This white paper details the powerful synergy between SAP's In-Memory Appliance Software (SAP HANA) and Intel's Xeon processors, specifically the E7 family. It highlights how their collaborative engineering efforts deliver superior, real-time business intelligence by optimizing performance and reliability.
The Foundation: Intel Architecture and SAP HANA
Intel's continuous advancements in server hardware, including increased memory capacity, faster processing, and efficient I/O, provide a robust foundation for SAP HANA. SAP HANA, in turn, is engineered to leverage these capabilities, enabling businesses to process vast amounts of data in real-time.
Key architectural advantages include:
- Memory: Support for large, high-speed memory subsystems.
- Processing: Enhanced multi-core capabilities and Intel Hyper-Threading Technology for parallel execution.
- I/O: Fast data transfer through technologies like Intel QuickPath Interconnect.
Co-Innovation for Peak Performance
The document outlines the co-engineering process between SAP and Intel, focusing on hardware and software optimizations. This includes leveraging features of the Intel Xeon E7 processor, such as increased core counts, larger caches, and advanced instruction sets (like SSE and Turbo Boost), to achieve significant performance gains.
SAP HANA's architecture is designed for efficient data handling, utilizing techniques like columnar storage and dictionary compression to accelerate data access and analysis.
Real-World Benefits and Future Directions
The paper illustrates the practical impact of this collaboration, citing customer examples like Hilti Corporation, which experienced drastically reduced data analysis times. It also touches upon future research in areas like non-volatile memory and hardware acceleration, promising further enhancements for SAP HANA.
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