Family Overview

Definition of Family Names

Since the rules for SAP Hardware Certification have been changed in October 2005 hardware, which is or will be certified, is defined and published on a different way than before. With the old rules each single platform had to be certified. Regarding the new rules only Server Families have to be certified. A Server Family shares the same hardware platform and does not depend on the type of construction (Blades, Towers, etc.) nor on the number of processors.

A hardware platform itself is defined by the Platform Family and the chipset used. The processor company (e.g. AMD, Intel) are defining a Platform Family name which is then used by all hardware vendor using these processors and chipsets. (e.g. Intel XEON MP - chipset Twin Castle)
Considering these rules hardware platforms are now grouped and published by processor families. This enables the customers to search for platforms by Platform Family’s independent from the hardware vendor.
The certification of a server family must be completed on the largest system; the size of the system is defined by the largest number of processors, cores and threads that are possible in the system. A certification includes all smaller systems.