Red Hat fully supports persistent memory (pMEM) FS-DAX mode in RHEL 7.6 and later versions for SAP Solutions

Updated -

Red Hat fully supports Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (pMEM) File System DAX (FS-DAX) as follows:

  • RHEL 7.6, 7.7 and 7.9 for SAP Solutions: for production deployments of SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03, revision 35 (or later).
  • RHEL 8.0 and later versions for SAP Solutions: for production deployments of SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04, revision 40 (or later).

Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory devices provide data center class persistent memory technology, which is of particular interest for low latency use cases such as reducing the startup time for relational databases.

The RHEL for SAP Solutions subscription includes the Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability Add-on. As such, Red Hat Enterprise Linux High Availability provides all the necessary packages for configuring a pacemaker-based cluster, providing reliability, scalability, and availability to SAP HANA production services. Consequently, it is also covered in the stated support for running SAP HANA 2.0 on Intel Optane DC Persistent Memory (pMEM).

Persistent memory can be configured in one of the following ways for use by applications:

  • Block mode
  • Device DAX mode
  • FS-DAX mode

The current status of persistent memory support and FS-DAX for ext4 and XFS is as follows:

  • Block Mode is fully supported in RHEL 7.3 and later.
  • Device DAX is fully supported in RHEL 7.4 and later.
  • FS-DAX for ext4 and XFS is in Technology Preview from RHEL 7.3 to RHEL 7.9, as well as RHEL 8.0 and later versions (see the RHEL 7.7 and RHEL 8.0 Release Notes for more details). Full support is targeted in a future release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
  • FS-DAX is fully supported for production deployments of SAP HANA:
    • with RHEL 7.6, 7.7 and 7.9 for SAP Solutions and SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 03, revision 35 (or later).
    • with RHEL 8.0 and later versions for SAP Solutions and SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 04, revision 40 (or later).

Note: FS-DAX technology remains in Technology Preview for all other releases of RHEL, unless specifically stated elsewise by Red Hat.

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