This article is a follow-up to a series where I provide a concise, pragmatic overview of the steps involved in deploying the required infrastructure for installing your first SAP system in the cloud. This post looks into the pre-requisites (supported OS, virtual machine sizes and disk speeds, prices) and creating of the virtual machines where the SAP workload will run.
Now that we have set up all the pre-requisites, we are finally ready to start deploying a virtual machine.
But hey, wait, a server needs RAM and CPU, also hard disks. And the cost will be in direct relation to these…
One of the first question that architects and customers alike ask themselves is: How do I know what virtual machine size I need & how much it will cost?
To answer these, the following resources may be helpful to you:
- SAP HANA Azure virtual machine premium storage configurations | Microsoft Learn
- Pricing Calculator | Microsoft Azure
With the above links, you should be able to find some example sizes for your virtual machine based on your requirements and budget.
Notify me of any new publications
Please note that the range of virtual machines available in Azure is… well, huge. To help narrow the search, we can focus on a specific set of virtual machines that are certified by SAP and Microsoft. For our deployments, we should only choose from the available virtual machines that meet SAP’s stringent performance and quality requirements.
It’s important to note that not all SAP versions are certified to run on Azure. You can review the supported versions matrix for more information.
- Note: if you are wondering about how big can a virtual machine scale in Azure, there are entry-level models with as “little” as 16 vCPU and 112GB of RAM, all the way up to a mind-blowing M832ixs_v2 instance with nearly 24TB memory and 832 vCPUs.
Deployment steps for a new virtual machine are well documented by Microsoft. You can find guidance on this topic in the Quickstart section of the Azure Virtual Machines portal on Microsoft Learn.
Helpful checklist for deploying your SAP virtual machine in Azure
However, you may find the following checklist useful:
- Select the subnet where you will be deploying your virtual machine and ensure that you have a way to connect to the machine once it is deployed (such as Site to Site VPN, Point to Site VPN or Express Route).
- Review your requirements and choose a virtual machine size and disk layout that will deliver the performance you need.
- Select an Azure region and consider latency, data location regulations such as GDPR, quotas in that region, etc.
- Create a resource group, virtual machine, and associated resources using a standard naming convention.
- Use a supported operating system image from the Azure Marketplace.
- Ensure you enable accelerated networking (this is one of the requirements for SAP Azure deployments).
- Install the required extensions: Implement the Azure VM extension for SAP solutions | Microsoft Learn
In the next and last post of this series, Day 4. Post-installation tasks & closing notes, we will investigate the pre-requisites (supported OS, virtual machine sizes and disk speeds, prices) and will create the virtual machines where the SAP workload will run.
