HPE, still playing fast and loose with the facts about SAP HANA on Power
Writing a blog post would be so much simpler if IBM permitted me to lie, but that is prohibited. That is clearly not the case at HPE, see this recent blog post: https://community.hpe.com/t5/Alliances/SAP-HANA-runs-best-on-x86-Period/ba-p/6971659#.WZxDPa01TxW
It contains so many lies, it is hard to know where to start. Let’s start with the biggest one. “There is a 10x difference in performance KPIs required by SAP to certify and ship a HANA appliance vs. a solution certified for TDI only.”
You really have to love those lies that are refuted by such easily obtained facts from documentation that is apparently not used by HPE called SAP Notes. SAP note 1943937 specifically states: “All HWCCT tests of appliances (compute servers) certified with scenario HANA-HWC-AP SU 1.1 or HANA-HWC-AP RH 1.1 must use HWCCT of SAP HANA SPS10 or higher or a related SAP HANA revision” Interesting that appliances must use the same HWCCT test of SAP KPIs as used by TDI. So, based on HPE’s blog post, does this mean that if an HPE appliance compute server is used for TDI, it will perform 10x worse than if it is used in an appliance? That would imply that the secret sauce of HPE’s appliances is so incredible that it acts like a dual turbocharger on a car!
The blog post goes on to say “It (Power) ‘works’ … but it is just held to a ~10x lower standard without any of the performance optimizations attributed to SAP’s co-innovation efforts with Intel.” OK, two lies in one sentence, obviously going for the gold here. As we have already discussed the 10x lie, let us just look at the second one, i.e. performance optimizations. Specifically, the blog calls out AVX and TSX as the performance optimizations for the Intel platform. They are correct, those optimization don’t work on Power as, instead of AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions), Power has two fully symmetric vector pipelines called via VSX (Vector-Scalar eXtensions) instructions which HANA has been “optimized” to use in the same manner as AVX. And TSX, a.k.a. Transactional System Extensions, came out after POWER8 Transactional Memory, but HANA was optimized for both at the same time.
The blog post also stated “Intel E7v3 CPUs for HANA (TSX and AVX) that offer a 5x performance boost over older Intel E7 or Power 8 CPUs.“ Awesome, but where is the proof behind this statement? Perhaps a benchmark? Nope, not one published on SAP’s site, even the old SD benchmark backs up this claim (which shows, by the way, almost the same SAPS/core for E7v3 vs. E7v2 and way less than POWER8, but maybe that benchmark does not use those optimizations? Ok, then maybe the sizing certifications show this? Nope. A 4 socket CS500 Ivy Bridge system (E7v2) is published as supporting up to a 2TB SoH solution where a 4 socket CS500 Haswell systems (E7v3) is shown as supporting up to a 3TB SoH solution. So far, that is just 50% more, not 5x, but perhaps HPE can’t tell the difference between 0.5 and 5.0? But didn’t Haswell have more cores per socket? Yes, it had 18 cores/socket vs. 15 cores/socket for IvyBridge, i.e. 20% more cores/socket. So, E7v3 based systems could actually host 25% more memory and associated workload than E7v2 based systems per core. Of course, I am sure that the switch from DDR3 to DDR4 from E7v2 to E7v3 had nothing to do with this performance improvement. So, 5x performance boost is clearly nothing but a big fat lie.
And the hits just keep coming. The next statement is just lovely “Naturally, this only matters if you want to be able to call SAP support to get help on nuance performance issues impacting your productive SAP HANA deployment.“ I guess he is trying to suggest that SAP won’t help you with performance problems if you are running any TDI solution including Power Systems, except this is contradicted by all of the SAP notes about TDI and HWCCT, not to mention the experience of customers who have implemented HANA on Power.
“IBM wants to be the king of legacy businesses like mainframe and UNIX. That’s pretty much the only platforms they have left. So now that they can state that HANA “works” on Power, they can make a case to their AIX/Power customers that they should stay on AIX/Power for SAP and HANA and avoid what IBM claims to be an “oh so painful’ Unix to x86 migration.“ HPE, suggesting that you can run HANA on AIX/Power since HANA only runs on Linux/Power, might not be telling a lie but might just be expressing ignorance and the inability to use sophisticated and obscure search tools like Google. As to the suggestion of IBM having said that a SAP heterogeneous migration is “oh so painful” ignores the fact that we have done hundreds of such migrations from HP/UX among others. Perhaps the author is reflecting HPE’s migration experience with what every other migration provider sees as very well understood and fully supported SAP process. As to IBM’s motivation, HPE is trying to suggest that IBM is only in the HANA business to support its legacy SAP on AIX/Power. Just looking at the thriving business of HANA on Power, over 850 HANA on Power wins since becoming a supported HANA provider, might suggest otherwise. How about the complete absence of any quotes, marketing materials or other documentation that shows that IBM is in this market for any other reason than it is the future of SAP and IBM intends to remain a premier partner of SAP and our customers?
Taken together, this blog post shows that HPE must be using the advanced Skylake processors in their Superdome-X and MC990 X (SGI UV 300H) to generate lies at an astounding pace. Oh wait, I forgot (not really) that HPE still has not announced support for Skylake in their high end systems and is only certified for BWoH, not SoH or S/4HANA, with Skylake and only up to 3TB at that, … one month after announcement of Skylake! Wow, I guess this shows simultaneously how much their pace of technology innovation has slowed down and partnership with SAP has decreased!
And, let’s end on their last amazing sentence, “Every day you put off that UNIX to x86 migration, you are running HANA in a performance degraded mode with production support limitations.“ Yes, HPE seems to be recommending that you migrate your UNIX based systems, i.e. those running Business Suite 7, to x86. In other words, do two migrations, once from UNIX to x86 and a second to HANA. Sounds like a totally disconnect from business reality! As to the second part of that sentence, it simply does not make sense, so we are not going to attribute that to a lie, but to a simple logic error.
What are we to conclude about this blog post? Taken on its own, it is a rogue employee. Taken with the deluge of other similar misleading and outright lies emerging from HPE and we see a trend. HPE has gone from being a well-respected systems supplier to a struggling company that promotes and condones lies and hires less than competent individuals to propagate misinformation. Sounds more like a failing communist state than a company worthy of a customer’s trust.
Intel Skylake has been announced and the self-described HANA “market leader”, HPE, is curiously trailing the field
Intel announced general availability of their “Skylake” processor on the “Purely” platform last week. Soon after, SAP posted certified HANA configurations for Lenovo and Fujitsu up to 8 sockets and 12TB memory for Suite on HANA (SoH) and S/4HANA (S4) and 6TB for BW on HANA (BWoH). They also posted certified configurations for Dell and Cisco up to 4-socket systems with 6TB SoH/S4 and 3TB BWoH. The certified configurations posted for HPE, which describes itself as the HANA market leader, only included up to 4-socket/3TB BWoH configurations, no configurations for SoH/S4 and nothing for any larger systems.
It is still early and more certified configurations will no doubt emerge over time, but these early results do beg the question, “what is going on with HPE?” I checked the most recent press releases for HPE and they did not even mention the Skylake debut much less their certification with SAP HANA. If you Google using the keywords, HPE, Skylake and HANA, you may find a few discussions about HPE’s acquisition of SGI and my previous blog posts with my speculation about Superdome’s demise and HPE’s misleading of customers about this impending event, but nothing from HPE.
So, I will share a little more speculation as to what this slow start for HPE in the Skylake space might portend.
Option 1 – HPE is not investing the funds necessary to certify all of their possible configurations and SoH/S4. Anyone that has been involved with the HANA certification process will tell you that it is very time consuming and expensive. As you can see from HPE’s primary Intel based competitors, they are all very eager to increase their market share and acted quickly. Is HPE becoming complacent? Are they having financial restrictions that have not been made public?
Option 2 – HPE’s technology limitations are becoming apparent. The Converged System 500 is based on Proliant DL560/580 systems which support a maximum of 4 sockets. These systems utilize Intel QPI and now UPI interconnect technologies, i.e. no custom ASICs or ccNUMA switches are required. The CS900 based on the Superdome X and the MC990 X (SGI UV 300H) utilize custom ASICs and, in the case of Superdome X, a set of ccNUMA switches. As I speculated previously, Superdome X is probably at end of life, so it may never see another certification on SAP’s HANA site. As to the MC990 X, the crystal ball is a bit more hazy. Perhaps HPE is trying to shoot for the moon and hit a number beyond the 20TB for SoH/S4 that is currently supported meaning a much longer and more complex set of certification tests. Or perhaps they are running into technical challenges with the new ASICs required to support UPI.
Option 3 – MC990 X is going to officially become HPE’s only high end offering to support Skylake and subsequent processors and Superdome X is going to be announced at end of life. If this were to happen, it would mean that anyone that had recently purchased such a system would have purchased a system that is immediately obsolete.
If Option 1 turns out to be true, one would have to concerned about HPE’s future in the HANA space. If Option 2 turns out to be true, one would have to be really concerned about HPE’s future in the HANA space. And if Option 3 turns out to be true, why would HPE be waiting? The answer may be inventory. If HPE has a substantial inventory of “old” Broadwell based blades and Superdome X chassis, they will undoubtedly want to unload these at the highest price possible and they know that the value of obsolete systems after such an announcement would drop into the below cost of manufacturing range.
So, you pick the most likely scenario. Worst case for HPE is that they are just a little slow or shooting too high. Worst case for customers is that they purchase a HANA system based on Superdome X and end up with a few hundred thousand dollar boat anchor. If you work for a company considering the purchase of an HPE Superdome X solution, you may want to ask about its future and, if you find it is at end of life, select another solution for your SAP HANA requirements.
Inevitably, more systems will be published on SAP’s certification page, https://www.sap.com/dmc/exp/2014-09-02-hana-hardware/enEN/appliances.html#viewcount=100&categories=certified%2CIntel%20Skylake%20SP . When that happens, especially if any of my predictions turn out to be true or if they are all wrong and another scenario emerges, I will post an update.
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