SAP Application Server Consolidation on IBM System z: Opportunity, Metrics, and Case Studies

Overview

SAP customers never run just one SAP system - they run many. Part of the reason is that each production SAP system is part of a "flock" of SAP systems with associated non-production systems. These associated non-production SAP systems are for purposes such as development, test, training, and quality assurance. Customers may also have several of these flocks to service different geographies, lines of business, and functions such as SAP's Business Intelligence Warehouse (BW). More recently, SAP has been introducing "confederations" of production systems. For example, SAP is beginning to require certain infrastructure SAP systems such as Enterprise Portal, Solution Manager, and Master Data Management.