Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions on IBM POWER9: An open foundation to power intelligent business decisions

At Red Hat Summit 2019, we unveiled Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8, the next generation of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, which provides the scale, flexibility and innovation to drive enterprise workloads across the hybrid cloud. Even with the advancements across the platform, we recognize that there’s no singular panacea to overcome every unique IT challenge. To meet these needs, Red Hat delivers specialized offerings built around Red Hat Enterprise Linux to address specific hardware, applications and environment requirements, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 continues this strategy with the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions on IBM Power Systems (POWER9).  

Digital transformation strategies frequently emphasize using technology to make smarter decisions faster by better using existing data. The SAP portfolio of business applications and data analysis technologies, including SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver, are designed to help customers achieve this goal while also accelerating overall business processes. With Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions, organizations now have a smoother path to integrate, manage or merge heterogeneous SAP software environments, as well as operate SAP and non-SAP applications, on a single, proven and standardized platform.

The underlying compute architecture also plays a role in an organization’s ability to effectively transform themselves into a more digitally-nimble enterprise. Built on open standards, IBM POWER9 offers a powerful choice for modern architectures, especially those running next-generation AI and machine-learning (ML) applications fueled by SAP solutions. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions on IBM Power Systems provides a consistent, flexible platform across Power implementations running SAP applications, delivering a common control plane that easily integrates into broader datacenter operations.

With this offering, SAP HANA is fully certified and supported on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 on IBM POWER9 as documented in SAP notes 2777782 and 2235581. Beyond the benefits provided by the latest version of the world’s leading enterprise Linux platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 for SAP Solutions on IBM Power includes:

• the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-On for High Availability which helps to enhance the reliability of critical SAP applications.

• the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Add-On for Smart Management for more easily managing and updating large deployments of Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions.

• Red Hat Insights to help IT organizations proactively detect problems with their SAP software deployments and to best optimize the operating environment to support their business transactions and big data initiatives.

We’re pleased to bring the power, consistency and flexibility of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 to SAP applications and IBM POWER architecture. For more information, read more about the collaboration between Red Hat, IBM and SAP.

David Parker is senior director, Global Partners & Alliances, at Red Hat.