This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: Running SAP Applications on the Microsoft Platform articles.

First published on MSDN on Oct 23, 2015

We are pleased to announce certification and support for the three new SAP products on Microsoft Azure cloud:

SAP MaxDB database

SAP liveCache

SAP Content Server

SAP MaxDB Database

SAP MaxDB is one of the three databases owned by SAP. You can use the SAP MaxDB database in different context, for example as standalone database or in connection with SAP NetWeaver based products such as those using:

SAP NetWeaver ABAP technology

SAP NetWeaver Java technology

SAP NetWeaver ABAP + Java technology

SAP currently supports SAP MaxDB version 7.9 for use with SAP NetWeaver-based products in Azure.

SAP liveCache

SAP liveCache product is used in connection with SAP SCM ( Supply Chain Management ) and SAP APO ( Advanced Planner and Optimizer ), which is part of SAP SCM.

SAP SCM provides robust and advanced functionality like forecasting, capacity planning, production scheduling, and so on. All this involves the execution of huge algorithmically complex calculations. Calculation does not occur in the SAP SCM system but on a SAP liveCache system.

SAP liveCache is holding a huge amount of data in-memory, and in this way is speeding up access to the data and optimizing overall calculation process.

As SAP liveCache is an application that performs huge calculations, the amount and speed of RAM and CPU has a major influence on SAP liveCache performance.

For the Azure VM types supported by SAP ( SAP Note 1928533 - SAP Applications on Azure: Supported Products and Azure VM types ), all virtual CPU resources allocated to the VM are backed by dedicated physical CPU resources of the hypervisor. No overprovisioning (and therefore no competition for CPU resources) takes place.

Similarly, for all Azure VM instance types supported by SAP, the VM memory is backed by dedicated physical RAM resources of the hypervisor. No RAM overprovisioning takes place.

Due to the fact that you there is no overprovisioning of RAM and CPU, you obtain the best application CPU and RAM performance .

From this perspective it is highly recommended to use the new Azure D-series or DS-series (in combination with Azure premium storage) Azure VM type, or even bigger G-series or GS-series (in combination with Azure premium storage) with the latest Intel® Xeon® processor E5 v3 family .

Figure 1 : SAP liveCache has to run on an dedicated Azure VM

Although SAP SCM is a SAP NetWeaver-based product that can use any supported database, SAP liveCache is based exclusively on SAP MaxDB technology.

The minimum supported version of SAP liveCache in Azure is 7.9 .

SAP Content Server

The SAP Content Server is a separate, server-based component to store content such as electronic documents originating from different formats.

SAP Content Server is an application that runs on top of Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) , using the SAP MaxDB database or file system to store files. An optional additional component is SAP Cache Server .

Typical content is training material and documentation from Knowledge Warehouse or technical drawings originating from the mySAP PLM Document Management System.

Figure 2: SAP Content Server in Azure

SAP Content Server in Azure version is supported with version 6.50 (and higher) , running on Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server) version 8.0 (and higher). If you choose to store the documents in the SAP MaxDB database, you have to use SAP MaxDB version 7.9 .

You can find more details on SAP MaxDB for SAP NetWeaver, SAP liveCache, and SAP Content Server in the SAP DBMS in Azure Deployment Guide