SAP is a strate­gic enabler of busi­ness, the heart­beat of process­es, indeed the cir­cu­la­to­ry sys­tem for enter­pris­es. The ASUG com­mu­ni­ty is steadi­ly increas­ing their invest­ments in the SAP port­fo­lio — and real­iz­ing more val­ue – as they shift sys­tems, process­es, and work­loads to the pub­lic cloud. The focus is broad and deep — reduce expense, improve user expe­ri­ence, stream­line oper­a­tions, achieve both quick wins and dri­ve long-term busi­ness success. 

Yet, many orga­ni­za­tions are find­ing that mov­ing core sys­tems and busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion based on SAP S/4HANA and the pub­lic cloud, as part of a cloud-first ini­tia­tive, are not — or at least not yet – return­ing the expect­ed out­comes and planned results. This is because inte­grat­ed, holis­tic SAP cloud ecosys­tems con­sist of many SAP and non-SAP soft­ware appli­ca­tions, some of which are only avail­able as SaaS and some of which are only avail­able at the edge, see fig­ure 1.

This eBook pro­vides the con­text to these dynam­ics, then deliv­ers rec­om­men­da­tions and options for effec­tive­ly archi­tect­ing SAP deploy­ments. The con­tent draws on find­ings the ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer 2022 report that explored mem­bers’ respons­es relat­ed to cloud-as-a-ser­vice solu­tions for SAP and oth­er applications.

Pub­lic cloud lim­i­ta­tions for SAP S/4HANA

Sys­tems inte­gra­tors (SIs), con­sul­tants, and part­ners have pro­mot­ed an ​“all or noth­ing” migra­tion of SAP work­loads to the pub­lic cloud, promis­ing cost sav­ings, improved user expe­ri­ence, stream­lined oper­a­tions, and long-term busi­ness suc­cess. While these same orga­ni­za­tions have ben­e­fit­ed from sub­stan­tial increas­es in cloud migra­tion ser­vice rev­enues, many clients have not seen the out­comes that were promised. 

SAP also pro­motes their own SaaS offer­ing called SAP Cloud ERP, where­by SAP-man­aged SaaS is heav­i­ly pro­mot­ed toward deploy­ment into hyper­scale pub­lic clouds and alter­na­tive deploy­ment loca­tions (such as on-premise or cloud-adja­cent data cen­ters) are not often dis­cussed as part of that SaaS cloud solution. 

Break­ing through the mar­ket­ing hype, orga­ni­za­tions are increas­ing­ly rec­og­niz­ing the lim­i­ta­tions of run­ning busi­ness-crit­i­cal work­loads like SAP S/4HANA entire­ly in the pub­lic cloud. Appli­ca­tion depen­den­cies and 
extend­ed data trans­mis­sion times can cause laten­cy and appli­ca­tion fail­ure when inte­grat­ed appli­ca­tions can’t keep up with pre­set SAP remote func­tion calls and time­out set­tings. This often caus­es high hyper­scale data trans­fer and egress charges. See fig­ure 2. 

Unlike colo­ca­tion data cen­ters, pub­lic cloud providers charge vari­able fee pre­mi­ums for ongo­ing data move­ments that make oper­a­tional bud­get­ing unpre­dictable. Exam­ples of such fees are data band­width charges between high avail­abil­i­ty (HA) zones and between dis­as­ter recov­er (DR) regions, as well as egress fees for any data leav­ing that par­tic­u­lar pub­lic cloud provider. Many enter­pris­es end up pay­ing more for stor­age, com­pute, and data move­ments, as well as for over­pro­vi­sion­ing unnec­es­sary resources that often sit idle often out­side of IT’s control/​vision.

An all-or-noth­ing cloud strat­e­gy vs. a more inclu­sive cloud strategy

True cloud agili­ty pro­vides free­dom of choice, and the debate is no longer sim­ply ​“pub­lic cloud vs. on-premise” as cloud IaaS is avail­able in any loca­tion, includ­ing on-premise. Enter­pris­es have mul­ti­ple cloud options that span mul­ti­ple clouds and poten­tial­ly on-premise and edge appli­ca­tions, to main­tain cloud agili­ty, speed, cloud cost-effec­tive­ness, and cloud ven­dor neutrality.

Build­ing a flex­i­ble solution

Enter­pris­es need expert guid­ance and mod­ern, proven solu­tions to effi­cient­ly archi­tect an agile, cost-effi­cient holis­tic SAP S/4HANA cloud ecosys­tem using the most appro­pri­ate hybrid cloud options.

For many, the best solu­tion incorporates 
three elements:

• Proven exper­tise from an estab­lished SAP partner
• Flex­i­ble hybrid mul­ti-cloud architecture
• Stan­dard­ized, auto­mat­ed process­es for smooth
  tran­si­tions and oper­a­tional ease

Today’s dig­i­tal-first busi­ness­es demand high per­for­mance that advanced data cen­ter solu­tions spe­cial­ize in. Large capac­i­ty and high-den­si­ty solu­tions are need­ed to accom­mo­date mas­sive data stores and ener­gy-hun­gry pro­cess­ing. Oth­er require­ments include prox­im­i­ty and easy con­nec­tion to neu­tral cloud on-ramps, which will enable addi­tion­al stor­age and inte­gra­tion with SaaS, as well as Advanced Busi­ness Con­ti­nu­ity and Dis­as­ter Recov­ery (BCDR) to max­i­mize avail­abil­i­ty and resilience.

Colo­ca­tion dat­a­cen­ters can be a viable option that enable cus­tomers to escape the bur­den of run­ning their own data cen­ters, help­ing them sim­pli­fy IT man­age­ment oper­a­tions while reduc­ing cost and risk. For many, a neu­tral colo­ca­tion dat­a­cen­ter with cloud on-ramps to mul­ti­ple des­ti­na­tions is a pru­dent cloud strat­e­gy for the future. By using a neu­tral cloud entry point, laten­cy remains con­sis­tent and low between con­nect­ed host­ing providers and SaaS providers in that geog­ra­phy, pro­vid­ing true cloud agili­ty and pre­vent­ing host­ing provider lock-in for the holis­tic inte­grat­ed SAP ecosystem. 

Most cus­tomers that have exten­sive expe­ri­ence with SAP HANA in the pub­lic cloud have found the most effi­cient strat­e­gy is a mul­ti-cloud strategy.

Solu­tion spot­light: HPE Green­Lake with Equinix

HPE with Equinix spe­cial­izes in prov­ing avail­able, resilient, flex­i­ble, agile, and
cost-effec­tive mul­ti-cloud environments.

HPE is the lead­ing SAP HANA® hard­ware provider with a full set of infra­struc­ture offer­ings that enable SAP cus­tomers to start small and scale infi­nite­ly. Over 5,000 cus­tomers run SAP on HPE with over 34,000 servers deployed for SAP HANA world­wide and 46% of SAP licens­es run on HPE systems. 

HPE Green­Lake with Equinix sup­ports a hybrid and mul­ti­cloud infra­struc­ture approach through an elas­tic as-a-Ser­vice offer­ing for over 70 cloud ser­vices that can run on-premise or at the edge in one of Equinix’s 240+ glob­al colo­ca­tion facilities

Equinix is a glob­al leader in data cen­ter solu­tions. Its expan­sive foot­print enables a true edge-to-core strat­e­gy enabling HPE Green­Lake cus­tomers to deploy SAP S/4HANA in prox­im­i­ty to cloud providers, pro­vid­ing low laten­cy access to SAP ecosys­tem part­ners and inte­grat­ed SAP applications.

HPE Green­Lake with Equinix for SAP features:

• Ful­ly man­aged, flex­i­ble con­sump­tion that scales up or down with your busi­ness needs
• Sin­gle ten­an­cy on SAP-cer­ti­fied infrastructure
• SAP-cer­ti­fied, mar­ket-lead­ing infra­struc­ture, deploy­ment, and ongo­ing run-book maintenance
• Low laten­cy con­nec­tions to lead­ing SAP ecosys­tem part­ners and to your own unique set of inte­grat­ed SAP applications
• Ful­ly automated/​orchestrated SAP HANA full land­scape deploy­ment to low­er deploy­ment costs and to cre­ate standardization/​predictability between landscapes 

HPE offers data cen­ter advi­so­ry ser­vices pro­vide orga­ni­za­tions with the nec­es­sary exper­tise to guide geo­graph­ic loca­tion strat­e­gy, colo­ca­tion design, net­work inte­gra­tion advi­so­ry, and man­age­ment. Lega­cy data cen­ters are either replaced with cloud or, if desired, mod­ern­ized to cloud through facil­i­ties and impact assess­ments, oper­a­tions con­sult­ing, and exper­tise across design, build­ing, and integration.

Look­ing ahead

As orga­ni­za­tions look ahead to the end of SAP ERP lega­cy DB sup­port in 2027 and migra­tion to SAP S4/HANA, it’s impor­tant to con­duct exten­sive plan­ning to nav­i­gate the com­plex­i­ties and ensure the desired outcomes.

Keep­ing up with glob­al tax law changes, includ­ing sales tax, invoice, com­pli­ance, and report­ing require­ments, is an insur­mount­able chal­lenge for many SAP users. Enter­pris­ing com­pa­nies are upgrad­ing their time-con­sum­ing, error-prone, and nar­row-scoped man­u­al tax engine test­ing and imple­men­ta­tion pro­ce­dures to auto­mat­ed work­flows and solutions. 

Orga­ni­za­tions should look beyond the pub­lic cloud to achieve their desired out­comes. A mul­ti-cloud strat­e­gy that blends pri­vate cloud HANA with pub­lic-cloud-based sup­port­ing appli­ca­tions and third-par­ty solu­tions can help orga­ni­za­tions over­come the lim­i­ta­tions of the pub­lic cloud and the challenges 
of poten­tial repatriation.

Enter­pris­es across all indus­tries can meet rig­or­ous stan­dards for avail­abil­i­ty, secu­ri­ty, and reli­a­bil­i­ty with­out the high cap­i­tal expen­di­tures and bur­den of run­ning an inter­nal data cen­ter. By part­ner­ing with a mul­ti-cloud infra­struc­ture expert to help with con­sult­ing, design, imple­men­ta­tion, and man­age­ment, orga­ni­za­tions can unlock the inno­v­a­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties SAP S4/HANA offers — and dis­cov­er the best of 
all worlds.

Plan­ning for SAP S4/HANA implementation?

Sched­ule a free, vir­tu­al SAP plan­ning work­shop with HPE Green­Lake and Equinix to dis­cuss func­tion­al and tech­ni­cal con­sid­er­a­tions you can use while cre­at­ing a cohe­sive strat­e­gy in prepa­ra­tion for lega­cy ERP migra­tion to SAP or SAP applications/​HANA transformation.

Learn more about sched­ul­ing a FREE SAP Plan­ning Work­shop.

Togeth­er, Equinix and the HPE Green­Lake plat­form help solve the com­plex­i­ty of pur­chas­ing, reg­u­lat­ing, and man­ag­ing owned dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture. At the same time, the part­ner­ship improves appli­ca­tion per­for­mance by pro­vid­ing low-laten­cy con­nec­tiv­i­ty to lead­ing net­work and cloud ser­vice provider ecosystems.

Enter­pris­es ben­e­fit from con­ve­nient month­ly billing for SAP relat­ed infra­struc­ture demand and SAP HANA work­load require­ments that scale up and down based on metered usage, reduc­ing the cost and effort of own­ing and man­ag­ing IT infrastructure.

ASUG is the world’s largest SAP user group. Orig­i­nal­ly found­ed by a group of vision­ary SAP cus­tomers in 1991, its mis­sion is to help peo­ple and orga­ni­za­tions get the most val­ue from their invest­ment in SAP technology.

ASUG cur­rent­ly serves thou­sands of busi­ness­es via com­pa­ny­wide mem­ber­ships, con­nect­ing more than 130,000 pro­fes­sion­als with net­work­ing and edu­ca­tion­al resources to help them mas­ter new chal­lenges. Through in-per­son and vir­tu­al events, on-demand dig­i­tal resources, and ongo­ing advo­ca­cy for its mem­ber­ship, ASUG helps SAP cus­tomers make more possible.

ASUG devel­ops and pub­lish­es case stud­ies reg­u­lar­ly in part­ner­ship with its mem­bers and cus­tomers. For more infor­ma­tion on ASUG Case Study con­tent, con­tact editorial@​asug.​com