SAP Standard Application Benchmarks in Cloud Environments

In 2012 the SAP Benchmark Council Meeting finalized the rules for running SAP Standard Application Benchmarks in Cloud Environments. The rules specify how SAP Standard Application Benchmarks can be performed in Cloud Environments and what customers have to be aware of, when interpreting the benchmark results.

SAP Benchmarks in cloud environments

Things you should be aware of when interpreting SAP Standard Application Benchmarks in cloud environments results:

Shared Resources:
Network and Storage are shared resources in typical cloud offerings. There might be a impact from other cloud subscribers on the network and storage performance. Network and Storage SLAs should be defined to minimize the risk of performance impacts.

WAN Connectivity:
In a typically Cloud Offering the Customers are connected via a WAN connection (Internet or VPN) to the cloud provider computing center. The performance of the WAN is not part of the cloud provider nor SAP responsibility. Please be aware of this. The Cloud Provider should offer a tool to measure the actual WAN performance from customer location to the Cloud.

Hardware Changes:
Underlying hardware of a cloud container might change over time.

Single Computing Unit (SCU) Performance:
Some SAP applications for example SAP CRM, SAP SRM and SAP EWM benefit from a very good SCU performance in order to ensure fast response times. With changing hardware in a cloud environment there might also be changes in SCU Performance. SLAs should be defined to guarantee a constant Single Computing Unit Performance for constant application performance.

Flexibility (elasticity) of the cloud infrastructure:
How fast can infrastructure be adapted to customer needs. How big can be the largest container in the Cloud environment, needed for scaling in multitier environments. These are two questions that should be taken into account when you are planning to subscribe to a cloud offering.