.

When you choose a region and zone for your compute instances, consider the following:

  • The location of your users and your internal resources, such as your data center or corporate network. To decrease latency, select a location that is in close proximity to your users and resources.
  • The CPU platforms that are available for that region and zone. For example, Intel's Broadwell, Haswell, Skylake, and Ice Lake processors are supported for workloads of SAP NetWeaver on Google Cloud.
  • Ensure that your SAP Application Server and your database are in the same region.

Block storage

For persistent block storage, you can attach Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk volumes to your Compute Engine instances.

Compute Engine offers different types of Hyperdisk and Persistent Disk. Each type has different performance characteristics. Google Cloud manages the underlying hardware of these disks to ensure data redundancy, and to optimize performance.

With SAP NetWeaver, you can use any of the following Hyperdisk or Persistent Disk types:

  • Hyperdisk types: Hyperdisk Balanced (hyperdisk-balanced) and Hyperdisk Extreme (hyperdisk-extreme)
  • Persistent Disk types: Performance or SSD (pd-ssd)
    • SSD Persistent Disk is backed by solid-state drives (SSD). It provides cost-effective and reliable block storage.
    • SSD Persistent Disk supports PD Async Replication. You can use this feature for cross-region active-passive disaster recovery. For more information, see About Persistent Disk Asynchronous Replication.
    • The performance of SSD Persistent Disk volumes scale automatically with size. Therefore, you can adjust performance by resizing your existing Persistent Disk volumes or adding more Persistent Disk volumes to a Compute Engine instance.