Tuning the infrastructure pushes SAP to the performance limit

Through perseverance, entrepreneurial courage and the will to perfection, LNW-Soft GmbH has built a strong reputation in the market in the areas of infrastructure and automation in the SAP environment. In this niche, LNW-Soft counts as a hidden champion.

Whether in the automotive industry, the public sector or in the security environment - the in-house software toolbox combined with expertise is in demand across all industries.

A clever partner model and a strong SAP community in the hybrid cloud environment are still paving the way for the unique success in the DACH region today.

Anyone who wants to build the tallest building in the world will come up against physical limits, which, however, shift further into the sky with every day of experience. However, this expected gain in knowledge must already be built into the foundation, otherwise all ambitious plans will fail.

Digitization of the economy and society is such an indispensable plan, in which SAP's standard software plays a significant role worldwide. Urbanization, smart data, hyperconnectivity - the "foundation" of LNW-Soft ensures the operation of digitization strategies in large organizations.

"We control and orchestrate the technological platform of SAP systems both "on-premises and in the cloud"."

says Raphael Schiller, Principal SAP Technology Consultant and man of the first hour at LNW.

The world market leader uses its experience as well as its software and pushes the performance of the infrastructure to the limit for stable SAP operation. Completely automated! The technical platform always remains the same: provide the infrastructure, automate the necessary routines and then tune.

Today's CIO faces multiple pressures: deliver faster, improve quality and reduce costs amid a persistent shortage of experts. A triad of challenges that often culminates in a focus on automation.

"This has become increasingly prevalent in recent years"

Raphael Schiller explains.

Combined with the shift of many companies to SAP S/4 HANA, which requires a completely new technical infrastructure, and the industrialization of public cloud offerings, a lever is emerging in IT departments to resolve the day-to-day pressure to act.

Automating technical routines at the infrastructure level delivers value with a view to the IT departments' KPIs. It is not uncommon to see ROI after just five months. These are facts.

"It makes a huge difference whether you set up your new project system by hand in two weeks or automatically within half a day," says SAP expert Schiller.

Strong KPIs: ROI after five months

Against this background, automation projects have the status Prio1 and go hand in hand with already pending investments - see SAP S/4 HANA - virtually in one go.

SAP HANA needs a test system, a digital twin or clone for testing and calibrating the systems. This requires completely new hardware. As a trusted advisor, the second technical driver also plays into the hands of LNW-Soft. Its own partner model is based on networking and cooperation.

"The cloud alone is of no use. Access alone does not guarantee that the policies of the operating environments are also adhered to".

says Torsten Gwosch, responsible account manager at LNW-Soft.

Reputation as trusted advisor in demand in the cloud environment

In the case of large customers, one or two strategic cloud providers are usually established in-house. Here, the customer then determines with whom the topic of automation is driven forward.

At LNW, there is a strategic partnership with Microsoft Azure, as in the DACH region Microsoft is considered the leading cloud provider in the SAP environment.

"Which is not to say that we leave Google Cloud, AWS or iNNOVO Cloud to the left. On the contrary, as a Trusted Advisor we consider all alternatives. That's what the customer expects from us, period!"

says Gwosch, who in his role has precise insight into the requirements of the market.

Without deep knowledge, this tuning of the operating infrastructure for SAP is not possible. This is the asset of LNW-Soft, supported by its own Proactive Management Suite and very recently also "Cloud Bridge."

In a good 13 years, the company's own consultants plus a task force of freelancers have built up an expertise and reputation that they pass on during their projects with clients.

"We demand a high level of expertise from ourselves. Our colleagues have to know their way around SAP, that's the basis, but they also have to know the infrastructure inside out.

If you want to automate SAP operations, this knowledge is imperative: from the hardware to the customer's applications. Holistic thinking includes infrastructure, storage, network, operating system and the application."

Standardization and orchestration of processes, data and goods are the foundation for agility and business success. In this game, automation delivers stability in operations and digs the "gold" out of technical routines. This is the core business for consultants like Jörg Engelhardt. He knows the challenges and misunderstandings in this field.

"The circumstances at the customer's site have to be right. It can't be automated without standardization."

Companies often have to take this learning curve. It is not uncommon for consultants to discover on site at the customer that the standardization of IT often does not have the level of maturity required for automation.

As a consequence, an upstream infrastructure or architecture project often starts so that the operational concept can take effect afterwards.

"This standardization itself we accompany in the conception, the pure implementation is done by partners and we support, depending on the customer size"

adds Raphael Schiller.

LNW-Soft supporting part of the SAP community

The strong partner model of the various service providers and suppliers, as well as the clever focus on the SAP community in the hybrid cloud environment, resulted in a unique "information sharing" from which customers in particular benefit.

The exchange among each other is cultivated, mutual encouragement is given and details are also rubbed together once in a while. Always with respect for the entrepreneurial performance of the other.

This is competition in action, with the customer at the center: a strong ecosystem in the SAP infrastructure environment. There is NetApp, for example, with storage solutions that are ideal for automation.

Or a Fujitsu adds the LNW software to its in-house hardware. From the customer's point of view, the individual companies complement each other in their services and products like a Lego construction set.

"A very open, collaborative environment that sets this community apart from pure consulting firms. It works great!"

Raphael Schiller explains.

As a consequence, our customers know that we act in a well-rehearsed and professional manner and implement projects smoothly "in time and budget".

Proactive Management Suite: Benchmark on the subject of operational downtime

The emergency lasted less than four minutes! A commissioned server shutdown in the global SAP ERP as a test at an automotive supplier with 26,000 employees. The Proactive Management Suite held up and delivered.

No user flew out of the system, no alarm caused the production systems to shut down. After less than four minutes, this extreme simulation under real-time conditions was over.

Project status green! Loss of critical data from production: zero. Just a few days later, there was an actual unplanned incident in the data center. Here, it took only three minutes and 20 seconds until the systems were running 100 percent stable again.

"No one noticed this failure, but of course we documented it and evaluated it with the customer"

says Torsten Gwosch proudly.

When it comes to outage, LNW-Soft sets the benchmark here, supported by its in-house Proactive Management Suite. Especially in this use case, the demand is very high, be it for regulatory reasons or fear of the natural enemy of the data center: the excavator.

"We can provide an emergency data center completely automated from the cloud. With this, I know as the CIO of a company that I am safe."

adds Raphael Schiller.

LNW-Soft's position is unique in the market with this solution. "There are two to three competitors, but they focus purely on their own workflow engine - hardly on the content. We are able to cast the specifics of the customers into our software.

We don't know any other company with this profile," says the CEO and founder of LNW-Soft, Lénárd Buday. LNW-Soft can reduce the infrastructure deployment time to zero.

By way of comparison, when an SAP system is planned, it takes quite possibly two weeks for the planning, then four weeks until the servers arrive, and another two weeks until they are put into operation, i.e. eight weeks.

"With our software combined with Microsoft Azure, infrastructure deployment is reduced to half a day!"

says Lénárd Buday. Every financial executive understands that.