Working on the Future of IT

s SAP INFO 132 · Strategy After a decade of collaboration between SAP and Intel, the alliance has become even more strategic. For example, Intel is a global sponsor of the Best of SAP World Tour 2006 and the two industry leaders are working jointly on corporate research, product development, customer education, sales and marketing, and services. SAP optimizes solutions for Intel platforms Working on the Future of IT In a broad sense, SAP and Intel share a vision of the future. They strive to educate customers about the current and possible uses for technology, from mobile solutions to Enterprise Services Architecture. Together they aim to help companies squeeze the most value and functionality from business processes using state-of-the-art software and hardware with maximum scalability, flexibility, and performance. Intel and SAP have collaborated on creating the industry’s first appliancelike offering for SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence implementations. The technology is preloaded on servers running on 64-bit Intel Xeon processors. The new tool allows companies to instantly access valuable business information, such as inventory and profitability data. That type of high-performance analytics (HPA) capability enables companies to improve productivity, make more accurate sales forecasts, and increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. Intel and SAP have worked together to co-develop HPA functionality as part of a collaborative effort to drive the adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA). The Intel-SAP collaboration extends deeply, including research about radio frequency identification (RFID). A burgeoning new sensory networking technology in growing use around the world, RFID is a key focus for the two companies. SAP tailors the development of infrastructure and solutions specifically for use with operating systems that use Intel microprocessors and Intel platforms. From mySAP Business Suite and mySAP ERP, to the SAP NetWeaver platform and SAP solutions for mobile business, SAP’s experts target development efforts to make the most of Intel technology. Intel itself focuses on “right-sizing” its own worldwide SAP implementation. Right-sizing refers to the sophisti- 14 cated process Intel uses to match hardware platforms to the software that runs on them. Since 73 percent of new SAP deployments run on Intel platforms, targeted, joint development efforts are critical. Just as Intel strives to create more powerful platforms and innovations beyond the processor to extend the value of server platforms for increased business agility, SAP strives to ensure that its solutions offer superior performance and fully exploit the power of the hardware and operating system they run on. The goal is cost-efficiency, scalability, and top-notch functionality for SAP customers. Optimization of mySAP ERP “Another strategic advantage of the Intel and SAP collaboration is SAP’s ability to access the next generation of hardware at the earliest point. So we are able to test and do right-sizing as early as possible,” says Rolf Mueller, SAP’s development manager for Microsoft Platforms. Because of Intel’s openness and commitment to collaboration, many software developers from within SAP and from other companies can work with the new hardware well before it hits the market. “This ensures that the platform is tested and that software is tested on it,” he says. Mueller and his team have 11 years of direct experience working with Intel, and during that time the development process has changed significantly. Back in 1995 and 1996, SAP undertook development efforts to get SAP R/3 running on the operating systems (OSs) of Intel-based servers to allow their customers to leverage the price/performance advantage of Intel’s hardware. Today, since processor speed and platform performance are well documented, Mueller and his team focus on optimization for the specific operating system. For instance, SAP requires standard certification for Windowsbased platforms in order to ensure a stable and scalable implementation of the SAP software on the Windows OS. The performance of each certified server is transparent to the customers. “We require our hardware vendors that provide Intel-based systems to do a benchmark and publish this benchmark,” Mueller says. Even so, the process of optimization is complex, requiring the use of sophisticated code compilers supplied by the OS vendor well before the OS is on the market. After the OS and the code compiler are released to customers, it is too late to make changes. A complicating factor comes from SAP NetWeaver and the Web services capabilities of SAP’s Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA), which mean there are many types of technology that must be included in the testing and tuning processes regardless of the OS. It was simpler to do tuning, testing, and optimization in the past. SAP applications are written in ABAP; in addition, today’s systems use Java and other programming languages as well as ABAP. “For every release of SAP we have to analyze on three different layers: On the level of the processor; on the level of the virtual machine; and on the application level itself,” Mueller says. The difficulty, he says, is in analyzing and fixing problems between the layers, a task that is even more complex as software becomes increasingly componentized to leverage the distributed functionality of Web services. Improving performance But the current tools for analysis and optimization are sophisticated and up to the challenge. Intel supplies a tool called the Intel VTune Performance Analyzer that helps SAP analyze what’s going on while the software runs on the processor. Mueller and his team use it to isolate and fix any performance problems. They also compare how ABAP statements behave differently on different hardware. They check, for example, whether objects are aligned according to a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture and different processor cache line sizes. A separate SAP development team handles application performance issues. The standard sales and distribution (SD) benchmark is a well-known benchmark used for analysis and tuning efforts. For Mueller’s part, he and his team concentrate on the tough job of relating the complex technology layers underneath the applications. They test, analyze, tweak, and repeat the process again and again until performance is optimal. As the world’s adoption of 64-bit computing accelerates, SAP, like Intel, will focus its efforts in that direction. Just as Intel is helping drive the market to faster, more powerful computing with its 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 and Intel Xeon processors, Mueller and his team will, over time, move away from 32-bit infrastructure development. On the other hand, he says, SAP will always offer technical support for its customers that stay with 32-bit systems. As ESA becomes more prevalent, SAP and Intel will continue to collaborate and support previous technologies while at the same time working together to drive adoption of ESA. And because SAP NetWeaver is compatible with many different databases and applications, Mueller and his team will face new development challenges. They will have to port and optimize the infrastructure for different types of platforms. That will require additional testing, tuning, and optimization. “SAP NetWeaver introduces for us a new level of complexity in development,” he says. “For the customer however, SAP NetWeaver is easier and more flexible than the rigid enterprise 15 s SAP INFO 132 · Strategy systems of the past.” All of the SAP NetWeaver components run on Intel architecture. SAP uses Intel servers for development and solution validation, which ensures the highest reliability of SAP solutions when running on Intel architecture. Mobility matters at SAP In addition to work to optimize mySAP ERP, SAP developers are devoted to the optimization of SAP Mobile Infrastructure for both Intel Centrino mobile technology and Intel XScale technology. Enterprise mobility is a hot topic for companies that aim to provide employees not just with e-mail access, but with access to key, corporate information and processes that they need to conduct business. Howard Beader, director of solution marketing for SAP NetWeaver Mobile, says SAP and Intel work closely to enable optimized mobile solutions. “Intel is one of our most strategic, go-to-market partners from a mobile standpoint. Together we look at how to move the overall mobility market forward, and how to ensure that we are educating the business community about the opportunities,” he says. The SAP development organization works quite closely with Intel to ensure that SAP’s mobile client capabilities best leverage the Intel architectures, Beader says. Just as in the case of mySAP ERP, optimization of SAP NetWeaver Mobile is a collaborative effort. The infrastructure must be tested, tweaked and tuned to fit the OS and the microprocessor capabilities that power the various mobile devices such as smart phones, PDAs, laptops, and tablet PCs. “Intel has a mobile division where they focus on improvement of Intel XScale and Intel Centrino-based technology solutions. We are in close contact with the experts from Intel and have direct access to their knowledge,” says Thorsten Stephan, development manager for SAP NetWeaver Mobile. “Intel provides road-map information so that we are aware of what will come in the future and can tailor our development efforts,” he says. Because of the close collaboration between the two companies, SAP has the total insight it needs to focus development efforts now, as well as to appropriately plan future development. Just as in the case of mySAP ERP, application functionality depends on the supporting layers of technology. All applications developed on SAP NetWeaver benefit if SAP NetWeaver Mobile is optimized for the specific device type and the Intel processor capabilities are at maximum. So SAP and Intel work together to do all they can to make that happen. Intel runs tests to evaluate SAP NetWeaver Mobile and it provides feedback. SAP identifies and implements performance improvements recommended by Intel. In the recent past, Intel added enhanced power management and more reliable wireless connectivity to its chipsets, which greatly enhance SAP mobile solutions, Stephan says. The ability to synchronize easily with an enterprise network is a business-critical task for mobile workers. A unique development challenge for SAP comes from the constant need to create and tailor infrastructure to best support faster and faster applications while using the least possible battery power to operate mobile devices. “In the mobile space, products are changing very fast and all the improvements in the operating systems and the devices themselves and the chipsets are changing a lot. It requires an ongoing, proactive optimization processes,” Stephan says. The back-and-forth between SAP and Intel creates a circle of improvement. Better chipsets support better mobile infrastructure and faster applications. In the end, everyone benefits from the collaborative approach taken by SAP and Intel. “The faster and more feature-rich the chipsets are, the easier it is for SAP. Our applications benefit from the improvements to the chipsets,” Stephan says. “And SAP customers benefit from the entire development process.” Through the SAP and Intel alliance, customers have access to integrated end-to-end solutions, ranging from data center-class server platforms to business desktop and mobile clients. The end result is that customers receive optimized SAP solutions and SAP infrastructure with excellent performance, scalability and reliability on Intel platforms. Richard Page, SAP AG s 16