After talk­ing with SAP, we now under­stand the dif­fer­ence between SAP HANA Enter­prise Cloud (HEC) and SAP Cloud Plat­form. Dis­cov­er the key distinctions.

SAP HANA Enter­prise Cloud (HEC)

SAP HEC is a ser­vice that pro­vides infra­struc­ture and man­aged ser­vices for SAP soft­ware. Cus­tomers can also use cus­tom SAP HANA apps and approved third-par­ty apps on this platform.

SAP makes the SAP HEC avail­able via data cen­ters world­wide. SAP says it is bring­ing online new data cen­ters on an ongo­ing basis — either SAP-owned or co-locat­ed. SAP HEC cus­tomers start with an assess­ment ser­vice from SAP. Then, their appli­ca­tions are moved to the cloud infra­struc­ture. Final­ly, they receive ongo­ing sup­port for their applications.

SAP HEC man­aged ser­vices pro­vide var­i­ous ser­vices in a pri­vate cloud envi­ron­ment. These ser­vices include back­ups, patch­ing, pro­vi­sion­ing, upgrades, restore and recov­ery, infra­struc­ture mon­i­tor­ing, and event detection.

Cus­tomers can bring their own SAP appli­ca­tions that are already licensed into SAP HEC. Alter­na­tive­ly, they can opt for sub­scrip­tion-based pric­ing for SAP software.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between SAP HEC and a tra­di­tion­al host­ing provider? SAP HEC is a ser­vice where SAP takes care of every­thing, includ­ing the infra­struc­ture and man­ag­ing the applications.”

In addi­tion, SAP says, cus­tomers ben­e­fit from SAP’s deep exper­tise in SAP tech­nolo­gies and SAP HANA. The data cen­ters are run entire­ly by SAP’s appli­ca­tion man­age­ment ser­vices team. SAP also men­tions that cus­tomers can save on IT man­age­ment costs by shift­ing from oper­a­tional to cap­i­tal expens­es. Addi­tion­al­ly, cus­tomers can have SAP han­dle sys­tem upgrades for them.

SAP Cloud Platform

SAP Cloud Plat­form is a ser­vice that allows cus­tomers and part­ners to enhance exist­ing appli­ca­tions, which can be cloud-based or on-premise. Users can also cre­ate new appli­ca­tions with extra features.

SAP Cloud Plat­form is an open, stan­dards-based plat­form that allows ​“con­nec­tiv­i­ty with any sys­tem of record,” SAP says. Cus­tomers can enhance their exist­ing SAP Busi­ness Suite, SAP Suc­cess­Fac­tors appli­ca­tions, or SAP Cloud for Cus­tomer on the SAP Cloud Plat­form. They have the option to add on to these ser­vices. This allows for greater cus­tomiza­tion and flex­i­bil­i­ty in their soft­ware solutions.

A grow­ing trend involves over 100 part­ners (ISVs) cre­at­ing cus­tom SAP apps, tai­lored for spe­cif­ic indus­tries. For instance, Accen­ture devel­oped an HR audit and com­pli­ance mod­ule for reg­u­lat­ed indus­tries using SAP Cloud Plat­form and SAP SuccessFactors.

So, what’s some of the cur­rent cus­tomer work being done by those on the SAP Cloud Plat­form? SAP sug­gests that most cus­tomers start by mak­ing new capa­bil­i­ties acces­si­ble to users in a user-friend­ly for­mat. This can be done by cre­at­ing or devel­op­ing these capa­bil­i­ties. The goal is to ensure that users can eas­i­ly access and use them.

For instance, an SAP Suc­cess­Fac­tors cus­tomer might cre­ate a mobile UI for approvals. Anoth­er cus­tomer may want to add a new call-cen­ter app to their CRM sys­tem. This app will help con­nect their on-premise CRM soft­ware with a cloud app.” SAP Fiori is also a favorite on the SAP Cloud Plat­form, as cus­tomers seek to improve UIs for exist­ing SAP software.

SAP Cloud Plat­form smooth­ly con­nects on-premise and cloud sys­tems, cre­at­ing a hybrid IT land­scape that is com­mon in many organizations.