SAP Solution Brief

SAP Enterprise Applications on Linux

CONFIDENTLY RUN YOUR

SAP® SOLUTIONS ON LINUX
Robust Delivery and Full Support from SAP and Its
Partners Make Linux a Real Option

SAP® software is designed to SAP provides a comprehensive range of solutions to empower

make companies of all sizes every aspect of your business operations. Our mission is to help
you make the choices that are right for your organization –
more efficient, more agile, and
choices that can help you run and differentiate your business
more responsive. While SAP successfully. You gain the visibility to pinpoint inefficiencies and
business solutions help you the capabilities to transform them into competitive advantages.
differentiate your company and You enjoy the foresight to identify new opportunities and the
support your growth strategies, agility to respond to changing business realities.
you also need the freedom to
SAP enables you to optimize IT operations, especially with
run these applications on the regard to your software infrastructure. You have the freedom
most effective and economic to choose your platform because SAP has abstracted infra-
IT infrastructure available. structure components, such as the operating system and
database, from the solution layer. This means that you can
With SAP business solutions
select the infrastructure that suits your particular needs and
running on Linux, you can
provides the best cost-to-benefit ratio.
confidently entrust critical
enterprise applications to this The challenge for those responsible for IT is to extract more
open-source platform, enjoying from their existing applications and apply new technology to
support business innovation while spending less. With tech-
freedom of choice and reduced
nology life cycles getting shorter, you need the freedom to
costs. adopt new hardware and system innovations within months.

In the face of unprecedented rates of change in both business

and technology, more and more organizations are asking if an
open-source platform is a viable option for them.
Linux – a Real Option for Business-Critical Linux Support from Major SAP Partners
Applications? SAP has strong, long-standing partnerships with major
The characteristics of Linux are well understood – it decouples hardware, software, and consulting vendors. Whatever your
business applications from the underlying hardware to provide chosen hardware platform, processor type, or Linux distribution,
a truly open platform. In many environments, Linux has these SAP partners ensure that the Linux infrastructure runs
demonstrated that it can enable you to break free from costly your SAP business solutions reliably and with optimum
purchase and maintenance commitments sometimes associated performance.
with other platforms, giving you flexibility and independence in
the construction of your IT infrastructure. Since Linux runs on As a user of SAP enterprise applications, this gives you freedom
multiple hardware architectures, you can enjoy the advantages to choose the most appropriate hardware platform at any time.
of supporting one operating system across the entire enterprise.
In addition to this, customers report that through cost savings Adherence to the Linux Standard
they are able to reallocate budget from nondifferentiating infra- Throughout the development and implementation of SAP busi-
structure to innovative, differentiating software. ness solutions on Linux, SAP has stuck rigorously to the policy of
supporting the Linux kernel in its clean, unmodified form.
As the low-cost and freedom-of-choice benefits of Linux have
become widely acknowledged, an increasing number of organi- This eliminates the need for special support or maintenance
zations are selecting this open-source software as an option for at the operating-system level when you implement SAP appli-
running their mission-critical business solutions. cations on Linux. You have the freedom to migrate your SAP
applications to any supported platform running any supported
The key question is whether Linux is sufficiently robust, reliable, Linux distribution.
scalable, and well-supported for you to confidently entrust critical
enterprise applications to this open-source platform. Maximum Performance and Scalability
As just one indication of our commitment to Linux as a long-
SAP® Applications Running on Linux – the Confident term delivery platform, SAP supports 64-bit architectures from
Choice for Enterprise Applications Intel, IBM, and AMD. This provides maximum performance and
SAP was the first software vendor to recognize the applicability of scalability for SAP solutions. Resources that were previously
Linux to mission-critical enterprise applications as early as 1996. dedicated to overcoming memory limitations of 32-bit architec-
And today, Linux is one of two reference platforms for SAP tures are no longer required.
development.
SAP software on Linux supports Unicode, which enables it to
SAP® business solutions running on Linux conform to the same meet the language requirements of different countries around
high standards as they do on every other operating system on the world. If you are operating in a global market, you can be
which SAP enterprise systems run. SAP solutions on Linux go sure that your SAP applications on Linux run efficiently in
through stringent quality assurance and certification processes any part of the world, whatever the language requirements.
performed by SAP and its partners. With 64-bit Unicode, SAP software helps you address the needs
of multiple communities with multiple languages, maintaining
With your SAP business solutions, Linux is a real option. integrity of data in one system.
Strong Customer Adoption of Linux Listen to What Our Customers and Partners Are
Thousands of mission-critical SAP applications are already Saying
running on Linux. Customers across all industries are enjoying For evidence of the reliability, robustness, and performance of
the flexibility and freedom of choice that Linux provides and are SAP solutions on Linux, you need look no further than the
capitalizing on the reduced transaction costs it delivers. many successful customer implementations already completed
and the commitment of SAP partners. Here’s what these
The experiences of these customers provide a thorough customers and partners are saying:
endorsement of the robustness, reliability, and performance • RTL Group
of SAP enterprise applications running on Linux. “With RTL switching to Linux servers, the hardware budget
could be reduced by 50% and the maintenance costs decreased
What You Gain from SAP Applications on Linux by 70% while the brutto [gross] performance doubled. The
Enterprise applications you can deploy with confidence. availability rate of the 98 Linux servers across RTL Group’s
SAP shares a commitment with its customers to achieve their WAN is 99.998%. RTL Group will continue its Linux strategy,
business goals. Our success is measured by your success, and which includes mission-critical business applications such as
each of our solutions is delivered to the same world-class those provided by SAP.”
standards, whether on Linux or any other operating system. Jean-Alain Jachiet, Head of Telecommunication Solutions,
RTL Group
Freedom and flexibility. Running your SAP enterprise appli- • Siegenia-Aubi KG
cations on Linux puts you in control of your IT infrastructure. “We were confident from the beginning that SAP solutions
Because you’re not constrained by technology, you can make running under Linux would be capable of handling an
decisions based on your business situation and needs. Linux environment of this magnitude. They do so with ease. I would
decouples the operating system from the underlying hardware, not hesitate to add another 1,000 users if the need arose.”
thereby increasing your choice of infrastructure vendors. Werner Klar, Chief Information Officer, Siegenia-Aubi KG
• St. Galler Tagblatt AG
Savings in IT operating costs. Customers report that SAP “We wanted to run our SAP systems on Linux. IBM, their
applications on Linux deliver significant direct and indirect partners, and the SAP global open-source office offered us a
savings in their IT operations with lower administration and sophisticated strategy – and we achieved huge savings. We
operating costs than for non-open-source systems. The platform were taking the risk, we succeeded, and we would do it again.”
is extremely reliable so less system redundancy and maintenance Peter Baer, Head of IT, St. Galler Tagblatt AG
are required than for most traditional installations. Customers • IBM
enjoy savings on expensive license fees and are able to use com- “IBM is as excited as SAP with the rapid maturation of Linux to
modity server hardware, which performs well under Linux but support business-critical workloads like SAP. Linux has grown
at a fraction of the cost. beyond edge-of-network utility and is now becoming integral
to customers’ core on-demand IT infrastructures. The proof is
The power to innovate. By streamlining your IT operations, in the adoption we’ve seen with SAP in a rapidly growing num-
you can reallocate resources and accelerate business process ber of real-world customer implementations.”
innovation, address new business requirements, or simply Scott Handy, Vice President, Worldwide Linux and Open
improve your bottom line. Source, IBM
 www.sap.com /contactsap

• Hewlett-Packard To Learn More

“Customers are moving towards open source and Linux because If you would like to know more about SAP enterprise applica-
they want robust, reliable solutions at a lower TCO. HP has a tions on Linux, call your SAP representative today or visit us
long-standing commitment to developing, integrating, and on the Web at www.sap.com/linux.
supporting Linux solutions based on best-of-breed technology.
As a key SAP technology partner, HP is also dedicated to deliver- Powered by SAP NetWeaver®
ing cost-effective and reliable SAP solutions across market- SAP enterprise applications are powered by the SAP NetWeaver®
leading, standards-based HP ProLiant and Integrity servers platform, the open integration and application platform that
running Linux, and serving as a single point of contact for com- enables change. SAP NetWeaver helps companies align IT with
prehensive support around the world. With an overall strategy their business. It allows companies to obtain more business value
to maximize choice, simplify integration, and instill customer from existing IT investments and to deploy a service-oriented
confidence, HP is pleased to offer SAP solutions for improving architecture. SAP NetWeaver reduces total cost of ownership and
efficiencies, optimizing operations, and reducing IT infrastruc- complexity across the entire IT landscape.
ture costs on Linux.”
Martin Fink, Vice President and General Manager, Open Source SAP NetWeaver powers mySAP™ Business Suite solutions,
and Linux Organization and NonStop Enterprise Division, SAP xApps™ composite applications, and partner solutions.
Hewlett-Packard It provides the best way to integrate all systems running SAP
or non-SAP software. SAP NetWeaver unifies integration
And Hear from the CEO of SAP technologies into a single platform and is preintegrated with
“As a platform-neutral business application provider, business applications, reducing the need for custom integration.
SAP does not specifically promote any one of the sup-
ported platforms such as UNIX, Windows, and Linux.
However, if Linux is your choice, you can confidently
move to this open-source platform in the knowledge
that SAP solutions running on Linux are as robust
and enjoy the same full support and long-term com-
mitment from SAP and its global partners as they do
on every other operating system.”
Henning Kagermann, Chief Executive Officer, SAP AG

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