Paradigm: Cloud

What could the cloud mean for an ERP system? What could be the best cloud for Hana and S/4? One answer is written on one of my T-shirts: There is no Place like 127.0.0.1: Home is still the best place to be. This IP address can be found in every server and refers to itself. While the server finds a Google service on the Internet at the address 8.8.8.8, it always comes back to itself with 127.0.0.1. This can sometimes be very important for tests.

The optimal cloud for SAP S/4 Hana must be a safe haven for the ERP system. A place to feel at home, where storage and computing power are available in sufficient quantities. Also based on 127.0.0.1: My Home is my Castle! Hewlett Packard Enterprise has built a comfortable and secure home for IT applications such as S/4 and the Hana database - naturally with cloud technology. But the result is not another cloud cuckoo land, but a very real IT infrastructure with cloud functionality.

The HPE cloud paradigm clearly distinguishes itself from other cloud structures because it brings the convenient cloud functions, i.e. the architecture, to the user, who is free to decide how the infrastructure should be organized: This means that the cloud for S/4 can find its home in your own data center, at a hoster, at HPE, with purchased and leased hardware, see also the technical article below.

What suddenly seems logical has hardly been considered by anyone beforehand: why does cloud functionality, i.e. the architecture concept, always have to be tied to a specific infrastructure, such as a hyperscaler or SAP? Perhaps the company's own hardware has not yet been written off and the data center has been set up in the immediate vicinity of production in order to keep the latency time for IIoT applications as low as possible - before the CNC machine shreds the 50,000 euro workpiece. Conversely, no one can or wants to do without a fast provisioning model. A Hana server for development and testing must be available promptly.

S/4 needs enough hardware reserves to scale at peak times. In the ERP environment, there are many examples of why it no longer works without cloud functions. Providing the data structures and algorithms from S/4 Hana with a secure and convenient infrastructure and a modern cloud architecture is an imperative of digital transformation. HPE with GreenLake has created this cloud paradigm.

Conclusion: There is no place like GreenLake. The cloud and S/4 Hana architecture in combination with an IT infrastructure that is optimally suited to existing SAP customers appears to be a model for successful digital transformation. If SAP's much-cited "cloud only" can be understood as this cloud paradigm, then more existing SAP customers will commit to the cloud and the acceptance of Hana and S/4 could increase further.