From SAP Classic to Hana and S/4

Usable scenarios and business cases with S/4 Hana are concretely pending at many companies from different industries - after the first Hana steps; for example, after the successful introduction and now longer use of SAP BW or ERP powered by Hana: in the retail sector, for example, to use SAP Customer Activity Repository applications advantageously, with the possibility of receiving data as well as analyses in terms of customer behavior quasi in real time and thus to realize faster and more customer-oriented offers or actions.

Or in the manufacturing industry, to be able to work live with Hana. So that business departments and end users can perform data analyses themselves directly and ad hoc from an SAP logistics application, for example, when using ERP. Or, or, or.

Some of the existing SAP customers are considering a complete migration and the use of S/4 Hana at an early stage, while others are considering it later. Another may have their sights set on using SAP Classic and S/4 Hana in parallel - at least for a certain period of time.

Intelligence Data Center as standard

In what ways do data center managers need to respond and address the following: How can infrastructure resources be provided to business units or users for Hana and S/4 Hana applications much faster and more efficiently than before?

What must such an IT and SAP infrastructure environment contain for targeted and cost-effective manageability that takes enterprise requirements into account and supports changed operating processes? And: How can SAP Classic and Hana as well as S/4 Hana be operated skillfully or for a certain time in coexistence?

Ways to quickly and effectively provision infrastructure resources for new applications or implementations of profitable business cases culminate in what is known as an Intelligence Data Center, a term coined by Gartner.

For data center managers in particular, this opens up the possibility of not being seen as a kind of "brakeman" in companies and possibly being responsible for the fact that new applications - for example, S/4 Hana applications - cannot be used in the time desired by the business departments.

The order of the day is: speed and agility instead of long action. The guidelines of an Intelligence Data Center are reflected in Fujitsu's Primeflex for SAP Landscapes solution offering, including Flexframe Orchestrator, and underpin them with concrete and tangible things.

On top of this, transformation security is ensured and, at the same time, a proven cost optimization potential is provided for the data center transformation process in the direction of Hana - also taking into account mixed SAP Classic and Hana use (SAP Business Suite and S/4 Hana) and, in the future, including an OpenStack-based IaaS cloud.

Fujitsu Primeflex for SAP Landscapes including Flexframe Orchestrator represents a platform solution with decades of experience know-how paired with innovative technologies for the demand-driven and profitable SAP deployment of today and tomorrow.

A large proportion of all SAP deployments worldwide are based on infrastructure solutions and components from Fujitsu as a Global SAP Partner and full-service provider (also together with Fujitsu TDS) with multiple awards from SAP.

In the Hana environment in particular, Fujitsu has a comprehensive range of solutions from a Discovery Hana Appliance for testing purposes (for example, also for testing S/4 Hana, see box) and for getting to know Hana through to Hana large-scale environments (scale-out/scale-up) including services, whereby numerous close partnerships are maintained, for example with Suse or NetApp. To date, Fujitsu has completed well over 1000 Hana projects worldwide.

Primeflex for SAP Landscapes harmonizes in particular the coupling of SAP IT infrastructure and business requirements. The guiding principle here is the provision of IT and business-oriented services.

And it does so in an integrated manner, but always with the goal of simplification and the achievement of benefits - whether through cost optimization, through the most optimal possible operating processes, or through forced support of business departments by IT.

An integral part of Primeflex for SAP is Flexframe Orchestrator, an IT management software that focuses in particular on: managing SAP applications, SAP database(s) and the Hana platform more easily, quickly and efficiently.

The highlight here is: the possibility of using a uniform management of classic SAP environments and SAP Hana infrastructures in one system.

Furthermore, the comprehensive automation of administration and maintenance as well as the consistent administration of all physical and virtual resources.

In addition, integrated, automatic high availability - also for SAP Hana - is ensured. Third-party products can also be integrated.

Flexframe and OpenStack

In the future, for example, it will be possible to run SAP Classic and S/4 (incl. Hadoop) as well as non-SAP applications in an OpenStack-based cloud IT infrastructure environment.

Again, Flexframe Orchestrator performs management functions and works in an integrated manner with OpenStack or with OpenStack components (or modules).

Flexframe Orchestrator takes over the management of the SAP landscape and interacts with the OpenStack components Heat (orchestration) and Horizon (dashboard).

In other words, heterogeneous SAP landscapes can already be managed advantageously with Flexframe Orchestrator today and in the future also in interaction with an OpenStack architecture (see also figure).

Fujitsu supports existing SAP customers who do not want to switch from SAP Classic to S/4 Hana in a kind of big bang with a profitable solution offering.

Similar to Suse and NetApp, Fujitsu is one of the key drivers and innovators in OpenStack and Open Source and itself operates one of the largest OpenStack environments worldwide. Fujitsu, Suse and NetApp cooperate closely in OpenStack projects.

For example, Flexframe Orchestrator will be interlocked with Suse OpenStack Cloud in hybrid cloud scenarios in the future so that SAP applications can be provisioned and managed in a Suse OpenStack Cloud.

The Fujitsu servers and NetApp storage components that are still directly connected today will be connected via OpenStack Nova and OpenStack Manila/Cinder/Swift in the future.

With their profound OpenStack know-how and, for example, integration tests and life cycle management, all the partners mentioned ensure that customers do not have to assemble or build an OpenStack-based IT infrastructure landscape with all its elements themselves and, in some circumstances, in a laborious, time-consuming and costly manner, which also has to meet enterprise requirements.

And that in many respects. When it comes to using Hana and S/4 Hana, for example, it may well be the case that high-availability and disaster recovery requirements are even higher than when using SAP Classic, simply because of a required permanent (and persistent) use of analytics.

In summary: The alignment of an IT infrastructure according to Intelligence Data Center guidelines for the use of SAP Hana and S/4 based on Fujitsu with Primeflex for SAP Landscapes and Flexframe Orchestrator is already given today.

In the future, there will also be OpenStack integration as a standard for cloud use and hybrid scenarios. In this way, departments can quickly implement and use targeted new functionality or business cases in a conversion-proof manner.

Discovery Server for SAP Hana for rent

Fujitsu offers a comprehensive on-premise rental offering to companies that are toying with the idea of migrating their existing IT infrastructure to the SAP Hana platform.

The package includes a Hana-certified Fujitsu Primergy server, which is integrated into the customer network and SAP environment by Fujitsu's SAP experts.

During implementation, Fujitsu consultants are on hand to provide advice. The hardware basis of the on-premise rental offer is the Fujitsu Primergy RX4770 M2 server with Intel Xeon E7-4800/8800-v3 processor and up to 72 processor cores.

The rack high-performance server is ideally suited for in-memory computing thanks to its distinctive computing power and fast RAM and is certified to operate the SAP Hana platform including S/4 Hana.

The server is installed on site by Fujitsu experts and SAP environments are implemented. The offer is aimed at companies for which an external test run of the Hana platform is out of the question for a variety of reasons.

For example, the transfer of customer data to an external cloud can represent a compliance hurdle that often makes S/4 Hana test operations difficult. The monthly rental fee for a six-month test period is 3200 euros (net) for the entry-level package.