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Use of Azure Premium SSD Storage For SAP DBMS Instance

2367194 - SSD

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13 views3 pages

Use of Azure Premium SSD Storage For SAP DBMS Instance

2367194 - SSD

Uploaded by

Ahmed Abdelhady
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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2022-11-16 2367194

2367194 - Use of Azure Premium SSD Storage for SAP


DBMS Instance
Version 2 Type SAP Note
Language English Master Language English
Priority Recommendations / Additional Info Category Performance
Release Status Released for Customer Released On 22.08.2018
Component BC-OP-NT-AZR ( Windows on Microsoft Azure )

Please find the original document at https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/ 2367194

Symptom

You run an SAP application in Azure VMs with Windows or Linux operating system. Performance problems of
the SAP application point to the DBMS that also runs in Azure VMs. If the database files are located on Azure
Standard Storage, you may want to investigate whether storage latency is the main reason for your
performance problem.

Other Terms

Azure, DBMS, SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, MaxDB, SAP ASE, performance, disk latency, Standard Storage,
Premium Storage

Reason and Prerequisites

As you deployed your SAP software in Azure VMs, and used Azure Standard Storage for your database files,
you need to be aware of some limitations from the Azure STANDARD Storage side, such as:

• A single VHD can deliver a maximum of 500 IOPS. However, there is no guarantee that you will get
these 500 IOPS.
• An Azure Storage Account which uses Standard Storage throttles around 20 K IOPS.
• Latency for typical DBMS I/Os is usually in the double digit millisecond range. Depending on the size,
latencies can be even in the middle double digit millisecond range.
• You see large variations in disk latency.
• Latency for writing to DBMS transaction logs might be so high that the database throttles. This might
restrict the CPU resource consumption for the DBMS, and slow down business processing of the SAP
application.
• When using Azure Standard different VM types might not be certified for SAP usage, for example, D-
and G-Series. Only those VMs that work with Azure Premium Storage (DS- and GS-series) were
certified.

Most of the performance problems of the DBMS that are deployed in Azure VMs are related to:

• IOPS limits of Standard Storage


• High latency with Azure Standard Storage, which slows down business processing

If you have problems with the DBMS performance of SAP applications in Azure VMs and when these
problems are not related to CPU resource or memory resource shortages, check whether the usage
of Azure Premium Storage can solve the problems, before opening an SAP support ticket.

Solution

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2022-11-16 2367194

We strongly recommend using Azure Premium Storage for all SAP production systems in Azure VMs. Even
for non-production systems, which require reliable and predictable performance, you should use Azure
Premium Storage instead of Azure Standard Storage for placing your DBMS files.

Azure Premium Storage:


Was introduced in March 2015. Azure VM Series that work with Azure Premium Storage are marked by two
characters, where the second character is an ‘S’, like ‘DS’, ‘GS or DS_v2’. Azure Premium Storage is SSD-
based. Typical DBMS triggered I/O have latencies in the single digit millisecond range. Typical transaction log
writes between 4 K and 64 K need around 5 ms or less. Other advantages of Premium Storage are:

• SLAs in IOPS
• SLAs on data throughput
• SLAs on VM level for data throughput against Premium Storage
• Fast Cache on compute node to support sub millisecond read latencies
• Better deterministic I/O latencies

For more information about Azure Premium Storage, read the article: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-
us/documentation/articles/storage-premium-storage/

Remarks on the usage of and transition to Azure Premium Storage:

• Opposite to Azure Standard Storage, VHDs on Azure Premium Storage are not deployed as ‘sparse’
disks. As a result, you pay by disk size and not by net data in the VHD.
As a result, you may not want to move all your VHDs from Standard Storage to Premium Storage.
Since you initially might have chosen the number of VHDs on Standard Storage to achieve a certain
IOPS volume (n x 500), you might achieve the same IOPS with far less VHDs on Premium Storage.
• SQL Server offers to place SQL Server data files and transaction log files directly on Azure Storage
Blobs without wrapping them in VHDs (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn385720.aspx ). As
these were reasonable means to overcome the VHD limits on smaller Azure VMs, and a mean to
increase the IOPS using Azure Standard Storage, we do not recommend directly placing SQL Server
data and transaction log on Azure Storage Blobs as standard deployment method. Reasons for this
are:
○ The Premium Storage Cache, which is established on the local compute node is not used in
such a scenario.
○ The data volume throughput SLA of the VM is not honored.
○ I/O traffic goes through the network channel and not through the storage I/O channel. Especially
when using Premium Storage this can lead to disadvantages with regards to deterministic l/O
latencies.
○ A Premium Storage Account has a current size limitation of 35 TB.
○ An Azure Standard Storage Account cannot be transferred to a Premium Storage Account. If you
want to move a VHD from Standard Storage to Premium Storage, you need to copy the VHDs
between the two storage accounts.
○ For SAP application servers, often Premium Storage is not needed from a storage workload
point-of-view.
○ For Azure Standard Storage, we did not recommend any caching which is offered during
creation of VHDs. This is different to Azure Premium Storage.
○ With Azure Premium Storage, we recommend to allow read only caching for VHDs that support
DBMS data files. VHDs supporting transaction log or redo files should not use any caching with
Azure Premium Storage
○ Azure Premium Storage Read/Write caching should not be used for VHDs that support database
files.

Further scenarios or reasons for using Azure Premium Storage instead of Standard Storage:

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2022-11-16 2367194

• Backups of DBMS data files based on Premium Storage are way faster than on Azure Standard
Storage. Writing the backups to VHD destination is also significantly faster with Azure Premium
Storage.
• Using Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) in Azure.
• Usage of Azure Premium Storage for the TREX index files is mandatory.

It is not recommended using Azure Standard Storage for DBMS that are deployed on Azure and are
expected to deliver deterministic response times and throughput.

Other Components

Component Description

BC-OP-LNX-AZR Linux on Microsoft Azure

This document refers to

SAP Note/KBA Title

1928533 SAP Applications on Microsoft Azure: Supported Products and Azure VM types

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