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SAP ports R/3 to Linux 51

Posted by HeUnique from the another-big-product dept.
Another big product coming to Linux. According to a report from News.com, SAP will port R/3 to Linux. We're getting close to World Domination :)
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SAP ports R/3 to Linux More

SAP ports R/3 to Linux

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  • I'm not sure how the two compare, but R/3 lives on top of Oracle, so what's good for one is good for the other.

    I imagine this announcement implies that Oracle are going to be bringing their Linux version up to sync with the other platforms--otherwise I doubt SAP would be working on the port. This is very good news for Linux, indeed.

  • Linuxs marketplace is going (from where I'm looking anyway) going to be in replacing stuff up to NT server levels, but something which is going to require say a million transactions a day on SAP/Oracle/Informix, well thats at least three or four years away, and at that stage the big servers will probably need to run more, and the whole cycle starts again.

    IBM have already announced RS/6000s (43P and another model?) with Linux installed. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the entire RS/6000 line is available with Linux. I also recall reading that they are working on their own IBM distro. There have also been hints that there is an AS/400 port in progress, EWS AFAIK, but I'm sure it will make it onto some production boxes somehow. Once Linux breaks into the AS/400 world, it's only a matter of time before it starts inheriting some very heavy-duty enterprise-level features.

    Go back and read some of the /. articles on this stuff and I think you'll see that there is a great potential for some serious enhancement in the near future. IBM have an interest in Linux' development path now, and where IBM goes, Linux will follow.

  • This is the one I thought would never come. Huge corporations put together multi-million-dollar efforts to run their businesses on SAP. I had thought that the SAP mind-set wouldn't permit this kind of thinking, that they'd forever be only on the proprietary Unixii.

    I had also thought - that something like SAP would need the big hardware and that companies would always pay a little extra for the benefits of things like hot-swappable RAID drives and fault-tolerant systems, and that these would almost certainly remain proprietary, and that the proprietary Unixii would stick around to support that vendor-specific hardware. Since SAP implementations are multi-million-dollar and this is where an hour of downtime is a loss of a million dollars of productivity for a company, I had through that a few extra hundreds of thousands on hardware might make sense.

    Perhaps we're turning the corner via personnel? I would consider sysadminning a SAP implementation on Linux, but never on NT. Could it be that enough people agree at this point that NT implentations are getting impossible to staff correctly? Are you all refusing to work with NT and telling headhunters that up front? If not, why not? If Linux domination of the server continues at this rate, having NT on your resume could ACTUALLY BE A FAUX PAS! "Oh, you're an MCSE type? Sorry, we don't need any of those!"

    Oh man, it is to laugh.

  • Not to mention NT hits the wall long before 14 cpu's. What is it 8? Or is it 4?
  • Posted by Rojareyn:

    First things first:

    WAAAAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    Okay, now that that's out of my system:

    SAP creates a software product called R/3 which is called an Enterprise Resource Package (ERP). This package lets a small-to-medium sized business keeps track of various aspects of their business, such as Sales and Distribution, Human Resources, Production Planning, and Materials Management. It is customizable through it's programming language which is called ABAP (it's sorta similar to COBOL with some SQL-like syntax thrown in for good measure). The R/3 DB layout is highly structured.

    R/3 (the client-server version) and R/2 (the older Mainframe version) are in use around the world. Volkswagon, Coca Cola, and IBM currently use it. A lot of businesses --- including a few of my companies clients --- install R/3 to get around their Y2K problems.

    Just FYI: I attended an SAP class and spoke briefly with the instructor about Linux. He told me that SAP currently uses Linux internally and there is a Linux version of both the R/3 software and the SAPGUI client. It is VERY nice to see them actually market it!

    You have NO idea how hyper I am right now at this piece of news!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Cheers!
  • Yeah, Linux will never get anywhere near big hardware.

    http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/yow.html

    bash# cat /proc/cpuinfo
    cpu : TI UltraSparc II (BlackBird)
    fpu : UltraSparc II integrated FPU
    promlib : Version 3 Revision 2
    prom : 3.2.16
    type : sun4u
    ncpus probed : 14
    ncpus active : 14
    Cpu0Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu1Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu4Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu5Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu6Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu7Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu8Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu9Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu10Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu11Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu12Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu13Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu14Bogo : 494.79
    Cpu15Bogo : 494.79
    MMU Type : Spitfire
    State:
    CPU0: online
    CPU1: online
    CPU4: online
    CPU5: online
    CPU6: online
    CPU7: online
    CPU8: online
    CPU9: online
    CPU10: online
    CPU11: online
    CPU12: online
    CPU13: online
    CPU14: online
    CPU15: online
    bash# dmesg
    PROMLIB: Sun IEEE Boot Prom 3.2.16 1998/06/08 16:58
    Linux version 2.1.130 (root@ultrapenguin) (gcc driver version 2.7.2 snapshot 970621 executing gcc version 2.7.2) #3 SMP Mon Dec 7 21:58:03 PST 1998
    ARCH: SUN4U
    Ethernet address: 08:00:20:9a:71:d5
    Found CPU 0 (node=f006f708,mid=0)
    Found CPU 1 (node=f006fac8,mid=1)
    Found CPU 2 (node=f014f6e4,mid=4)
    Found CPU 3 (node=f014faa4,mid=5)
    Found CPU 4 (node=f01bf6e4,mid=6)
    Found CPU 5 (node=f01bfaa4,mid=7)
    Found CPU 6 (node=f022f6e4,mid=8)
    Found CPU 7 (node=f022faa4,mid=9)
    Found CPU 8 (node=f029f6e4,mid=10)
    Found CPU 9 (node=f029faa4,mid=11)
    Found CPU 10 (node=f030f6e4,mid=12)
    Found CPU 11 (node=f030faa4,mid=13)
    Found CPU 12 (node=f037f6e4,mid=14)
    Found CPU 13 (node=f037faa4,mid=15)
    Found 14 CPU prom device tree node(s).
    CENTRAL: Detected 8 slot Enterprise system. cfreg[9e]
    FHC(board 0): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e] (CENTRAL)
    FHC(board 0): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e] (JTAG Master)
    FHC(board 2): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 3): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 4): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 5): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 6): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 7): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    FHC(board 1): Version[1] PartID[fa0] Manuf[3e]
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Memory: 2059720k available (1600k kernel code, 23528k data, 184k init) [fffff80000000000,fffff8007fd1c000]
    POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
    Entering UltraSMPenguin Mode...
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Calibrating delay loop... 494.80 BogoMIPS
    Total of 14 processors activated (6927.16 BogoMIPS).
    PCI: Probing for controllers.
    PCI: No PCI bus detected
    IOMMU(SBUS): IMPL[0] VERS[0] SYSIO mapped at fffff9c600000000
    IOMMU: Streaming Buffer IMPL[0] REV[0] ... ENABLED
    sbus0: Clock 25.0 MHz
    dma0: HME DVMA gate array=20
    Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.1
    Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
    NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0 for Linux NET4.0.
    NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
    IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
    Starting kswapd v 1.5=20
    Sparc Zilog8530 serial driver version 1.34
    tty00 at 0xf0902004 (irq = 12,339) is a Zilog8530
    tty01 at 0xf0902000 (irq = 12,339) is a Zilog8530
    tty02 at 0xf0904004 (irq = 12,339) is a Zilog8530
    tty03 at 0xf0904000 (irq = 12,339) is a Zilog8530
    keyboard: not present
    Console: ttyS0 (Zilog8530)
    Sun Mouse-Systems mouse driver version 1.00
    RAM disk driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size
    esp0: IRQ 7,db SCSI ID 7 Clk 40MHz CCF=8 TOut 167 NCR53C9XF(espfast)
    ESP: Total of 1 ESP hosts found, 1 actually in use.
    qpti0: IRQ 7,d3 SCSI ID 7 (Firmware 1.25 96/10/15) [Ultra Wide, using single ended interface]
    QPTI: Total of 1 PTI Qlogic/ISP hosts found, 1 actually in use.
    scsi0 : Sparc ESP366-HME
    scsi1 : PTI Qlogic,ISP SBUS SCSI irq 7,d3 regs at fffff9c720010000
    scsi : 2 hosts.
    Vendor: EXABYTE Model: EXB-8505SMBANSH2 Rev: 0098
    Type: Sequential-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi tape st0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 5, lun 0
    Vendor: TOSHIBA Model: XM5701TASUN12XCD Rev: 2395
    Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi CD-ROM sr0 at scsi0, channel 0, id 6, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sda at scsi1, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdb at scsi1, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdc at scsi1, channel 0, id 2, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdd at scsi1, channel 0, id 3, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sde at scsi1, channel 0, id 8, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdf at scsi1, channel 0, id 9, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdg at scsi1, channel 0, id 10, lun 0
    Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST34501WCSUN4.2G Rev: 0558
    Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02
    Detected scsi disk sdh at scsi1, channel 0, id 11, lun 0
    scsi : detected 1 SCSI tape 1 SCSI cdrom 8 SCSI disks total.
    esp0: target 6 asynchronous
    Uniform CDROM driver Revision: 2.50
    SCSI device sda: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdb: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdc: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdd: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sde: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdf: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdg: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    SCSI device sdh: hdwr sector= 512 bytes. Sectors= 8385121 [4094 MB] [4.1 GB]
    sunhme.c:v1.2 10/Oct/96 David S. Miller (davem@caipfs.rutgers.edu)
    eth0: HAPPY MEAL (SBUS) 10/100baseT Ethernet 08:00:20:9a:71:d5=20
    Partition check:
    sda: sda1 sda2 sda3
    sdb: sdb1 sdb3 sdb4 sdb5 sdb6 sdb7 sdb8
    sdc: sdc1 sdc3 sdc4 sdc5 sdc6 sdc7 sdc8
    sdd: sdd1 sdd2 sdd3 sdd7
    sde: sde1 sde3 sde4 sde5 sde6 sde7 sde8
    sdf: sdf1 sdf3 sdf4 sdf5 sdf6 sdf7 sdf8
    sdg: sdg1 sdg3 sdg4 sdg5 sdg6 sdg7 sdg8
    sdh: sdh1 sdh2 sdh3 sdh7
    VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
  • This is not my machine. This is a cpuinfo trap from Alan Cox's diary pages, hence the URL (follow it). This machine is running, this is not a bootup log captured via serial console. This machine works. Things run. Things run fast.

    Straight from http://194.117.157.10/diary/dec-1998.shtml, December 8th,
    "Dave Miller has been pushing forward the boundaries of Linux SMP. He posted this wonderful bootup log to the kernel list."
  • I doubt that. Last time I looked the number were something like: IBM ($13B), MS ($8B), Oracle ($4). I blieve that would put SAP at fourth place (at best). This was close to a year ago. MS should have grown by 30-40%. I have not a clue how things
    are doing for IBM.

    Cheers,

    /jarek
  • Hmmm,

    I'm going to get flamed to death for this, but here goes. This whole World Domination thing is getting a bit boring. I'm extremely pro-linux, but lets be honest, there are certain things that it will never be able to do in the short to medium term.

    A couple of people made comments last week about Scott McNealys comment on out engineering Solaris on Sparc. Lets be honest here folks, who is going to get access to E10000 to get a Linux system up and running on it? Its not going to happen. Linux is an excellent OS for an awful lot of stuff, its my OS of choice for a lot of the non work related development stuff I do, but I won't even think about using it for writing Java apps and some other stuff that I do.

    Linuxs marketplace is going (from where I'm looking anyway) going to be in replacing stuff up to NT server levels, but something which is going to require say a million transactions a day on SAP/Oracle/Informix, well thats at least three or four years away, and at that stage the big servers will probably need to run more, and the whole cycle starts again.

    I've only heard of Oracle on Linux being deployed on a semi-large scale in one place, is there anywhere else that people know of?

    Linux does have the potential to become an extremely potent and influential force in computers, and I'm looking forward to seeing this happen, but its not the world domination end folks. The major thing that I'm looking forward to dealing with over the next couple of years is the people that have been involved with the entire paradigm shift that we are seeing at the moment, this is where Linuxs influence is fast becoming evident. As has been pointed out before we are the managers (I know its a horrible word) of the future, but people who aren't working in a commercial env at the moment don't seem to see that not everyone wants, or has the abilty to, use Linux.

    anyway back to work,

    l8r,
    egnarts
  • I've got to be dreaming.
  • this is so cool, now we can implement on a stable platform - worry more about the re-engineering and the implementation than the os constraints - maybe i won't have to use windoze at work anymore - i guess that would be wishful thinking. wish me luck.

  • this is not meant to be sarcastic, but the documentation which came with my "applixware office solutions" for linux seems to be win95 documentation. i wonder what applix uses?
    anyway, i think the filters which ship with star office 5.0 and applixware office (4.4.1 - i think) ship the filters (with minor formatting problems - english version)

  • sap r/3, oracle financials (not to be confused with oracle 8i the database) as well as baan and peoplesoft are all erp (enterprise resource planning) software solutions. they essentially capture information about the company - as long as a process is developed to capture that information - and present it in report format. the implementation includes process mapping and re-design. they all contain modules to enable an enterprise to manage almost all aspects of its operations - accounting, supply chain management, human resources, reporting....
    until something else comes along, the erp solutions are considered the be all end all ultimate information packages.
  • "World Domination" is a joke. It is specifically aimed at MS, tongue in cheek.
  • A few things--

    1. For those who wanted to know, SAP is this HUGE client/server package (millions of lines of code built over like 20 years) which many big businesses use to run their entire organization. SAP is a german company (I think they're still debating what "SAP": stands for) which oversees all kinds of aspects of a big business-- inventory, shipping, ordering, financial stuff, billing, payroll etc. It's kinda the big monster that runs the whole show. Because running a company (like say, a manufacturing plant, or MicroSoft or Avid) is so complicated, having a good internal system can save a company millions per year.

    Installing SAP for a client usually takes several months (if not more) and involves a team of consultants who custom-install SAP through the SAP scripting language, which if memory serves, is called OB-OP or something like that. OB-OP programmers generally make a ton of money per/hour to write and test code for a particular company's installation.

    2. The fact that SAP is being offered for Linux says a lot about Linux's technical merits (rather than the fact that it's free). To people who install SAP, the cost of an OS is NOTHING-- a typical installation can be tens of millions of dollars so linux's price isn't an issue-- my guess is (and this has been discussed on /. before) that it's the stability and scalability which is creating demand for a Linux port.

    Congrats!

    W


    PS-- the info above is to the best of my knowlege. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong about something.
  • People who are more accustomed to home and office apps may not realize just how big news this is. SAP products make the business and manufacturing worlds go 'round. They're the second biggest software maker in the world.

    Linux just appeared on a lot new radar screens.

    ----

  • I'm not sure how Oracle and SAP compare. I've actually heard both touted as the second largest. I probably got the stats from a news article, and as we all know, reporters and columnists don't always check their facts. I think they also tend to forget that there are big companies outside the US. (SAP, if I'm not mistaken, is German.) Many news articles these days report that Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, when in fact he is the second richest (last I heard, Haji Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, was the richest).
    Anywho, I think SAP is No.2, but I could be mistaken.

    ----

  • Thanks for the update, I'm getting out my checkbook now.

    ----

  • This announcement almost makes up for the CNN article I just ranted about (and LinuxWorld). My brother will be so happy—he likes SAP and has been telling me that ``if SAP AG ports it, then I know Linux really is serious''.

    That said, we must not feel victorious, but must remain vigilant. The wolves are upon us; endless attempts to abuse GNU/Linux for commercial advantage are appearing at a crushing rate. But armed with the GPL and my C comiler, I think we can beat them back. <grin>

  • WOOHOO!

    here's to job security...
  • Does anyone know whether PeopleSoft supports Linux or any other Unix?
  • I'm all for something like this, though I wouldn't want it to be Linux-specific. The main reasons these "analysts" are able to make a living with bogus predictions is that the public never remembers what they predicted last time around.

    I vaguely remember a Gartner study in the early '90s that predicted ~50% penetration of the desktop market for NT in 1995.
  • (splitting hairs) the language is ABAP/4 and takes
    the worst of cobol, rpg, SQLs and (IMO) Commodore Basic.

    Im sure I forgot some languages.


    -dand

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