Virtually everyone is talking about virtualization and cloud computing these days. At the SAPPHIRE NOW conference in May there were several sessions and a lot discussion about what SAP is doing in this area. Specifically, Kaj van de Loo's session on "Adopting Cloud Computing: A Roadmap for SAP Customers" provided a good overview of how SAP is adopting virtualization and cloud computing to help customers deploy and manage their SAP systems easier and faster.
In his session, Kaj compared traditional IT infrastructures with today's more modern, virtualized, intelligent infrastructures which are characterized by these attributes:
- Programmable
- Dynamic
- Declarative
- Policy-based
In general, the key benefits of moving to a virtualized environment are reduced TCO and improved business agility. For SAP customers who leverage virtualization and cloud solutions, they can see these specific benefits:
- Reduction in physical servers
- Comprehensive configuration and deployment
- Automatic capacity and availability management
- Landscape and scenario refreshment
- Comprehensive failover management
- Comprehensive DR management
- Billing and reporting
Since SAPPHIRE (or even before) many people have asked what is SAP specifically doing to help customers realize the benefits of virtualization, what are some of the best practices for implementing SAP systems in a virtualized and cloud infrastructure, how will existing or future products leverage or incorporate support for virtualization and cloud, and so on. This Virtualization blog is a place where customers, partners, SAP employees and other community members can get answers these questions, interact, ask more questions, share ideas, and be kept up to date on new developments in the area of virtualization technologies and solutions.
In addition to the ongoing discussions and postings, here are some of the initial topics we have planned to blog about in the near future:
- Current status of virtualization and cloud support for SAP systems
- ACC 7.3 Ramp-Up plans and schedule
- SAP Virtualization and Cloud Strategy and Overview
- Technology and innovation discussions
As a Solution Manager for virtualization and cloud products in SAP, I can tell you I'm personally excited by the opportunities we have in front of us and where SAP is going with our products and technologies. Over the coming weeks and months we'll be sharing some of that roadmap and vision here, but you can also hear more about it by joining the ASUG Virtualization Influence Council or the DSAG Arbeitskreis Virtualization. We will also have several sessions and a workshop at SAP TechEd 2010, but more on that in a future posting.
Again, welcome to our new Virtualization blog, now let the blogging begin.
