SAP UCC (SAP University Competence Center) promotes practical and future-oriented education by giving teachers and students worldwide access to the latest SAP technologies. The SAP University Competence Centers are responsible for providing services related to SAP solutions. In Magdeburg, 32 employees take care of over 71 countries with 629 institutions. As technical manager, André Faustmann and his colleagues are responsible for approximately 300 SAP systems with 1,000 clients, which are used by more than 4,000 lecturers. More than 130,000 students receive their education on it every semester.
Situation
At the UCC in Magdeburg, the old HPE StoreOnce solution with DataProtector, on which the backup of all data took place, was due to be replaced. A new and flexible software solution for data backup had to be found. This had to support HPE Catalyst, which was intended on the storage side, and at the same time be able to backup the different and virtual solutions around the most diverse SAP applications and databases in a certified manner.
Customer environment
3 Server Racks based on HPE Proliant and HPE 3PAR
Hardware capacity
- CPU-cores: 792 320 (ESXi) + 344 (HANA TDI) + 104 (Backup) + 24 (test environment)
- RAM: 17 TB 5TB (ESXi) + 11 TB (HANA TDI)
- 1 TB (Backup + test environment)
- 3PAR: 172 TB (all-flash)
- Number of virtual machines (VMware): 590
Data Backup
- HPE StoreOnce 5200 with 108 TB
- Current usage 41.9 TB deduplicated (334.6 TB real)
SAP UCC Magdeburg runs a large number of SAP systems on virtual machines. The DB2 databases are between 100 gigabytes and 1.5 terabytes in size. Some MaxDB installations are between 50 and 300 GB. For SAP HANA installations, the installation sizes range from 32 to 600 GB, which is sufficient for the example use case of “Global Bike”. The SAP HANA systems are operated physically. In turn, the application servers with the SAP systems are all virtualised. The desktop environments of the employees also run virtually, and more than 50 VMs are available for this purpose. File servers, mail servers, Github and special applications are also running
Solution
The previous backup solution was replaced and extended by SEP sesam in the course of the acquisition of the new HPE StoreOnce 5200. The complex backup processes could be created by individual scripts. New installations of virtual machines or databases can now be automatically integrated into the backup process via scripts. All database and operating system combinations can be backed up with SEP sesam in just one solution, both physically and virtually.
Benefits
The SAP-certified backup and restore of data in the data centre of UCC Magdeburg could be flexibly migrated to SEP sesam. A future expansion of the SAP-focused IT environment to S/4HANA is possible individually and for the latest software versions
Conclusion: Complex SAP environment converted for the future
“As we transitioned our backup system in the complex environment, we can highlight the extensive assistance we received from the team at SEP,” said André Faustmann. “This allowed us to be sure that we would get immediate support in case of special challenges.” The desired settings via an API and through scripting functions is very important and SEP sesam can also fulfil this requirement optimally. The fact that SEP’s backup solution is very well suited for heterogeneous environments also benefited the UCC’s diverse IT landscape. All database and operating system combinations can be backed up with just one solution, both physically and virtually. “The simple installation and also updating of the software round off our good image of SEP sesam,” André Faustmann concludes. For 2021, the renewal of the computing hardware is on the agenda to enable a broad presentation of SAP S/4HANA for the universities. With SEP sesam, the UCC Magdeburg is also well equipped for this on the data protection side for the coming years.
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