This article was authored by Keith Hontz, Global Head of the SAP Alliance at Splunk.
After years of optimizing ECC, many SAP customers have reached a point where incremental change is no longer enough. The move to S/4HANA forces a reassessment of legacy customizations, accumulated technical debt, and the pace of modernization the business can realistically sustain.
With SAP’s planned end of mainstream maintenance for ECC in 2027, enterprises no longer have the option of postponing transformation; modernization has become a near-term operational necessity. That visibility is where Splunk helps SAP environments perform better, especially when paired with Microsoft Azure’s enterprise-grade, SAP-certified cloud infrastructure.
These interlocking strengths—and what they mean for organizations migrating to S/4HANA—are the focus of Splunk’s analyst-led webinar, “The Reality of SAP Migration: Why Observability Changes Everything.” Experts discuss how observability across Splunk, SAP, and Azure can transform the speed, confidence, and control of any SAP modernization program.
Watch the webinar today.
Migrating SAP workloads to the cloud adds complexity. Native SAP and infrastructure tools provide useful insights but not the complete view needed to manage distributed operations, creating fragmented oversight that weakens visibility and slows transformation.
Cloud consumption patterns break away from predictable on-premises norms. New performance variables appear as processes interact with scalable compute and storage. Integrations behave differently as latency profiles shift.
Security oversight during migration depends on connecting data from every layer, from identity management to cloud infrastructure to business applications. When those signals remain isolated, program teams cannot confirm whether processes are executing as intended and often uncover access or performance issues only after production cutover.
To close that gap, modern SAP programs design S/4HANA, the cloud platform, and the observability layer to operate as one system. S/4HANA contributes the simplified data model and in-memory process foundation that supports advanced analytics, automation, and AI-driven operations, enabling real-time operational decisions. Azure supplies infrastructure with the elasticity and automation needed to support this new architectural direction.
Read Splunk's exclusive white paper, "Universal Observability as the Key to Successful SAP Migration."
The Benefits of Unified Observability
Splunk serves as the connective layer between SAP and Azure, correlating events, metrics, and logs into one view. That visibility helps teams validate assumptions, detect irregularities early, and maintain stability during migration.
With these layers working in tandem, enterprises gain several interdependent capabilities that define a modern, observable landscape.
First, existing ECC metrics still matter, but they gain real value when viewed through Splunk’s cross-system observability during migration. Teams can trace critical jobs, verify authorizations, and monitor integrations across both environments to distinguish normal architectural change from real performance issues. After go-live, this visibility becomes a continuous feedback loop that quickly exposes inefficiencies, especially where systems connect.
Second, visibility into cloud consumption delivers immediate value. Consumption-based pricing unlocks scalability but also introduces cost volatility. Inefficient queries and legacy custom code can trigger unexpected cloud activity that’s difficult to trace without the right cost and performance data. Splunk correlates Azure usage with SAP processes to pinpoint inefficiencies so cost patterns become predictable and remediation targeted.
Third, moving SAP to the cloud expands the security surface. Azure provides built-in controls, but many incidents still cross system boundaries. Splunk unifies SAP and Azure AD security data, giving teams full traceability for compliance and faster investigation.
Fourth, when performance data from SAP, Azure, and connected systems is unified in Splunk, early warning signs surface sooner. Correlating small irregularities enables faster troubleshooting and prevents minor issues from becoming major disruptions.
Finally, automation remains steady because its dependencies are already under watch. Automation accelerates routine work but can also amplify hidden issues. Unified observability gives teams a clear view of how automated steps execute, confirming that logic is sound and preventing small problems from scaling into wider failures.
From Migration to Continuous Modernization
Enterprises take different routes into this model but often converge on the same lessons. Some begin on premises with Splunk already embedded in their monitoring landscape. When organizations migrate SAP and supporting infrastructure to Azure, they often bring Splunk with them, retaining familiar dashboards and historical insight while evolving the underlying systems.
For those already running SAP on Azure but struggling with limited visibility, introducing Splunk ahead of an S/4HANA migration creates the baselines they’ll rely on to guide and verify progress. For both groups, a Splunk-based observability approach becomes a prerequisite for reducing risk and improving decision quality.
Across these scenarios, the most successful programs treat visibility as a parallel workstream rather than a final step. Teams that introduce Splunk observability early can baseline current behavior, validate assumptions during build and testing, confirm stability during cutover, and refine performance once the system reaches steady state. This continuity reduces uncertainty and gives both IT and business stakeholders a clearer sense of progress throughout the program.
When S/4HANA, Azure, and Splunk operate within one framework, the boundaries between platform, infrastructure, and insight start to disappear. Real-time processing comes from S/4HANA; resilience and security from Azure; and observability from Splunk unites them into a single, adaptive system. That level of integration transforms migration risk into managed change.
As the window for ECC winds down, SAP customers have a narrow but meaningful opportunity to modernize their environments. Those that act now—pairing the platform with the right cloud foundation and unified visibility—will be best positioned to sustain reliability, cost control, and performance in the years ahead.
For a deeper perspective, join Splunk, Microsoft, and ESG at this exclusive webinar, “The Reality of SAP Migration: Why Observability Changes Everything.” Register to engage with the full conversation and see what universal observability looks like in practice.
- SAP Alliance: Splunk RISE for SAP: Universal Observability as the Key to Successful SAP Migration | White Paper | Splunk
- Webinar: The Reality of SAP Migration: Why Observability Changes Everything | Virtual Event | Splunk
Keith Hontz is Global Head of the SAP Alliance at Splunk.