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Hardware sizing decision tree

Hardware sizing decision tree

Performance & scalability

The sizing decision tree guides you through your next sizing project. Depending on your needs, you will find helpful information and links. If you can’t find appropriate information in the decision tree, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Sizing Decision Tree

Initial sizing

Sizing for the first time is done using a method called "Initial sizing". An initial sizing is helpful for a first projection when you have little knowledge about the scope and the usage of the solution. This sizing approach makes many assumptions about the usage and the setup of business processes.

For initial sizings, SAP offers different sizing tools and methodologies. Which tools to use strongly depends on the size of the business, the complexity of the processes, and the resource consumption of the application. These tools are described below. Choose the appropriate tool to size your solution.

Quick Sizer

I want to size a small or medium sized business. I know roughly the number of users and/or I have some throughput estimates.

Sizing guidelines

I want to size a small or medium sized business but can’t find the solution in Quick Sizer. At SAP, a sizing guideline might be a document that usually contains a T-shirt sizing or a formula. Another possibility is an offline questionnaire which is often used for complex solutions, such as Banking or Retail.

Expert sizing

I want to size a very large business with complex business structures and custom coding.

Search

I want to size a particular application for the first time. Which tool to use?

Productive sizing

Sizing for new functionality or new users is called "Productive sizing".

There are different approaches for productive sizing, depending on the stage of a solution’s lifecycle. Independent of the approach, you have to measure your current resource consumption (CPU utilization, table growth, and memory usage) in order to predict future resources. After having analyzed your system you add the extra load caused by additional users or new applications.

Presentation: Post GoingLive Sizings

I want to extend an existing application by adding new functionality

Add new functionality

Including new functions, for example, adding SAP SCM to an existing SAP ERP solution is called "Delta Sizing". For this approach you have to measure your current utilization. You can use the performance monitors of the SAP system.

Procedure:

  1. Monitor CPU utilization, table growth, and memory use:
    • CPU and memory utilization: OS Monitor, transaction ST06
    • Database growth: database monitor, transaction DB02
    • Frontend network load: statistical data records, transaction ST03N
  2. Conduct a new initial sizing. Referring to the above example, you would have to conduct a new SAP SCM sizing and add the result to your overall result.
  3. Judge whether your current hardware is sufficient or additional hardware is required.
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I want to extend an existing application by adding new users

Add new users

Extending an existing application by volume and time periods is called “Re-Sizing”. For example your want to add 100 additional users who will do the same as the current productive ones. For this approach you have to measure your current utilization. You can use the performance monitors of the SAP system

Procedure:

  1. Monitor CPU utilization, table growth, and memory use:
    • CPU and memory utilization: OS Monitor, transaction ST06
    • Database growth: database monitor, transaction DB02
    • Frontend network load: statistical data records, transaction ST03N
    • Set these in relation to a meaningful business figure, such as number of concurrent users or number of active projects.
  2. Add the additional load to the existing load.
  3. Judge whether your current hardware is sufficient or additional hardware is required.
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I want to extend an existing application by upgrading to a higher release

Upgrade sizing

The best approach is to analyze each upgrade individually and add the resulting requirements. More information about additional resources to add when upgrading from one release to the next is available in this SAP note.

Procedure:

  1. Monitor CPU utilization, table growth, and memory use:
    • CPU and memory utilization: OS Monitor, transaction ST06
    • Database growth: database monitor, transaction DB02
    • Frontend network load: statistical data records, transaction ST03N
    • Set these in relation to a meaningful business figure, such as number of concurrent users or number of active projects
  2. Add the additional load to the existing load

    Note that there are two types of upgrade: technical and functional.

    A technical upgrade is an upgrade from one release to the next higher release of a particular SAP solution (e.g. SAP R/3 Enterprise à SAP ECC 6.0). In this case, significant differences with regard to architecture and functionalities are not expected (performance will not change significantly).

    Since sizings using the Quick Sizer are based on specific scenarios and contain many assumptions, the Quick Sizer is not the appropriate tool to size technical upgrades. It is much more accurate to measure the current resource requirements of the system and adding the requirements of the new release. SAP provides upgrade notes with information about additional resources for CPU, memory, and disk when upgrading from one release to another.

    Functional upgrades are upgrades with significant changes in functionality and/or architecture (e.g. SAP CRM 2007 à SAP CRM 7.0). In this case, you can use the following sizing approach using the Quick Sizer:

    1. Analyze your system to measure the current resource requirements
    2. Create a Quick Sizer project based on the current (old) release (e.g. SAP CRM 2007)
    3. Create a Quick Sizer project based on the new release (e.g. SAP CRM 7.0)
    4. Define the upgrade factor (result quotient between both Quick Sizer projects)
    5. Extrapolate the resource requirements of your current system by this factor
  3. Judge whether your current hardware is sufficient or additional hardware is required.
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General sizing information

I would like to know by whom the sizing should be done.

I would like to better understand the link between sizing and SAP Benchmarks.

I would like to participate in a SAP sizing training: Check "ADM115" on the German country site.

Search for the following keywords in alphabetical order:

Specific sizing information

I would like to learn more about:

Expert sizing

Though Quick Sizer and sizing guidelines are helpful, they are limited in their ability to predict the changes and challenges that your business may face.

Expert sizing addresses this by using real input numbers to arrive at sizing results. Expert sizing focuses on your business application by analyzing the actual implementation and business volume flow. With expert sizing, you measure the key performance indicators of your own application as follows: You determine the most important transactions, set up and run test cases, possibly automate them for later upgrades, collect the results, and project growth based on your planned volume.

Expert sizing is recommended for large companies, complex business structures, and custom coding.

Expert sizing & methods of sizing validation

Not in scope

Quick Sizer & sizing guidelines - Configuration or landscaping
Configuration or landscaping are out of scope of Quick Sizer; for example, Quick Sizer does not give any recommendations on which software to install on which server.
 
Quick Sizer & T-shirt sizing guidelines usage for sizing of very large projects
Projects, where either SAPS, disk, and/or I/Os per second have category XXL should not be sized with Quick Sizer (For details on the categories check the presentation “Quick Sizer for Beginners” on the Quick Sizer entry screen). Contact your hardware partner or SAP.
 
Quick Sizer & sizing guidelines usage for upgrade, re-sizing
Out of scope are post go-live sizings (except delta sizing of new SAP solutions). Therefore, a report that gets real data from a live system and loads it into Quick Sizer does not make any sense.
 
Quick Sizer - Workaround for the sizing of older SAP ERP releases
If you need to size an older SAP ERP release than the one in Quick Sizer, you can use Quick Sizer anyhow and make a retro-calculation with the help of SAP Notes (778774, 107056 Quick Sizer for 4.6 C systems, etc.; inverse upgrade sizing, example see appendix).
 
Quick Sizer & sizing guidelines - Customer coding
Quick Sizer is for initial sizing only. Customer developments cannot be included in Quick Sizer tool (see also scope). Customer programs have to be measured to check the runtime behavior with appropriate performance tools (e.g. transaction STAD). The possibility exists for customers to create their own sizing guideline.
 
Quick Sizer - Sizing platform-type SAP software
SAP NetWeaver capabilities such as SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW) or SAP NetWeaver Portal have questionnaires within Quick Sizer, but have to be handled carefully: For example, it is very difficult to foresee which highly complex selects will be generated in SAP NetWeaver BW and how their performance will be. This is an example of report-natured transactions, but for the most highly generic SAP tools there are no sizing estimations. They have to be measured (e.g. with transaction STAD). Also, generic functionality, meaning applications with a large degree of automation, such as variant configuration, is out of scope of Quick Sizer.

About hardware sizing

Hardware Sizing

Sizing means determining the hardware requirements of an SAP System such as network bandwidth, physical memory, CPU power in SAPS, and I/O capacity. The size of the hardware and database is influenced by both business aspects and technological aspects. This means that the number of users using the various application components and the data load they put on the network must be taken into account.

SAPS

SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS) is a hardware-independent unit of measurement that describes the performance of a system configuration in the SAP environment. It is derived from the Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark, where 100 SAPS is defined as 2,000 fully business-processed order line items per hour.

In technical terms, this throughput is achieved by processing 6,000 dialog steps (screen changes), 2,000 postings per hour in the SD Benchmark, or 2,400 SAP transactions.

In the SD benchmark, fully business-processed means the entire business process of an order line item: creating the order, creating a delivery note for the order, displaying the order, changing the delivery, posting a goods issue, listing orders, and creating an invoice.

Sizing and Response Times

There are two different widely independent performance KPIs for systems - throughput and server response time for single processes.

Systems are designed and optimized for highest throughput or fastest response times or lowest power consumption or other features such as RAS (redundancy, availability, serviceability). The combination of characteristics with every hardware is unique.

In order to increase the awareness we introduced the new KPI Single Computing Unit performance (SCU performance). To be as hardware neutral as possible and due to virtualization technologies we use the term Single Computing Unit performance instead of single thread performance.

There are some SAP applications that benefit from a good Single Computing Unit performance. This is especially valid for SAP CRM, SAP SRM and some business processes in SAP EWM. When sizing one of these SAP applications, customers should discuss this topic with their hardware partners. Hardware partners should make sure that the Single Computing Unit performance of the planned system is sufficient to fulfill the response time expectations of their customers.

Previous versions of Quick Sizer (versions 21 - 23) showed the following message when a sizing for SAP CRM, SRM or EWM was done:

For good response times choose CPUs with a good single thread performance, especially for SAP CRM, SAP SRM, and SAP EWM.

With the introduction of the single computing unit performance classes, every sizing element is classified. The classes are A, AA, and AAA.

 

Table1: Overview about Quick Sizer single computing unit performance classes
Class Description
A This SAP solution benefits from good SCU performance.
AA This SAP solution benefits from a very good SCU performance.
AAA This SAP solution benefits from an excellent SCU performance.
The classes are aggregated along the different result levels (from sizing element to project) and within same time slots.
 
 

Table2: Aggregation of results to next result level and aggregation within same time slots

Class Description
A This SAP solution benefits from good SCU performance.
AA This SAP solution benefits from a very good SCU performance.
AAA This SAP solution benefits from an excellent SCU performance.

Example:

  • SAP ERP SCU performance A for 10am to 12 am and SAP CRM SCU performance AAA for 11am to 1pm
  • Aggregation to result level 'Project' shows:
    • For time slots: SCU performance A from 10am to 11am and AAA from 11am - 1pm
    • Total result: AAA (for 24 hours)

For more information check SAP note 1501701 and SAP insider article Do You Have the Right Hardware for Your SAP Solution? 

Sizing Process

Preconditions

  • Access to Service Marketplace
  • A valid customer number

For an initial sizing, proceed as follows:

  1. Call http://service.sap.com/quicksizing
  2. Create a sizing project with the relevant information, such as number of users
  3. Get an initial result for CPU, disk and memory
  4. Possibly apply additional guidelines on top
  5. Check for sample configurations at www.sap.com/benchmark
  6. Provide hardware vendor with Quick Sizer project name (and additional guidelines, if desired)

All sizing guidelines can be found on the SAP Service Marketplace. 

Sizing Responsibilities

The SAP business units are responsible for providing standard sizing guidelines. The hardware vendors are responsible for providing hardware that will meet the customer’s throughput and response time requirements. In between the following groups different roles may need to perform (at least an initial) sizing: SAP Sales, Consulting, the implementation partner, the customer’s IT basis team.

Virtualization

Some Statements about Sizing and Virtualization

  1. Even in a virtualized environment, sizing will remain important and necessary, e.g. to determine the size of your virtual and physical server and/or to determine peaks to plan moves of virtual systems.
  2. In a consolidated environment it is essential, to not only measure the system load within the single system. Instead it is essential to relate the measurements to the overall load situation of the physical server. Each system might be influenced by its neighbor systems, so that bottleneck investigations of a single system always require sanity checks on the other systems. This kind of effects might be found in aspects of system operation (file system performance and latency, network bandwidth and latency, CPU and memory resources).
  3. In general, with virtualization you can realize cost savings because of load balancing and system/server consolidation. Therefore, you can realize savings in terms of energy and cooling.
  4. For the right virtualization strategy you should get in touch with your hardware vendor.
  5. In a consolidated environment you can add or increase services, as long as there are still computing resources available and as long the system is still able to respond within the expected response characteristics. Since SAP systems are typically sized for peak utilization the co-location of services on the same server will often lead to a lower utilization than expected (especially, if peak situations occur at different point-in-time. This is only valid for the CPU, not for the memory. The same amount of memory that was sized for a non virtualized landscape must be also available in your virtual environment (there should be no swapping in a virtualized environment). Therefore, in a virtual environment the memory is more often the bottleneck than CPU and disk.
  6. There is an overhead through virtualization which means that more hardware is needed (for the overhead of the virtualization software), however there are possibly potential cost savings through virtualization (e.g. CPU over-commitment). First experience and measurements have shown that approx. 10% of additional resources are needed for the virtualization software. Please note that it depends heavily on the workload. The overhead might be much higher for particular cases.
  7. Virtualization is less suitable for in-memory computing applications. If a system in a virtualized environment will be moved from A to B, then it depends very much on the size and the change rate of memory. Some problems might occur if sufficient memory is not provided. In such a situation maybe even memory under-commitment would be needed. In addition, the move can need much time because the memory has to be synchronized. In extreme situations it might even not be possible to make a (fast) move, because the change rate might be bigger than the move rate.

Search

Use the search function to look for the appropriate sizing methodology for a particular SAP functionality.

  • Access Quick Sizer
  • Select “Start the Quick Sizer classic version”
  • Log-on using the following details: Customer number "188213" and project name " A"
  • Select "Display Project”
  • Use the search in the navigation area to check whether your application can be sized with Quick Sizer and/or sizing guildelines are available

Some details on the search function

The search function is version dependent, which means that it is available after you have opened a project. The search takes place within the version of the project you have opened and within the current Quick Sizer version. Parts of the navigation tree which are not found in the project version but in the current Quick Sizer version will be presented with a (New) at the beginning. You cannot access these elements directly by clicking on them. To access these elements you have to open a project with the current Quick Sizer version.
To access elements that are available in the project version click on them in the navigation tree.

The program searches for your search string across the visible and invisible parts of the Quick Sizer.(for example search string fields). The results are displayed in the navigation tree.

All result lines are marked with an information icon.

  • If the string is found in the visible parts, the search string result will be presented bold and enlarged:
  • If the search string is found in the invisible parts, the entire result line will be presented bold, enlarged, and in italics:
  • If a result only partially contains the search string, only the search string is marked bold and enlarged:

If you check the flag “Match whole word”, only words that exactly match your search criteria are displayed. For example, if you enter “HR” without the flag, you also get “… synchronized …” in your search results. If you check the flag “Match whole word”, these kinds of results will not be displayed.

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