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HA Solutions for SAP HANA using SAPHanaSR and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut

HA Solutions for SAP HANA using SAPHanaSR and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut

Publication Date: August 06, 2026

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications is the leading Linux platform for SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA and SAP NetWeaver. Two of the key components of SLES for SAP are SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability (SLE HA) and resource agents (RAs). SLE HA provides Pacemaker, an open-source cluster framework. The resource agents manage automated failover of SAP HANA system replication, S/4HANA ASCS/ERS, and NetWeaver ASCS/ERS.

This document provides an overview of the High Availability solutions that SUSE supports for SAP HANA system replication on SLES for SAP 15, using the SAPHanaSR and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut resource agents. New solutions will be added when they become available.

Authors: Fabian Herschel, Lars Pinne, and Sherry Yu

Copyright © 2023–2026 SUSE LLC and contributors. All rights reserved.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or (at your option) version 1.3; with the Invariant Section being this copyright notice and license. A copy of the license version 1.2 is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

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1 Support statement

1.1 Supportability definition

CategoryDefinition
MandatoryDe facto, must be implemented this way.
SupportedSupported, with a published configuration guide.
Supported but undocumentedSupported, but a configuration guide is not published. SUSE will accept bug reports and fix code, if needed.
Supported with consulting PoCSupport is possible if the consulting PoC proves to be working.
Non-supportedNot supported or not applicable.
PlannedOn the roadmap to be tested and supported.
LegacyOnly supported for older release legacy systems.

1.2 Infrastructure support

The infrastructure can be on-premises, physical, virtual or in public cloud. The infrastructure must be supported by both SAP and SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability so that important functions like fencing and virtual IP are supported.

Public cloud deployment usually needs additional documentation focusing on the cloud-specific implementation details. Check the documentation provided by the respective public cloud vendor.

The support details for SUSE's High Availability solutions for SAP and the support process for each public cloud vendor are defined in the following SAP Notes:

CompanySAP Note
SUSE SAP Note 1763512: Support details for SUSE Linux Enterprise for SAP Applications - HA Solution for SAP NetWeaver and SAP S/4HANA
Microsoft Azure SAP Note 2513384: SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications on Azure
AWS SAP Note 1656099: SAP Applications on AWS: Supported DB/OS and AWS EC2 products
Google Cloud SAP Note 2456432: SAP Applications on Google Cloud: Supported Products and GCP VM types

For more details, see the SUSE knowledgebase article SLES for SAP - How To Engage SAP and SUSE to address Product Issues.

Note
Note

If necessary, all documented SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability scenarios can run the SAP workload while the High Availability cluster is temporarily disabled.

1.3 Supported SUSE software versions

This document applies to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 15.

The general SUSE software lifecycle applies for the described scenarios. See the SUSE lifecycle page for details:

https://www.suse.com/lifecycle/#suse-linux-enterprise-server-for-sap-applications-15

Note
Note

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP applications 12 SP5 is still supported but not covered by this document, as SUSE strongly recommends upgrading to newer OS versions. If you need details about version 12, check the individual guides available at https://documentation.suse.com/sbp/sap-12/.

2 Overview of HA solutions for SAP HANA system replication

2.1 Overview of SAP HANA system replication

SAP HANA system replication (HSR) provides the ability to copy and continuously synchronize an SAP HANA database to a secondary location in the same or another data center. SAP HANA system replication is implemented between two different SAP HANA systems with the same number of active nodes. After system replication is set up between the two systems, it replicates all the data from the primary SAP HANA system to the secondary SAP HANA system (initial copy). After this, any logged changes in the primary system are also sent to the secondary system.

System replication from the primary system in data center 1 to the secondary system in data center 2.
Figure 1: Overview of system replication with single nodes

If the primary SAP HANA system fails, the system administrator must perform a manual takeover. Takeover can be performed using SAP HANA Cockpit or the command line. Manual failover requires continuous monitoring and could lead to higher recovery time. To automate the failover process, SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability can be used. Using High Availability for the takeover process helps customers achieve service-level agreements for SAP HANA downtime by enabling faster recovery without any manual intervention.

Multiple SAP HANA High Availability scenarios are supported based on SAP HANA system replication. For variations, contact SUSE to discuss defining a PoC for a scenario that is not mentioned in the documentation.

You can use SAP HANA Fast Restart on RAM-tmpfs and SAP HANA on persistent memory on SLES for SAP 15, if they are transparent to the High Availability cluster.

SAP HANA Native Storage Extension (NSE) is supported in High Availability solutions for automated SAP HANA system replication in both Scale-up and Scale-out. This feature does not change the SAP HANA topology or interfaces to the High Availability cluster. However, unlike SAP HANA NSE, the HANA Extension Nodes do change the topology and are therefore not currently supported by SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability. Refer to the SAP documentation for details of SAP HANA NSE and its functional restrictions.

2.2 Resource agents for automated SAP HANA system replication

To provide a streamlined High Availability solution, SUSE is evolving its SAP HANA clustering infrastructure away from legacy, decade-old code bases. The traditional framework required administrators to manage two distinct resource agents: SAPHanaSR for scale-up topologies and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut for scale-out topologies. This architectural division is being consolidated into SAPHanaSR-angi (Advanced Next Generation Interface), a unified, single code base engineered to sustain reliable High Availability for SAP HANA over the next decade.

This evolution drastically reduces operational complexity by introducing an identical software package and highly similar configuration models regardless of the underlying scale-up or scale-out environment. Although the classic resource agents will remain supported for the entire lifetime of SLES for SAP 15, SAPHanaSR-angi is also available in SLES for SAP 15 SP4+. This is the recommended choice for all new deployments, and will completely replace the classic resource agents as the default standard in SLES for SAP 16.

Along with optimizations like faster takeover capabilities, SAPHanaSR-angi also supports a live, in-place upgrade from the classic resource agents, without requiring any SAP HANA downtime.

This document describes the supported scenarios for the SAPHanaSR and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut resource agents in existing deployments. All new deployments should use SAPHanaSR-angi.

Table 1: Supported resource agents for each operating system release
OS releaseHANA scale-upHANA scale-out
SLES for SAP 16SAPHanaSR-angi onlySAPHanaSR-angi only
SLES for SAP 15
  • SAPHanaSR-angi in SLES for SAP 15 SP4+ (recommended for new deployments)

  • SAPHanaSR

  • SAPHanaSR-angi in SLES for SAP 15 SP4+ (recommended for new deployments)

  • SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut

2.3 Notation formula

This table shows the notation formula used in the following sections to describe the different configurations for SAP HANA system replication.

Table 2: Notation formula for SAP HANA configuration
NotationDefinition
[ ]Cluster running
{ }Cluster DR passive
A B C DMaster nameserver node
a b c dWorker node
_Standby node
xXSA node
=>Sync, syncmem replication
->Async replication
'Primary IP address
"Secondary IP address

2.4 Common configurations for automated SAP HANA system replication

Below is a summary of the most common configurations. For the complete support matrix for all supported topologies, see Section 3, “Support matrix for automated SAP HANA system replication”.

Scale-up, performance-optimized, including read-enabled on the secondary site [A => B]
SAP HANA performance-optimized configuration
Figure 2: Scale-up, performance-optimized

In the performance-optimized scenario, an SAP HANA RDBMS site A is synchronizing with an SAP HANA RDBMS site B on a second node. As the SAP HANA RDBMS on the second node is configured to preload the tables, the takeover time is typically very short.

Read access can be allowed on the secondary site. To support this read-enabled scenario, a second virtual IP address is added to the cluster and bound to the secondary role of the system replication.

Scale-up, cost-optimized [A => B, Q]
SAP HANA cost-optimized configuration
Figure 3: Scale-up, cost-optimized

In the cost-optimized scenario, the second node is also used for a stand-alone non-replicated SAP HANA RDBMS system (such as QAS or TST). Whenever a takeover is needed, the non-replicated system must be stopped first. As the productive secondary system on this node must be limited in using system resources, the table preload must be switched off. A possible takeover needs more time than in the performance-optimized use case. We recommend running a PoC to determine the SLA before using it in production.

The secondary productive system needs to be running in a reduced memory consumption configuration, so read-enabled must not be used in this scenario. The HA/DR provider script needs to remove the memory restrictions when a takeover occurs, so multi-SID (MCOS) must not be used in this scenario either.

Scale-up, multi-target (B <= A' ) -> C
SAP HANA multi-target configuration
Figure 4: Scale-up, multi-target

Multi-target system replication is supported in SAP HANA 2.0 SPS04 or newer. Only the first replication pair (A and B) is managed by the cluster. The main difference between multi-target and multi-tier (chain) replication is that multi-target allows auto-registration for HANA after takeover.

Scale-out, performance-optimized ['Aaaa => Bbbb]
System replication between clusters managed by Pacemaker
Figure 5: Scale-out, performance-optimized

Pacemaker manages the automated failover of SAP HANA system replication between two sites of HANA scale-out clusters. An auxiliary third site is needed for the decision-maker node.

3 Support matrix for automated SAP HANA system replication

The support details are for a high-level overview only. Refer to the official documentation for the full conditions.

For help reading the support details, see Section 2.3, “Notation formula”.

3.1 Automated SAP HANA system replication in HANA scale-up

Table 3: Supported configurations for automated SAP HANA system replication in HANA scale-up
ConfigurationStatusSupport details
HANA performance-optimized, plain setupSupported (Documentation)[A' => B] Secondary site is not read-only enabled, so does not accept client's inquiries.
HANA performance-optimized, secondary site read-enabledSupported (Documentation)[A' => B”] Secondary site is read-enabled and can accept client's read-only inquiries.
HANA cost-optimizedSupported (Documentation)[A' => B, Q”] topology is supported. Q is a QA instance running on the secondary site.
HANA multi-tier system replication (replication chain), third site NOT managed by PacemakerSupported (Documentation)[A' => B] -> C topology is supported with conditions: A to B system replication in Pacemaker is supported. B to C system replication is not managed by Pacemaker.
HANA multi-target system replication, third site NOT managed by PacemakerSupported (Documentation)[B <= A'] -> C topology is supported with conditions: A to B system replication in Pacemaker is supported. A to C system replication is not managed by Pacemaker.
Multi-tenancy or MDCSupportedThis scenario is supported since SAP HANA 1.0 SPS09. The setup and configuration from a cluster point of view is the same for multi-tenancy and single container, so existing documentation can be used.
HANA multi-SID performance-optimized in one cluster (MCOS)Supported but undocumented-
HANA performance-optimized and S/4HANA ENSA2 in one clusterSupported but undocumented-
HANA performance-optimized cluster and stand-alone application serverSupported but undocumented-

3.2 Automated SAP HANA system replication in HANA scale-out

Table 4: Supported configurations for automated SAP HANA system replication in HANA scale-out
ConfigurationStatusSupport details
HANA performance-optimized, up to 30 nodes including standbySupported (Documentation)Up to 30 HANA nodes including standby nodes.
HANA performance-optimized, up to 12 nodes, no standbySupported (Documentation)Up to 12 HANA nodes, NO standby nodes.
HANA performance-optimized, up to 4 nodes, secondary site read-enabledSupported (Documentation)Up to 4 HANA nodes, NO standby nodes.
HANA multi-target system replication, third site NOT managed by the clusterSupported (Documentation)[B <= A'] -> C topology is supported with conditions: Site A to site B system replication in Pacemaker is supported. Site A to site C system replication is not managed by Pacemaker.
HANA multi-tier system replication, third site NOT managed by the clusterSupported (Documentation)[A' => B] -> C topology is supported with conditions: A to B system replication in Pacemaker is supported. B to C system replication is not managed by Pacemaker.
Performance-optimized, multi-tenancy (MDC)SupportedMulti-tenancy is available for all the supported scenarios and use cases. This scenario is supported since SAP HANA 1.0 SPS12, and the default installation type for SAP HANA 2.0. The setup and configuration from a cluster point of view is the same for multi-tenancy and single containers because the tenants are managed all together by the Pacemaker cluster.

4 HANA database HA/DR provider hook scripts

SUSE provides several hook scripts to enhance the integration between SAP HANA and the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability cluster. This section describes the HA/DR provider hook scripts for the SAPHanaSR and SAPHanaSR-ScaleOut resource agents. The SUSE best practice configuration guides explain how to use and configure these hooks.

Table 5: HA/DR provider hook scripts
ScriptUsage

SAPHanaSR.py

SAPHanaSrMultiTarget.py

Mandatory for data integrity in case of cluster sr_takeover
susTkOver.pyProtects from data inconsistency caused by manual sr_takeover
susChkSrv.pyAvoids downtime caused by local indexserver restart
susCostOpt.pyUsed in scale-up cost-optimized to handle secondary site in case of cluster sr_takeover
Table 6: Supported scenarios for HA/DR provider hook scripts
HA/DR provider hook scriptScale-up cost-optimizedScale-up performance-optimizedScale-out performance-optimized
SAPHanaSR.pyMandatoryMandatoryLegacy (mandatory for all versions before SAP HANA 2.0 SPS03)
SAPHanaSrMultiTarget.py--Mandatory
susTkOver.pySupported but undocumentedNot mandatory but recommendedNot mandatory but recommended
susChkSrv.py-Not mandatory but recommendedNot mandatory but recommended
susCostOpt.pyMandatory--

5 Documentation and configuration guides

Refer to the official Web sites for up-to-date documentation and configuration guides:

SUSE Best Practices
Public cloud providers