Azure Recordsdata supplies absolutely managed file shares within the cloud that you could entry from anyplace utilizing customary protocols similar to Server Message Block (SMB) or Community File System (NFS).
Since asserting the overall availability of assist for the Community File System (NFS) v4.1 protocol again in December 2021, we’ve got seen prospects leveraging this functionality for all kinds of vital use instances together with enterprise useful resource planning (ERP) options, improvement and take a look at environments (devops), content material administration methods (CMS), and mission crucial workloads like SAP. We’re thrilled to share that SAP ECS has adopted Azure Recordsdata NFS because the default selection for deploying SAP NetWeaver servers and SAP HANA shared directories on Azure. SAP’s choice to incorporate Azure file shares is a testomony to the truth that they’re a cheap selection for mission crucial workloads requiring excessive efficiency and excessive availability. We’ve additionally continued to hearken to buyer suggestions and are very excited to announce a number of extremely anticipated options, together with a 99.99 p.c uptime SLA, snapshot assist, and nconnect.
NFS Azure file shares are actually the default possibility for SAP Enterprise Cloud Companies (ECS) deployments
Azure file shares present the performance, efficiency, and reliability required to maintain your SAP purposes operating easily. Being a totally managed service brings simplicity and extra price effectiveness than options, similar to constructing NFS cluster (DRDB) file shares, particularly when contemplating redundancy. SAP and Microsoft partnered to carefully validate using Azure Recordsdata in high-availability deployments for Azure SAP RISE, the place it’s now provided by default for deployment of SAP NetWeaver servers and SAP HANA shared directories. We’re excited that SAP themselves have chosen Azure Recordsdata to assist energy most of the world’s largest and most complicated workloads.
“Partnering with Microsoft and the Azure Recordsdata staff was very productive. Our groups labored intently collectively to allow new extremely obtainable options round NFS shares and decrease price constructions. The zonal replication capabilities that Azure Recordsdata supplies strengthen and simplify SAP RISE architectures on Azure past what we might deploy with every other expertise on Azure. We count on to cut back prices each straight and not directly through the use of this service. With the decrease time-to-market now achieved with this simplified structure, we will bootstrap extra deployments moderately shortly and earn new enterprise.”—Lalit Patil, Chief Know-how Officer, SAP Enterprise Cloud Companies.
To be taught extra about operating SAP workloads on Azure, see the next articles:
Moreover, you should utilize Azure Middle for SAP Options (Preview) to deploy a extremely obtainable S4/HANA system with NFS on Azure Recordsdata.
One such buyer, Germany-based Munich Re benefited from utilizing Azure Recordsdata NFS with its SAP deployments. Munich Re, one of many world’s main insurance coverage corporations, runs one of many largest SAP environments in Europe. Munich Re took a eager curiosity in Azure Recordsdata and has been utilizing it in manufacturing for the reason that NFS protocol grew to become usually obtainable. With Azure Recordsdata, they’ll shortly deploy a file share with just some clicks. It used to take Munich Re from 4 to 6 months so as to add sources, however with SAP on Azure and their infrastructure automation, they’ll now do it inside an hour.
“We love how simple Azure Recordsdata is to make use of and handle, and we actually respect its interoperability with different Azure providers. And having a totally managed service eliminates the burden and prices of managing NFS servers.”—Matthias Spang, Technical Architect for SAP Options, Munich Re.
Excessive-availability (HA) SAP options want a extremely obtainable file share for internet hosting sapmnt, transport, and interface directories. You should utilize Azure Recordsdata premium NFS with availability units and availability zones.
Determine 1 – Excessive-availability (HA) SAP NetWeaver system with Azure Recordsdata.
A extremely obtainable SAP HANA system in a scale-out configuration with HANA system replication (HSR) and Pacemaker wants shared file methods for storing shared information between all hosts in an SAP HANA system. You should utilize Azure Recordsdata premium NFS for satisfying this usecase.
Determine 2 – Azure Recordsdata NFS for SAP HANA scale-out system with Pacemaker cluster. Word: Azure Recordsdata is used for /hana/shared and never used for storing DBMS or logs.
New SLA of 99.99 p.c uptime for Azure Recordsdata Premium Tier is mostly obtainable
In right this moment’s world of digital enterprise, downtime just isn’t an possibility. Azure Recordsdata now gives a 99.99 p.c SLA per file share for its Premium Tier. The brand new 99.99 p.c uptime SLA applies to all Azure Recordsdata Premium shares, no matter protocol (SMB, NFS, and REST) or redundancy sort (Domestically Redundant Storage (LRS) or Zonally Redundant Storage (ZRS)). This implies that you could profit from this SLA instantly, with none configuration adjustments or additional prices.
With this new SLA, you might be assured that your knowledge is very obtainable. If the provision drops under the assured 99.99 p.c uptime, you’re eligible for service credit.
Moreover, Azure Recordsdata gives a ZRS answer with twelve 9’s sturdiness. This implies you possibly can belief that your knowledge is secure, even within the face of {hardware} failures or different sudden occasions.
With the brand new 99.99 p.c uptime SLA for Azure Recordsdata Premium Tier, you possibly can have a excessive degree of confidence and assurance that your knowledge is at all times obtainable. By leveraging the newest in cloud applied sciences and options, Azure Recordsdata delivers a dependable and sturdy storage answer that may meet the wants of even probably the most demanding workloads.
Snapshot assist for NFS file shares (Preview)
Whereas it’s uncommon, knowledge corruption or unintentional deletion can occur to anybody, and you might want to be protected. File share snapshots shield your knowledge from these occasions by guaranteeing you’ve got a crash constant dataset to get well from. File share snapshots seize the share state at a time limit, are immutable (read-only), and are differential (delta copies to maintain your TCO low).
Snapshots are simple to handle and use in Azure Recordsdata. The creation of a snapshot is instantaneous. As soon as created, you possibly can handle snapshots utilizing the Azure portal, REST API, Azure CLI, or PowerShell. Enumeration of snapshots, searching of file or folders, and copying of information is supported from inside the NFS purchasers below the “.snapshots” folder which is current on the root of the mountpath.
Determine 3 – Checklist, browse, and replica out of your snapshots from any related consumer.
Knowledge safety is a key enterprise promise and a compliance requirement for a lot of organizations. To this point, our prospects have fulfilled this requirement by doing their very own replication or utilizing one among our backup companions to repeat the first knowledge from the share to a different location. You should utilize snapshots to reinforce these options. By replicating from snapshots as a substitute of the first share, you possibly can make sure that the info being copied is all from a selected time limit.
Are you as excited as we’re? In that case, you possibly can fill out the enrollment type to get knowledgeable of the provision of this preview characteristic within the area of your selection.
Boosting per-client efficiency with NFS nconnect is mostly obtainable
Azure Recordsdata just lately introduced assist for nconnect on its NFS shares. Through the use of nconnect, you possibly can enhance a multi-core consumer’s throughput and IOPS as much as 4 occasions with out making any adjustments to the app itself. Beforehand, purposes had been restricted by the bandwidth of a single core utilizing a single TCP connection. Nconnect is right for throughput-intensive situations like knowledge ingestion, analytics, machine studying, devops, ETL pipelines, batch processing, and extra. For instance, monetary providers performing Worth at Threat (VaR) Monte Carlo or machine studying mannequin knowledge simulations operating on the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with Azure Recordsdata can now carry out extra danger calculations with fewer consumer machines of their AKS node swimming pools. With the parallelism that nconnect permits, you possibly can full your throughput-intensive simulations in much less time, permitting you to scale down the compute sources sooner and scale back general TCO.
Along with delivering increased efficiency, nconnect enhances fault tolerance by permitting the consumer to change to an alternate TCP connection within the occasion of a connection failure. By enabling the consumer to make use of a number of connections, nconnect supplies higher flexibility and cargo balancing for machines with a number of community paths.
Utilizing nconnect is easy. For instance, to make use of 4 channels on a Linux VM, merely add “-o nconnect=4” parameter to the mount command. You should utilize nconnect along with your AKS cluster as a persistent quantity through the use of the identical Azure Recordsdata NFS CSI driver and including “-nconnect=4” below “mountoptions”. Nconnect is out there in all areas the place NFS is supported at no extra price. Please go to our product web page to be taught extra.
As much as 1100 MiB/s single consumer write throughput
As much as 1700 MiB/s single consumer learn throughput
Be taught extra
Learn to create an NFS Azure file share.
Take a look at NFS FAQ for extra info.
With these new options, Azure Recordsdata NFS is poised to energy much more of the world’s largest and most complicated workloads, delivering superior performance, efficiency, and reliability to prospects throughout a spread of industries and use instances. We consider that the brand new 99.99 p.c SLA, snapshot capabilities, and better efficiency with nconnect will unlock many extra use instances and purposes. We’re excited to see the way you benefit from these new capabilities!
If in case you have a characteristic request or suggestions, don’t hesitate to succeed in out to the Azure Recordsdata staff by emailing azurefiles@microsoft.com or filling out this type.