Techdocs Library > Flashes > IBM i 7.1 TR3 - Optimized for SAP

Document Author:	Ron Schmerbauch		Document ID:	FLASH10763
Doc. Organization:	Development		Document Revised:	10/14/2011
Product(s) covered:	DB2 for OS/400; OS/400; SAP

Abstract: SAP and IBM development deliver further optimization for SAP on IBM i with IBM i 7.1 TR3 and the SAP 7.20 kernel.

In IBM and SAP’s continuing development partnership we have been working to further optimize the SAP on i experience. All of our latest efforts intersect in October 2011 with the release of IBM i 7.1 TR3 and the SAP 7.20 EXT kernel. With IBM i v7.1 Technology Release 3 (TR3), SAP on i clients can enjoy additional optimization developed by the SAP and IBM labs especially for SAP applications running on i. The SAP on IBM i enhancements are available by simply becoming current with the IBM i info apar for V7.1. Replacing all SAP 7.x kernels with the latest SAP 7.20 kernel is also recommended to fully realize all of the optimization provided by the development teams at SAP and IBM. IBM i 7.1 is the release to be on for the best experience with SAP applications. Past benchmarks have already shown i 7.1 yielding nearly 15% better performance than i 6.1. Here is what Friedhelm Ruecker, CIO of Germany based company Loh-Services GmbH is telling about their experience with 7.1: “We upgraded our IBM i operating system - including the integrated DB2 database - for our SAP Systems from IBM i 6.1 to IBM i 7.1 , and we are very satisfied with the result. The upgrade of our SAP landscape with its 10 TB database and over 4000 SAP users took only 2,5 hours, and ran without problems. Running SAP now productively on IBM i 7.1 offers us new interesting functions and advantages, like simplified system management, additional optimized DB2 functions, and quicker response times, which provide a significant increase of our over-all productivity." With the new SAP 7.20 kernel code optimization by SAP and new IBM compiler technology employed by SAP to build the 7.20 kernel, further performance improvements are evident. Customers can expect faster response times and reduced CPU utilization with the 7.20 kernel. Where CPU resources are fully utilized, improved transaction throughput is the result. 7.20 is also a downward compatible kernel that can replace any of the previous SAP 7.x kernels. Consolidating to the fastest kernel version available will improve performance while simplifying maintenance efforts of supporting multiple 7.x kernel releases within an SAP environment. The 7.20 kernel also features simplified installation processes and documentation together with improved security against malicious code. Although SAP has been integrated with IBM Power HA for some time now, with the 7.20 SAP kernel this partnership has reached new heights with integration between IBM Power HA at the OS and DB layer together with SAP's new concept of High Availability at the application layer. The integrated solution is documented in SAP note 1635602. PowerHA now also fully supports the SVC and V7000 environments, adding an attractive mid-market alternative to the DS8000 series for advanced metro and global mirroring HA solutions. Geographic mirroring is also integrated with the SAP solutions and is still an option for smaller SAP on i environments. Also with i 7.1 TR3, DB2 for i database provides enhancements that benefit the operation of SAP systems on IBM i. Improved lock handling for parallel ALTER TABLE execution helps to reduce downtime for release upgrades and enhancement and support package stack installations. Furthermore the time to alter a single large table has been reduced. To make everyday operations easier, the size of statements stored in SQL packages has been reduced to allow for more statements in the package, yielding faster package access and disk space savings. SAP tasks that acquire many database record locks have improved performance as a result of better handling of lock serialization infrastructures within IBM i. SAP will introduce a new monitoring infrastructure for IBM i shortly. It allows to better monitor system landscapes and includes more performance indicators from the database and operating system, The SAP Performance Warehouse that will be delivered as part of the SAP Solution Manager based on the 7.20 kernel will make use of the new monitoring infrastructure to enable historical views of the performance data and drill down functionality. While the core values of IBM i remain intact - ease of use, use of subsystems to provide SAP landscapes with fewer partitions and footprints than other platforms and record setting performance with SAP BW benchmarks - the IBM and SAP development teams continue to partner to improve the SAP on i customer experience.

Classification:	Software	Category:	Performance
		ISV(s):	SAP
O/S:	i5/OS	Keywords:	SAP optimized on IBM i, 7.1, TR3