10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best ...

1 An Oracle White Paper April 2012. 10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best platform for SAP. Environments 10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best platform for SAP Environments 1. The Oracle and SAP Partnership .. 2. 2. Integrated Software 3. 3. Engineered 4. 4. Availability and 5. 5. Performance .. 6. 6. Scalability .. 8. 7. Manageability .. 9. 8. Security and Compliance .. 9. 9. Lower Total Cost of Ownership .. 10. 10. Oracle Expertise for SAP Environments .. 12. 11. 12. 1. 10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best platform for SAP Environments As more enterprise users generate increasingly large volumes of data and performance, security, and availability requirements become more stringent the greater the likelihood that SAP systems are running on Oracle technologies.

2 Indeed, large-scale systems are almost exclusively Oracle technology-based. This trend is due to Oracle 's continued delivery of proven, stable, reliable, and scalable technology platforms for SAP applications. Oracle 's complete, integrated applications-to-disk stack is engineered to work together and deliver a solid foundation for SAP deployments. Rather than leave the complex task of integration to customers or third parties, Oracle 's approach helps customers to reduce acquisition and maintenance costs, decrease time-to-deployment, and reduce risk. This document explores 10 Reasons why the unique interplay of Oracle 's hardware and software Provides the best platform for deploying SAP solutions.

3 1. The Oracle and SAP Partnership For over 24 years, Oracle and SAP have maintained a strategic partnership. Tens of thousands of SAP customers run SAP applications on Oracle platforms in the back-end of the data center. Indeed, over two-thirds of all mid-size to high-end SAP customers use Oracle Database, so Oracle and SAP understand the importance of maintaining a strong alliance that benefits their joint customers. Oracle served a key role as an SAP technology partner in the development of SAP R/3 in 1992. Since that time, the two companies have worked closely to tightly integrate Oracle and SAP. software. The new releases of Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux are the latest additions to SAP's Product Availability Matrix (PAM), and are strategic platforms for SAP.

4 In addition, ongoing technical cooperation between SAP and Oracle has led to continued optimization of Oracle Database for SAP applications. As a result of this partnership, the major components of SAP's software are optimized for Oracle and there is plenty of Oracle expertise in SAP's development, support, and consulting divisions. Oracle database, systems, and Oracle Solaris development teams are located onsite at SAP's location in St. Leon Rot, Germany. Oracle and SAP teams manage and execute joint Oracle and SAP database, systems, and IT- Infrastructure integration projects. Oracle is an SAP global technology partner and a Tier 1 platform for SAP applications.

5 Indeed, SAP uses Oracle platforms as part of its internal Infrastructure , and leverages the benefits of Oracle Solaris virtualization features such as Oracle Solaris Zones in its own SAP. environments. Oracle and SAP offer a single, consistent service and support relationship with a dedicated team of Oracle technical analysts who provide queue management and direct customer contact to SAP and Oracle customers. 2. 10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best platform for SAP Environments SAP is testing and certifying Oracle 's engineered systems, such as Oracle 's SPARC. SuperCluster, Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle Exalogic Elastic cloud , and Oracle Database Appliance, with SAP applications.

6 Oracle Provides a complete technology stack hardware, operating system, virtualization, and database so customers need only interact with SAP and Oracle instead of multiple vendors when working to resolve issues. Together, Oracle and SAP offer a world-class set of end-to-end SAP IT Infrastructure solutions that deliver a high level of system availability as well as a clear path to improve productivity, increase system utilization, lower the total cost of ownership, and transform IT Infrastructure into an eco-friendly data center. 2. Integrated Software Stack Oracle 's product research and engineering expertise spans the entire stack from storage, networks, compute and operating systems, to middleware, enterprise applications and databases and is integrated and validated to work together to take the guesswork out of deploying complex solutions.

7 Oracle is the only high technology company with all the software and hardware components to deliver an Infrastructure that can transform and streamline business operation. Indeed, Oracle 's application-to-disk stack is so well integrated and tuned that it Provides less risk, better performance, and easier management for application environments. With a single vendor providing all the elements for an application platform , finger pointing is eliminated and problem resolution takes less time. From server and storage systems with intelligent automation, to industry acclaimed software that integrates throughout all business levels, Oracle uniquely understands how to help enterprises address the challenges of business process optimization.

8 Oracle Database. More than two third of all mid-size and high-end SAP implementations use Oracle Database1. Integrated high availability features eliminate or minimize both planned and unplanned downtime, increase system utilization, and help improve overall performance, scalability, and manageability. These features, combined with Oracle hardware, deliver an unprecedented level of availability and performance. A choice of operating systems. Oracle offers Oracle Solaris and Oracle Linux. Supported and fully optimized for SPARC and x86 servers, Oracle Solaris Provides innovative, built-in features that deliver breakthrough high availability, advanced security, efficiency, and industry- leading scalability and performance to SAP applications.

9 The first and only fully virtualized 1 See for more information. 3. 10 Reasons Why Oracle Infrastructure Provides the Best platform for SAP Environments operating system, Oracle Solaris offers secure, flexible, virtualization services that are integrated into, rather than layered on top of, the operating system. This approach adds functionality and enables greater utilization of physical and virtual systems, networks, and data resources without adding significant overhead or complexity. Optimized for Oracle Exadata Database Machine, Oracle SPARC SuperCluster, Oracle Exalogic Elastic cloud , and Oracle Database Appliance, Oracle Linux delivers innovative features such as DTrace, Linux Containers, and more.

10 The Ksplice feature Provides zero downtime patching, enabling updates to the Linux kernel while it is running, and without the need to reboot. Oracle Linux supports large and small systems, and delivers superb performance. 3. Engineered Systems SAP environments tend to be complex. Oracle 's engineered systems are designed to simplify and optimize SAP landscapes while delivering record-breaking performance, increased ease of management, and cost-saving efficiencies. Oracle Exadata. Designed to provide extreme performance, built-in features such as Exadata Smart Scan, Exadata Smart Flash Cache, and Hybrid Columnar Compression2 help Oracle Exadata to deliver extreme database performance for data warehousing, online transaction processing, and mixed workloads.