SAP S/4HANA on AWS

July 2016
Amazon Web Services – SAP S/4HANA on AWS July 2016

© 2016, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Notices
This document is provided for informational purposes only. It represents AWS’s
current product offerings and practices as of the date of issue of this document,
which are subject to change without notice. Customers are responsible for
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this document is not part of, nor does it modify, any agreement between AWS
and its customers.

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Contents
Abstract 3
AWS Overview 4
AWS Global Infrastructure 4
AWS Security and Compliance 4
AWS Products and Services 5
SAP on AWS 6
AWS and SAP Alliance 6
SAP Support on AWS 6
SAP S/4HANA on AWS 7
Benefits of Running SAP S/4HANA on AWS 7
Licensing 8
Managed Services for SAP on AWS 8
SAP S/4HANA Deployment on AWS 9
Network Connectivity 10
Backup and Recovery 11
AWS Infrastructure Pricing 11
Partner with AWS 12
Additional Information 12
Contributors 13
Notes 13

Abstract
Companies of all sizes can take advantage of the many benefits provided by
Amazon Web Services (AWS) to achieve business agility, cost savings, and high
availability by running their SAP environments on the AWS Cloud.

This guide is intended for SAP customers and partners who want to learn about
the benefits and options for running SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP
S/4HANA), on-premise edition on AWS, and who want to know how to
implement and operate their SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition environment
effectively on AWS.

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AWS Overview
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand computing resources and
services in the cloud, with pay-as-you-go pricing. You can run a server on AWS
and log in, configure, secure, and operate it just as you would operate a server in
your own data center.

Using AWS resources for your compute needs is like purchasing electricity from a
power company instead of running your own generator, and it provides many of
the same benefits:
 The capacity you get exactly matches your needs.

 You pay only for what you use.

 Economies of scale result in lower costs.

 The service is provided by a vendor who is experienced in running large-

scale compute and network systems.

AWS Global Infrastructure

The AWS Cloud infrastructure is built around Regions and Availability Zones. A
Region is a physical location in the world where AWS has multiple Availability
Zones. Availability Zones consist of one or more discrete data centers, each with
redundant power, networking, and connectivity, and housed in separate facilities.
These Availability Zones offer you the ability to operate production applications
and databases that are more highly available, fault-tolerant, and scalable than
would be possible from a single data center.

For additional information about AWS Regions and Availability Zones, see the
AWS Global Infrastructure webpage.1

AWS Security and Compliance

The AWS Cloud security infrastructure has been architected to be one of the most
flexible and secure cloud computing environments available today. Security on
AWS is very similar to security in your on-premises data center, but without the
costs and complexities involved in protecting facilities and hardware. AWS
provides a secure global infrastructure, plus a range of features that you can use

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to help secure your systems and data in the cloud. To learn more about AWS
security, visit the AWS Security Center.2

AWS compliance enables customers to understand the robust controls in place at

AWS to maintain security and data protection in the cloud. AWS engages with
external certifying bodies and independent auditors to provide customers with
extensive information regarding the policies, processes, and controls established
and operated by AWS. To learn more about AWS compliance, visit the AWS
Compliance Center.3

AWS Products and Services

AWS provides an extensive set of computing resources and services. The
following sections provide an overview of the AWS services that are most relevant
for the implementation and operation of SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition.

Compute
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides scalable computing
capacity in the AWS Cloud.4 Amazon EC2 offers a wide selection of virtual
machine configurations that support different CPU, memory, network, and I/O
capabilities. For running SAP systems, Amazon EC2 provides virtual machine
instances for the Microsoft Windows Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
(SLES), and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) operating systems.

Storage
Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) provides persistent block-level
storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 instances.5 Amazon EBS volumes are
highly available and reliable storage volumes that can be attached to any running
instance. Amazon EBS volumes that are attached to an Amazon EC2 instance are
exposed as storage volumes that persist independently from the lifetime of the
instance. Amazon EBS volumes are designed for 99.999% availability.

Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides access to reliable, fast, and
inexpensive data storage infrastructure.6 Amazon S3 stores data objects
redundantly on multiple devices across multiple facilities. This service provides
highly available and highly durable backup storage for your SAP systems on
AWS.

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Networking
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) enables you to define a virtual
network in your own logically isolated area within the AWS Cloud.7 Your
Amazon VPC closely resembles a traditional network that you might operate in
your own data center, but it includes the benefits of using the AWS scalable
infrastructure. You can connect your Amazon VPC to your own corporate data
center to provide seamless integration between on-premises users and systems,
and SAP systems in your Amazon VPC.

Deployment and Management

The AWS Management Console provides a simple and intuitive web-based
interface for provisioning and managing AWS resources.8

AWS CloudFormation gives you an easy way to create and manage a collection of
related AWS resources, and provision and update them in an orderly and
predictable fashion.9

SAP on AWS
AWS and SAP Alliance
SAP has been an AWS customer since 2008 and uses the AWS infrastructure for
a variety of use cases and scenarios. In early 2011, AWS became an SAP Global
Technology Partner. Since then, AWS has worked closely with SAP to test and
certify the AWS Cloud for SAP solutions.

SAP Support on AWS

Supported Solutions
AWS and SAP have worked together to test and certify the following SAP
solutions to be fully supported for production deployment on AWS.

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 SAP Business Suite  SAP BusinessObjects

 SAP HANA  SAP Afaria
 SAP Business All-in-One  SAP Mobile Platform
 SAP NetWeaver  SAP Business One
 SAP ASE  SAP Hybris
 SAP S/4HANA  SAP Replication Server
 SAP IQ  SAP Rapid Deployment Solutions

For additional information about SAP solutions supported on AWS, see SAP Note
1656099 (SAP Support Portal login required).10

SAP Support
SAP provides the same level of product support for SAP systems running on AWS
that it does on any other infrastructure. Full support of SAP production systems
running on AWS requires the AWS Business or Enterprise support plan.

For additional information about AWS Support, see

http://aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/.

For additional information about SAP support on AWS, see SAP Note 1656250
(SAP Support Portal login required).11

SAP S/4HANA on AWS

SAP S/4HANA is a real-time ERP suite for digital business. It is built on the
advanced in-memory platform, SAP HANA, and offers a personalized, consumer-
grade user experience with SAP Fiori User Experience (UX) design principles.
For detailed information about SAP S/4HANA, see the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise
edition documentation on the SAP Help Portal.12

Benefits of Running SAP S/4HANA on AWS

Lower TCO ― Benefit from the economies of scale and efficiencies provided by
AWS. Pay for only the compute, storage, and other resources you use. Read about
savings of up to 71% compared to running SAP systems on premises.13

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Replace CapEx with OpEx ― Start an SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition

implementation on AWS without any upfront cost or commitment for compute,
storage, or network infrastructure.

Agility and speed ― Provision all the required infrastructure for an SAP
S/4HANA, on-premises edition implementation in minutes compared to waiting
weeks or months to procure and deploy traditional infrastructure.

Scalability ― Provision only the amount of infrastructure and memory initially

required for your SAP S/4HANA system, and then scale the infrastructure and
memory as your requirements increase over time.

Licensing
SAP Licenses
SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition on AWS uses a bring-your-own-software and
bring-your-own-license (BYOL) model for the SAP software components. You
can use new or existing SAP licenses for systems running on Amazon EC2.

Operating System Licenses

Operating system licenses are included in the hourly fee of Amazon EC2
instances.

Managed Services for SAP on AWS

AWS provides you the flexibility to choose between infrastructure services only or
a complete managed service. For the primary AWS services required for an SAP
environment, AWS manages the underlying infrastructure up to the virtualization
layer. Maintenance and administration of the operating system and any
applications and databases running above the operating system are managed by
the customer or by a partner.

If you require a managed service for your SAP S/4HANA environment on AWS,
AWS has a network of partners that can provide a fully managed hosting service.
To learn more about services for SAP on AWS and to find an SAP partner within
the AWS Partner Network, see http://aws.amazon.com/sap/find-partners/.

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Figure 1 depicts the two most common scenarios for managing SAP solutions on
AWS:

Figure 1: Options for Managing SAP Solutions on AWS

SAP S/4HANA Deployment on AWS

Standard Deployment
SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition can be easily deployed on the AWS Cloud
using the standard SAP S/4HANA installation process. AWS provides innovative
deployment options for the HANA components of an SAP S/4HANA system that
can greatly reduce the effort and time to deploy a new environment.

SAP HANA Database

To simplify and streamline the SAP HANA database installation, we have created
the SAP HANA Quick Start reference deployment for SAP HANA.14 This Quick
Start provides an automated process to deploy the required AWS infrastructure
and SAP HANA software components on Amazon EC2.

SAP S/4HANA NetWeaver Application Server

The NetWeaver Application Server (AS) component of SAP S/4HANA can be
installed either on the same EC2 instance as the HANA database or on a separate

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EC2 instance. To install the NetWeaver AS component on AWS, follow the

standard SAP installation procedures and tools. For help in determining the best
architecture for your requirements and installing the NetWeaver AS component,
please refer to the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition documentation on the SAP
Help Portal.

For additional guidance, also see the SAP on AWS Implementation and
Operations Guide.15

SAP S/4HANA, On-Premise Edition Trial

SAP offers a free, 30-day software trial of SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition.16
You can sign up to explore the power, flexibility, and customization options
available in SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition.

Network Connectivity
With AWS, you have multiple options to provide connectivity between your SAP
S/4HANA environment on AWS and your users, on-premises systems, and
external systems. The basis for network security and connectivity on AWS is the
Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC). Amazon VPC enables you to
provision a logically isolated section of the AWS Cloud where you can launch
AWS resources in a virtual network that you define. You have complete control
over your virtual networking environment, including selection of your own IP
address range, creation of subnets, and configuration of route tables and network
gateways.

External Connectivity Options

AWS hardware VPN – A site-to-site IPsec, hardware VPN connection between
your VPC and your remote network, which provides seamless network
connectivity for users and system integration. For more information, see Amazon
VPC Network Administrator Guide17 and Adding a Hardware Virtual Private
Gateway to Your VPC in the Amazon VPC User Guide.18

Dedicated network connection – AWS Direct Connect enables you to

establish private connectivity between AWS and your data center, office, or
colocation environment.19

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Direct Internet – Amazon EC2 instances that are running within a public
subnet can be accessed via a direct Internet connection. This option is
recommended only for test, trial, and demo systems.

Backup and Recovery

AWS provides you with the infrastructure building blocks to create a highly
durable and secure backup and recovery solution to protect your valuable data.
Backup and recovery on AWS use many of the same concepts, methods, and tools
used to back up SAP systems on traditional on-premises infrastructure. The
primary difference with backup and recovery on AWS is the media and location
used to store backups. On AWS, backups are stored in Amazon S3 and
automatically stored “offsite,” outside the Availability Zone of the system,
because data in Amazon S3 is replicated across multiple facilities within the AWS
Region. If the primary Availability Zone fails, the backup can immediately be
used to restore data to any of the other Availability Zones within the Region.

For additional information about the backup and recovery of SAP systems on
AWS, see the SAP on AWS Backup and Recovery Guide.20

AWS Infrastructure Pricing

With AWS, you pay only for what you use with no minimum fee. Amazon EC2
offers three ways to pay for instances.21 The two options most relevant for SAP
systems are:

 On-Demand Instances – Lets you pay for compute capacity by the hour
with no long-term commitments or upfront payments.

 Reserved Instances – For applications that have steady state or

predictable usage, this option can provide significant savings compared to
using On-Demand Instances.

To learn more about estimating AWS infrastructure costs for running SAP
solutions on the AWS Cloud, see the SAP on AWS Pricing Guide.22

Sample SAP S/4HANA, On-Premise Edition Pricing

The following sample configurations will help you plan for and estimate the cost
of running your SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition environment on AWS.

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Each estimate includes AWS infrastructure for:

 SAP S/4HANA PRD, QAS, and DEV landscapes

 SAP Solution Manager system
 Primary and backup storage
 Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) with VPN connection
 AWS Business support plan

PRD SAP HANA system PRD NetWeaver AS system

Instance vCPU Memory Instance vCPU Memory Monthly estimate*

type (GiB) type (GiB)

r3.8xlarge 32 244 r3.xlarge 4 30.5 $4,900

x1.32xlarge 128 1,952 r3.2xlarge 8 61.0 $18,109

* Estimate is based on the Reserved Instance 1 Year No Upfront Payment purchasing option.

For additional SAP S/4HANA on AWS pricing information, see the SAP
S/4HANA on AWS webpage.23

Partner with AWS

If you are an SAP partner, you can combine your services for SAP and the AWS
platform to provide your customers with innovative solutions to reduce their cost
and time to value. The AWS Partner Network (APN) is the global partner
program for AWS. As an APN partner you will gain access to a range of resources
and training that will enable you to better help your customers deploy, run, and
manage applications in the AWS Cloud. If you would like to learn more about the
AWS Partner Network, visit the AWS Partner Network website.24

Additional Information
For the latest information about SAP on AWS and to learn more about running
your SAP environment on AWS, see http://aws.amazon.com/sap.

If you have any questions about SAP on AWS, please contact us at

http://aws.amazon.com/sap/contact-us.

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Contributors
The following individuals and organizations contributed to this document:

 Bill Timm, solutions architect, Amazon Web Services

Notes
1 https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure/
2 http://aws.amazon.com/security/
3 http://aws.amazon.com/compliance/
4 http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/
5 http://aws.amazon.com/ebs/
6 http://aws.amazon.com/s3/
7 http://aws.amazon.com/vpc/
8 http://aws.amazon.com/console/
9 http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/
10 http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1656099
11 http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/1656250
12 https://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511
13 http://aws.amazon.com/whitepapers/vms-sap-tco/
14 http://docs.aws.amazon.com/quickstart/latest/sap-hana/
15 http://d0.awsstatic.com/enterprise-
marketing/SAP/SAP_on_AWS_Implementation_Guide.pdf
16 https://go.sap.com/cmp/oth/crm-s4hana/s4hana-on-premise.html
17 http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/NetworkAdminGuide/
18 http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonVPC/latest/UserGuide/VPC_VPN.html
19 https://aws.amazon.com/directconnect/
20 http://d0.awsstatic.com/enterprise-marketing/SAP/sap-on-aws-backup-and-
recovery-guide-v2-2.pdf
21 https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/purchasing-options/

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22http://d0.awsstatic.com/enterprise-marketing/SAP/sap-on-aws-pricing-
guide.pdf
23 https://aws.amazon.com/sap/solutions/s4hana/
24 https://aws.amazon.com/partners/

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