Hana and Cloud in one step

All companies are currently seeing two very strong trends on the market. One trend is cloud computing, which is forcing companies to look more and more at the as-a-service model.

This trend can also be seen in the SAP environment. Many large providers, such as Amazon or Azure, have steadily expanded their portfolio of offerings for the procurement of SAP systems from their cloud. Companies can therefore use SAP as a service and no longer need installations in their own data center.

The second important trend is Hana, which is being pushed by SAP. SAP's preferred way forward is to switch from SAP AnyDB (i.e. Oracle, DB2, MSSQL, MaxDB, ASE) to the Hana platform. Customers need to get to grips with this issue, as it is not certain how long SAP systems will still be available on AnyDB.

Both trends are putting all companies in a position where they have to act. The Hana Enterprise Cloud offers one way of combining Hana and the cloud. This is a managed cloud from SAP that offers advanced PaaS services in addition to the basic IaaS services.

All SAP customers can use the Hana Enterprise Cloud and thus switch to a different service model "from the cloud". This means that SAP systems can be operated in the SAP cloud.

The Hana Enterprise Cloud is a managed cloud that is made available in Germany and other countries. SAP is pursuing the premise of "follow the customer" and is strategically expanding the service.

Multinational companies that are confronted with specific requirements from various countries can address these data privacy/security requirements with SAP HEC. As SAP HEC is hosted in SAP's data centers, compliance with important security standards for operations is also guaranteed.

One major difference to the clouds from Amazon or Microsoft is the idea of the managed cloud. While customers can provide new infrastructure/services themselves with Amazon, Microsoft or Oracle clouds, this is not possible with SAP HEC.

There is no console here that you can open and where new instances are gradually made available. Here, the actual operation is structured according to the concept of managed services, as is familiar from outsourcing. When a new requirement arises, customers first start the usual process of requesting new resources etc.

Similar to the start of a new outsourcing project, customers must first go through a process with SAP to define the target status. The aim of the process is to define the customer's requirements in terms of the number of systems, the size of the systems, the type and nature of the systems and the technical target status.

Customers have the opportunity to plan the migration of an SAP system to Hana before the actual migration to SAP HEC and to implement it with SAP during the transition. SAP has described the process as the "Customer Adoption Journey" and divided it into five major steps (hec.sapjourneymap.com).

As a first step, the customer can familiarize themselves with the Hana Enterprise Cloud. SAP provides the relevant information on the location of the cloud. Here, customers can find more detailed information on the certification of the data centers and the entire cloud.

The second step is a questionnaire that summarizes the customer's actual request. As a customer, you have the opportunity to provide specific information that enables SAP to carry out an initial indicative pricing.

The final price can only be derived once SAP knows all the key data on the SAP systems. However, in addition to the basic data, the report also includes the types and size of the systems. Customers can initially complete the report with very little effort.

It makes sense not to list every system here, but to concentrate on the large systems first. The smaller systems will be included and evaluated later in one of the subsequent steps. The report is forwarded to SAP and evaluated by them.

Once the customer has provided the report, the assessment is started with the customer. The most important questions regarding the target architecture and the actual migration procedure are clarified.

SAP cannot do this alone, but needs the support of the customer. Important details about the network, the new infrastructure, the migration procedure, the services and the final pricing of the solution are the aim of the assessment. It is important that customers know the exact requirements and can name them precisely.

At this point, the customer can also decide which service catalog they would like to use. Either only Infrastructure Management or also Application Management can be used.

A large service catalog is available in the format of a RACI matrix (Roles and Responsibilities) (see DigiPlus). Once the assessment has been completed, the actual deployment (also known as onboarding) is started in step four.

In this phase, SAP provides the new target infrastructure and the first SAP systems are migrated to the cloud. The migration is planned and executed according to the customer's specific requirements. Factors such as the maximum downtime and the size of the SAP system, as well as the type of transfer, come into play here.

After the migration, the systems are switched live and the customer system is operated in the cloud (step five). The entire process, from the initial assessment to the go-live, is managed by SAP.

After Go Live, there are corresponding frameworks for communication and escalation. In principle, these differ only slightly from the frameworks that non-SAP HEC customers are familiar with.

The process from the initial idea of an SAP system in the cloud to the final operation in the cloud seems complicated at first. Especially when customers look at the simple provisioning of new virtual machines in a public cloud from Amazon or Microsoft and compare this with the lengthy assessment, the Hana Enterprise Cloud is not convincing.

However, SAP systems are critical to the operation of a company and companies cannot afford downtime. This is why SAP attaches great importance to detailed and well-founded planning. A subsequent migration can be carried out even faster with SAP than with other providers thanks to the experts available.

Even if the Hana Enterprise Cloud is not a real cloud in the sense of Amazon, Microsoft or Oracle, it is relevant for customers with SAP systems and should be considered accordingly when looking to move to the cloud.