Google Next 2023 is fast approaching!!  SUSE is excited to be a Velocity sponsor at this showcase of inspiration, innovation and education.  We’re eager to hear the great keynotes, learn about Google’s latest innovations, share ideas and network with you.
We will have a team of experts on hand to do product demo’s and talk about our portfolio of solutions available on Google Cloud, including Suse Linux Enterprise Server for SAP. There will also be demos on SUSE’s new security solution NeuVector by SUSE – the industry’s only open source, zero-trust container security platform.

There will be fun activities at our booth as well. You can get a chair massage, spin the wheel of prizes for some great swag and enter our Grand Prize Giveaways (2) for Google Electronics.

Have a look at our products on the Google Marketplace.

https://more.suse.com/FY23Q4_PM_EL_ALL_PTN-GLE_SAPC_PEVTLV_Google_Next_2023_RG_GLB_Landing-Page.html

Come find us at Booth #1625 at the Moscone Center – see map
Can’t wait to see you there!!

Savings Are Easier Than You Think

Taking control of your costs in the Cloud

Making the right spending choice is essential in moving to Google Cloud. In any cloud migration journey, cost is central to the business case discussion. In a previous webinar, we reviewed the advantages of purchasing SUSE through the marketplace.

Once upon a time, the story of a customer migrating to Google Cloud

You already had SUSE subscriptions on-premises, and your contract was still valid, so you decided to bring the subscriptions to the cloud through Bring Your Own Subscriptions (BYOS), simply because the project timeline didn’t allow thorough investigation of the options on the cloud marketplace.

However, your purchasing department signed a committed Cloud spend with Google last week. Centralizing supplier purchases in one place is making procurement quicker, more efficient, and cost-effective. It is checking a lot of boxes to meet its business objectives. Their strategy is to increase consumption on the marketplace because they negotiated discounts out of the volume of transactions on the marketplace, and they are asking you if you can prioritize marketplace: Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) or Committed Use Discounts (CUDs).

IT spending is a core part of the FinOps strategy of your IT department. Your management has decided to reinforce the FinOps strategy and take a close look at your bills; you know that you can make some progress here, but you didn’t really have time to think about it – oops!
On top of that, after a few months of experience with Google Cloud, now that your team fully understands the specificities and advantages of the cloud, you might be wondering why you’re paying for a full-year subscription in BYOS when the VM uptime is only 100 hours a month, that represents roughly 14% of the entire year…

You’re now wondering how to switch your BYOS SUSE subscriptions to Marketplace SUSE subscriptions…

The discussion begins here: “Dear customer, please don’t worry; it’s never too late. We have a solution for you.”
Since SAP HANA databases are normally the largest source of spending, let’s start from there.

Use HANA System Replication to Change the Consumption Model

In most cases, switching instance and consumption models can be tricky and require downtime. The following techniques and procedures can be followed to help customers achieve a smoother process for SAP HANA.

SAP HANA System Replication

SAP HANA system replication (HSR) provides the ability to copy and continuously synchronize an SAP HANA database to a secondary location in the same or another data center. SAP supports using HANA System Replication, for instance, exchange with minimum downtime.

In this technique, the user can set up HANA system replication between the databases running on a BYOS SLES for SAP Applications instance (source) and a PAYG/CUD SLES for SAP instance (target); both are running SAP HANA. The version on the target must be the same or higher, and the configuration, such as SID and Instance Number, must be identical (please refer to the SAP manual for details). Once the source database is replicated to the target system, perform a takeover to make the target system the new primary, direct applications to connect to the new primary HANA database, and unregister the System Replication configuration; now the HANA system is running on the PAYG/CUD instance. The old source instance can be repurposed or disposed of.

The downtime for changing the instance will be the runtime of the takeover from the primary system to the secondary system. Usually, this is within the range of a few minutes. For more information, see SAP Note 1984882: Using HANA system replication for Hardware Exchange with Minimum Downtime.

Prerequisite: Both the source and target instances should be listed in the Certified and Supported SAP HANA Hardware Directory.

Use Case

Because SAP HANA System Replication allows minimum downtime, it has many use cases. The change consumption model is one of them. Other usages include instance resize, instance retirement, OS upgrade, change region, etc. Customers are strongly recommended to perform testing in non-production first.

Conclusion

Converting BYOS Subscriptions into Marketplace Subscriptions is a very common question that we receive from many of our customers; we hope that this blog answers your questions.

If you need any support and want to discuss with the Google Cloud team, please feel free to contact us at google@suse.com. 

By Elodie Mallea and Sherry Yu

Google Next 2023 is a showcase of inspiration, innovation and education and SUSE is excited to be a Velocity sponsor at this event. We’re eager to hear the great keynotes, learn about Google’s latest innovations, share ideas and network with you.

SUSE will have a team of experts on hand to do product demo’s and talk about our portfolio of solutions available on Google Cloud, including Suse Linux Enterprise Server for SAP. There will also be demos on SUSE’s new security solution  NeuVector by SUSE – the industry’s only open source, zero-trust container security platform.

There will be fun activities at our booth as well. You can get a chair massage, spin the wheel of prizes for some great swag and enter our Grand Prize Giveaways (2) for Google Electronics.

Learn more about our offerings on Google Cloud.

https://more.suse.com/FY23Q4_PM_EL_ALL_PTN-GLE_SAPC_PEVTLV_Google_Next_2023_RG_GLB_Landing-Page.html

Come find us at Booth #1625 at the Moscone Center

Can’t wait to see you there!!

Undertaking the cloud migration of SAP S/4HANA can be difficult and face various challenges: both planned and unplanned downtime can stall business continuity and result in significant loss, and very often, a major outage is the result of accumulated minor issues that could have been identified and remediated in early stage. Enhanced security is needed to protect the data and applications, however managing a large-scale SAP environment to meet security compliance may require significant resources. Given all that, it’s critical to design and implement a robust SAP landscape with operational efficiency.

SUSE collaborates with Google Cloud Platform to safeguard the SAP landscape through the following solutions and services:

SLES for SAP Applications

SLES for SAP Applications is the leading Linux platform for SAP HANA, SAP NetWeaver and SAP S/4HANA solutions and is endorsed by SAP. It consists of the technical components to accelerate SAP deployment, minimize downtime, and increase operational efficiency. The pre-built images of SLES for SAP Applications are available in the GCP Marketplace with significant cost saving options.

Optimize SAP Workload with Auto-Tuning

saptune is a configuration tool to prepare a system to work optimally with SAP workloads by implementing the recommendations from various SAP notes. System admin can select the notes to be executed by saptune or choose one of the predefined groups – called solutions, e.g. HANA, NetWeaver, S4HANA-APPSERVER, etc. It relieves the system admin from having to collect the requirements from various SAP notes, or even having to remember which SAP notes to execute. You can even create your own predefined groups – your own solutions.

Minimize Downtime with High Availability Solutions

Besides Google Cloud’s built-in high availability features like Live Migration, SUSE offers critical High Availability solutions to enhance the SLA of SAP workloads. Two of the key components of SLES for SAP Applications are the High Availability Extension and resource agents. The High Availability Extension provides Pacemaker, an open-source cluster framework. The resource agents manage automated failover of SAP HANA System Replication, S/4HANA ASCS/ERS ENSA2, and NetWeaver ASCS/ERS ENSA1.

HANA System Replication (HSR) is a native HANA HA feature; however, its failover is not automated without the help of a 3^rd party solution. SUSE has developed solutions to reliably identify the issue and trigger the failover in a timely manner. Various scenarios including HANA scale-up and scale-out are supported on GCP. Most recently, SUSE has released a new solution to tackle indexserver failure, called Fast-Dying indexserver HA solution, that proactively checks the service state change of HANA, identifying indexserver failure and triggering failover accordingly. The result for very large HANA databases is that the recovery time from a failing indexserver is reduced from hours to minutes. The details can be found in the blog Emergency Braking for SAP HANA Dying Indexserver.

For SAP NetWeaver and S/4HANA, the HA solutions are based on ASCS/ERS enqueue replication, ENSA1 and ENSA2, respectively. SUSE’s solutions are SAP HA-Interface certified to help avoid split-brain situation when customers perform maintenance through SAP tools like sapcontrol and MMC. For the details of the benefits of the HA-Interface, please refer to this blog SLES for SAP Applications 15 is now Certified for SAP S/4HANA and NetWeaver HA-Interface Certification.

For the list of supported HA solutions for SAP, please check this one-stop reference: Supported High Availability Solutions by SLES for SAP Applications.

Lifecycle Management with SUSE Manager

SUSE Manager is a true open-source infrastructure management solution designed to simplify and secure your entire mixed Linux environment. With its help, system admins can automate infrastructure security & compliance of the entire Linux estate, ensure compliance with internal security policies and external regulations, and optimize operations and reduce costs. It supports a hybrid environment, on-prem, in the Cloud, or on the Edge.

Enhance Security without Downtime with Live Patching

No disruption during patching is another critical principal for operational efficiency. SUSE has extended support of live patching not only in kernel, but also in user space, to enhance security compliance and reduce planned downtime. OpenSSL and glibc, two dependencies of SAP HANA, are the libraries commonly affected by security vulnerabilities. Without the user space live patching, a patch on these libraries will require a system reboot. With Live Patching, customers can avoid expensive reboot (for up to 1 year) to in-memory HANA databases and other mission critical workloads.

Maximize Insights with Validation and Monitoring

Complex HA deployments can often fail because of the lack of insights. Issues may not be fixed in a timely manner, leading to outages. Configuration errors are one of the main causes behind outages. These often take the form of minor issues that snowball into a major disruption. Therefore, it’s important to have a clear view of the SAP landscape during operations.

SUSE provides solutions to identify configuration issues and drifts in the Day-2 operation. SUSE Trento provides insights into the SAP landscape to help businesses discover, monitor, and proactively fix SAP system problems with a single console.

Enhance Security with Pre-Hardened Cloud Images

To improve overall security, SUSE provides hardened images SLES for SAP Applications 15, based on combination of government and industry standards STIG and CIS, minus rules that can only be applied after instance creation. The profile pcs-hardening-sap.profile is available in the ComplianceAsCode repository. It serves as a baseline for customers to further customize depending on individual application needs. The images are available in both BYOS and PAYG consumption models on GCP.

SUSE Services

When customers need help to build a cloud-optimized SAP Environment, they can confidently rely on SUSE Services. Out of the many services that SUSE offers, the following are the most popular offerings that are highly recommended to every SAP deployment on GCP:

SUSE ASSIST: Optimization Services

This service is ideal for when you are ready to optimize your infrastructure via technical health checks, fine-tune solutions to meet new business demands or integrate new solutions. Optimization Services ensures that you continue to deliver high quality IT services after migrating to Google Cloud Platform.

SUSE Premium Support Services

Premium Support Services is an optimization offering for those enterprises that want a direct relationship with named technical professionals, who provide in-depth and custom support services for business-critical production environments. The premium services team is backed by SUSE technical support, product management, and engineering. Since SUSE Premium Support engineers are also experts in HA solutions, the service is highly recommended to any SAP customers running HA solutions.

Find Out More

SUSE GCP Alliance landing page: https://www.suse.com/partners/alliance/google/

Contact SUSE: google@suse.com

SUSE and Google have a long standing partnership built on innovation around SAP solutions.

Both SUSE and Google will be at SAPPHIRE Orlando 2023 delivering not-to miss sessions that will highlight the importance of transforming your business by migrating to SAP S/4 HANA in the cloud.

Google session: May 16 2:00pm – Drive Innovation Faster with Google Cloud Cortex Framework
SUSE session: May 17 10:00am – Three Keys to Successfully moving your on premise SAP Solutions to the Cloud.
Google session: May 17 1:00pm – Energizer Running RISE with SAP on Google Cloud for a Cloud First Strategy.

Join us for the sessions, meet our executives, network and learn how to grow and transform your business at SAPPHIRE Orlando.

SUSE Booth #402

Google Cloud Next ’22 is approaching fast with livestreaming beginning at 5.00 pm BST on 11th October 2022.

…..and SUSE will be there!

Google Cloud is repeating its successful online event with Google Next ’22.

There are lots of keynotes to choose from: notably, Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, will set the tone on day one, and another interesting one will be from  Sunil Potti, Google Cloud VP & GM, Cloud Security.  And, throughout the whole event, there will be live, expert-led Q&A, and demos.

Visit our SUSE “booth” to get insight into the remarkable work SUSE and Google Cloud are doing! At our booth, you can ask questions, get information on the partnership, and download the SUSE-Google content.

And, in addition this year, both supporting SUSE’s and Google Cloud’s sustainability programs, there will be the chance for  3 lucky winners, to each win $700 to protect forest growth with Tree-Nation Projects, plus $300 online shopping gift certificates for you to treat yourself.

Register for the event,  customize your content and create your own personal playlist – you can even share them with the tag #GoogleCloudNext on your social platform of choice!

We look forward to “seeing” you at the event!

Migrating essential SAP workloads to Google Cloud requires ‘the power of many’ if you want to stay ahead of rising customer expectations and fierce competition.

The Bory Castle in historic Székesfehérvár is a fantasy-like, curious work of art, well worth exploring. What’s especially unusual is how it was built in the early 20th century. Hungarian architect and sculptor Jenő Bory created the structure as a tribute to his wife and his artistic dreams. And he did it almost single-handedly. In other words, he was the architect, the project manager, the mason, landscapere and more.

It only took him 40 summers!

There’s much to admire about self-reliance in the artistic world. Still, it’s a luxury that enterprises and their partners can rarely afford with landmark tech projects and harsh business realities. Time is critical. So are costs, mistakes, and outcomes. And suppose you’re a Managed Service Provider (MSP). In that case, you also need repeatable, frictionless processes and reliable partnerships — so you can scale quickly and capitalize on lucrative opportunities.

Competitive landscape

Self-reliance sounds noble. But it could be your downfall if it becomes your mantra or creeps in by default. For example, let’s look at the increasing business opportunities around moving SAP workloads to the Google Cloud (GCP).

Migrations occur within a fiercely competitive landscape — where MSPs struggle to compete. Going it alone with an SAP migration to GCP can be a minefield. These IT environments are complex. You need expertise in SAP Basis support, SAP infrastructure, and supported combinations of operating systems, databases, and SAP tools. Then there’s the management of the multiple SAP environments – dev, test, and production – and the need to ensure these all match. It doesn’t stop there. You’ll have to manage updates within these environments and systematically create and manage highly-available systems.

Put simply, there’s almost zero margin for error from start to finish. Any delays, costs, or poor outcomes will impact your business — further eating up internal resources and throttling your ability to grow.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Collaboration at the core

Self-reliance is great for artistic one-off projects and flights of fancy. But it takes collaboration and ‘the power of many’ to successfully move to cloud platforms, especially when taking SAP workloads to GCP. At SUSE, we grew up with open-source, and we have collaboration at our core — because we know it’s key to dealing with complexity and creating transformation.

Our co-innovation partnership with SAP is a great example. For more than 20 years, we’ve developed and delivered SUSE and SAP solutions together, fine-tuning them to accommodate and enhance the other’s offerings. In fact, SAP uses SUSE solutions to create SAP HANA and for use in its production environments. For instance, this partnership developed innovations like live kernel patching, high availability, and deployment automation, to name a few. Our tools help partners to deploy SAP with minimal manual effort, manage mixed Linux estates from a single dashboard, and deliver strong SLAs that deepen their relationships with customers — so they can stand out from the crowd.

SUSE is the first partner chosen by Google to offer Committed Use Discounts with GCP for SAP environments. Most importantly, we build the SUSE images for GCP, certifying every release for SAP on GCP — which helps to eliminate risks to our partners and customers.

Power of Many

“The power of many’ may not have worked for Jenő Bory and his quirky castle, but it’s proving key to helping a wide range of partners migrate SAP customer solutions quickly and simply to Google Cloud.

Discover more about SUSE and how you can get help with migrating SAP workloads to GCP. Contact us at google@suse.com or visit https://www.suse.com/google/

(I originally published this piece on LinkedIn)

Google Cloud Next ’21 starts tomorrow, October 12, and SUSE will be “there.”

Google has created a premier digital event. I know most folks are tired of seeing the word “digital” preceding the word “event” and are ready to get out and physically “be” at an event – I know I am! Google did an excellent job at structuring this event to make it engaging and customizable. There are keynotes by Sundar Pichai, Google and Alphabet CEO, and Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud CEO, to set the tone on day one. Urs Hölzle, Google Cloud SVP of Technical Infrastructure, will share the vision of the top three cloud technology trends for the next decade on day two.

You can customize your content and create your playlist – share them with the tag #GoogleCloudNext on your social platform of choice! There will be live, expert-led, Q&A, and demos. Don’t forget to visit our SUSE “booth” to get insight into the remarkable work SUSE and Google are doing and to meet our growing Google Alliance team! At our booth, you will have the ability to ask questions, get information on the partnership, and download the SUSE-Google information.

I look forward to “seeing” you at the event!

Oh! It is not too late to register. Follow this link!

Not too long ago, a customer told us:

We have started our digital transformation! We decided to move our SAP workload to the Google Cloud.
Our experience with the SUSE Software stack for SAP solutions is great. We used to use them in our data center. We wish to have our SAP workload operated on Google Cloud managed by the SUSE software stack, but there is no SAP NetWeaver or SAP S/4HANA solution reference architecture guide operating on Google Cloud.

Of course, we listened. And we acted upon the request. Best of all: the wait is over!
I am delighted to announce the availability of the SUSE SAP NetWeaver and S/4HANA High Availability (HA) cluster solutions operating on Google Cloud.

Thanks to the great cooperation between SUSE and Google, the SUSE-based offering is the only Linux-based solution available in the market at the time of writing this blog post.

The HA Cluster Configurations guide for SAP NetWeaver on SLES deployment guide enables you to build and automate your NetWeaver or S/4HANA HA solutions on Google Cloud in a modern and fashioned way.

In brief, the deployment guide :

• uses the best of Google Cloud features to balance the GCP instances on different GCP Availability Zones to provide the maximum HA standards with the SUSE Linux Enterprise HA Extension already configured.
• uses the cutting-edge Google Cloud-native components such as the Internal TCP/UDP Load Balancer which guarantees fast and highly available network traffic.
• uses the fully automated Google Cloud Deployment Manager SAP Templates to create the infrastructure.
• provides a step-by-step guide to implement the SUSE HA environment.

Happy Deployment!