The document summarizes the strategic collaboration between SAP and Intel over the past decade to optimize SAP solutions for Intel platforms. It discusses how SAP tailors the development of its solutions like mySAP ERP, SAP NetWeaver, and mobile solutions to leverage Intel's microprocessors and platforms. It also describes how SAP works closely with Intel to test solutions on Intel's newest hardware before release to ensure high performance.

1. SAP optimizes solutions for Intel platforms
Working on the Future of IT
After a decade of collaboration between
SAP and Intel, the alliance has become
even more strategic. For example, Intel is
a global sponsor of the Best of SAP World
Tour 2006 and the two industry leaders
are working jointly on corporate research,
product development, customer educa-
tion, sales and marketing, and services.
In a broad sense, SAP and Intel
share a vision of the future. They
strive to educate customers about the
current and possible uses for technolo-
gy, from mobile solutions to Enterprise
Services Architecture. Together they aim
to help companies squeeze the most
value and functionality from business
processes using state-of-the-art soft-
ware and hardware with maximum
scalability, flexibility, and performance.
Intel and SAP have collaborated on
creating the industry’s first appliance-
like offering for SAP NetWeaver Busi-
ness Intelligence implementations. The
technology is preloaded on servers run-
ning on 64-bit Intel Xeon processors.
The new tool allows companies to in-
stantly access valuable business infor-
mation, such as inventory and prof-
itability data.
That type of high-performance ana-
lytics (HPA) capability enables com-
panies to improve productivity, make
more accurate sales forecasts, and in-
crease the effectiveness of marketing
campaigns. Intel and SAP have worked
together to co-develop HPA function-
ality as part of a collaborative effort to
drive the adoption of service-oriented
architecture (SOA).
The Intel-SAP collaboration extends
deeply, including research about radio
frequency identification (RFID). A
burgeoning new sensory networking
technology in growing use around the
world, RFID is a key focus for the two
companies.
SAP tailors the development of in-
frastructure and solutions specifically
for use with operating systems that use
Intel microprocessors and Intel plat-
forms. From mySAP Business Suite and
mySAP ERP, to the SAP NetWeaver
platform and SAP solutions for mobile
business, SAP’s experts target develop-
ment efforts to make the most of Intel
technology.
Intel itself focuses on “right-sizing”
its own worldwide SAP implementa-
tion. Right-sizing refers to the sophisti-
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2. cated process Intel uses to match hard-
ware platforms to the software that
runs on them.
Since 73 percent of new SAP de-
ployments run on Intel platforms, tar-
geted, joint development efforts are
critical. Just as Intel strives to create
more powerful platforms and innova-
tions beyond the processor to extend
the value of server platforms for in-
creased business agility, SAP strives to
ensure that its solutions offer superior
performance and fully exploit the pow-
er of the hardware and operating sys-
tem they run on. The goal is cost-effi-
ciency, scalability, and top-notch func-
tionality for SAP customers.
Optimization of mySAP ERP
“Another strategic advantage of the
Intel and SAP collaboration is SAP’s
ability to access the next generation of
hardware at the earliest point. So we
are able to test and do right-sizing as
early as possible,” says Rolf Mueller,
SAP’s development manager for Micro-
soft Platforms. Because of Intel’s open-
ness and commitment to collaboration,
many software developers from within
SAP and from other companies can
work with the new hardware well be-
fore it hits the market. “This ensures
that the platform is tested and that soft-
ware is tested on it,” he says.
Mueller and his team have 11 years
of direct experience working with Intel,
and during that time the development
process has changed significantly. Back
in 1995 and 1996, SAP undertook de-
velopment efforts to get SAP R/3 run-
ning on the operating systems (OSs)
of Intel-based servers to allow their
customers to leverage the price/perfor-
mance advantage of Intel’s hardware.
Today, since processor speed and
platform performance are well docu-
mented, Mueller and his team focus on
optimization for the specific operating
system. For instance, SAP requires
standard certification for Windows-
based platforms in order to ensure a
stable and scalable implementation of
the SAP software on the Windows OS.
The performance of each certified serv-
er is transparent to the customers. “We
require our hardware vendors that pro-
vide Intel-based systems to do a bench-
mark and publish this benchmark,”
Mueller says.
Even so, the process of optimization
is complex, requiring the use of sophis-
ticated code compilers supplied by the
OS vendor well before the OS is on the
market. After the OS and the code com-
piler are released to customers, it is too
late to make changes. A complicating
factor comes from SAP NetWeaver and
the Web services capabilities of SAP’s
Enterprise Services Architecture (ESA),
which mean there are many types of
technology that must be included in
the testing and tuning processes regard-
less of the OS.
It was simpler to do tuning, testing,
and optimization in the past. SAP ap-
plications are written in ABAP; in ad-
dition, today’s systems use Java and
other programming languages as well
as ABAP. “For every release of SAP we
have to analyze on three different lay-
ers: On the level of the processor; on
the level of the virtual machine; and
on the application level itself,” Mueller
says. The difficulty, he says, is in ana-
lyzing and fixing problems between the
layers, a task that is even more com-
plex as software becomes increasingly
componentized to leverage the distrib-
uted functionality of Web services.
Improving performance
But the current tools for analysis and
optimization are sophisticated and up
to the challenge. Intel supplies a tool
called the Intel VTune Performance
Analyzer that helps SAP analyze what’s
going on while the software runs on
the processor. Mueller and his team
use it to isolate and fix any performance
problems. They also compare how ABAP
statements behave differently on differ-
ent hardware. They check, for example,
whether objects are aligned according
to a 32-bit or 64-bit architecture and
different processor cache line sizes.
A separate SAP development team
handles application performance is-
sues. The standard sales and distribu-
tion (SD) benchmark is a well-known
benchmark used for analysis and tun-
ing efforts. For Mueller’s part, he and
his team concentrate on the tough job
of relating the complex technology lay-
ers underneath the applications. They
test, analyze, tweak, and repeat the
process again and again until perfor-
mance is optimal.
As the world’s adoption of 64-bit
computing accelerates, SAP, like Intel,
will focus its efforts in that direction.
Just as Intel is helping drive the market
to faster, more powerful computing
with its 64-bit Intel Itanium 2 and Intel
Xeon processors, Mueller and his team
will, over time, move away from 32-bit
infrastructure development. On the
other hand, he says, SAP will always
offer technical support for its customers
that stay with 32-bit systems. As ESA
becomes more prevalent, SAP and In-
tel will continue to collaborate and
support previous technologies while
at the same time working together to
drive adoption of ESA.
And because SAP NetWeaver is
compatible with many different data-
bases and applications, Mueller and his
team will face new development chal-
lenges. They will have to port and opti-
mize the infrastructure for different
types of platforms. That will require ad-
ditional testing, tuning, and optimiza-
tion. “SAP NetWeaver introduces for
us a new level of complexity in devel-
opment,” he says. “For the customer
however, SAP NetWeaver is easier and
more flexible than the rigid enterprise
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systems of the past.” All of the SAP
NetWeaver components run on Intel
architecture. SAP uses Intel servers for
development and solution validation,
which ensures the highest reliability of
SAP solutions when running on Intel
architecture.
Mobility matters at SAP
In addition to work to optimize mySAP
ERP, SAP developers are devoted to
the optimization of SAP Mobile Infra-
structure for both Intel Centrino mo-
bile technology and Intel XScale tech-
nology. Enterprise mobility is a hot
topic for companies that aim to pro-
vide employees not just with e-mail ac-
cess, but with access to key, corporate
information and processes that they
need to conduct business.
Howard Beader, director of solution
marketing for SAP NetWeaver Mobile,
says SAP and Intel work closely to en-
able optimized mobile solutions. “Intel
is one of our most strategic, go-to-mar-
ket partners from a mobile standpoint.
Together we look at how to move the
overall mobility market forward, and
how to ensure that we are educating
the business community about the op-
portunities,” he says.
The SAP development organization
works quite closely with Intel to ensure
that SAP’s mobile client capabilities best
leverage the Intel architectures, Beader
says. Just as in the case of mySAP ERP,
optimization of SAP NetWeaver Mobile
is a collaborative effort. The infrastruc-
ture must be tested, tweaked and tuned
to fit the OS and the microprocessor
capabilities that power the various
mobile devices such as smart phones,
PDAs, laptops, and tablet PCs.
“Intel has a mobile division where
they focus on improvement of Intel
XScale and Intel Centrino-based tech-
nology solutions. We are in close con-
tact with the experts from Intel and
have direct access to their knowledge,”
says Thorsten Stephan, development
manager for SAP NetWeaver Mobile.
“Intel provides road-map information
so that we are aware of what will come
in the future and can tailor our devel-
opment efforts,” he says. Because of
the close collaboration between the
two companies, SAP has the total in-
sight it needs to focus development
efforts now, as well as to appropriately
plan future development.
Just as in the case of mySAP ERP,
application functionality depends on
the supporting layers of technology.
All applications developed on SAP
NetWeaver benefit if SAP NetWeaver
Mobile is optimized for the specific
device type and the Intel processor
capabilities are at maximum. So SAP
and Intel work together to do all they
can to make that happen. Intel runs
tests to evaluate SAP NetWeaver Mo-
bile and it provides feedback. SAP iden-
tifies and implements performance
improvements recommended by Intel.
In the recent past, Intel added en-
hanced power management and more
reliable wireless connectivity to its
chipsets, which greatly enhance SAP
mobile solutions, Stephan says. The
ability to synchronize easily with an
enterprise network is a business-critical
task for mobile workers.
A unique development challenge for
SAP comes from the constant need to
create and tailor infrastructure to best
support faster and faster applications
while using the least possible battery
power to operate mobile devices. “In
the mobile space, products are chang-
ing very fast and all the improvements
in the operating systems and the de-
vices themselves and the chipsets are
changing a lot. It requires an ongoing,
proactive optimization processes,”
Stephan says. The back-and-forth be-
tween SAP and Intel creates a circle of
improvement. Better chipsets support
better mobile infrastructure and faster
applications. In the end, everyone ben-
efits from the collaborative approach
taken by SAP and Intel. “The faster
and more feature-rich the chipsets are,
the easier it is for SAP. Our applica-
tions benefit from the improvements to
the chipsets,” Stephan says. “And SAP
customers benefit from the entire de-
velopment process.”
Through the SAP and Intel alliance,
customers have access to integrated
end-to-end solutions, ranging from da-
ta center-class server platforms to busi-
ness desktop and mobile clients. The
end result is that customers receive op-
timized SAP solutions and SAP infra-
structure with excellent performance,
scalability and reliability on Intel plat-
forms.
Richard Page, SAP AG s