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Front cover

Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:26 pm REDP-5570-00

SAP HANA Data Management

and Performance on
IBM Power Systems
Dino Quintero
Damon Bull
Vinicius Cosmo Cardoso
Cleiton Freire
Eric Kass

Redpaper
Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570edno.fm

IBM Redbooks

SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM

Power Systems

March 2020

REDP-5570-00
5570edno.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

Note: Before using this information and the product it supports, read the information in “Notices” on
page vii.

First Edition (March 2020)

This edition applies to:

SAP HANA v2.0 SPS4 rev44
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v15 SP1
Red Hat Enterprise Linux v8.2
Hardware Management Console v9.1.940.0

© Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2020. All rights reserved.

Note to U.S. Government Users Restricted Rights -- Use, duplication or disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule
Contract with IBM Corp.
Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570edno.fm

This document was created or updated on March 23, 2020.

iii
5570edno.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

iv SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570TOC.fm

Contents

Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Trademarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Now you can become a published author, too! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
Comments welcome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .x
Stay connected to IBM Redbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

Chapter 1. Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 How to approach SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 Memory footprint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1.2 Startup times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.3 Backup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.4 High availability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.1.5 Hardware exchange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.6 Remote database connectivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.1.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2. SAP HANA data growth management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

2.1 The challenge of data growth management and the data temperature concept . . . . . . . 8
2.2 SAP HANA data tiering options for SAP HANA databases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.2.1 Near-Line Storage (NLS) With SAP IQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2.2 SAP HANA Extension Node . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2.3 SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2.4 SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.5 Advantages of IBM Power Systems for HANA and HANA Data Tiering solutions 18
2.2.6 Dynamic tiering - Hands on experience demonstration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 3. HANA I/O performance enhancements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

3.1 Virtual Persistent Memory (vPMEM) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.1 HANA usage of vPMEM volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3.1.2 Sizing the vPMEM volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3.1.3 Check LPAR hardware assignment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.1.4 Creating a vPMEM device. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.1.5 vPMEM affinity configuration options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.1.6 Affinity disabled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.1.7 Enabling vPMEM use in Linux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
3.1.8 Configuring HANA to use vPMEM volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.9 Specifying tables, columns or partitions to use vPMEM volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.1.10 Undersized vPMEM volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.11 Disable use of vPMEM volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.12 Benefits of using vPMEM volumes on Power Systems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
3.1.13 vPMEM usage considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.14 PowerVM vPMEM enablement dependencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.15 vPMEM related SAP Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
3.1.16 Additional documentation related to vPMEM and persistent memory usage with
SAP HANA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2 RAM Disk (tmpfs) SAP HANA Fast Restart Option. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2020. All rights reserved. v

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3.2.1 Configuring tmpfs volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

3.2.2 Configuring HANA to use the tmpfs volumes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.3 Comparing vPMEM and tmpfs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
3.2.4 SAP related documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.3 Persistent disk storage using native NVMe devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.1 NVMe device details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
3.3.2 Configuration and usage considerations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
3.3.3 NVMe performance characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.4 Striping effects for internal NVMe cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.3.5 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
3.4 NVMe Rapid Cold Start Mirror . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4.1 Hybrid Mirrored Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
3.4.2 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.5 Comparison to Intel Optane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
3.6 Impact to LPM capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Related publications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
IBM Redbooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Online resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Help from IBM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

vi SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

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Notices

This information was developed for products and services offered in the US. This material might be available
from IBM in other languages. However, you may be required to own a copy of the product or product version in
that language in order to access it.

IBM may not offer the products, services, or features discussed in this document in other countries. Consult
your local IBM representative for information on the products and services currently available in your area. Any
reference to an IBM product, program, or service is not intended to state or imply that only that IBM product,
program, or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program, or service that does not
infringe any IBM intellectual property right may be used instead. However, it is the user’s responsibility to
evaluate and verify the operation of any non-IBM product, program, or service.

IBM may have patents or pending patent applications covering subject matter described in this document. The
furnishing of this document does not grant you any license to these patents. You can send license inquiries, in
writing, to:
IBM Director of Licensing, IBM Corporation, North Castle Drive, MD-NC119, Armonk, NY 10504-1785, US

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION PROVIDES THIS PUBLICATION “AS IS”

WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow disclaimer of express or implied warranties in
certain transactions, therefore, this statement may not apply to you.

This information could include technical inaccuracies or typographical errors. Changes are periodically made
to the information herein; these changes will be incorporated in new editions of the publication. IBM may make
improvements and/or changes in the product(s) and/or the program(s) described in this publication at any time
without notice.

Any references in this information to non-IBM websites are provided for convenience only and do not in any
manner serve as an endorsement of those websites. The materials at those websites are not part of the
materials for this IBM product and use of those websites is at your own risk.

IBM may use or distribute any of the information you provide in any way it believes appropriate without
incurring any obligation to you.

The performance data and client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes only. Actual
performance results may vary depending on specific configurations and operating conditions.

Information concerning non-IBM products was obtained from the suppliers of those products, their published
announcements or other publicly available sources. IBM has not tested those products and cannot confirm the
accuracy of performance, compatibility or any other claims related to non-IBM products. Questions on the
capabilities of non-IBM products should be addressed to the suppliers of those products.

Statements regarding IBM’s future direction or intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and
represent goals and objectives only.

This information contains examples of data and reports used in daily business operations. To illustrate them
as completely as possible, the examples include the names of individuals, companies, brands, and products.
All of these names are fictitious and any similarity to actual people or business enterprises is entirely
coincidental.

This information contains sample application programs in source language, which illustrate programming
techniques on various operating platforms. You may copy, modify, and distribute these sample programs in
any form without payment to IBM, for the purposes of developing, using, marketing or distributing application
programs conforming to the application programming interface for the operating platform for which the sample
programs are written. These examples have not been thoroughly tested under all conditions. IBM, therefore,
cannot guarantee or imply reliability, serviceability, or function of these programs. The sample programs are
provided “AS IS”, without warranty of any kind. IBM shall not be liable for any damages arising out of your use
of the sample programs.

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2020. All rights reserved. vii

5570spec.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

Trademarks
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines
Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be
trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the web at “Copyright
and trademark information” at http://www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml

The following terms are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation,
and might also be trademarks or registered trademarks in other countries.
AIX® POWER® Redbooks (logo) ®
DB2® POWER9™ System z®
IBM® PowerVM® XIV®
IBM Cloud™ Redbooks®

The following terms are trademarks of other companies:

Intel, Intel logo, Intel Inside logo, and Intel Centrino logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel
Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.

The registered trademark Linux® is used pursuant to a sublicense from the Linux Foundation, the exclusive
licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the mark on a worldwide basis.

Windows, and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States, other
countries, or both.

Red Hat, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and
other countries.

Other company, product, or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others.

viii SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems
Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570pref.fm

Preface

This IBM® Redpaper publication provides information and concepts on how to take
advantage of HANA and Power Systems features to manage data and performance
efficiently.

The target audiences of this book are architects, IT specialists, and systems administrators
deploying SAP HANA whom often spend much time and effort managing data and SAP
system's performance.

Authors
This paper was produced in close collaboration with the IBM SAP International Competence
Center (ISICC) in Walldorf, SAP Headquarters in Germany and IBM Redbooks®.

Dino Quintero is an IT Management Consultant and an IBM Level 3 Senior Certified IT

Specialist with IBM Redbooks in Poughkeepsie, New York. He has 24 years of experience
with IBM Power Systems technologies and solutions. Dino shares his technical computing
passion and expertise by leading teams developing technical content in the areas of
enterprise continuous availability, enterprise systems management, high-performance
computing, cloud computing, artificial intelligence including machine and deep learning, and
cognitive solutions. He also is a Certified Open Group Distinguished IT Specialist. Dino is
formerly from the province of Chiriqui in Panama. Dino holds a Master of Computing
Information Systems degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from
Marist College.

Damon Bull is a Senior SAP Software Performance Engineer who has worked with different
SAP versions from 2.2F onwards. His focus is around SAP performance, having conducted
and published over 50 SAP benchmarks over the last 25 years. Damon has experience with
IBM DB2®, Oracle, SQL Server, and HANA databases, as well as SAP workloads SD, BW,
TRBK, FI, ATO and many others, running on IBM AIX®, Linux and Windows Server. Damon
holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of
Oregon.

Vinicius Cosmo Cardoso is an IBM Certified Expert IT Specialist and Senior SAP Basis
Administrator working for IBM Brazil. He has 12 years of experience in SAP, working in
complex projects like new implementations, upgrades and platform migrations. He is an SAP
certified professional for SAP NetWeaver, SAP OS/DB Migration and SAP HANA. Vinicius
holds a Master of IT Solutions Architecture from 2018 and a Bachelor of Computer Science
from 2008. Throughout these 12 years, he has worked in several Brazilian and Global clients
of several industry areas.

Cleiton Freire is an IBM Cloud™ Solution Leader for the Europe, LA and Canada cluster.
Cleiton has almost 20 years in the Information Technology industry and throughout the past

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2020. All rights reserved. ix

5570pref.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

14 years working in IBM, he has served as Subject Matter Expert on SAP on IBM Power
platform migrations, installations and administration for large customers in Brazil, United
States and Europe. For the past couple of years Cleiton has helped customers to find the best
tech solution to address their business problems. Cleiton is a certified Technology Consultant
for the SAP HANA platform and is a Bachelor of Science graduated from Faculty of
Technology, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Eric Kass is an IBM Developer Architect within Worldwide SAP Technical Enablement on the
IBM Systems group based in Boeblingen, Germany. Eric started in IBM in 1997 in operating
system network and communication development; writing device control and network routing
code. In 2000 he got an assignment for a yearlong in IBM Germany within SAP to write the
database layer for SAP to communicate between Windows and IBM i and never went back
becoming a successful IBM developer and architect working within the SAP development lab,
designing and coding database drivers, SAP kernel components, SAP and Database High
Availability engines, Network drivers, and Security protocols. Eric has over 20 patents on the
related fields and supports worldwide SAP customers on IBM i and AS400 platforms with
complicated bugs.

Thanks to the following people for their contributions to this project:

Wade Wallace
IBM Redbooks, Poughkeepsie Center

Katharina Probst, Walter Orb, Tanja Scheller

IBM Germany

Now you can become a published author, too!

Here’s an opportunity to spotlight your skills, grow your career, and become a published
author—all at the same time! Join an IBM Redbooks residency project and help write a book
in your area of expertise, while honing your experience using leading-edge technologies. Your
efforts will help to increase product acceptance and customer satisfaction, as you expand
your network of technical contacts and relationships. Residencies run from two to six weeks
in length, and you can participate either in person or as a remote resident working from your
home base.

Find out more about the residency program, browse the residency index, and apply online at:
ibm.com/redbooks/residencies.html

Comments welcome
Your comments are important to us!

We want our papers to be as helpful as possible. Send us your comments about this paper or
other IBM Redbooks publications in one of the following ways:
򐂰 Use the online Contact us review Redbooks form found at:
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x SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570pref.fm

򐂰 Mail your comments to:

IBM Corporation, IBM Redbooks
Dept. HYTD Mail Station P099
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Preface xi
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xii SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems
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Chapter 1. Introduction
This chapter contains an introduction on the features of IBM Power Systems for HANA to help
manage data and performance efficiently.

This chapter contains the following:

򐂰 How to approach SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems
򐂰 Memory footprint
򐂰 Startup times
򐂰 Backup
򐂰 High availability
򐂰 Hardware exchange
򐂰 Remote database connectivity
򐂰 Conclusion

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2020. All rights reserved. 1

5570ch01.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

1.1 How to approach SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems

During a pleasant month in an unseasonably warm October in 2019, the contributing authors
to this publication you have in hand, gathered together in a small office at the IBM SAP
International Competency Center (ISICC) to define content appropriate for our audience,
system architects as yourself, seeking guidance and best practices for designing and
implementing SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems.

Our members of architects and engineers who have been implementing HANA systems for
years are often asked to provide their insights about designing systems. The inquiries
encountered are diverse, the conditions are various, and answers are individual;
nevertheless, in designing this book, the team anticipates the questions must likely
encountered.

The authors intended that this book be used in a task-based fashion to find answers to
questions like: which hardware to choose, how to plan for backups, how do you minimize
startup time, how to migrate data to HANA, how to connect to remote systems, how much
hardware you need (memory, CPU, network adapters, storage), how do you reduce memory
footprint, what high availability options exist, where do you get support, and how do you
answer other questions. Consider this book as a starting guide to learn what questions to ask;
and to answer the last question first, then for any questions which remain, contact the ISICC
using the following website:
https://www.ibm.com/services/sap/centers

The authors understand the goal of every SAP HANA installation is to be as resilient,
available, inexpensive, fast, simple, extensible, and as manageable as possible within given
constraints; even if some of the goals happen to be contradictory. This publication is unique in
its intention to exist as a living document. SAP HANA technology and IBM Power Systems
technology supporting HANA change so quickly that any static publication is out of date
months after distribution. The development teams intends to keep this book as up-to-date
with answers to the present questions.

Where does one begin to define the requirements of an SAP HANA system? Sizing - Yes, but
first it is necessary to establish your changing business goals brought forth by the changing IT
industry. The typical motivation for moving forward to a HANA based system is the path
towards digital transformation; a transformation requiring systems to perform real-time
digitalization processing. The requirements for processing pervasive user applications
utilizing FIORI and real-time analytics, for example, have a significantly different processing
footprint (ODATA based) than classical form-based process before output and process after
input SAP GUI applications.

Sizing is both a science and an art. IBM bases their sizing on sizing tables established by the
benchmark team, people who are highly proficient in SAP performance analysis.
Conceptually, calculating HANA sizing from a classical AnyDB system begins by determining
the SAPS (a standard measure of workload capacity) of your present system, then using that
value as reference into the IBM sizing tables to determine the hardware requirements for an
IBM Power Systems to run HANA with equivalent SAPS performance.

2 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

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Soon following the task of sizing memory does it become apparent that the number of
hardware permutations fitting your requirements is overwhelming; at this point the scale-up or
scale-out decision turns to be your new primary concern. Let us help most of you. Learning
from a wealth of customer experiences, we have a suggestion: scale-up. Even though there is
a degree of automation available to assist in selecting which data can be best spanned
across multiple nodes, significant manual management is typically required when
implementing scale-out. In contrary, when selecting scale-up hardware, take into account that
different hardware implementations have different performance degradation characteristics
when scaling up memory utilization; as systems become larger, the memory to CPU
architecture plays an important role in:
1. How distant memory is from the CPU (affinity)
2. How proficiently the system is able to manage cache to memory consistency
3. How well the CPU performs virtual address translation of large working sets of memory

IBM Power Systems are designed to scale-up by way of enterprise grade high bandwidth
memory interconnects to the CPU, and relatively flat NUMA. Scaling up with Power Systems
is the recommended way to support large memory footprint HANA installations (2.2.5,
“Advantages of IBM Power Systems for HANA and HANA Data Tiering solutions” on
page 18). The positive HANA on Power Systems scaling benefits are complimented with the
advantage of consolidating multiple HANA, Linux, AIX and IBM i workloads on the same
machine.

Note: Acquisition costs and licensing become complicated when running mixed workloads.
Have your customer representative contact the ISICC to have them assist in providing an
optimal cost configuration. Contacting the ISICC is a good idea in general because we
want to know what you have in plan, and it is our job to help make the offering as attractive
as possible to fit your needs.

Customers having SAP support incidence with SAP on IBM need to be reminded of a story of
a past support experience. HANA on Power Systems support channels are intricately
integrated into SAP development and support. In fact, the people supporting SAP on AIX, or
SAP with DB2, or SAP on IBM i and System z® are members of the same team that support
HANA on Power Systems. By migrating to HANA but remaining with IBM, you have not really
changed support teams. For questions regarding anything SAP, if all else fails, open an SAP
support ticket to an IBM coordinated support channel such as: BC-OP-AIX, BC-OP-AS4,
BC-OP-LNX-IBM, BC-OP-S390; and for issues regarding interaction with other databases,
BC-DB-DB2, BC-DB-DB4, BC-DB-DB6.

1.1.1 Memory footprint

Contrary to the disk-storage-based database engines used by classical SAP ERP with which
you are probably familiar, memory footprint with memory-based database systems is a
continuous issue to be dealt with. Memory footprint is also not a static calculation; the
calculation takes time as a parameter if you are unlucky; that is, if your archiving rate cannot
keep up with your data generation rate, your memory footprint tomorrow will be greater than
today. Nevertheless, data growth is something of an issue that continuously requires attention
because it is likely that your application suite changes in the future; therefore, the
characteristics of your data generation will likely change too.

An archiving strategy is your primary application level control for data growth, but some
applications like BW support near-line-storage as an alternative. For data that is averse to
archiving for various reasons, HANA supports a selection of hardware technologies for
offloading not so frequently used data (warm data or cold data) to places other than
expensive RAM with expensive SAP licensing. The currently available technologies to

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alleviate large data and data growth are Native Storage Extension (NSE - a method of
persisting explicit tables on disk and loading data into caches as necessary; similarly in
function to classical database engines), Extension Nodes (slower scale-out nodes), and
HANA Dynamic Tiering (HANA to HANA near line storage).

Note: Some of the mentioned options offered by HANA are not available for all
applications. S/4 has other restrictions than BW, and both S/4 and BW have more
restrictions than HANA native applications.

SAP provides reports to run on your original system to provide data placement assistance,
but results are typically good suggestions. You must be prepared to distribute your data
differently if prototypes demonstrate other configurations are necessary. Chapter 2, “SAP
HANA data growth management” on page 7 discusses options from planning SAP archiving
and managing various technologies for data of different temperatures.

1.1.2 Startup times

The HANA processing model implies data resides in memory for immediate random access,
hence RAM. The cost of accessing data from storage is paid up-front when the HANA system
is started, during which time all data is loaded into random access memory. For example, if
your storage is connected by a typical four multipath 16 Gbps lines, loading seven terabytes
tends to require somewhat of an hour to load. Both IBM and Intel provide solutions to highly
minimize startup times by using persistent memory in which data survives HANA restarts in
specific situations.

Even though the hardware and operating system methods of retaining persistent data in
memory are various, HANA has one understanding. From HANA's perspective persistent
memory is referenced as memory mapped files. Either the operating system or hardware
provides a memory-based file-system (think RAM-disk) that are exposed as a file system
mounted in a path. Instructed by a configuration parameter, HANA utilizes as much persistent
storage as possible and revert to regular memory for the remainder. HANA can be instructed
to attempt to store everything in persistent memory, or each file can be specifically altered to
preference persistent or non-persistent RAM.

Even with hardware support for a quick start, consider that a high-availability solution
alleviates the usual need to wait for HANA to restart; HANA is always available. That is,
having high-availability solution in place, the preferred method for scheduled maintenance is
to move to the backup site.

1.1.3 Backup
SAP HANA provides an interface for backup tools called Backint. SAP publishes a list of
certified third-party tools that conform to the standard. If you plan on using methods like
storage-based snapshot or flash copies, be certain to quiesce the HANA system before
taking a storage-based snapshot. A quiesce state is necessary to be able to apply
subsequent logs (the record of transactions that occur since the time of the quiesce) to an
image restored from the flash-copy.

1.1.4 High availability

HANA System Replication is the underlying foundation of database high-availability. The
method is based on logical replication, that is individual row level changes are recorded and
transferred to the backup site (referred to as Log Shipping). This is in opposition to

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storage-based replication in which pages on disk are duplicated without consideration of the
logical data structure of the change. HANA System Replication accomplishes the task of
transferring changes between hosts by transferring segments of the log (segments of the
record of the changes to the database that are used for transactional recovery). Changes
received by backup hosts are played back to the local database in a fashion similar to when
undergoing forward recovery.

1.1.5 Hardware exchange

Unfortunately, this is a problem everyone will run into every few years. If your system
manages to fulfill all the prerequisites for Live Partition Mobility (LPM) - a feature of Power
Systems hardware to move running partitions between hosts - then exchanging hardware by
way of LPM is the least obtrusive to a running SAP system; that being said, the requisites are
difficult to master. Many specialized hardware features, those which are not virtualized and
thus need to be assigned to a physical partition, make live partition mobility impossible.

The SAP standard method of exchanging hardware, for example any hardware with the same
endianness, is by way of SAP HANA System Replication. See SAP Note 1984882 - Using
HANA System Replication for Hardware Exchange with minimum or zero downtime at
the following website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1984882

1.1.6 Remote database connectivity

SAP provides a wealth of data connectivity options. Some methods like Remote Function Call
(RFC) and Database Multi-connect are provided at the layer of the SAP system. Other
methods like Smart Data Access (SDA) and Smart Data Integration (SDI) are integrated
directly into HANA. Extract-transform-load methods include SAP Landscape Transformation
(SLT) and the SAP Data Migration Option (DMO) for upgrades.

Although the SDA and SDI appears in title to be specific to connectivity from SAP HANA to
IBM i, this specificity is not the case. The IBM i case is a prime example of using the generic
ODBC adapter for SDA, and the generic Camel JDBC adapter for SDI.

1.1.7 Conclusion
Facilitating designs of superior SAP HANA systems is the goal of this publication. Your
productive, development, and test systems have different reliability, availability, connectivity,
and security requirements, but the aspects to be considered are universal. Where tradeoffs
need to be made between cost and reliability, or availability and complexity, are decisions
unique to your situation, but the intent of this book and the service and support you have from
the ISICC, and the IBM SAP development team, is to assist to optimize your decisions so you
feel comfortable and confident with the final architecture of your design.

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Chapter 2. SAP HANA data growth

management
This chapter describes the challenges of data growth in today’s companies’ systems, and how
it can impact the operations of an SAP HANA database.

This chapter introduces the data temperature concept which is used as a guide to decouple
data types based on their criticality, and helpful for companies to decide when to move their
data to different, but still accessible data tiers.

Different SAP data tiering solutions fully supported on IBM Power Systems servers are also
presented in this chapter. You are presented with an overview for better understanding to help
the reader decide what solution is best suitable for the challenge in place.

The purpose of this chapter is not to define the best solution for the client’s needs, but to help
on the decision based on the different available solutions.

The following sections are described in this chapter:

򐂰 The challenge of data growth management and the data temperature concept
򐂰 SAP HANA data tiering options for SAP HANA databases

© Copyright IBM Corp. 2020. All rights reserved. 7

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2.1 The challenge of data growth management and the data

temperature concept
Companies are increasingly collecting more and more information about their business to
control their day-to-day operations as real-time as possible.

The more information is collected, the more IT resources are consumed over time, increasing
the costs for organizations because of the need for data scaling.

When talking about SAP HANA as the database, there is the notion of main memory and disk
areas consumed, which increases the TCO and impacts the performance over time.

Instead of just start scaling up or scaling out the HANA database, companies are encouraged
to think about options for decoupling their data location. This can be achieved by defining
what data must be in memory all the time and thus available with the highest performance for
applications and end users, and what data is less frequently accessed so it can be available
from a lower performance data tier with no impact to the business operations.

The organization can define which data is accessed infrequently, so that it can be available to
the users in a reasonable and cheaper performing storage tier. This is the data temperature
concept. Figure 2-1 shows how data temperature is classified.

Figure 2-1 Data temperature concept

There are benefits for using data tiering options for you HANA database:
򐂰 Reduce data volume and growth in the hot store and HANA memory
򐂰 Avoid performance issues on HANA databases because of too much data to be loaded
into main memory
򐂰 Avoid the need of scale-up or scale-out over time
򐂰 Lower total cost of ownership (TCO)

SAP offers four data tiering solutions fully supported on IBM Power Systems for HANA:
򐂰 Near-Line Storage (cold data)
򐂰 SAP HANA Extension Node (warm data)
򐂰 SAP HANA Native Storage Extension – NSE (warm data)
򐂰 SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering (warm data)

2.2 SAP HANA data tiering options for SAP HANA databases
This section describes the different data tiering options for SAP HANA databases.

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2.2.1 Near-Line Storage (NLS) With SAP IQ

With NLS, you can to move your SAP BW data classified as cold out of the primary HANA
database and store it in SAP IQ.

SAP IQ is a column-based, petabyte scale, relational database software system used for
business intelligence, data warehousing, and data marts. Produced by Sybase Inc., now an
SAP company, its primary function is to analyze large amounts of data in a low-cost, highly
available environment.

SAP has developed NLS for using with SAP NetWeaver BW and SAP BW/4HANA only.

Prerequisites for NLS

The required SAP NetWeaver BW versions and support package levels are:
򐂰 SAP NetWeaver BW 7.30 SPS >= 09
򐂰 SAP NetWeaver BW 7.31 SPS >= 07
򐂰 SAP NetWeaver BW 7.4 SPS >= 00
򐂰 SAP NetWeaver BW 7.5 SPS >= 00

The required SAP BW/4HANA versions and support package level is BW/4HANA 1.0 SPS >=
00.

For more information about the minimum release level for SAP BW, refer to SAP Note
1796393 - SAP BW near-line solution with SAP IQ at the following website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/1796393

The SAP components for NLS implementation are:

򐂰 SAP NetWeaver BW on HANA Database or SAP BW/4HANA
򐂰 SAP IQ Database
򐂰 SAP IQ Libraries on SAP Application Server side for connection to SAP IQ
򐂰 SAP Smart Data Access on HANA Server side for connection to SAP IQ (optional)

Implementing HANA Smart Data Access (SDA) for accessing the NLS data is optional. HANA
SDA optimizes execution of queries by moving processing as far as possible to the database
connected by way of SDA. The SQL queries then work in SAP HANA on virtual tables. The
HANA Query Processor optimizes the queries and executes the relevant part in the
connected database, then returns the result to SAP HANA and completes the operation.

Usage of NLS solution with HANA SDA is supported as of SAP NetWeaver BW 7.40 SP8 or
higher, or SAP BW/4 HANA 1.0 or higher.

Note: To make usage of the SDA solution, the BW application team has to configure the
BW objects accordingly.

For more detailed information about the usage of HANA SDA for NLS and the performance
benefits, refer to SAP Notes 2165650, 2156717 and 2100962 at the following websites:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2165650
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2156717
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2100962

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NLS implementation architecture

The architecture of NLS implementation with SAP NetWeaver BW on HANA and SAP
BW/4HANA without Smart Data Access is shown in Figure 2-2.

Figure 2-2 NLS architecture without Smart Data Access

The architecture of NLS implementation with SAP NetWeaver BW on HANA and SAP
BW/4HANA with Smart Data Access is shown in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3 NLS architecture with Smart Data Access

Hint: SAP IQ is supported on IBM Power Systems (Big-Endian only), so it is possible to

reserve a LPAR for implementing it, and take advantage of vLAN for having the lowest
network latency the possible between SAP IQ and SAP HANA.

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For the Smart Data Access implementation SAP developed and provides the packages which
are fully supported on Power Systems servers.

For all details about the implementation of NLS for SAP BW, refer to SAP Note 2780668 -
SAP First Guidance - BW NLS Implementation with SAP IQ at the following website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2780668

2.2.2 SAP HANA Extension Node

The SAP HANA Extension Node is based on the SAP HANA scale-out feature, and it was
designed to store the warm data of SAP BW in a separated node other than the SAP HANA
main node(s). Although in the main node(s) you have your hot data running fully in memory, in
the Extension Node you can store all your data that can be classified as warm.

Sizing for the SAP HANA Extension Node

Besides using the memory area for storing the static objects such as tables (for example, the
data footprint), SAP HANA also uses memory for dynamic objects, for example, objects for
the HANA runtime. The SAP recommendation for HANA memory sizing is to reserve as much
memory for dynamic objects as for static objects in the column store.

Note: As a rule of thumb, this means that SAP recommendation for memory sizing is:
RAMdynamic = RAMstatic.

For example, if you have a footprint of 500 GB, your HANA database memory size must be at
least 1 TB.

The SAP HANA Extension Node can operate twice as much data with the same amount of
memory and less cores.

For example, if you expect to have up to 1 TB of footprint in your Extension Node, you can
have up to 250 GB of memory for the Extension Node.

Prerequisites for the SAP HANA Extension Node

For SAP BW on HANA, you need SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12 as the minimum SAP HANA release
and BW 7.4 SP12 as the minimum BW release. However, SAP BW 7.50 SP05 or SAP
BW/4HANA is strongly recommended. For SAP HANA native applications, you need SAP
HANA 2.0 SPS3 as minimum SAP HANA release.

Be aware that the ideal use case for Extension Node is BW on HANA or BW/4HANA, as BW
application fully controls the data distribution, correct partitioning and access paths. For SAP
HANA native applications, all data categorization and distribution must be handled manually.

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SAP HANA Extension Node Deployment

A possible SAP HANA scale-out with Extension Node implementation is shown in Figure 2-4.

Figure 2-4 HANA Extension Node Deployment option

As SAP HANA Extension Node is fully built in the SAP HANA platform, and it is fully
supported on Power Systems.

For additional information about the implementation of Extension Node, see the FAQ SAP
Notes 2486706 and 2643763 at the following websites:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2486706
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2643763

2.2.3 SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE)

Starting with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS4, SAP has developed a new native data tiering solution for
warm data called SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE). NSE offers the ability for
processing in-memory stored data for performance of critical operations, and a buffer-cache
managed page for processing of less frequently accessed data.

To activate NSE, you need to configure your warm data related tables, or partitions of
columns to be page loadable by way of the SQL DDL commands.

After the table, partition or column is configured for using NSE, it is not fully loaded into
memory anymore, but it is readable using the buffer cache, and off-course, the performance
for accessing data on that table is significantly slower than accessing it in-memory.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) reduction and performance advantages

Considering the organization starts using NSE and moves 50% of its data to page loadable,
this means 50% of memory is freed up from the HANA main memory so persistent area and

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buffer cache is used instead. This can drastically reduce TCO, because most of it is related to
the amount of memory (DRAM) necessary in the server.

Also, depending on the amount of data moved to NSE, the HANA startups can be faster
during scheduled and unexpected maintenance.

Supportability
NSE is supported for SAP HANA native applications, for usage on S/4HANA, and also in SAP
Suite on HANA (SoH).

Note: SAP recommends using NSE with S/4HANA or SoH in the context of Data Aging
only. If Data Aging is used in S/4HANA or SoH with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS4, NSE is used for
storing the historical partitions of tables in aging objects. Refer to SAP Note 2816823 -
Use of SAP HANA Native Storage Extension in SAP S/4HANA to learn more about the
use case for S/4HANA at the following website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2816823

The NSE Advisor

The NSE Advisor comes bundled with NSE. The advisor can be used to obtain what tables,
partitions or columns are suitable to be converted to page loadable (to save the memory
space), or column loadable (to improve the performance) within the recommendations view
result.

Based on the workload on the table, partition or column over time, the NSE Advisor helps to
identify the frequently accessed and rarely accessed objects such that the system
administrators can decide which objects can moved to NSE. Figure 2-5 shows the NSE
architecture perspective.

Figure 2-5 NSE architecture

As NSE comes with HANA 2.0 SPS4, it is fully supported on IBM Power Systems. For
detailed information about using NSE, see SAP Note 2799997 at the following website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2799997

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2.2.4 SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering

Starting in HANA 1.0 SPS09, SAP introduced the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering. This is one
more option for storing warm data on disk, and in a columnar format to dedicate more space
in memory for hot data, thus decreasing the TCO of your HANA database.

The SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering does not come with the standard installation package,
hence you need to download an additional component, and install it on SAP HANA.

In SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering, you can create two types of warm tables: extended table and
multistore table. The extended table type is totally disk-based, therefore all data is stored in
disk. The multistore table is an SAP HANA partitioned table with some partitions in memory
and some partitions on disk.

The distribution of the data among the in-memory store tables, the extended tables, and the
multistore tables is shown in Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-6 Dynamic tiering: Distribution of tables

SAP Dynamic Tiering can be installed in the same server hosting SAP HANA or in a separate
dedicated host server. You can also install a second dynamic tiering host as a standby host
for high availability purposes.

The operating system process for the dynamic tiering host is hdbesserver, and the service
name is esserver.

SAP Dynamic Tiering only supports low tenant isolation. Any attempt to provision the
dynamic tiering service (esserver) to a tenant database with high-level isolation fails. After the
dynamic tiering implementation, if you try to configure the tenant database with high-isolation,
the dynamic tiering service stops working.

Dynamic tiering configuration properties

The esserver.ini file stores the extended storage configuration properties. With these
parameters, you can configure the HANA Dynamic Tiering for memory usage, concurrent
connections, concurrent queries, and so on.

Table 2-1 shows important parameters of dynamic tiering.

Table 2-1 Dynamic tiering configuration properties

Parameter name Description Default value

catalog_cache Amount of memory initially 32000000 bytes

reserved for caching the
dynamic tiering catalog.

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Parameter name Description Default value

delta_memory_mb Amount of memory available to 2048 MB

store delta enabled extended
table.

heap_memory_mb Amount of heap memory that 1024 MB

dynamic tiering can use. A
value of 0 or empty means no
limit on heap memory.

load_memory_mb Maximum amount of memory 2048 MB

extended storage can request
from the operating system for
temporary use.

main_cache_mb Amount of memory to be used 1024 MB

for caching dynamic tiering
database objects.

max_concurrent_con¬nections Maximum number of 50

concurrent connections that the
dynamic tiering service
accepts.

max_concurrent_queries Maximum number of 32

concurrent queries allowed by
the server.

For a complete list of the parameters, refer to the SAP official guide SAP HANA Dynamic
Tiering: Administration Guide at the following website:
https://bit.ly/2JTQZGK

Deployment options for SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering

You can deploy SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering in a dedicated host, and in the same host of SAP
HANA. Note that a dynamic tiering service can coexist in the same SAP HANA host for only
one HANA tenant. Therefore, if you need dynamic tiering for any additional tenant, the
esserver service has to reside in a different host.

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Same host deployment

In this host deployment, you have just one SAP HANA host with the tenant (indexserver) and
dynamic tiering (esserver) services residing in the same SAP HANA host. Starting in HANA
Dynamic Tiering 2.0, the same host deployment is supported for production environments.
Figure 2-7 shows the configuration scenario.

Figure 2-7 Dynamic tiering: Same host deployment

Note: Same host deployments are primarily designed for small, nonproduction
environments, but are supported in production environments.

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Dedicated host deployment

In a dedicated host deployment, the SAP HANA tenant service and dynamic tiering service
reside in different HANA hosts, and the dynamic tiering service of host B is associated to the
HANA tenant service of host A (Figure 2-8).

Figure 2-8 Dynamic tiering: Dedicated host deployment

This is a deployment where the organizations can take advantage of all Power Systems
benefits with the flexibility of LPARs support, with low network latency.

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More than one dynamic tiering server deployment

In this scenario, there are two HANA tenant databases running in a same HANA system. In
this case, if the dynamic tiering is needed for the two tenant databases, the dynamic tiering
service for the second tenant database must reside in an additional host, because the HANA
tenant service (indexserver) and the dynamic tiering service (esserver) can coexist on the
same host for only one tenant. Figure 2-9 shows the configuration for this scenario.

Figure 2-9 Dynamic tiering: More than one dynamic tiering server deployment

2.2.5 Advantages of IBM Power Systems for HANA and HANA Data Tiering
solutions
With Power Systems, it is possible to implement a scale-up or scale-out SAP HANA database
environment taking advantage of its flexibility.

With the support for multiple LPARs support, organizations can consolidate multiple SAP
HANA instances or SAP HANA nodes of a same instance (multi-host) on a single Power
Systems server, leveraging its simplicity of management with low-latency network.

Using IBM PowerVM®, businesses can virtualize up to 16 production SAP HANA instances
on the logical partitions (LPARs) of a single Power Systems server (on E950 and E980 IBM
POWER9™). It is also possible to move memory and CPUs between the LPARs in a flexible
granularity (check SAP Note 2230704 - SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems with multiple -
LPARs per physical host at https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2230704.

IBM PowerVM (the Power Systems hypervisor) allows for more granular scaling and
dynamically changing allocation of system resources. This means businesses avoid adding
new hardware that can caused higher energy, cooling, and management needs.

The HANA on IBM POWER® solution runs the same SUSE or Red Hat Linux distributions as
x86 servers, with the flexibility, scalability, resiliency, and performance advantages of POWER
servers that help the client to:

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Accelerate SAP HANA deployments with:

򐂰 Flexibility of built-in virtualization that allows faster provisioning of HANA instances and
allocating capacity with granularity as little as 0.01 cores and 1 GB.

Minimize infrastructure and simplify management with:

򐂰 Virtualization scalability of up to 24 TB in scale up.
򐂰 The ability to deploy up to 16 SAP HANA modules in a single server.
򐂰 Shared processor pools that optimizes CPU cycles across HANA VMs in a server.

IBM Power Systems is the best solution for implementing SAP HANA scale-up and scale-out,
and the data tiering solutions presented in this section. Refer to the IBM Power Systems web
page for additional and updated information:
https://www.ibm.com/it-infrastructure/power/sap-hana

2.2.6 Dynamic tiering - Hands on experience demonstration

This section demonstrates the implementation of dynamic tiering.

Before starting
This section describes a high-level step-by-step installation of dynamic tiering on SAP HANA
2.0 on Power Systems (Little Endian), and a demonstration on how to create an extended
store and multistore table for manipulating data on it.

Using the Console Interface (CI), you are introduced to the installation of SAP HANA Data
Tiering on a Same Host Deployment, that is, on the same server where the SAP HANA is
installed with no additional HANA nodes.

Note: Some data manipulation is demonstrated using the SAP HANA Studio.

For detailed procedures, refer to the SAP official documents SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering:
Master Guide, SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering: Installation and Update Guide, and SAP HANA
Dynamic Tiering: Administration Guide at the following website:
https://help.sap.com/viewer/product/SAP_HANA_DYNAMIC_TIERING/1.11.0.0/en-US

Prepare the installation

This section shows the preparation steps.

Check the hardware and operating system requirements

According to the official SAP Dynamic Tiering Installation Guide (https://bit.ly/2JTdjQt),
dynamic tiering is available for:
򐂰 Intel-based hardware platforms
򐂰 IBM Power Systems

Note: IBM Power Systems environments require the appropriate IBM XL C/C++
redistributable libraries. Download and install the appropriate runtime environment from
the latest updates from the supported IBM C and C++ Compilers page on the IBM Support
Portal (https://ibm.co/32gjMvb). Install the libraries on both the SAP HANA and dynamic
tiering hosts. These libraries are not required for an Intel-based hardware platform
environment.

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Check the SAP HANA compatibility with the dynamic tiering version
Check SAP Note 2563560 - SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering 2.0 SP 03 Release Note for a
matrix of compatible SAP HANA and SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering versions at the following
website:
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2563560

Note: This is the latest compatibility matrix SAP Note at the time this publication was
written.

Download the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering package

To download the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering package, access the SAP Software Download
Center (https://support.sap.com/software.html) and go through the following path:

Support Packages and Patches → By Alphabetical Index (A-Z) → H → SAP HANA DYNAMIC
TIERING → SAP HANA DYNAMIC TIERING 2.0 → COMPRISED SOFTWARE
COMPONENT VERSIONS → SAP HANA DYNAMIC TIERING 2.0.

On the top of the download page, choose LINUX ON POWER LE 64 BIT.

Now you can download the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering revision compatible with the SAP
HANA 2.0 SP level you have in place or will be installing.

Extract the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering package

After you have downloaded and copied the package to the SAP HANA host, extract it using
SAPCAR tool as follows:
SAPCAR -manifest SIGNATURE.SMF -xvf DYNTIERING20004_3-70002283.SAR

Installing the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering (same host deployment)

This section covers the installation of SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering using the Console
Interface (CI).
1. Log into the SAP HANA host with root ID, change to the resident hdblcm directory within
the <sid> folder. For example, /hana/shared/H01/hdblcm, where /hana/shared/ is the
shared resources location for the system, and H01 is the HANA <sid>.
2. Start the SAP HANA platform lifecycle management tool with the command shown in
Example 2-1, where <full-path-option> refers to the path where dynamic tiering installation
package has been extracted.

Example 2-1 Dynamic tiering installation command for starting installation

./hdblcm --component_dirs=/<full_path_option>

For this demonstration, the installation package path is

/usr/sap/tmp/ebf29158/HANA_DYNAMIC_TIERING.
3. At the Choose an action prompt, select Install or Update Additional Components as shown
in Example 2-2.

Example 2-2 Dynamic tiering installation: Choose an action window

SAP HANA Lifecycle Management - SAP HANA Database 2.00.044.00.1571081837
************************************************************************

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Choose an action

Index | Action | Description

Enter selected action index [16]: 14

4. At the Choose components to be installed or updated prompt, select Install SAP HANA
Dynamic Tiering as shown in Example 2-3.

Example 2-3 Dynamic tiering installation: Choose components to be installed or updated window
Choose components to be installed or updated:

Index | Components | Description

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | all | All components
2 | es | Install SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering version 2.0.043.00.12711

Enter comma-separated list of the selected indices: 2

5. You are prompted to add an additional host. Enter no as shown in Example 2-4.

Example 2-4 Dynamic tiering installation: Add hosts window

Verifying files...
Do you want to add hosts to the system? (y/n) [n]:

6. You are prompted to enter the System Database User Name and password. Enter
SYSTEM and its password as shown in Example 2-5.

Example 2-5 Dynamic tiering installation: User and password window

Enter System Database User Name [SYSTEM]:
Enter System Database User (SYSTEM) Password:

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7. You are now asked to add the paths for dynamic tiering data and log volume paths. In this
case, the paths are /hana/data/dt_es/H01 for the data volumes and /hana/log/dt_es/H01
for the log volumes as shown in Example 2-6 on page 22.

Example 2-6 Dynamic tiering: installation

Enter Location of Dynamic Tiering Data Volumes [/hana/data_es/H01]:
/hana/data/dt_es/H01
Enter Location of Dynamic Tiering Log Volumes [/hana/log_es/H01]:
/hana/log/dt_es/H01

8. Finally, you are asked to confirm all added parameters. Enter y as shown in Example 2-7.

Example 2-7 Dynamic tiering installation: Summary window

Summary before execution:

=========================

SAP HANA Database

Update Parameters
Remote Execution: ssh
Update Execution Mode: standard
System Database User Name: SYSTEM
Location of Dynamic Tiering Data Volumes: /hana/data/dt_es/H01
Location of Dynamic Tiering Log Volumes: /hana/log/dt_es/H01
Software Components
SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering
Install version 2.0.043.00.12711
Location: /usr/sap/tmp/ebf29158/HANA_DYNAMIC_TIERING/es
Log File Locations
Log directory: /var/tmp/hdb_H01_hdblcm_update_components_2019-10-25_16.29.52
Trace location: /var/tmp/hdblcm_2019-10-25_16.29.52_2245.trc

Do you want to continue? (y/n): y

During the installation process until it is completed, you see similar messages as shown in
Example 2-8.

Example 2-8 Dynamic tiering installation process

Installing components...
Installing SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering...
Installing jre8...
Installing shared...
Installing lang...
Installing conn_lm...
Installing conn_add_lm...
Installing odbc...
Installing client_common...
Installing server...
Installing complete - log files written to /hana/shared/H01/es/log
Restarting HANA System...
Copying delivery unit HANA_TIERING
Copying delivery unit HDC_TIERING
Updating Component List...

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SAP HANA Database components updated

The installation log files are located in the path

/var/tmp/hdb_H01_hdblcm_update_components_<date_and_time>/hdblcm.log.

Dynamic tiering post-installation activities

This section describes the post-installation steps after the dynamic tiering installation.

Add the dynamic tiering role

While logged into the HANA host with root ID, go to the path /hana/shared/H01/hdblcm,
execute the SAP HANA Lifecycle Management tool, and choose Add Host Roles as shown in
Example 2-9.

Example 2-9 Dynamic tiering role: Execution of HANA Lifecycle Management tool
./hdblcm
SAP HANA Lifecycle Management - SAP HANA Database 2.00.044.00.1571081837
************************************************************************

Choose an action

Index | Action | Description

Enter selected action index [16]: 1

Select the SAP HANA host to be assigned the additional dynamic tiering role. In this case,
there is just one host as shown in Example 2-10.

Example 2-10 Dynamic tiering role: Host selection for adding role
System Properties:
H01 /hana/shared/H01 HDB_ALONE
HDB00

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version: 2.00.044.00.1571081837
host: pdemo1 (Database Worker (worker))
edition: SAP HANA Database

Select hosts to which you would like to assign additional roles

Index | System host | Roles

----------------------------------------------
1 | pdemo1 | Database Worker (worker)

Enter comma-separated list of selected indices [1]:

In Select additional host roles for host '<host>', select the host. In this case, there is just one
host. Add the <sid>adm ID password for it as shown in Example 2-11.

Example 2-11 Dynamic tiering role: Selection of host

Select additional host roles for host 'pdemo1'

Index | Additional Role | Role Description

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 | extended_storage_worker | Dynamic Tiering Worker
(extended_storage_worker)

Enter comma-separated list of additional roles for host 'pdemo1' [1]:

Enter System Administrator (h01adm) Password:

You are prompt to confirm all added parameters. Confirm and enter y as shown in
Example 2-12.

Example 2-12 Dynamic tiering role: Installation summary window

Summary before execution:
=========================

Add Host Roles

Add Host Roles Parameters
Do not start hosts with modified roles: No
Remote Execution: ssh
Auto Initialize Services: Yes
Do not Modify '/etc/sudoers' File: No
Additional Host Roles
pdemo1
Current Role(s): worker
Additional Role(s): extended_storage_worker
Log File Locations
Log directory: /var/tmp/hdb_H01_hdblcm_add_host_roles_2019-10-25_16.52.34
Trace location: /var/tmp/hdblcm_2019-10-25_16.52.34_828.trc

Do you want to continue? (y/n): y

At the end of the process, you see a summary of the installation as shown in Example 2-13.

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Example 2-13 Dynamic tiering role: - Installation process

Assigning Additional Roles to the Local Host...
Adding role 'extended_storage_worker' on local host 'pdemo1'...
Performing esaddhost...
esaddhost.sh: Configuring SAP ES...
Stopping instance...
Stopping 8 processes on host 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker):
Stopping on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbcompileserver, hdbesserver, hdbindexserver (H01), hdbnameserver,
hdbpreprocessor, hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine (H01)
All server processes stopped on host 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker,
worker).
Stopping sapstartsrv service...
Starting service (sapstartsrv)...
Starting instance H01 (HDB00) on host 'pdemo1'...
Starting 8 processes on host 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker):
Starting on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbcompileserver, hdbesserver, hdbindexserver (H01), hdbnameserver,
hdbpreprocessor, hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine (H01)
Starting on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbesserver, hdbindexserver (H01), hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine (H01)
Starting on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbesserver, hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine (H01)
Starting on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbwebdispatcher, hdbxsengine (H01)
Starting on 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker, worker): hdbdaemon,
hdbwebdispatcher
All server processes started on host 'pdemo1' (extended_storage_worker,
worker).
Additional host roles successfully assigned

The installation log files are be located in the path

/var/tmp/hdb_H01_hdblcm_add_host_roles_<date_and_time>/hdblcm.log.

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Using HANA Studio, log into the tenant database as SYSTEM ID. In the Overview tab
window, you see the SAP HANA Dynamic Tiering status as Installed but not running yet for
that tenant as shown in Figure 2-10.

Figure 2-10 Dynamic tiering: Yellow status in HANA Studio

Click Landscape tab, you see the Dynamic Tiering Server service esserver as shown in
Figure 2-11.

Figure 2-11 Dynamic tiering: Service esserver in HANA Studio

Create an Extended Store

After you are done with the Dynamic Tiering installation and Role additions, it is time to create
and Extended Store.

The Extended Store consists in a database space which is the file on disk where tables and
partitions store the dynamic tiering.

Prerequisite: You have the system privileges EXTENDED STORAGE ADMIN.

Note: The Extended Storage is created with SYSTEM ID at this time, but for all
subsequent activities, you need another user ID with all necessary privileges for the
subsequent activities, and it is the owner of the extended store and multistore tables.

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On HANA Studio, connect to your HANA Tenant Database to which the dynamic tiering has
been provisioned to with SYSTEM ID.

Note: In our case, there is a single tenant as the initial tenant and the SAP HANA instance
never previously contained additional tenants, hence the dynamic tiering service is
automatically provisioned to the tenant database.

For this demonstration create one Extended Store with 1 GB of available allocated space.
Right-click in the Tenant database and click Open SQL Console for the SQL console to be
opened. Then enter the command as shown in Example 2-14.

Example 2-14 Dynamic tiering: Command for creating an Extended Store

CREATE EXTENDED STORAGE AT 'pdemo1' SIZE 1000 MB;

Notice that pdemo1 is the location (host) used in this lab. Adjust it accordingly to your host.

The result is shown in Figure 2-12.

Figure 2-12 Dynamic tiering: Result for extended storage creation command line

Now, click Overview tab in HANA Studio, you see the status of the SAP HANA Dynamic
Tiering as Running as shown in Figure 2-13.

Figure 2-13 Dynamic tiering: Running status in HANA Studio

Your Dynamic Tiering is now ready for you to create an Extended Table or multistore table.

Create a user ID for your dynamic tiering objects

You have created your Extended Store with the tenant SYSTEM ID. Now, to create your
Extended Store and multistore tables, you need a new user ID to create and be the owner of
these objects.

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To create the user ID using HANA Studio, extend the Security folder of the Tenant tree,
right-click Users and then click New User.

Define a name for the user and add the System Privileges CATALOG READ, EXTENDED
STORAGE ADMIN and IMPORT. You can choose to not force the password change in the
first logon if you prefer. The parameters are shown in Figure 2-14.

Figure 2-14 Dynamic tiering: User ID creation properties

In this case, the user ID is RPDT. Login into the tenant with the user ID defined by you.

Creating an extended table

You can create an extended table in the same way you create any other column table in a
HANA database, the only difference is that you have to add USING EXTENDED STORAGE
at the end of the statement as shown in Example 2-15.

Example 2-15 Dynamic tiering: Extended Table creation command line

CREATE TABLE "RPDT"."CUSTOMER_ES" (
C_CUSTKEY integer not null,
C_NAME varchar(25) not null,
C_ADDRESS varchar(40) not null,
C_PHONE char(15) not null,
primary key (C_CUSTKEY)
) USING EXTENDED STORAGE;

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The same table has been created in this demonstration as shown in Figure 2-15.

Figure 2-15 Dynamic tiering: Extended Table CUSTOMER_ES creation

As you can see in the left side of the window, the table has been identified as EXTENDED
table in the HANA Catalog for user RPDT.

Restriction: Foreign keys between two extended tables or between an extended table and
an in-memory table are not supported.

For inserting data, you can use the same syntax as a common in-memory column store table
as shown in Example 2-16 and in Figure 2-16.

Example 2-16 Dynamic tiering: Insert data into table CUSTOMER_ES command line
INSERT INTO "RPDT"."CUSTOMER_ES"
(C_CUSTKEY, C_NAME, C_ADDRESS, C_PHONE)
VALUES
(1,'CUSTOMER 1','ADDRESS 1', 19999999999);

Figure 2-16 Dynamic tiering: Insert data into table CUSTOMER_ES - HANA Studio window

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For reading data from the table, the SQL syntax is exactly the same for reading data from any
other table. Hence you can select data in the same way of any other in-memory column store
table. Refer to Figure 2-17.

Figure 2-17 Dynamic tiering: See contents of the extended table CUSTOMER_ES in HANA Studio

Creating a multistore table

When creating a multistore table, you have to split it in partitions, and define which partitions
are part of the default store (for example, the memory store) and which partitions are part of
the extended store.

In this case, create a table called SALES_ORDER and partition it by RANGE, using a date
type field as the partition field. In the default store, the values range from 2010/12/31 to
9999/12/31, and in the extended store, the values range from 1900/12/31 to 2010/12/31, as
shown in Example 2-17.

Example 2-17 Dynamic tiering: Creation of a multistore table command line

CREATE TABLE "RPDT"."SALES_ORDER" (
S_SALESOKEY integer not null,
S_CUSTOMER integer not null,
S_VALUE decimal(15,2) not null,
S_DATE date not null,
primary key (S_SALESOKEY,S_DATE))
PARTITION BY RANGE ("S_DATE")
(
USING DEFAULT STORAGE
(PARTITION '2010-12-31' <= VALUES < '9999-12-31')
USING EXTENDED STORAGE
(PARTITION '1900-12-31' <= VALUES < '2010-12-31'));

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In HANA Studio, you can see that the multistore table symbol differs from the extended table
symbol as shown in Figure 2-18.

Figure 2-18 Dynamic tiering: Multistore table SALES_ORDER creation

The Data Manipulation Language (DML) operations on the table does not differ from any
other table type. So, for the user (applications and developers) perspective, there is no
concern about that.

You query from the TABLE_PARTITIONS table as shown in Example 2-18, and you can see
the new table has two partitions, one in the default store, and another in the extended store as
shown in Figure 2-19.

Example 2-18 Dynamic tiering: Query SALES_ORDER table from TABLE_PARTITIONS table
SELECT SCHEMA_NAME, TABLE_NAME, PART_ID, STORAGE_TYPE FROM TABLE_PARTITIONS WHERE
TABLE_NAME = 'SALES_ORDER' AND SCHEMA_NAME = 'RPDT'

Figure 2-19 Dynamic tiering: Results from TABLE_PARTITIONS table

Now insert a row in the table so that it is stored in the default store with the command as
shown in Example 2-19.

Example 2-19 Dynamic tiering: Inserting a row in the default store partition of SALES_ORDER table
INSERT INTO "RPDT"."SALES_ORDER"
(S_SALESOKEY, S_CUSTOMER, S_VALUE, S_DATE)
VALUES
(1,1,120,'2011-12-11');

From table M_CS_TABLES (table that shows data stored in the default store) as shown in
Example 2-20, you can see that there is one record in the default store as part of
SALES_ORDER table as shown in Figure 2-20 on page 32.

Example 2-20 Checking the count of default store rows of table SALES_ORDER
SELECT RECORD_COUNT FROM M_CS_TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'SALES_ORDER' AND
SCHEMA_NAME = 'RPDT';

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Figure 2-20 Dynamic tiering: Results for the count of default store rows of table SALES_ORDER

Now insert one more row in the extended store of table SALES_ORDER as shown in
Example 2-21.

Example 2-21 Inserting a row in the extended store partition of SALES_ORDER table
INSERT INTO "RPDT"."SALES_ORDER"
(S_SALESOKEY, S_CUSTOMER, S_VALUE, S_DATE)
VALUES
(1,1,120,'2009-12-11');

From table M_ES_TABLES (table that shows data stored in the extended store) as shown in
Example 2-22, you can now see that there is one record in the extended store as part of
SALES_ORDER table as shown in Figure 2-21.

Example 2-22 Checking the count of extended store rows of table SALES_ORDER
SELECT * FROM M_ES_TABLES WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'SALES_ORDER' AND SCHEMA_NAME =
'RPDT';

Figure 2-21 Dynamic tiering: Results for the count of extended store rows of table SALES_ORDER

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When making a normal DML select, you can see the two rows normally, with no distinction
between default store and extended store as shown in Figure 2-22.

Figure 2-22 Dynamic tiering: Normal select statement from a multistore table

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Chapter 3. HANA I/O performance

enhancements
As HANA OLAP databases become ever larger, restarting them takes more time, impacting
the availability of applications, and the efficiency of the business.

This chapter discusses different solutions that can help speed up the starting of large HANA
databases to help minimize downtime. This chapter contains following sections:
򐂰 Virtual Persistent Memory (vPMEM)
򐂰 RAM Disk (tmpfs) SAP HANA Fast Restart Option
򐂰 Persistent disk storage using native NVMe devices
򐂰 NVMe Rapid Cold Start Mirror
򐂰 Comparison to Intel Optane
򐂰 Impact to LPM capabilities

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3.1 Virtual Persistent Memory (vPMEM)

In the quest to provide better performance for applications, new technologies across the
computer industry are being developed to help mitigate the inherent slowness of many of
today's persistent disk-based storage solutions. IBM has a new PowerVM Persistent Memory
architecture that is implemented at the hypervisor level and is in the process of developing
several solutions to address this need. The first solution released is a new virtual persistent
memory solution that provides for high speed access to critical business data. This virtual
persistent memory technology, or vPMEM, is integrated into the IBM PowerVM hypervisor for
POWER9 systems and provides a high-speed persistent RAM disk storage solution for
applications which persists across operating systems (OS) and logical partition (LPAR)
restarts.

The PowerVM Persistent Memory architecture allows for multiple types of memory to be
defined and deployed for different use cases. Currently, the vPMEM solution creates
persistent storage volumes from standard system DRAM, providing high speed persistent
access to data for applications running in an LPAR. For this current solution, no special
memory or storage devices are required, just unused available system DRAM. There is the
intention to support enhancements that will allow access other types of memory to be used
for different use cases.

IBM vPMEM solution is incorporated into the PowerVM hypervisor management interface for
POWER9 and later systems. vPEM volumes are created as part of a specific LPAR definition.
Each defined LPAR on a system can have a dedicated vPMEM volume. Individual vPMEM
volumes are not sharable between LPARs, and vPMEM volumes are not transferable to
another LPAR.

The PowerVM hypervisor allocates an independent segment of system memory for the
vPMEM volume and associates it to the LPAR. This system memory segment is separate
from the DRAM memory that is defined for the LPAR to use for the operating system to run
applications, as defined in the LPAR profile. After all the application uses this persistent
system memory volume as a disk resource, any data stored in the vPMEM device persists if
the LPAR is restarted.

Access to vPMEM volumes by the Linux operating system is provided by the standard
non-volatile memory device (libnvdimm) subsystem in the Linux kernel corresponding ndctl
utilities. The resulting vPMEM volumes are then mounted on the Linux file system as Direct
Access (DAX) type volumes.

3.1.1 HANA usage of vPMEM volumes

On POWER9 systems, HANA2 SPS04, revision 44 and later can utilize DAX based persistent
memory volumes to store column store table data for fast access. Persistent memory DAX file
systems bypass the traditional file system page cache mechanisms, increasing the access
speed to the data stored on those volumes as compared to disk-based file systems.

When HANA detects the presence of DAX vPMEM volumes, it starts the copy of main column
store table data into these defined persistent volumes. Through its default settings, HANA
attempts to copy all compatible column store table data into the vPMEM volumes, maintaining
a small amount of space in LPAR DRAM for column store table metadata. This creates a
persistent memory copy of the table data that HANA then uses for query and transactional
processing. HANA can also be configured to copy into vPMEM only desired column store
tables, or even just specific partitions of individual column store tables.

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To access the column store table data on the vPMEM volumes, HANA creates memory
mapped pointers from the DRAM memory structures to the column store table data.
Considering these vPMEM volumes are allocated from memory, accessing the table data is
done at memory speeds with no degradation in performance as compared to when the
column store data is stored without vPMEM in DRAM.

Any changed or added data to tables loaded into the vPMEM device will be synchronized to
disk-based persistent storage with normal HANA save point activity. When HANA is shut
down, all unsaved data stored in the LPAR DRAM and the vPMEM volumes will be
synchronized to persistent disk.

When HANA is shut down, the column store table data persists in the vPMEM volumes. The
next time HANA starts, it detects the presence of the column store table data in the vPMEM
volumes and skips loading that data. HANA instead just re-creates memory structure pointers
to the columnar table data stored on the vPMEM volumes. This results in a significant
reduction in HANA startup times as shown in Figure 3-1.

Figure 3-1 A large HANA OLAP database starts and shuts down times with and without vPMEM

This chart shows the substantial time savings for HANA start for a large OLAP database
when all of the databases column store data has been allocated in vPMEM volumes. There
are also time savings for HANA, if shut down after all, not as much DRAM memory is required
to be programmatically tagged as freed for control back to the operating system.

3.1.2 Sizing the vPMEM volume

Before creating the vPMEM volume in the hardware management console (HMC), it is
desirable to know the total required size of column store table data. A simple query to the
database can give an estimate of the amount of memory in use by all column store tables,
and subsequently the estimated size required of a vPMEM volume as shown in Example 3-1
on page 38.

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Example 3-1 Query amount of memory in use

select to_decimal(round(sum(memory_size_in_total/1024/1024),2,ROUND_UP),20,2)
COL_STORE_MB from m_cs_tables where schema_name = '<database schema name>'

It is recommended to add additional 10-15% memory than required to the vPMEM volume to
allow for growth of the database over time.

After all less LPAR DRAM memory is used by HANA to store the column store table data that
resides on the vPMEM volume, the RAM memory allocation for the LPAR can be reduced by
a similar amount to avoid using more system memory that is required for the LPAR. This
memory definition adjustment is done in the LPAR profile on the HMC.

3.1.3 Check LPAR hardware assignment

It is important to have a vPMEM target LPAR assigned memory and CPU resources evenly
across NUMA resource domains. SAP only supports LPAR and subsequent vPMEM
allocations that are evenly distributed across the NUMA domains. This is because PowerVM
allocates memory resources to the LPAR that are in proportion to the CPU allocation across
the NUMA domains. This means that if the LPAR is assigned CPU resources of 10 cores on
one NUMA domain, say NUMA0, but only 5 on another domain, say NUMA1, the memory
allocation follows this ratio, where the memory allocated on NUMA0 is twice the size as on
NUMA1. This imbalance is also reflected in the size of the vPMEM volumes when they are
created, which is a configuration that is not supported.

The resource allocation of CPU and memory for a system's LPARs can be queried by
performing a Resource Dump from the HMC. There are two methods, one within the HMC,
which is detailed at the IBM Support page
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-initiate-resource-dump-hmc-enhanced-gui, or
two, by logging on to the LPAR's HMC command line with an appropriately privileged HMC
user account, like hscroot, and executing the command shown in Example 3-2.

Example 3-2 Start a Resource Dump from the HMC command line
startdump -m <system name> -t resource -r 'hvlpconfigdata -affinity -domain'

Substitute <system_name> with the system name defined on the HMC that is hosting the
desired LPAR.

Both methods create a resource dump file in the /dump directory, that is time stamped.
Depending on the size of the system, it can take a few minutes before the dump file is ready.

View the list of resource dump files on the HMC, listed in chronological order using the
command as shown in Example 3-3.

Example 3-3 List resource dump files in the /dump directory

ls -ltr /dump/RSCDUMP*

The last in the list can be viewed with the less command as shown in Example 3-4.

Example 3-4 Viewing the contents of the RSCDUMP file

Ò less /dump/RSCDUMP.<system serial number>.<auto generated dump number>.<date
stamp>

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The less command determines that the file can be in binary form, as some of the data in the
file is in this format. But the details of interest are in text form as shown in Example 3-5 for a
E950 system with four sockets and 2 TB of RAM, with a single LPAR running that has been
allocated 48 cores and 1 TB of the available memory.

Example 3-5 Main section of the RSCDUMP file list CPU and memory resources assigned to LPARs
|-----------|-----------------------|---------------|------|---------------|---------------|-----
--|
| Domain | Procs Units | Memory | | Proc Units | Memory |
Ratio |
| SEC | PRI | Total | Free | Free | Total | Free | LP | Tgt | Aloc | Tgt | Aloc |
|
|-----|-----|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-----
--|
| 0 | | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 311 | | | | | |
0 |
| | 0 | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 311 | | | | | |
0 |
| | | | | | | | 1 | 1200 | 1200 | 1023 | 1023 |
|
|-----|-----|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-----
--|
| 1 | | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 269 | | | | | |
0 |
| | 1 | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 269 | | | | | |
0 |
| | | | | | | | 1 | 1200 | 1200 | 1024 | 1024 |
|
|-----|-----|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-----
--|
| 2 | | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 312 | | | | | |
0 |
| | 2 | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 312 | | | | | |
0 |
| | | | | | | | 1 | 1200 | 1200 | 1024 | 1024 |
|
|-----|-----|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-----
--|
| 3 | | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 311 | | | | | |
0 |
| | 3 | 1200 | 0 | 0 | 2048 | 311 | | | | | |
0 |
| | | | | | | | 1 | 1200 | 1200 | 1025 | 1025 |
|
|-----|-----|-------|-------|-------|-------|-------|------|-------|-------|-------|-------|-----
--|

In Example 3-5, the columns of data that are of interest in this context have the following
meanings:
򐂰 Domain SEC - This is the socket number that cores and memory are installed. In
Example 3-5, the system has four sockets, 0 - 3.
򐂰 Domain PRI - This is the NUMA domain number. Example 3-5 has 4 NUMA domains, 0 -
3, and each NUMA domain aligns to a socket number. Some Power Systems have two
NUMA domains per socket.
򐂰 Procs Total - This is the number of processors in a 1/100 of a processor increment. As
PowerVM can allocate sub processor partitions in 1/100th of a single core, this number is
100 times larger than the actual number of cores on the NUMA domain. Example 3-5
shows each socket has a total of 12 cores per socket.
򐂰 Procs Free / Units Free - The total number of 1/100th of a core processor resources that
are available.
򐂰 Memory Total - This is the total amount of memory available on the NUMA domain. This
number is four times larger than the actual memory in GB that is available. Example 3-5
shows each socket has 512 GB of RAM installed, for a total system capacity of 2 TB.
򐂰 Memory Free - This is the amount of memory that is not in use by assigned LPARs on the
NUMA domain. Again, this value is four times larger than the actual memory in GB of

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available memory. This is the important detail in determining the amount of memory that
can be used for a vPMEM volume considering this value decreases after the creation of
the vPMEM volume. Example 3-5 on page 39 shows sockets 0, 2 and 3 all have about 75
GB of available memory, and socket 1 has about 65 GB of available memory. This system
already has a vPMEM volume of 700 GB assigned to the running LPAR.
򐂰 LP - This is the LPAR number, as defined in the HMC. Example 3-5 on page 39 shows
only one LPAR running, LPAR number 1, it is assigned all CPU resources, and a subset of
the available RAM resources.
򐂰 Proc Units Tgt - This is the number of subprocessor processor units that is assigned to
the LPAR from the NUMA domain. This is allocated from the value from the Procs Total
column. Example 3-5 on page 39 shows the target allocation of processing units is 1200.
򐂰 Proc Units Aloc - This is the number of subprocessor units that have been allocated to
the LPAR. Example 3-5 on page 39 shows all 1200 units per socket are assigned and
activated to the LPAR across all four NUMA domains or sockets.
򐂰 Memory Tgt - This is the amount of desired memory assigned to the LPAR's DRAM
configuration as defined in the LPAR profile. Again, this value is four times larger than the
actual memory (GB) assigned, and the hypervisor allocates this memory per NUMA
domain in the same ratio as the processing unit assignment to the rest of the processing
unit allocation across the other assigned NUMA domains. Example 3-5 on page 39 shows
around 256 GB is targeted to be allocated to each NUMA domain, and in the same ratio as
processing units. This means that memory is evenly distributed just as the processing
units are evenly distributed.
򐂰 Memory Aloc - This is the real allocation of memory to the LPAR per NUMA domain.
Example 3-5 on page 39 shows all memory requested has been allocated to the LPAR.
Summing up these values across the system reflects the LPAR DRAM memory allocation
as seen by the operating system.

If the system has vPMEM volumes already assigned, this memory allocation is not explicitly
listed in this output. The memory values for the LPARs are those that are assigned to the
LPAR’s memory allocation in the profile. To determine the approximate amount of memory
vPMEM volumes are taking on a specific socket, add up the memory allocations for the
LPARs on that socket and subtract that value from the Memory Total. Taking this results and
subtracting the value from Memory Free gives the amount of RAM used by the vPMEM
volume as shown in Example 3-6.

Example 3-6 General vPMEM memory allocation for a single socket

vPMEM memory allocation GB = ((Memory Total - sum(All LPAR MemoryAloc) - Memory
Free) / 4

Example 3-5 on page 39 for socket 0 used the values as shown in Example 3-7.

Example 3-7 Calculating the vPMEM memory allocation for socket 0

socket0 vPMEM memory = (2048 - 1023 - 311) / 4 = 178. GB

Considering the same memory allocation is assigned across all four nodes, the total vPMEM
device allocated to this LPAR is about 714 GB.

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3.1.4 Creating a vPMEM device

Creating a vPMEM memory device for an LPAR is done on the HMC by modifying the
properties of the LPAR. Click System definition in the HMC to get a list of available LPARs,
then click LPAR's name to get the general details of the partition. Then, click Persistent
Memory property to show the details for the vPMEM volumes as shown in Figure 3-2.

Figure 3-2 General properties: Persistent memory options

By default, the list of vPMEM volumes is empty as shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3 Persistent Memory pane: Empty list of defined vPMEM volumes

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Click Add to add a vPMEM device as shown in Figure 3-4.

Figure 3-4 Adding a 1TB vPMEM volume

Add a descriptive volume name, the total size in MegaBytes of the desired vPMEM device,
and check to add Affinity. Clicking OK creates a single vPMEM device for the LPAR.

3.1.5 vPMEM affinity configuration options

When the vPMEM volume is configured for affinity as shown in Figure 3-5, the hypervisor
divides the total allocated memory into equal parts that fits into the system memory of each of
the LPAR's assigned NUMA memory nodes. From the operating system level, this results in
multiple /dev/nmemX devices defined, one device for each NUMA node allocated to the
LPAR.

Figure 3-5 An 8 TB system with memory allocated across four NUMA domains

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Figure 3-5 on page 42 shows an 8 TB system with memory allocated across four NUMA
domains. Creating a 4 TB vPMEM device with NUMA affinity creates one vPMEM device per
NUMA node, each 1 TB in size.

The benefit of dividing the vPMEM volume into segments and affinitizing them to NUMA
boundaries enables applications to access data in physically aligned NUMA node memory
ranges. Considering data is usually accessed sequentially, storing data NUMA optimized is
best for throughput and access latency performance.

Affinitized vPMEM volumes is the only option that is supported for use with HANA.

3.1.6 Affinity disabled

When the vPMEM device is activated without affinity, the hypervisor allocates a single
vPMEM memory segment from the unused pool of system memory, and divides this single
memory region over all NUMA nodes to which the LPAR is assigned. When this single
vPMEM device is activated at the operating system level, one /dev/nmem device is created,
and all data copied to it is also divided over the NUMA nodes the LPAR's is assigned to. This
is less than desirable after all queries to the HANA table data is retrieved across all NUMA
nodes, slightly increasing latency of data access when compare to the affinitized option of the
vPMEM volume creation.

Figure 3-6 An 8 TB system with memory allocated across four NUMA nodes

Figure 3-6 shows an 8 TB system with memory allocated across four NUMA nodes creating a
4 TB non-affinitized vPMEM device resulting in a single 4 TB device that is stripped across all
NUMA nodes.

Currently, this virtual persistent memory device option is not supported for use with HANA.

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3.1.7 Enabling vPMEM use in Linux

With Linux kernel 4.2, support for libnvdimm was introduced, providing access to persistent
memory volumes. When persistent memory volumes are activated by the operating system,
raw memory devices are created as /dev/nmem, one for each active persistent memory
device. For Power Systems vPMEM volumes created with the Affinity option, there is one
vPMEM volume for each NUMA node assigned to the LPAR.

The persistent memory volumes are then initialized, enabled and activated with the standard
operating system non-volatile DIMM control (ndctl) commands. These utilities are not
provided by default in a base level Linux installation, but are included in the Linux distribution.
Install them with the application repository commands, for example, for Red Hat install it with
the command as shown in Example 3-8.

Example 3-8 Red Hat command line installation of the ndctl package
yum install ndctl

For SLES, install it using the command as shown in Example 3-9.

Example 3-9 SLES command line installation of the ndctl package

zypper install ndctl

On Power Systems, each vPMEM volume is initialized and activated automatically. There is a
corresponding number of /dev/nmem and /dev/pmem devices as there are NUMA nodes
assigned to the LPAR as shown in Example 3-10.

Example 3-10 Listing of raw persistent memory devices

# ls -l /dev/*[np]mem*
crw------- 1 root root 241, 0 Jan 10 17:32 /dev/nmem0
crw------- 1 root root 241, 1 Jan 10 17:32 /dev/nmem1
crw------- 1 root root 241, 2 Jan 10 17:32 /dev/nmem2
crw------- 1 root root 241, 3 Jan 10 17:32 /dev/nmem3
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 0 Jan 10 17:38 /dev/pmem0
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 1 Jan 10 17:38 /dev/pmem1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 2 Jan 10 17:38 /dev/pmem2
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 259, 3 Jan 10 17:38 /dev/pmem3

If the /dev/pmem devices are not created automatically by the system during the initial
operating system start, then these need to be created. Example 3-11 shows the set of ndctl
commands to initialize the raw /dev/nmem device, where X is the device number (for example,
/dev/nmem0).

Example 3-11 Creating /dev/pmem devices

# ndctl disable-region regionX# remove any previously defined regions
# ndctl zero-labels nmemX# clear any previously defined devices
# ndctl init-labels nmemX# initialize the new device
# ndctl enable-region regionX# enable the device region
# ndctl create-namespace -r regionX# create the region and /dev/pmem device

New device definitions are then created as /dev/pmemX. These are the new disk devices that
need to be formatted as shown in Example 3-12 on page 45.

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Example 3-12 Creating the XFS file system on the vPMEM device
# mkfs -t xfs -b size=64k -s size=512 -f /dev/pmemX

When mounting the vPMEM volumes, it is advised to use the /dev/disk/by-uuid identifier for
the volumes. These values are stable from OS renaming of devices on restart of the OS. Also,
these must be mounted with the -o dax option as shown in Example 3-13.

Example 3-13 Manual mounting of vPMEM device to file system directory

# mount -o dax /dev/disk/by-uuid/34cb1120-1a61-47e5-9bcc-5b60e6d8e1d
/path/to/vPMEM/directory

To mount the volumes automatically on system restart, add an entry in the /etc/fstab file for
each vPMEM volume, using the corresponding uuid name and adding the option dax in the
options column. Using the uuid name of the volume guarantees correct remounting, after all
the /dev/pmemX volume number can after an OS restart. Example 3-14 shows an entry for
the fstab file for one vPMEM volume.

Example 3-14 Add vPMEM devices into the /etc/fstab file for automatic mounting on OS start
/dev/disk/by-uuid/34cb1120-1a61-47e5-9bcc-5b60e6d8e1d /hana/data/vPMEM/vPMEM0 xfs
defaults,dax 0 0

vPMEM volumes are not traditional block device volumes. Therefore, normal block device disk
monitoring tools, for example, iostat, nmon do not work to monitor the I/O to the vPMEM
devices. But normal director monitoring tool, for example du, works as the files consume the
available storage space of the vPMEM volume.

3.1.8 Configuring HANA to use vPMEM volumes

The HANA instance configuration now needs to be updated to allow the use of the new
vPMEM volume. Update the global.ini file to add the file system directory paths to the
basepath_persistent_memory_volumes parameter in the [persistence] section, each
directory separated by a semi-colon as shown in Example 3-15.

Example 3-15 Entry in the global.ini file defining the paths to the vPMEM volume directories
[persistence]
basepath_persistent_memory_volumes =
/path/to/first/directory;/path/to/second/directory;…

This parameter option is an offline change only, requiring the restart of HANA to be enabled.

On first startup, HANA by default copies all column store table data, or as much as possible,
from persistent disk into the newly configured and defined vPMEM volumes. With partitioned
column store tables, HANA round robin assigns partitions to vPMEM volumes to evenly
distribute the column store table partitions across the entire vPMEM memory NUMA
assignment. When all column store data for a table is loaded into the vPMEM volumes, HANA
maintains a small amount of column store table metadata in normal LPAR DRAM memory.

3.1.9 Specifying tables, columns or partitions to use vPMEM volumes

HANA can also be configured to populate the vPMEM volumes with specifically defined
column store tables, columns and even specific partitions. This is done first by changing a

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indexserver.ini parameter to turn off the loading of all column store tables into the persistent
memory as shown in Example 3-16.

Example 3-16 Change default behavior of HANA to not load all tables on HANA startup
[persistent memory]
table_default = OFF

The table_default parameter's default value is DEFAULT. This is synonymous with the value
of ON. This parameter, along with the global.ini parameter
basepath_persistent_memory_volumes together make HANA's default behavior to load all
table data into the vPMEM devices.

This is a dynamic parameter. If there is currently column store table data in the vPMEM
volumes, then performing a HANA UNLOAD of the unneeded columnar table data removes
the table data from the persistent device, after which a LOAD operation is needed to reload
the table data into system DRAM. Or a shutdown of HANA can be done so the old column
store table data can be removed from the vPMEM volumes. Then, upon the next startup,
HANA loads all column store table data into DRAM.

Individual column store tables that are to use the vPMEM volumes can be moved with the
SQL command as shown in Example 3-17.

Example 3-17 Altering a table move the column store table to PMEM
ALTER TABLE "<schema_name>.<table_name>" PERSISTENT MEMORY ON IMMEDIATE CASCADE;

This immediately moves the table from LPAR DRAM to the vPMEM devices and is set for all
future restarts of HANA.

For columns and partitions, currently the only way to load data into vPMEM volumes is by use
of the CREATE COLUMN TABLE commands as shown in Example 3-18.

Example 3-18 Specifying column store table columns or partitions to reside in vPMEM
# create a table that the named column will use persistent memory
CREATE COLUM TABLE … <column> … PERSISTENT MEMORY ON

# create a table that the named partitions will use persistent memory
CREATE COLUMN TABLE … PARTITION .. PERSISTENT MEMORY ON

Column store table data can also be unloaded from the vPMEM devices and the data
removed from the vPMEM volumes. Example 3-19 shows the commands which remove the
column store table data from the vPMEM volume, and unload the data from all memory.

Example 3-19 Altering a column store table to stop using vPMEM

ALTER TABLE <table_name> PERSISTENT MEMORY OFF IMMEDIATE
UNLOAD <table_name> DELETE PERSISTENT MEMORY

After this command as shown in Example 3-19 runs, the column store table data is no longer
loaded into any memory areas (DRAM or vPMEM). Table data needs to be reloaded either by
future query processing, or by manually executing the SQL command as shown in
Example 3-20 on page 47.

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Example 3-20 Re-loading table data from disk-based persistent storage

LOAD "<table_name>" ALL

If the table persistent memory setting has been changed to either OFF or ON, it can be reset
back to the default value of DEFAULT with the SQL command as shown in Example 3-21.

Example 3-21 Changing the persistent memory setting

ALTER TABLE "<table_name>" PERSISTENT MEMORY DEFAULT

3.1.10 Undersized vPMEM volumes

If the vPMEM volumes are too small to hold all of the desired column store table data, HANA
loads the remaining column store tabled data into LPAR DRAM. Queries still process
normally, accessing data either from DRAM or from the vPMEM volumes. On a HANA restart,
HANA loads the non-vPMEM stored column table data into LPAR DRAM from persistent disk.

3.1.11 Disable use of vPMEM volumes

If it is necessary to discontinue the use of the vPMEM volumes, shut down HANA and
comment out the parameter basepath_persistent_memory_volumes and the vPMEM
volumes in the global.ini file. Upon restart, HANA loads all tables into the LPAR DRAM. The
contents of the vPMEM volumes can then be cleaned out by either reformatting them or
deleting the contents from the directories. The vPMEM volumes can then be redeployed.

3.1.12 Benefits of using vPMEM volumes on Power Systems

The following are benefits for using vPMEM volumes:
򐂰 Significantly faster restart of HANA due to column store table data persistently loaded into
vPMEM volumes.
򐂰 No special hardware is required to create and utilize vPMEM volumes for HANA. vPMEM
volumes are created out of spare system memory.
򐂰 Access to data on vPMEM volumes is at RAM speeds, with no loss in performance when
compared to accessing table data in the traditional LPAR DRAM configuration.
򐂰 Multiple LPARs on a system can be assigned vPMEM volumes. This allows multiple
applications on a system to utilize vPMEM and experience their benefit. Intel Optane is not
supported in virtualized environments so only a single application per system is
supported.
򐂰 HANA attempts to align full columnar table data to a single vPMEM device. This aligns the
table data to the memory of a single NUMA and speed up access to that data.
򐂰 Partitioned table data is round-robin assigned to NUMA nodes, keeping all data within the
partition range localized to a single NUMA node.
򐂰 After HANA shutdown, deleting an existing vPMEM device does not affect any data of the
database. This is due to HANA synchronizing and saving new data to the persistent disk
layer on shut down.
򐂰 The maximum vPMEM segment per NUMA node is 4 TB.
򐂰 vPMEM configured HANA instances are fully supported and transparent to HSR/DSR
configurations.

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3.1.13 vPMEM usage considerations

The following are vPMEM considerations:
򐂰 vPMEM device creation or deletion can only be done when the LPAR is inactive.
򐂰 vPMEM volumes are static in capacity. After created and assigned to an LPAR, the volume
size cannot be changed.
򐂰 If a volume of a different size is required, the existing volume must be deleted, and a new
volume of a different size can be created.
򐂰 Upon creating the new vPMEM volume, the new /dev/nmem devices need to be
reinitialized, and the resulting /dev/pmem devices formatted and mounted before HANA is
started. HANA then repopulates the vPMEM volumes with columnar data during startup.
򐂰 A defined vPMEM volume is assigned to a single LPAR and is not re-assignable. This
provides security of the data stored in the vPMEM volumes for the application running on
the assigned LPAR.
򐂰 If the NUMA configuration for an LPAR that is assigned a vPMEM volume changes (for
example, changes the number of cores), then the previous vPMEM volume NUMA
assignment does not match that of the new LPAR NUMA resource allocation. To maintain
NUMA affinity, the vPMEM volume needs to be deleted and recreated to match the new
NUMA alignment of the LPAR.
򐂰 vPMEM volumes at initial introduction are not Live Partition Mobility (LPM) capable. This
feature is intended to be enabled as the technology matures.
򐂰 All /dev/pmem devices must be used directly. Partitioning these devices or creating LVM
volumes is not supported as HANA queries the device tree understand the NUMA
alignment of the devices. Any volumes created from the pmem device does not return
valid NUMA alignment details causing HANA to not start.
򐂰 SAP only supports the use of one vPMEM device per NUMA node per HANA instance.
򐂰 Multiple tenants of a HANA instance can share vPMEM volumes. Each tenant must have a
separate directory structure for the vPMEM volumes to be mounted.
򐂰 Only HANA column store data is stored in vPMEM volumes. Row store tables and LOB
column store tables are stored in DRAM memory.
򐂰 Log volume data is still stored on persistent disk for the protection of transactional data.
򐂰 Any changes to column store table data that are accessed from vPMEM volumes are fully
protected by persistent disk through HANA's save point synchronization mechanism.

3.1.14 PowerVM vPMEM enablement dependencies

To utilize vPMEM on Power Systems, there are dependencies on several components of the
system as shown in Table 3-1.

Table 3-1 Software version dependencies for using vPMEM on POWER with HANA
Component Version

Power Systems firmware v9.40 or later

Hardware Management Console v9.1.940.0 or later
Operating systems SLES 15 SP1 or later, Red Hat 8.2 or later
HANA 2.0 SPS4 rev44 or later

3.1.15 vPMEM related SAP Notes

The following are vPMEM related SAP Notes:
򐂰 2700084 - FAQ: SAP HANA Persistent Memory

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https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2700084
򐂰 2618154 - SAP HANA Persistent Memory - Release Information
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2618154
򐂰 2786237 - Sizing SAP HANA with Persistent Memory
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2786237
򐂰 2813454 - Recommendations for Persistent Memory Configurations with BW/4HANA
https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/2813454

3.1.16 Additional documentation related to vPMEM and persistent memory

usage with SAP HANA
This section provides additional documentation for vPMEM and persistent memory usage:

IBM product documentation

Managing persistent memory volume
https://ibm.co/2V9ZWlI

SAP product documentation

Persistent Memory, SAP HANA Administration Guide for SAP HANA Platform
https://bit.ly/39N0QIP

3.2 RAM Disk (tmpfs) SAP HANA Fast Restart Option

Temporary file systems volumes, or tmpfs volumes, are emulated file systems that are
created out of the available memory allocated to the operating system of an LPAR. All modern
operating systems have the ability to create and use memory based tmpfs volumes. HANA
can use tmpfs volumes to store columnar table data in the same way it uses vPMEM
volumes: tmpfs memory volumes are mounted on the operating systems file system directory
structure for storage of table data for fast access. SAP refers to the tmpfs volumes solution as
the SAP HANA Fast Restart Option.

Just like with vPMEM persistent memory volumes, HANA can take advantage of tmpfs
volumes to store columnar table data in configured LPAR DRAM volumes. The mechanisms
by which HANA is configured to use tmpfs volumes are identical to vPMEM volume usage.

Like vPMEM volumes, access to the files stored in a tmpfs file system are performed at
DRAM speeds. In this regard, accessing data from tmpfs and vPMEM volumes have the
same performance. Also, no special hardware is needed to create tmpfs volumes considering
the DRAM memory allocated to the LPAR is utilized.

Unlike vPMEM, considering the memory allocated to tmpfs volumes is allocated within the
memory allocated to an LPAR, tmpfs volumes are not persistent to operating system or LPAR
restarts. Data stored in tmpfs LPAR DRAM disks is volatile and the contents are erased when
the operating systems is shutdown or rebooted. Upon restart of the operating system, the
RAM disk volumes must be recreated, and HANA columnar table data is reloaded from
persistent disk volumes.

Also, unlike vPMEM volumes that are created with the Affinity option, creation of a tmpfs
volume is not automatically aligned to any specific NUMA node. NUMA node memory

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alignment details are gathered as a preparatory step and used in creating the tmpfs volumes
at the operating system level.

One benefit of tmpfs file systems have over vPMEM volumes is that tmpfs volumes can be
created to grow dynamically as the tmpf volumes fills. This allows the volumes to
accommodate larger than expected data growth. But this dynamic characteristic of tmpfs file
systems has the side effect of using more LPAR DRAM memory than expected, which steals
memory away from applications that need that memory to function. Hence, correctly sizing
the tmpfs volumes is still important. Alternatively, the tmpfs volumes can be created to
consume a fixed amount of LPAR DRAM.

3.2.1 Configuring tmpfs volumes

Creating tmpfs file systems involves utilizing LPAR DRAM memory to create volumes to store
application data. Considering memory is typically non-uniformly distributed across NUMA
nodes, it is important to understand the memory architecture of the system before allocating
memory to tmpfs file systems. This is to ensure the memory allocation of the tmpfs file
systems can be fully allocated within NUMA nodes for fastest access.

A quick check at the operating system shows the available NUMA nodes and how much
memory is allocated to each node as shown in Example 3-22.

Example 3-22 Determining the amount of RAM allocated to each NUMA node of an LPAR
grep MemTotal /sys/devices/system/node/node*/meminfo

This produces output showing an amount of memory available on each of the NUMA nodes
that the operating system has assigned as shown in Example 3-23.

Example 3-23 Example output from grep MemTotal command

/sys/devices/system/node/node0/meminfo:Node 0 MemTotal: 510299264 kB
/sys/devices/system/node/node1/meminfo:Node 1 MemTotal: 510931712 kB
/sys/devices/system/node/node2/meminfo:Node 2 MemTotal: 511427328 kB
/sys/devices/system/node/node3/meminfo:Node 3 MemTotal: 511452992 kB

In this output (Example 3-23), the system has four NUMA nodes, each installed with roughly
512 GB of system DRAM.

To create tmpfs devices in Example 3-23, you want to allocate four different tmpfs devices,
one for each NUMA node. The mount command has an option to assign the memory for the
tmpfs to a named NUMA node. Example 3-23 shows four directories to where the tmpfs files
systems will be mounted, then create the file systems using the mount command options as
shown in Example 3-24.

Example 3-24 Mount the file systems

mount <tmpfs file system name> -t tmpfs -o mpol=prefer:X /<directory to mount
file system>

In Example 3-24:

<tmpfs file system name> is the operating device name. Use any descriptive name
desired

-t tmpfs is the file system type, and in this case, of type tmpfs

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-o mpol=prefer:X as mentioned, is the NUMA node number to assign the memory for
the tmpfs

/<directory to mount file system> is the location on the OS file system path to mount the
tmpfs file system. This directory is accessible and readable from the OS level.
Check this directory exists, just like for any normal mount command

In Example 3-23 on page 50, the system has four NUMA nodes, so creating four directories
and mounting four different tmpfs file systems can be done as shown in Example 3-25,
substituting the <SID> with the SID of the HANA database.

Example 3-25 Sample script to create, mount and make available tmps volumes for use by HANA
for i in 0 1 2 3; do
mkdir -p /hana/data/<SID>/tmpfs${i}
mount tmpfs_<SID>_${i} -t tmpfs -o mpol=prefer:${i} /hana/data/<SID>/tmpfs${i}
done
chown -R <db admin user>:<db group> /hana/data/<SID>/tmpfs*

Using these options (Example 3-25), the amount of memory allocated to each tmpfs is
dynamically sized based what is being stored by HANA in the file systems. This is the
preferred option as the file system grows as HANA table data is migrated from RAM to the
tmpfs files system.

If there is a need to statically allocate an amount of memory to the tmpfs file system, using the
-o size=<size in GB> option statically allocates a fixed size of LPAR DRAM to the tmpfs file
systems.

Note: The tmpfs volumes are not formatted as an XFS file system as is done for vPMEM
volumes, nor are the volumes mounted with the -o dax option. This is due to the
differences in file system format for tmpfs volumes, and the ability of HANA to differentiate
and support both types of file system formats to persistently store columnar table data.

3.2.2 Configuring HANA to use the tmpfs volumes

Configuring HANA to use tmpfs volumes is the same as with vPMEM memory. Just edit the
global.ini file to specify the paths to the directories where the tmpfs volumes are mounted,
verify that the indexserver.ini value for table_default is set to DEFAULT or ON, then restart
HANA to populate the tmpfs volumes with column store table data.

3.2.3 Comparing vPMEM and tmpfs

Using tmpfs for holding column store table data has many of the same benefits as using
vPMEM volumes. Table 3-2 outlines some of the benefits of using persistent memory
solutions on Power Systems.

Table 3-2 Benefits of using persistent memory solutions

Benefit vPMEM tmpfs

Significantly faster restart of Yes Yes

HANA due to column store
table data persistently loaded
into mounted memory volumes

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Benefit vPMEM tmpfs

Memory volumes persist across Yes No

OS and LPAR restarts

No special hardware is required Yes Yes

for HANA to utilize mounted
memory volumes for columnar
table data

Access to data on mounted Yes Yes

memory volumes is at RAM
speeds, with no loss in
performance when compared
to accessing table data in the
traditional DRAM configuration

Table data designated as Yes Yes

non-preload on startup is
accessed at DRAM speeds,
increasing query and
application performance

Multiple LPARs on a system Yes, and volume DRAM taken Yes, tmpfs volume created
can be assigned memory from spare system memory within each LPAR memory
volumes

Automatic detection and Yes Yes

alignment of memory volume to
NUMA node

HANA will attempt to align full Yes Yes

columnar table data to a single
memory volume

Partitioned columnar table data Yes, with Affinity enabled Yes, when each file system
will be round-robin assigned to aligned to NUMA nodes in the
memory volume mount command

After HANA shutdown, deleting Yes Yes

an existing vPMEM device will
not affect any data of the
database. This is due to HANA
synchronizing and saving new
data to the persistent disk layer
on shut down

Memory volume is Live Partition Not yet, but coming in a future Yes
Migration capable release

Dependency on system Yes, as outlined in the previous Can be used with any Power9
firmware, HMC code, or OS section supported versions
release

HANA Release Requirements >= 2.00.035 >=2.00.040

3.2.4 SAP related documentation

This section provides additional related documentation for:

52 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

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SAP HANA Fast Restart Option administration documentation

https://bit.ly/2Wk2UEy

SAP OSS Notes 270084 - FAQ: SAP HANA Persistent Memory

https://support.sap.com/en/index.html

3.3 Persistent disk storage using native NVMe devices

Non-Volatile Memory Express adapters (NVMe), with their high-speed flash memory, have
become a popular technology to store data that needs low latency and high throughput. The
NVMe architecture and its access protocols have become an industry standard, making it
easy to deploy through a device driver addition to the operating system. Using NVMe in this
context is to use the flash modules to store the database persistently, just as though they are
disk-based storage. HANA reads data from these devices on start just as they can from
regular SAN based storage. The benefit is that the read operations from NVMe are
significantly faster than SAP disk-based storage, providing for faster HANA startup, and also
for persistence of data across HANA, OS and system restarts.

Some of the key benefits NVMe devices provide over SAN disk-based storage devices:
򐂰 Increased queue depth, which is provides decreased I/O times
򐂰 Significantly lower latencies for read and write operations
򐂰 Higher I/O throughput than traditional disk fabric systems (for example, Fibre Channel)
due to the location of the adapters on a PCIe adapter slot

3.3.1 NVMe device details

NVMe devices are presented to the operating system through the traditional block device
interface. For Linux, these devices are listed in the /dev directory alongside other disk-based
block devices. Therefore, NVMe devices can be resourced into an LPAR as regular storage
devices.

NVME adapters are made up of multiple individual FLASH memory modules. This
architecture allows the operating system to access multiple storage modules per NVMe
adapter independently. Figure 3-7 shows a sample output listing the devices on an individual
NVMe adapter.

Figure 3-7 NVMe adapter module listing

Figure 3-7 shows there are four modules of 745 GB per module and 3 TB total storage for the
adapter.

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3.3.2 Configuration and usage considerations

The FLASH NVMe adapters assigned to the LPAR are available to be used in several different
ways:
򐂰 Directly used as an independent storage device
򐂰 RAID arrays can be created to span multiple modules on an individual NVMe adapter
򐂰 RAID arrays can span modules across other NVMe adapters

Figure 3-8, Figure 3-9, and Figure 3-10 show a few examples.

Figure 3-8 Raid1 storage volumes for SAP HANA data and log using NVMe adapters

Figure 3-9 Raid1 arrays for SAP HANA data and log created from individual NVMe adapters

Figure 3-10 Raid0 and Raid1 arrays for HANA data and log using multiple NVMe storage modules

As FLASH modules are subject to long term degradation in high write and data change
environments, caution must be taken to which data is assigned to FLASH storage volumes.

54 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

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Preference must be given to data profiles that do not have excessive data modification rates.
For environments that must use FLASH modules with high write and change activity
characteristics, mirroring a NVMe volume with a traditional disk-based storage volume is a
technique to help preserve data integrity in the case of a NVMe FLASH wear failure.

3.3.3 NVMe performance characteristics

Tests conducted using HANA and high I/O workloads have shown that using NVMe adapters
for HANA volumes can increase latency speeds by up to 9x over traditional storage
technologies (for example, IBM SVC using 20 GB cache and XIV® storage).

For read performance, testing shows that NVMe adapter volumes are up to 2-4x faster than
disk-based storage solutions, depending on I/O block sizes as shown in Table 3-3.

Table 3-3 NVMe performance characteristics

Block size 64 KB 128 KB 256 KB 1 MB 16 MB 64 MB

Performance 2.2x 2.7x 4.0x 4.5x 4.0x 4.1x

increase using NVMe

Write performance also increases, by up to 2x as shown in Table 3-4.

Table 3-4 VVMe write performance characteristics

Block size 4 KB 16 KB 64 KB 128 KB 256 KB 1 MB 16 MB 64 MB

Performance n/a 1.1x 1.4x 1.7x 1.9x 1.8x 1.7x 1.7x

increase
Initial write using
NVMe

Performance 1.5x 1.8x 2.0x 1.8x 1.7x 1.9x 1.6x 1.6x

increase
Overwrite using
NVMe

3.3.4 Striping effects for internal NVMe cards

Creating a Raid0 volume over multiple NVMe adapters increases the throughput on read
operations on block sizes greater than equal to 256 KB nearly by factor 2.

Creating a Raid0 volume over multiple NVMe devices increases the throughput on write
operations on block sizes greater equal 64 KB nearly by factor 1.7. On block sizes greater
than 256 KB, the factor is nearly 2.

Creating a Raid0 volume on the multiple memory modules of one NVMe device has no
positive effect on performance over storage on a single memory module.

3.3.5 Summary
NVMe adapters with their fast flash modules can provide significant increase in I/O
performance for HANA when compared to storage on traditional SAN storage options, either
SSD or spinning disk. The increase in speed and lower latencies are provided by much faster
flash technology in the NVMe adapter versus SSD flash storage, and by accessing the NVMe
storage through PCIe 3.0 protocol versus over Fibre Channel protocols.

Chapter 3. HANA I/O performance enhancements 55

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3.4 NVMe Rapid Cold Start Mirror

Another option for NVMe adapter FLASH storage is to mirror the volumes to external SAN
disk-based persistent storage for high availability, and faster start of large SAP HANA
databases.

As stated, large database take quite some time to load from SAN disk-based storage through
connectivity solutions like Fibre Channel connected to traditional disk-based or SSD-based
volumes. NVMe storage that is hosted at the host level provides faster access to the HANA
data for loading and writing.

But FLASH modules in general are subject to wearing due to data write or change. To protect
valuable data, a hybrid of the traditional SAN disk-based storage and NVMe storage can be
used to provide faster HANA startup along with protection of the data on disk-based storage.

3.4.1 Hybrid Mirrored Volume

The solution as shown in Figure 3-11 creates a RAID0 arrays from the NVMe FLASH
modules, and a RAID1 mirror to the storage created on the SAN disk-based storage solution.

Figure 3-11 NVMe and SAN disk-based storage mirror

In Figure 3-11, the NVMe adapter FLASH modules (inside the green box) are all added into a
RAID0 array. On the SAN side, RAID0 arrays of the same size as the NVMe RAID0 array are
created (inside the red box). Each of these four RAID0 volumes are represented with blue
boxes on their respective storage platforms.

Then, a mirrored RAID1 volume is created by assigning one SAN RAID volume to one NVMe
RAID0 volume, represented by each of the grey boxes.

When creating the RAID1 mirror between the NVMe volumes and the SAN storage volumes,
preference for the OS to write to the NVMe volumes is set by passing the option

56 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

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--write-mostly of the mdadmin array utility, assigning it to the RAID0 device name for the
external SAN volume. Example 3-26 shows the Linux man page excerpt for mdadm.

Example 3-26 mdadm --write-mostly option to favor one RAID device for reading
-W, --write-mostly
subsequent devices listed in a --build, --create, or --add command will be
flagged as 'write-mostly'. This is valid for RAID1 only and means that the
'md' driver will avoid reading from these devices if at all possible. This
can be useful if mirroring over a slow link.

Hence, in the building of the RAID1 device, specify the SAN storage device as
--write-mostly in the mdadm --create command as shown in Example 3-27.

Example 3-27 Specify the SAN storage device

mdadm --create --verbose --/dev/<new RAID device name> --level=1 --raid-devices=2
/dev/<NVMe device name --write-mostly /dev/<SAN storage device name>

3.4.2 Summary
Mirroring an internally installed NVMe adapter to an external SAN volume of the same size
can provide the benefits of a rapid startup of HANA by reading data from the NVMe adapter
with the RAID1 mirroring of the data to an external SAN disk for ultimate data protection.

3.5 Comparison to Intel Optane

The Optane persistent memory solutions that are available on the Intel platform are
constricting technology to the persistent memory solutions outlined before, namely vPMEM
and tmpfs for Fast Restart. The Optane memory Data Center Persistent Memory Module
(DCPMM) solution is based on a new memory DIMM architecture that allows for persistent
storage of data stored to the DCPMMs, which allows that data to survive operating system
and system restarts. vPMEM and tmpfs for Fast Restart also provide resiliency of the data to
a HANA restart, and vPMEM additionally to a LPAR restart, data stored in these solutions
need to be restored in the event of a full system restart.

Optane DCPMM memory is implement by installing new Optane DCPMM memory cards into
existing system DRAM DIMM slots. This means that real DRAM capacity needs to be
sacrificed to use the Optane memory solution. In contrast, the vPMEM option for Power
Systems uses standard system DRAM that is already installed in the system. Implementation
of vPMEM is as simple as defining the vPMEM memory segment, start the LPAR, configure
HANA to use the persistent memory segments. No hardware downtime needs to be
experience, unless additional DRAM is required to support the vPMEM solution.

Optane memory capacities are currently provided in 128 GB, 256 GB and 512 GB per
PCDMM module. This is much higher capacity that currently exists for DIMM memory
modules, with currently have a maximum capacity of 64 GB per DIMM. Rules for using
PCDMM modules are complicated and vary depending on the memory mode used, but with a
maximum of 12 DIMM modules per socket, using of six DIMM modules of 64 GB and the
maximum of six 512 GB DCPMM memory modules, a socket maximum memory configuration
is 3.4 TB. This is compared to a maximum memory configuration of 1.5 TB when using only
DIMM memory modules. POWER9 systems support up to 4 TB of DIMM system memory per
socket using currently available 128 GB DIMMs. Future DIMM sizes will increase this memory
footprint.

Chapter 3. HANA I/O performance enhancements 57

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From a memory latency point of view, Optane DCPMM memory modules have a higher read
and write latency when compared to standard DIMM memory technologies. This is attributed
to the technology implemented to provide data persistency in the DCPMM module. Higher
latencies can have an impact on application performance and must be evaluated when
implementing the Optane solution.

On the other hand, POWER9 vPMEM and tmpfs are using DIMM backed RAM and perform
read and write operations at full DIMM throughput capabilities.

Optane has three memory modes that the DCPMM modules can be used:
򐂰 Memory Mode: In this mode, the DCPMM memory modules are installed along side
standard DIMM modules and are used as a regular memory device. One advantage of this
using the DCPMM modules in this mode is that greater overall memory capacities can be
achieved over standard DIMM modules available for x86 systems. But, enabling the
PCDMM modules in this mode puts the regular DIMMs in the system into a caching
function, which makes their capacity invisible to the host operating system. Therefore, only
the capacity of the DCPMM memory can be used by the host operating system, and the
regular DIMM memory capacity is unavailable for operating system and application use.
򐂰 App Direct Mode: In this mode, the DCPMM memory modules are used as persistent
storage for operating systems and applications that can take advantage of this technology.
The DCPMM memory modules are recognized by the operating system as storage
devices and can are used to store copies of persistent disk data, making access to that
data faster after an OS or system restart. The standard DIMMs are used normally as
available RAM to the operating system.
򐂰 Mixed Mode: This mode is a mixture of Memory and App Direct modes. When using
DCPMM modules in this mode, a portion of the capacity of the module is used as memory
for the host operating system, and the remaining capacity is used for persistent storage.
But, just like in Memory Mode, any DIMM memory is unavailable for use by the host
operating system and is instead converted into a memory cache subsystem.

Currently, Optane persistent memory is not supported for use by HANA in virtualized
environments.

3.6 Impact to LPM capabilities

PowerVM Live Partition Mobility technology (LPM), allows for the migration of LPARs from
one system to another, either in offline mode or live. This technology allows LPARs to be
relocated to another system to avoid down time to the running applications.

Using tmpfs for persistent memory uses the memory assigned to the LPAR and available to
the LPAR. Therefore, moving an LPAR from one system to another preserves the use of the
tmpfs persistent memory volumes at the destination system.

Currently, vPMEM volumes that are assigned to an LPARs are defined outside the LPAR
configuration. Currently due to this implementation, LPM operations are not supported for
vPMEM enabled LPARs. Prior to the LPAR migration, the vPMEM device needs to be
removed from the LPAR. Then, at the destination system, a new vPMEM volume can be
created to support the application. vPMEM LPM is intended to be supported in a future
firmware release.

58 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm 5570bibl.fm

Related publications

The publications listed in this section are considered particularly suitable for a more detailed
discussion of the topics covered in this paper.

IBM Redbooks
The following IBM Redbooks publications provide additional information about the topic in this
document. Note that some publications referenced in this list might be available in softcopy
only.
򐂰 SAP HANA on IBM Power Systems: High Availability and Disaster Recovery
Implementation Updates, SG24-8432
򐂰 IBM Power Systems Virtualization Operation Management for SAP Applications,
REDP-5579
򐂰 IBM Power Systems Security for SAP Applications, REDP-5578
򐂰 SAP Landscape Management 3.0 and IBM Power Systems Servers, REDP-5568

You can search for, view, download or order these documents and other Redbooks,
Redpapers, Web Docs, draft and additional materials, at the following website:
ibm.com/redbooks

Online resources
These websites are also relevant as further information sources:
򐂰 IBM Power Systems rapid cold start for SAP HANA
https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/WQDZWBYJ
򐂰 SAP Support Portal
https://support.sap.com/en/index.html
򐂰 Software Logistics Tools
https://support.sap.com/en/tools/software-logistics-tools.html
򐂰 Guide Finder for SAP NetWeaver and ABAP Platform
https://help.sap.com/viewer/nwguidefinder
򐂰 Welcome to the SAP Help Portal
https://help.sap.com

Help from IBM

IBM Support and downloads
ibm.com/support

5570bibl.fm Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:20 pm

IBM Global Services

ibm.com/services

60 SAP HANA Data Management and Performance on IBM Power Systems

Back cover
Draft Document for Review March 23, 2020 3:26 pm

REDP-5570-00

ISBN DocISBN

Printed in U.S.A.

®
ibm.com/redbooks

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