Red Hat, Inc. has announced that Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 has been certified by SAP AG to run SAP business applications. As a recommended Linux enterprise operating system for running SAP applications, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 provides the reliability and performance required by enterprises to efficiently run their demanding SAP workloads. This complements today’s separate announcement of Red Hat's broadening its global cooperation with Amazon and SAP (see below). 

 “Today’s announcement extends our strong partnership with SAP to give customers further assurance our complementary solutions run together optimally,” said Jim Totton, vice president and general manager, Platform Business Unit at Red Hat. “Recognizing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 as a SAP-recommended Linux enterprise operating system further validates our strength running critical enterprise software applications.” 

“The certification of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 for use with SAP applications highlights another step forward in our longstanding partnership with Red Hat,” said Helge Deller, head, SAP LinuxLab, SAP AG. “Customers can now use this latest Red Hat operating system with their mission-critical SAP applications, fully supported by Red Hat and SAP. The combination of SAP applications with the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 will offer global enterprises a new database option for running SAP applications along with harmonized customer services and support.” 

Enterprises may now run their SAP applications on the most-recent version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, which features enhanced networking, file system and virtualization I/O capabilities. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 has also been certified for running the SAP NetWeaver Adaptive Computing Controller tool. 

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is suitable for running all SAP applications in physical, virtual and cloud environments. Virtualization is integrated into Red Hat Enterprise Linux, allowing Red Hat Enterprise Linux to run in a virtualized environment without the requirement to purchase a separate virtualization infrastructure. In addition to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the High Availability Add-on provides the components to set up a high availability infrastructure for running SAP applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The Add-on provides sophisticated fail-over clustering for SAP applications and SAP databases using dedicated resource agents for instances of SAP solutions and databases. 

For more than a decade, customers have benefited from the close collaboration between Red Hat and SAP. The companies have provided customers with technically compatible products, as well as a single point of contact for support with the integration of SAP’s global support backbone and the Red Hat Global Support Services system.

Support from Other Industry Leaders

“SAP and Red Hat reinforced their commitment to customers in support of open solutions with long-term committed roadmaps for SAP business applications,” said Eric Renouard, Accenture’s global SAP technology lead. “Red Hat Enterprise Linux gives our clients a secure and dependable platform and we look forward to working with them to develop cloud solutions that we can take to our clients.”

“IBM has long-standing partnerships with SAP and Red Hat to help our clients address complex business challenges,” said Jean Staten Healy, director, Linux and Open Virtualization, IBM. “With SAP certification for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, IBM continues to deliver to the enterprise world-class technologies, integrated by world-class system integrators including IBM Global Business Services.” 

Red Hat also announced that it has broadened cooperation with Amazon Web Services and SAP on the Cloud. 

The company announced support for SAP solutions running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). 

“Today’s announcement fortifies Red Hat’s continued effort to provide customers flexibility in software deployment options and innovations in cloud computing,” said Gus Robertson, vice president of business development at Red Hat. “Now customers have even more choice in procuring and provisioning Red Hat Enterprise Linux, now SAP-certified and recommended to run SAP applications.” 

Amazon EC2 provides highly available, secure, on-demand, pay-as-you-go, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make Web-scale computing easier for developers, commercial ISVs and enterprise IT organizations worldwide. SAP customers can utilize both Red Hat Cloud Access and Red Hat Hourly-On-Demand supported images in all Amazon EC2 regions. 

“SAP – together with our global technology partners – is leading the migration to cloud computing,” said Allen Bannon, vice president, Virtualization and Cloud Management, SAP. “Through our cooperation with Red Hat and Amazon Web Services, customers can now benefit from innovations including increased convenience and choice.” 

“We are pleased to extend our offering of supported Red Hat Enterprise Linux on demand for SAP applications,” said Terry Wise, director of Business Development for Amazon Web Services. “With AWS, SAP customers now have a broader choice of enterprise-class Linux platforms to choose from when they deploy SAP applications on AWS. This represents the ongoing commitment from AWS to provide customers with the enterprise software and support they demand.” 

SAP sees a steady stream of customers moving to the cloud with many currently creating their landscape of SAP solutions to become “cloud ready.” Customers are looking for fast-scaling and pay-only-for-what-you-use flexibility associated with cloud computing. Red Hat already delivers an open source, enterprise-ready platform in support of SAP applications on premise. Through this expanded cooperation, customers can leverage Amazon’s EC2 for running SAP applications on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. This will enable customers to utilize the world-class support options available from Amazon, Red Hat and SAP in a collaborative way. 

Red Hat and AWS began working together in cloud computing in 2007 with the availability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux through Amazon EC2. As Red Hat’s first Premier Certified Cloud Provider, AWS enables customers to use their own Red Hat Enterprise Linux subscriptions or easily purchase Red Hat Enterprise Linux on-demand, pay-as-you-go options through Amazon EC2.

Red Hat provides a comprehensive set of cloud products, services, and technologies to prepare customers’ infrastructures for the cloud. Offering solutions, step-by-step instructions, consulting services, training, and exceptional customer support, Red Hat enables enterprise customers to build, manage, and utilize private and public clouds.