SAP on Db2 for z/OS
IBM Db2 for z/OS as database and z/OS and Linux on Z as operating systems are designed to run mission-critical applications with high security and data privacy requirements. Here you’ll find information about running SAP Business Suite applications in these environments.
SAP recently released Db2 13 for z/OS FL504 and FL505 for all solutions based on SAP NetWeaver.
Function Level 504 comes with various new functionalities. Particularly interesting is the Utility Object-Level History which has already been integrated into the SAP's DBA cockpit (see SAP Note 3344358).
For additional details, refer to:
Topics: SAP on IBM Z – zSAP Update
Content: Upcoming Utility History support in DBA Cockpit and other new DBA Cockpit features, Downtime-optimization approaches for ABAP maintenance activities, upcoming Db2 Audit privilege management, and other Db2 enhancements.
Time: March 21, 2024 at 4 pm CEST, 11 am EDT, 8:30 pm IST
Speakers: Dr. Matthias Gimbel (SAP), Dr. Matthias Zapp (SAP), Peter Becker (IBM)
Access to all previous Webcasts for registered users
SAP on IBM Z User Group (IBM Community)
This edition is based on IBM Z System Automation 4.2 and IBM Z System Automation 4.3 with APAR level OA65572.
This edition supports z/OS 3.1.
Monitoring of status changes for SAP Enqueue Server replication has been enhanced. If Enqueue data replication into the Coupling Facility (CF) is used and if this replication is suspended for whatever reason, then the health state of the Enqueue Server Monitoring resource is switched to WARNING.
Please find the HTML version of Edition 2024 on IBM Documentation under Business Continuity for SAP on IBM Z. You may also download the corresponding PDF from there.
The SAP on IBM Z team in Poughkeepsie NY has just completed a publication regarding Business Continuity Performance with Banking Services from SAP®.
This study documents system recovery performance with different failure scenarios with SAP software on IBM Z. Business continuity of an SAP production system is a critical business factor. IBM Z is well-known as a business operation platform with high reliability and high availability. A right-configured IBM Z environment eliminates single points of failure which can avoid unplanned outages. It also allows for planned administrative or maintenance work without causing disruptions in service.
Continuous business operations require a set of best practices and guidelines for system configuration. The goals are to eliminate outages and to minimize the effects of unplanned outages by recovering as quickly as possible in the rare event of a failure. In this paper, we focus on the recovery performance of a subset of possible outage scenarios.
Are you looking for our SAP on Db2 installation, administration, and upgrade guides? They are all in one place on the SAP Help Portal:
New IBM Performance Report: SAP Banking on IBM Z with Shared Memory Communications (SMC-Dv2)
This paper was a performance evaluation of SMC-Dv2 on IBM Z. It demonstrates that SMC can shorten batch elapsed time, OLTP response time and increase throughput for SAP Core Banking workloads. It may also result in software license cost savings.
For details refer to the IBM White Paper: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/7159153
Implementing IBM zHyperLink for SAP on IBM Z
SAP business applications on Db2 for z/OS, with heavy I/O traffic demand the fastest access between application and physical storage. IBM zHyperLink helps to improve synchronous I/O traffic.
The document below addresses specialists who plan to use zHyperLink connectivity and describes a sample implementation:
TLS Certificate Authentication for SAP on IBM Z
We are pleased to announce the release of version 3.0 of our best-practices document for TLS in an SAP on IBM Z context.
This major update includes a variety of new topics that go beyond just SAP clients with certificate authentication.
Some of the key features of version 3.0 include:
- Successful implementation of TLS 1.3
Streamlined certificate setup and AT-TLS policy
- Configuration of additional applications, such as SAP Host Agent and RMF DDS
- Incorporation of valuable customer feedback
These updates will enhance the overall security of SAP on IBM Z, and we are confident that you will find them helpful.
TLS Certificate Authentication for SAP Application Server Connections to Db2 on IBM Z
CLI Failover
A revised and updated version 14 of the CLI Failover presentation is available. Major updates are:
- DBA Cockpit no longer supports re-loads of the db2dsdriver.cfg
- Added page 'Recommended Planned Failover trigger.'
- The New User Interface of the latest Failover Configuration Tools version included
- Other updates and improvements
Usage of APPLCOMPAT=V12R1M506 or APPLCOMPAT=V12R1M508
SAP has successfully certified the usage of APPLCOMPAT=V12R1M506 and APPLCOMPAT=V12R1M508. For the time being, the following SQL features are exploited:
- LISTAGG built-in function (FL501).
- The explicit casting of numeric values to GRAPHIC or VARGRAPHIC (FL502)
- An implicit drop of explicitly created database objects (FL506) & separation of multi-table segmented tablespace (FL508)
Raising APPLCOMPAT to V12R1M506 or V12R1M508 is optional for customers. SAP applications will always check the APPLCOMPAT level before using any new SQL features.
SAP Note 2902423Db2 12 Function Levels
SMD Agent on z/OS - Cut up to 80% of the CPU Consumption
On z/OS the CPU consumption of Solution Manager Diagnostics (SMD) Agents can be very high if there are many (real and virtual) network interfaces. There is one agent (Java process) for each network interface. A detailed study revealed that a huge part of the CPU utilization is triggered by explicit garbage collection calls, which are superfluous with today's Java Virtual Machines. Fortunately, these calls can be deactivated without any code change by a simple adjustment of the SMD Agents' profile.
Note 2998723 - SMD Agent on z/OS: up to 80% CPU reduction by deactivating garbage collection
Huffman Compression
IBM's current Z processor family supports enhanced data compression using Huffman encoding. The SAP on IBM Z performance team located in Poughkeepsie just finished the first study using banking workloads to assess the effects of the new technology on disk space, performance, and throughput.
Performance Evaluation of Huffman Compression with SAP Banking on IBM Z