SAP for Utilities on Hana - more than an intermediate step?

SAP is looking ahead. In the case of S/4 Utilities, however, perhaps too far ahead. Customers of IS-U systems feel that they are being left behind in the development process.

SAP applications without Hana have not been at the cutting edge of technology for some time, and S/4 cannot be developed fast enough for many.

With S/4, SAP is converting the entire core of its Business Suite, with industry-neutral modules being given higher priority. Understandable from SAP's point of view, but difficult for energy supply companies to assess at present.

SAP's roadmaps for Utilities are constantly being revised backwards. If you look at the S/4 Hana 1511 Simplification List, this diffuse situation around SAP for Utilities is further reinforced.

As announced, there is finally something for Industry Utilities in the table of contents. Unfortunately, a closer look at these pages reveals only the note "not available" for all processes.

So what should an IS-U customer who is planning a project - forced by expiring support or the desire for a new release - do now? Should it be postponed as far as possible until the first fully-fledged S/4 Utilities is released?

If you look at the relevant SAP pages, there are hardly any references to SAP for Utilities on Hana.

No fear of overnight batches

But that could be the ideal solution: I migrate my existing IS-U system to Hana today as part of a planned project. Gisa successfully did just that in the summer of 2015 - migrating a real IS-U system to Hana.

The proof of concept was thus provided. As a result, we were able to benefit immediately from the faster processing times. Dreaded overnight batches have lost their terror.

As an example, a process was identified that previously had to be laboriously split up and now no longer affects operations in 30 minutes instead of three days.

Performance can therefore actually create tangible added value. To be honest, however, not all transactions and processing are much faster; slowdowns have also been observed in exceptional cases.

In this case, the usual root cause analysis followed, which does not necessarily identify the new database as the culprit. Another interesting observation was the complete functionality of the in-house developments, one of the biggest pains for previously undecided users.

Last but not least, the migration "on Hana" enables a relaxed starting situation because the customer already has a fast and functioning in-memory system. The subsequent leap to "for Hana" with S/4 Utilities will therefore hit energy supply companies much less hard.

In this sense, today's migration from SAP for Utilities to SAP Hana can certainly be seen as a preparation for digitalization with S/4. If I have decided to take exactly this intermediate step, I can then develop further typical Hana functions that better support my business processes.

Hana Live for Utilities gives me the ability to provide my transactional information from the system with lightweight, real-time analytical functionality.

Getting involved with Hana

The catch is that I have to get fully involved with Hana. While I continue to work in the familiar NetWeaver when migrating to Hana, I have to open up a different development environment, including lifecycle management and a security concept, for the provision of Hana Live Views.

Fortunately, from a technical point of view, these issues are now well developed.