Egenera BladeFrame Reduces the Complexity of SAP
Ideas International recently completed a sponsored study of an SAP-based environment running on Egenera’s BladeFrame platform. What we found was Egenera’s ability to virtualize the entire computing environment significantly reduces the complexity and improves the utilization of computing resources within the SAP NetWeaver environment. NetWeaver is already designed to accommodate virtualization, and Egenera takes full advantage of that capability.
By virtualizing not only I/O, but processing and storage resources as well, Egenera BladeFrame allows resources to be shifted around on the fly to where they are most needed. If more resources are needed for the production server, then R&D or test resources can be quickly redeployed to meet that need. If a training system needs to be established, it can often be carved from another underused resource and the resources can be returned when no longer needed. If the server needs to be upgraded, additional blades can be deployed and seamlessly provisioned to the SAP applications. Unlike most other blade servers, provisioning on the Egenera BladeFrame is extremely fast, and requires no hardware changes.
As other blade server vendors congratulate themselves on adding the ability to virtualize I/O, Egenera has gone one step further. By virtualizing everything, Egenera has created a true service-oriented blade architecture for SAP. Not only does BladeFrame provide flexibility, it also provides mission-critical reliability, exceptional performance, and disaster tolerance. What are the disadvantages, you may ask? It’s cost. BladeFrame is perceived as a premium-priced product because Egenera bundles more functionality into the PAN Manager management software and prices it accordingly. But with BladeFrame, users can reduce the cost by purchasing a smaller system and moving resources around as needed. As a result, organizations may not need to buy a separate R&D or backup system. With all things considered, IDEAS feels Egenera’s BladeFrame offers compelling advantages for SAP users. Read the entire report.
