Explore high availability and disaster recovery support of Azure for SAP workloads
As per SAP Note #1928533, the following high availability options are applicable to Azure Virtual Machine-based deployments (depending on the Azure Virtual Machine guest operating system):
- Windows Server: Microsoft provides support for the Windows Server Failover Cluster in Azure Virtual Machines, which includes replication for nonshared storage. Although SAP doesn't test its applications with this type of replication, Microsoft ensures complete transparency of this technology for SAP applications. As a result, you can run SAP applications by following the guidelines on setting up HA configurations for SAP NetWeaver applications on Azure. If you encounter any problems, contact Microsoft support directly. For more information, see the Microsoft support article Microsoft server software support for Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines.
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications: SUSE and Microsoft support the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications based cluster for HANA System Replication and SAP NetWeaver ASCS. For more information, see SAP Note #2513384, High availability of SAP HANA on Azure Virtual Machines on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, and High availability for SAP NetWeaver on Azure Virtual Machines on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications.
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux HA Add-on: “Red Hat and Microsoft support the Red Hat Enterprise Linux HA Add-On for HANA System Replication and SAP NetWeaver ASCS.” For more information, see SAP Note #2694118, High availability of SAP HANA on Azure Virtual Machines on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Azure Virtual Machines high availability for SAP NetWeaver on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
When evaluating high availability and disaster recovery requirements, you should also consider the implications of choosing between two-tier and three-tier architectures. In two-tier configurations, you install the database and NetWeaver components on the same Azure Virtual Machine to avoid network contention. In three-tier configurations, database and application components are installed on separate Azure Virtual Machines. This choice also has implications regarding sizing, since two-tier and three-tier SAPS ratings for a given virtual machine SKU differ.