SAP on the Cloud
SaaS and OnDemand
Posts Tagged: IaaS
Hybrid Cloud Computing: Is it Organic or GMO (Generally Made-up Over-complication)?
October 1, 2012 by Greg Chase
It’s already hard enough to understand what people mean when they talk about cloud computing. Now cloud computing vendors and IT industry analysts are talking about “hybrid” cloud computing. Is this some new trend that’s happening organically in the market, or is it “Generally Made-up Over-complication” by pundits and vendors?
Clouds converge on New York in time for the Interop conference
These vendors and analysts don’t even mean the same thing when using the term “hybrid.” They can be referring to at least one of three different concepts:
1) IT infrastructures made up of on premise and cloud deployments.
2) Multi-cloud deployments , especially multiple Software as a Service or platform as a service clouds.
3) An IT strategy that makes use of multiple cloud deployment approaches.
Retreading On Premise Systems to Leverage Cloud Technology – Part II of Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy
September 20, 2012 by Greg Chase
This blog continues the discussion we started with Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy Part I. Here we examine how existing on premise systems of record such as SAP Business Suite can be brought into a cloud-centered IT strategy.
The vast majority of people reading SCN work for companies that already have existing enterprise on-premise systems up and running. These companies are enjoying the business efficiencies from having their end-to-end business processes supported with comprehensive solutions such as SAP Business Suite.
Retail – It is All About BIG DATA and Winning with the Cloud
September 19, 2012 by Anders Trolle-Schultz
After Cloud and SaaS, the hype is now surfacing around BIG DATA. Moreover, as with Cloud and SaaS, many views and interpretations paint a very colorful picture – the big (J) question – how do we turn all of this into tools that can help businesses make the right decisions based upon facts and not assumptions?
In today’s world, the amount of data grows every second and we are starting to look at data in a much more “science-like” way. Instead of the traditional data mining with our “own-created” data sets, we now reach out to the cloud to include new data sets and find new correlations, some unexpected, and use them to adjust our strategies.
No doubt, the possibilities are there and many businesses stand to gain from the new resources of data – one in particular, the retail business. (more…)
Not Deciding is Still a Decision
September 19, 2012 by justin
I was struck this week by a brilliant blog post by Dave Roberts on GigaOm. In the past, I thought the wait-and-see approach to not adopting cloud could be a smart one, but his post has got me thinking differently.
He opens the post by telling the parable of Amazon vs Borders. Amazon, an upstart in 1994 with a vision to sell books on the internet and Borders already a multinational bookseller, largely ignoring the internet until outsourcing the ecommerce operations to Amazon in 2001. In 2008 they realised it was too strategic and pulled it in house yet by 2011 they were bankrupt.
The parable tells a clear story, failure to adopt a new technology led to its disruption and ultimately, its demise. A classic tale of Innovators Dilemma you might argue. Dave outlines the lessons: (more…)
Tactics, Options, and Tradeoffs in Modernizing SAP Installations for In-Memory and Cloud – a helpful pre-conference seminar at SAP TechEd Las Vegas 2012
September 17, 2012 by Greg Chase
“How will adding HANA change how we manage our SAP landscape?”
“How can we get our SAP systems virtualized, or add them to our cloud infrastructure?”
These are just some of the questions being answered in a special half day preconference seminar for SAP administrators, enterprise architects, database administrators, and consultants about how to modernize your SAP landscape for the future at SAP TechEd Las Vegas.
The business is demanding the benefits of agility and insight provided by cloud computing and big data. Meeting these requirements will profoundly affect the architecture and operation of the data center. Find out how you can help your company navigate this change while leveraging the SAP investments
Cloud Guidelines: It’s Just Good Policy
August 29, 2012 by Alec Wagner
Before The Cloud, IT spending and IT policy were tightly controlled. Now end-users can whip out a credit card and acquire IT services on the fly. First there was server sprawl. Then VM sprawl. Do we need policies to prevent cloud sprawl? Lori Janjigian, VP of client marketing at Focus, got to the heart of the matter when she asked: “Is there a need for a cloud policy? What should it cover? How broad should it be in terms of what (purchasing, consumption, security) and who (IT, employees, supply-chain partners, vendors)? Who should own it, and how should it be developed (top-down, bottom-up, crowdsourced)? How often should it be reviewed?”
It’s no surprise that the experts who responded were emphatically pro-policy. But their road maps for reigning in cloud sprawl took some intriguin (more…)
Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy Part I
August 23, 2012 by Greg Chase
Yep, cloud computing is here. In fact, the cloud is probably all over the place if your company is like many.
Now, your CEO sends you an email saying, “I need you to give a presentation to the board about our corporate strategy for moving to the cloud.” You think, “Uhh, Ma’am, we’re kind of already in the cloud. I guess we need a strategy now.”Your CFO is notes a significant rise in employee expense claims for Amazon, “Wow, they sure are reading a lot of books!” Each department head has their favorite software as a service application. You have no idea what server the HR’s department’s new custom employee vacation request application is running on. Already, the marketing department is complaining about out of synch customer data again after you cleaned up the on premise CRM system last year.
Get in front of the cloud mob and turn it into a
parade. [PHOTO SOURCE]
Building a Cloud Ecosystem: Part 2
April 10, 2012 by Brad Smith
A Guest Blog Post by Sina Moatamed
The goal of this three part series is to describe the strategy and framework for constructing an ecosystem from cloud services to best serve your enterprise. It’s also a discussion about the future role of cloud service providers and how the end user will become ultimately empowered.
Public Cloud Ecosystem
In the first part of this series, we discussed how you can organize cloud services to create an ecosystem through contracted SLAs and process mapping. But, integrating cloud services to create an ecosystem has some challenges both in infrastructure and cost. Data that has to move between public cloud offerings like those from Amazon, RackSpace, SalesForce, SAP, NetSuite, TerreMark, Azure, IBM, etc. will leverage the Internet backbone to do so. The primary issue is that the Internet provides no quality of service, and latency can vary which will impact some services. The other issue is that you may incur transit fees from each provider as you exchanged data between them.
Today, those who desire to have high availability from the Infrastructure as a Service provider will keep all computing resources within a single provider’s network and multiple data centers. But if you want to replicate your virtual system infrastructure from one cloud provider to another, you are again going to see transit fees and a lack of quality of service when moving data across the Internet.
There is a remedy, and we are starting to see the model emerge. Contact Center as a Service provider Interactive Intelligence has already instituted the new cloud standard. They have brought in data connections in partnership with many of the top tiered telco providers. Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and others now have the means to extend an enterprise’s MPLS (private wide area network) network into the cloud provider’s data center. In this model, you have quality of service and you will bypass any transit fees because the data traffic does not go over Internet anymore. (more…)
Software as a Service: The Right Fit for Your Business?
March 23, 2012 by Michael Brenner
According to IDC, software as a service (SaaS) is quickly becoming a mainstream way to deliver applications to business of all sizes. This is no surprise, given the considerable benefits – cost savings, scalability, access to continually upgraded application software, and fast time to value. However, cloud services may not be the best choice for all customers in all situations.
Read “Software as a Service: A Transformative Way to Deliver Applications” from IDC to better understand the SaaS architecture and business model – and to determine if it’s the right fit for your business.
SaaS is a software delivery model in which business users “rent” functionality as a web-based service over the cloud. SaaS allows companies on any budget to access powerful software for less than the cost of licensed applications – with pricing based on a monthly fee. Because the software is hosted remotely, users don’t need to invest in expensive hardware, maintenance, or upgrades.
In addition to SaaS, two other “as a service” options are gaining popularity:
Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) provides the ability to access processing, storage, and networking resources over the cloud.
Platform as a service (PaaS) delivers the ability to access application development and deployment resources over the cloud.
SaaS includes IaaS and PaaS since they’re both essentially cloud services that map to software categories like storage, security, database, and middleware. That’s why SaaS represents approximately 70% of public cloud revenue.
While SaaS can offer many benefits – from cost savings to increased competitiveness – it may not be the best choice for all customers in all situations. Some customers are concerned about limited customization, security and privacy issues, and conflicts with previous investments. IDC advises organizations to evaluate their application needs, and to understand that some IT environments require a mix of on-premise and SaaS applications to thrive.
Originally posted at http://blogs.sap.com/innovation/cloud-computing/software-as-a-service-0856
SAP’s Cloud Approach – supporting hybrid landscapes to do serious business
November 17, 2011 by Sven Denecken
During Sapphire we did lay out SAP´s cloud strategy in several encouraging meetings – with customers, partners and of course with our influencer community. Peter Lorenz explained in his session on where we are heading – I thought you might like some of the key topics in writing…
Check this blog for the fundamental building blocks of SAP´s Cloud Strategy where we have aligned all of cloud related activities to offer the market the best and most reliable business cloud to run business more efficiently and leverage the positives of the cloud.
The cloud strategy is based on four main pillars: OnDemand solutions (SaaS), Platform and Eco-System (PaaS), Commercial Platform and Cloud Operations (IaaS).
SAP’s cloud approach differentiates significantly from the competition by allowing customers to orchestrate hybrid solution landscapes that best fit their business. We are committed to win in the cloud market by leveraging all our assets and providing a choice for our customers to configure a solution landscape out of on-premise, outsourced and on-demand solutions that best fits their needs. To get where we want to be, we will deliver cloud services in five flavors: software, collaboration, data, mobile and platforms as a service.
As a result, solution landscapes will often combine multiple deployment models, hybrid solution landscapes will become the norm.
- Find my blogs here now
- SAP Cloud Blog Has Transitioned to the SAP Community Network
- Interesting Feedback from SAP Customers About Hybrid Cloud in Recent Webinar
- Removing HR Blind Spots
- Chewing on the billion user goal
- B2B Integration Strategy (OnPremise, OnDemand and Hybrid)
- Walking on a level playing field for HR – with end-to-end talent management suites with pre-integration
- Adding on New Capabilities with SaaS – Part III of Turning Cloudy Chaos into an IT Strategy
- New Financials: Helping Finance Deliver Greater Business Insight
- SAP Financials OnDemand .. A Primer
