SUSE sponsored trend study proves that Linux has become the preferred platform for SAP systems and that UNIX dramatically loses market share.

Walldorf, Germany, November 13, 2012 - REALTECH and SUSE today announced the release of a new whitepaper describing the trend from UNIX to Linux in SAP datacenter.


The whitepaper is a sequel to two earlier investigations showing that there is a strong tendency for SAP customers to move their SAP-correlated server infrastructures from all major UNIX flavors towards Linux and from all major UNIX processor architectures towards 64-bit x86. They demonstrated that this OS migration trend is connected with three major facts: important technical features, a superior price/performance ratio and the fact that operational procedures, interfaces and administrative know-how are much easier to carry over from UNIX to Linux than to Windows.

UNIX dramatically loses marketing share
The new whitepaper proves that the earlier predictions were right. Taking into account all regions, all sources, and all targets of all REALTECH migrations including a change of OS in the evaluation period, 92% of the sources come from UNIX, which has lost an overall 77% market share. On the other hand, Linux gains 56%, Windows 23%. For the x64 CPU architecture, this adds up to an overall gain in market share of 79%, with all other architectures losing at this pace. Regarding specifically Linux, 95% of all REALTECH migrations going there come from one of the three major UNIX flavors. As for the database to choose, DB2 LUW seems to be perceived as the alternative to Oracle in the world of Linux and UNIX.

Linux offers the best price performance ratio in the market
Even if you just compare identical server classes (e.g. four-socket-servers), servers running 64-bit X86 CPUs offer up to a twenty times better value than comparable UNIX ones. The whitepaper demonstrates that just by moving to Linux and x86_64, one of REALTECH's migration customers lowered their SAP server costs by over 80%, while at the same time at least tripling their available SAP computing power.
All in all, the 64-bit X86 XEON processor from Intel seems to have the best mix of optimum environmental and performance qualities in regard to SAP applications and the whitepaper will explain why. To do so, REALTECH evaluated more than just the price/performance ratio, but also looked into technical qualities of the processors on a performance per socket, per core and per thread basis.

Linux without limits
The study also gives insight on the maximum size of single SAP systems and overall system landscapes that can run on Linux, as well as the maximum size of migration project that can be done. It demonstrates that there is no attestable limit for the size of an SAP system or database on Linux, as well as if approached in the right way there is no size or criticality of customer, project or landscape that cannot be transformed from UNIX to Linux. To be successful in a migration project, you need to avoid frequent and typical mistakes. The whitepaper explains the keys for success in detail.

"It is clear to see from this study that Linux is now the preferred choice for UNIX migration as it is a proven platform for mission critical SAP applications and offers the stability and availability necessary at a much lower price point," said Naji Almahmoud, senior director of global business development, SUSE. "What's more, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications clearly offers customers more by including the High Availability Extension and other software and services specifically designed to meet the needs of SAP users."

Summary
Altogether, the trend study clearly shows that Linux and the x86_64 CPU architecture have arrived in SAP data centers as the mainstream solutions with the by far best price/performance ratio, and that they are excellently suited to deliver system landscapes of both high performance requirements and high criticality. The whitepaper will explain why customers waiting too long with the replacement of doomed UNIX architectures might get into trouble, and that it is time to act now.

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