• An SAP Instance is the basic building block of an SAP system & can comprise of one or more SAP instances
• An SAP system comprises of 2 parts : Application Instance & Database Instance
• When the application & database instance reside on the same hardware , it is then known as a “SINGLE INSTANCE”
• When the application & database instance do not share the same hardware resources , then the instance is known as a “DISTRIBUTED INSTANCE”
• An SAP Instance is uniquely identified with a system ID , known as SID and an instance number
An SAP Application Instance can be broken down to the following types :
