SAP HANA on Intel Skylake and Broadwell Support for VMware vSphere 6.5 and 6.7

As of September 14, 2018, SAP HANA is supported for production use on Intel Skylake SP and Broadwell based server systems on vSphere 6.5 and 6.7. Please review SAP note “2393917 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 in production” for details.

The table below summarizes the current support for and SAP HANA with supported vSphere versions and Intel server processor generations. Please note that vSphere 5.5 is not listed in the table because reaches end of support in September 2018.

*Scale-Out Non-Prod. support for vSphere 6.0 on Haswell and Broadwell as of note 2315348. Skylake vSphere 6.7 Scale-Out support planned. For Scale-Out scalability please refer to following blog.

Scalability of Scale-UP SAP HANA vSphere VMs running on EXAMPLE SAP supported Intel® Skylake based ESXi host server systems:

	Intel Xeon Gold 6140 Processor	Intel Xeon Platinum 8176 Processor	Intel Xeon Platinum 8180M Processor
Read moreSizing Virtual Machines for JVM Workloads – Part 2 Max supported RAM per CPU as of Intel datasheet.	768 GB	768 GB	1536 GB
CPU Cores per socket as of Intel datasheet.	18	28	28
Max. NUMA Nodes per SAP HANA supported ESXi Server	2	8	8
0.5 Socket SAP HANA VM (Half-Socket)	1 to 4 x 9 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 384GB*	1 to 16 x 14 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 384 GB*	1 to 16 x 14 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 768 GB*
1 Socket SAP HANA VM	1 to 2 x 18 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 768 GB	1 to 8 x 28 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 768 GB	1 to 8 x 28 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 1536 GB
2 Socket SAP HANA VM	1 x 36 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 1536 GB	1 to 4 x 56 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 1536 GB	1 to 4 x 56 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 3072 GB
3 Socket SAP HANA VM	–	1 to 2 x 84 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 2304 GB	1 to 2 x 84 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 4608 GB
4 Socket SAP HANA VM	–	1 to 2 x 112 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 3072 GB*	1 to 2 x 112 physical core VM with min. 128 GB RAM and max. 6128 GB*

Please note:

The maximum size of a VM is 6 TB of RAM and 128 vCPUs. As long a SAP HANA system fits into these maximums, it can be virtualized with vSphere in a single VM. If it is larger, in terms of CPU or RAM needs, then Scale-Out or SAP HANA Data-Tiering solutions may be used to meet the requirements.

Please also note, that RAM needs to get reserved for ESXi. The RAM figures listed in the table show the theoretical RAM maximums of a VM. The RAM for ESXi needs to get subtracted from this RAM size. *The half-socket RAM figures listed in the table show even configured half-socket VM RAM sizes. The maximal RAM of a half-socket configuration can be as large as maximal RAM installed per NUMA node minus 128 GB. e.g. 768 GB per NUMA node, 1st half socket VM has 128 GB, 2nd half-socket VM can have up to 640 GB RAM.

Details about what’s supported:

What are the relevant SAP notes?
1. 2652670 – SAP HANA VM on VMware vSphere
2. 2393917 – SAP HANA on VMware vSphere 6.5 and 6.7 in production
What Intel Skylake SP based servers are supported?
1. All SAP HANA supported servers as listed on SAP HANA Hardware Directory under “Certified Appliances” or “Supported Intel Systems”
How many CPU sockets are supported?
1. Based on the SAP note referred above, Servers with 2, 4 or 8 sockets are currently supported
What SAP HANA VM sizes are supported?
1. Maximal SAP HANA VM RAM is 6 TB (6128 GB).
2. vRAM is limited by the maximum supported RAM of a physical SAP HANA supported server configuration as specified by SAP (Broadwell 4 TB, Skylake 6 TB). Please refer to the Certified SAP HANA Hardware Directory for configuration details.
Is vSphere 6.7 also supported for Intel Broadwell based servers?
1. Yes, vSphere 6.7 is supported with the same feature set and limitations as vSphere 6.5 for SAP HANA on Broadwell based server systems.
Which SAP HANA versions are supported?
1. The SAP HANA start release defined as “SAP HANA 1.0 SPS 12” includes support for later SAP HANA releases, including SAP HANA 2.0. Please upgrade as soon as as possible to SAP HANA 2.0 to get all SAP HANA implemented Skylake optimizations.