SAP/SLES for SAP and public cloud: Amazon, Microsoft and Google step on the gas

Cloud computing is on the rise in the SAP community. When it comes to S/4 migration or Hana use in general for existing customers, there is always the question: Cloud use - yes or no?

And if so, in what way? A large part of this has hybrid cloud computing in mind. On-premise private cloud environments here, combined with public cloud services there. There are also companies that have moved their entire SAP infrastructure into the cloud to a public cloud provider.

While initially it was exclusively Amazon with AWS, SAP user companies can now obtain Hana together with Suse Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications in the form of IaaS public cloud services and according to pay-per-use models also via MS Azure and the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) from the cloud.

Expansion of the respective SAP stacks

Suse is pushing partnerships with Amazon, Microsoft and Google in terms of IaaS public services, as is SAP. It should only be a matter of time before the respective Hana IaaS offerings are on a par with each other.

However, each of the cloud giants will try to differentiate themselves from the other. Currently, AWS is ahead of Azure and GCP, thanks to the long technology partnerships between SAP and AWS, and Suse and AWS, or Suse and SAP.

So it is not surprising that Amazon can, for example, come up with an automatic high-availability failover via Cloud Watch or with a wide range of instance types and sizes.

MS Azure, on the other hand, wants to score points by offering a suite with 4 TB for Hana or S/4 instances. At AWS, the upper limit for Hana virtual machines is currently 2 TB. However, experts in the field, such as the US SAP consulting company Bluefin, assume that the range of instance types and sizes will be further expanded on all platforms in the near future.

SAP could also link up with existing or established public cloud services to enrich its own SAP platform stack and create even more attractive offers for customers. For example, by combining Hana/Suse SLES for SAP Applications with Cloud Dataproc (from Google for Big Data), with Big Query (analytics web service from Google) or with HD Insight (Big Data cloud service from Microsoft).

As with AWS and Azure, Hana has been certified and supported by SAP for Google GCP. With the Google certification, SLES for SAP (12 SP1 and SP2) including HA functionality (extensions) is also provided as an on-demand as well as a BYOS image (Bring Your Own Subscription) on the Google Compute Engines - including support.

With Google's entry into the SAP IaaS public cloud market, the cards will be reshuffled. Due to Google's available development resources, innovations in SAP usage on the GCP will certainly follow at short intervals.

Through the SAP certification, Google has proven that the GCP (including the Google Compute Engines) can withstand full-blown enterprise workloads. It is reasonable to assume that the Google entree will provide an additional boost to Hana usage - whether in conjunction with S/4 deployment or other Hana-based SAP solutions, as well as when using Hana as a full-compliance ACID database for a wide variety of uses.

As the recommended and preferred OS for Enterprise Hana deployment, Suse SLES for SAP Applications is in the mix. As with "SAP on AWS" and "SAP on Azure".

Customers will benefit from the intensifying SAP IaaS public cloud competition. Because Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are not giving each other anything, it can be assumed that one round of price reductions will follow another. After all, this has constantly been the case with Amazon AWS in the past.