Linux and Kubernetes underpin the Intelligent Enterprise

At the beginning of last year, the Walldorf-based software company increasingly focused its activities on the "intelligent enterprise". And there is a clear sense that the concept has now caught on with SAP users.

For them, the Intelligent Enterprise serves as a kind of achievable landmark on their digitization path using various SAP solutions: SAP S/4 Hana, the in-memory database Hana itself, SAP Cloud Platform (SCP), C/4 Hana, SAP Cloud Analytics, SAP Data Hub or the cloud solutions Qualtrics and SuccessFactors, but also AI technologies that SAP uses in the solutions.

The Intelligent Enterprise always aims to increase adaptability or agility in order to implement new business models and processes as quickly and easily as possible or to boost competitiveness in the age of digitalization.

S/4 a first step

This requires an "Intelligent IT Infrastructure" using modern technologies as an indispensable foundation with equally necessary adaptable and future-compatible elements.

What's more, an Intelligent Infrastructure must actually lead the way in order for the transformation capability to the Intelligent Enterprise to succeed. Intelligent Enterprise and Intelligent Infrastructure thus form a harmonious ensemble.

Intelligent Enterprise

It is a well-known fact that if you are an SAP user company migrating in the direction of S/4 Hana and thus taking the path towards an Intelligent Enterprise, you will not be able to avoid Linux, since Linux is specified by SAP for Hana and Hana-based solutions. Hana and Linux have already changed the data center.

This means that a paradigm shift has been set in stone. This is Software Defined Infrastructure (SDI), which is also necessary to promote DevOps models, which in turn mean speed in the development and operation of applications.

In general, with an SDI as a flexible and open infrastructure environment based on software, it is possible to dovetail internal IT landscapes and external cloud services at will or in an automated manner. And this is independent of an underlying infrastructure.

Programmed change

This is where open source solutions or open standards come into play. Linux, for one. For the SAP environment, this means Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications (currently in version 15), which is considered the operating system standard and can be used in both on-premises and cloud environments. And designed for software-defined.

Second: Kubernetes from Suse for SAP DataHub deployment, precisely to support the Intelligent Enterprise with an agile and highly adaptable IT infrastructure: S

use CaaS Platform (Container Management/including Kubernetes implementation from Suse), Suse Enterprise Storage (Ceph) as storage or Suse Manager to increase the level of automation in Linux operations. All together in the "Suse Software Defined Infrastructure".

Software Defined Infrastructure

Since SAP itself follows SDI and uses several Software-Defined-Infrastructure solution components, sooner or later customers' data centers will also be transformed in the direction of SDI. In any case, open source SDI solution components beyond Linux are available.