Over the past three years, Cisco has vaulted from the not only the leader in the networking industry, but they have become the number two blade vendor in the US and number three world-wide. This has caused some pause on the part of the top platform vendors in the industry.
Cisco is now making an impact on the application world as well. Last week at SAP Sapphire, the largest world-wide industry trade show for SAP in Orlando, Vishal Sikka, a member of the SAP Executive Board, specifically called out Cisco as a SAP HANA Server Platform Vendor in addition to their world-wide leadership role in the networking space. This was significant because this clearly puts Cisco in a different category as they gain market share in the SAP Application and SAP HANA space.
The result of this announcement was clearly visible at the Cisco booth at Sapphire. Cisco was an Onyx sponsor at Sapphire and demonstrated the many solutions that Cisco has with SAP. In the booth there was SAP HANA, SAP on Vblock, SAP on FlexPod, IT Process Automation, Afaria, and Precision Retail. The Cisco UCS Server Platform, Fabric Extender and Nexus are the basis for all these solutions with SAP. The result is Lower Total Cost of Ownership on a standardized x86 platform.
Cisco Unified Computing Systems (UCS) server platform continues to make significant strides in becoming a major player in the mission-critical application space, in this case SAP. UCS just claimed a fantastic benchmark using the UCS B200 on SAP Sybase ASE.
Since UCS was built from the ground up for virtualization, not only will its virtues lend itself to speed as evidenced by the SAP SD benchmark , UCS will also significantly lower operating costs in the process as evidenced by an external case study with TUI Travel or HotelsBeds out of Spain. Read and downlaod here the case study
Cisco has also been running a comprehensive set of world-wide SAP HANA Roadshows. They have consisted of 11 road shows in the US, 6 road shows in EMEAR, 3 road shows in Canada, and 1 in APJC. As a result, the demand for SAP HANA on the Cisco UCS Server Platform has dramatically increased.
Cisco now has over 50 customers running SAP HANA on Cisco UCS Servers. Some of these customers vary from very large service provider companies, medical device firms, large international food companies, and world wide travel companies. The size of the server used for these customers vary from small rack mount servers (Cisco UCS C260), to medium configurations (Cisco C460) to larger installs that take advantage of the Cisco Blade Server Technology (Cisco B440). All of these servers are certified for SAP HANA and are currently available on the SAP Product Availability Matrix (PAM).
You can see this investment in the Cisco booth #1412 at SAP Sapphirefrom May 14-16 in Orlando, Florida. Look forward to seeing you there
For more information on the Cisco SAP partnership , visit also our website .
Cisco Introduces IT Process Automation for SAP HANA
Cisco and SAP are again flexing their partnership muscles with another joint endeavor. This week Cisco announced the general availability of Cisco IT Process Automation for SAP HANA. This software automates key aspects of SAP HANA management, enabling customers to transition to SAP HANA smoothly and manage it more efficiently once adopted.
Cisco ITPA for SAP HANA saves SAP administrators time and makes it easier for them to manage the solution because of its unique and powerful capabilities. Gone are the days of reactive monitoring solutions. Cisco ITPA for SAP HANA combines a knowledge base of SAP HANA best practice operations with automated corrective actions, which enable it to fix problems before they can impede the business. No other product on the market does this.
Cisco ITPA for SAP HANA is essential for any company deploying SAP HANA because it:
· Helps companies implement SAP HANA best practices right from the start
· Performs system and infrastructure health checks for increased availability and better user experience
· Performs automated corrective actions, with IT checkpoints and full audit tracking
· Enables full management visibility across SAP HANA operations
· Automates routine operations tasks for SAP HANA
· Enhances low-touch plug-and-play SAP HANA operations
When implemented along with other Cisco ITPA automation packs, Cisco ITPA for SAP HANA makes it possible for companies to introduce SAP HANA while lowering administration costs, freeing time to focus on expediting new services for the enterprise.
Customers can purchase this product through Cisco or SAP.
Can SAP HANA on the Cisco UCS server platform think faster than you? Almost!!!
SAP HANA claims to process millions of rows of structured and unstructured data at the speed of thought. This used to seem preposterous. Today it is really happening. Installed on the Cisco UCS server platform, customers are beginning to recognize the power of SAP HANA as a key component of their Data Centers.
If you own a retail store and you want to smoke your competition on a certain product, you might want to lower your price to a certain level, in order to gain that advantage over your competitor. But how low do you drop the price? You don’t want to drop it so low, that you use it as a loss leader, but you want to make it so attractive that customers cannot walk by your store without buying it. It used to take days to run and rerun these types of scenarios. You could run one scenario at a particular price and get the answer back in several days. If that was not good enough, you may have to run it again, which would take another several days. Now with SAP HANA on the Cisco UCS server platform, you can run these same scenarios, crunching millions of rows of data, in just seconds.
Can you think faster than that? I don’t think so.
Not only can you smoke your competitor because you now have critical business information at your fingertips, in a matter of seconds, but using SAP HANA on Cisco UCS, you can do so at a price point that is 30-35% less than other platforms.
Why is that? It all comes down to the deployment of the blades, service profiles, virtual NICS, and a centralized management system that comes with all Cisco UCS servers. Oil and Gas companies are using this solution, Medical Supply Companies are using this solution, Storage Vendors are using this solution, Food Distribution companies are using this solution and Transportation and Rail companies have adopted SAP HANA.
Whereas European Rail Companies are moving you from place to place at 200 miles and hour, SAP HANA and Cisco UCS, are moving you from place to place at the speed of thought. Almost!!!!!!
Yesterday I met Michael Missbach, Phd., who is the head of the SAP Competence Center based in Germany.
Michael who is the author and co-author of numerous books on the SAP environment .
He used to be a senior consultant at the SAP-HP International Competence Center in Walldorf, Germany, specializing in IT infrastructure solutions. He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering and a doctorate in material science from the University of Karlsrühe, Germany.
Dr. Michael Missbach in-depth knowledge of the SAP environment is providing a tremendous value to the Cisco team running SAP on Cisco Unified Computing Center, providing more insights of the SAP Customers care abouts , and better understanding of the SAP HANA technology .
Today he will talk at 12:00 pm EST in the “analytics” area at SAPPHIRE 2012
Abstract: This session offers real world experiences with HANA implementation and first hand results for HANA scale-out solutions on the Cisco Unified Computing System with Intelligent Intel® Xeon® Processors server platform and why this solution offers a competitive advantage to your business. Learn what customers are really asking for in regard to HANA and why it is important to provide the right solution to lower TCO.
I asked him to share with us what we can expect from this sessions
