Sizing Fundamentals and Terminology

Sizing determines the hardware requirements of an SAP application, such as the network bandwidth, physical memory, CPU processing power, and I/O capacity.

The size of the hardware and database is influenced by both business aspects and technological aspects. Take into account both the number of users using the various application components and the data load they put on the server.

This topic explains the most important sizing terms. These terms are used extensively in this Sizing Guide.

SAP provides general sizing information on the SAP Service Marketplace. For the purpose of this guide, we assume that you are familiar with sizing fundamentals. You can find more information at http://service.sap.com/sizing Information published on SAP site Start of the navigation path Sizing Decision Tree Next navigation step General Sizing Information End of the navigation path .

Benchmarking

Determine sizing information using SAP Standard Application Benchmarks and scalability tests (http://www.sap.com/benchmark Information published on SAP site ). Released for technology partners, benchmarks provide basic sizing recommendations to customers by placing a substantial load upon a system during the testing of new hardware, system software components, and relational database management systems (RDBMS). All performance data relevant to the system, user, and business applications are monitored during a benchmark run and are used to compare platforms.

SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS)

The SAP Application Performance Standard (SAPS) is a hardware-independent unit that describes the performance of a system configuration in the SAP environment. It is derived from the Sales and Distribution (SD) benchmark, where 100 SAPS is defined as the computing power to handle 2,000 fully business processed order line items per hour. (For more information about SAPS, see https://www.sap.com/about/benchmark/measuring.html Information published on SAP site .

Initial Sizing

Initial sizing refers to the sizing approach that provides statements about platform-independent requirements of the hardware resources necessary for representative, standard delivery, SAP applications. The initial sizing guidelines assume optimal system parameter settings, and standard business scenarios.

Expert Sizing

Expert sizing refers to a sizing exercise where customer-specific data is analyzed and used to put more detail on the sizing result. The main objective of the exercise determines the resource consumption of customized content and applications (not SAP standard delivery) by comprehensive measurements. For more information, see https://service.sap.com/sizing Information published on SAP site Start of the navigation path Sizing Decision Tree Next navigation step Expert Sizing End of the navigation path .

Configuration and System Landscaping

Hardware resources and optimal system configuration depend on the requirements of the customer-specific project. These resources and system configuration include the implementation of distribution, security, and high availability solutions by different approaches using various third-party tools. In the case of high availability through redundant resources, for example, adjust the final resource requirements accordingly.

There are some best practices, which may be valid for a specific combination of operating system and database. To provide guidance, SAP created the SAP NetWeaver configuration guides. Find all SAP NetWeaver documentation here:

https://help.sap.com/viewer/p/SAP_NETWEAVER.