By 2027, all SAP customers will be moving onto SAP’s flagship database management system SAP HANA, which runs exclusively on Linux. 

If you’re a SAP customer anticipating this change (currently around 50% of SAP customers use Windows), now is a good time to start considering your options.

Alternatively, you might be thinking of implementing SAP HANA and looking around for the best Linux operating system to do so. In either case, Red Hat’s RHEL 8 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8) should be top of your list of considerations. 

Red Hat has a long pedigree in providing innovative open source solutions, with around 90% of the current Fortune Global 500 using Red Hat products in their IT stack. Meanwhile, RHEL 8 won significant praise from analysts on release for its intelligent web administration console, RHEL Image Builder and machine learning-driven health analytics.

On top of these general benefits, RHEL 8 is a game changer when it comes to running SAP HANA. Here’s why.

1. Speed, Flexibility and Scalability

SAP HANA offers users advanced processing capabilities that have the power to transform how companies can use data.

Processing transactional data into analytics data in real time and using AI/machine learning to process large amounts of unstructured data (such as voice, text, spatial and predictive data) requires a powerful operating system. 

RHEL 8 powers the fastest three supercomputers in the world (four in the top 10), so performance-wise it’s a natural choice. It’s highly unlikely you’ll find a more powerful option for running SAP HANA. 

These top-of-the-range performance capabilities are accompanied by attributes which give RHEL 8 users a large amount of flexibility and scalability: 

●     RHEL 8 is specifically designed for hybrid environments. As an operating system, it connects and moves workloads across different parts of your ecosystem seamlessly - from traditional, on-premise data centers to public cloud apps and everything in between.

●     RHEL 8 is sold under an open source license that allows and encourages customization. Flexibility here is essential, as in a tech landscape that evolves quickly, you need the scope to react to advances in data analytics technology, machine learning and AI.

2. SAP-Specific Features and Compatibility

As well as general performance, flexibility and stability benefits, RHEL 8 offers several SAP-specific features that optimize SAP HANA’s performance. 

You might be able to run SAP HANA elsewhere without these added-value features, but you may need extra internal resources (whether that’s time or talent) to compensate for their absence. 

When you run SAP on RHEL 8, you immediately gain access to:

●     SAP System Roles to automate configuration of your RHEL system to run SAP workloads.

●     Smart Management and Red Hat Insights for lifecycle management and making sure your SAP solutions are running optimally.

●     High availability solutions for SAP HANA, S/4 HANA and SAP Business Applications that reduce failures and minimize downtime.

●     Full support for Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory File System DAX for high memory density, lower latency, and persistence.

3. Support and Stability for SAP Environments

Open source operating systems offer ultimate customizability, but little to no support structure.

Proprietary operating systems offer reliable support and levels of uptime guaranteed in SLAs, but lack the customizability required for organizations to adapt to new technologies and remain innovative. 

Red Hat’s enterprise open source solutions offer the best of both worlds. You get all the flexibility benefits of open source, plus the well-documented support proprietary systems offer. This means enterprises get the stability needed to thrive without compromising their ability to innovate. 

RHEL 8 offers 99.999% uptime, plus a product life cycle of 10 years with flexibility over when you install updates. RHEL 8 also offers live patching, so SAP HANA users can benefit from faster fixes for potential issues with little-to-no production downtime. 

Red Hat also provides support for SAP-specific RHEL releases for four years after they first become available. This keeps everything running smoothly whilst upgrading your operating system or rolling out a new SAP support package stack.

About the Author

Renee Briggs is a senior BI systems administrator for LaunchWorks.com, a Stone Door Group Company. Stone Door Group specializes in DevOps based digital transformation of the enterprise.

About Stone Door Group

Stone Door Group is an SAP and Red Hat partner that specializes in delivering cloud native BI solutions via their LaunchBI software platform. To learn more about how we can help cloud enable your analytics, drop us a line - letsdothis@stonedoorgroup.com.