Sapphire Preview: SAP’s Cloud Strategy - Understanding the HANA Application Cloud or how I learned to love SAP’s Black Box in the Cloud

[richard_hirsch]

Last year after the Sapphire, I wrote a blog looking at the HANA AppCloud and its ability to host data markets.

Well it appears that the HANA AppCloud is back at this year's Sapphire and various sessions focus on it.

CL520: Discover Solutions Built on the SAP HANA Application Cloud

Tap into robust, in-memory computing in the cloud with packaged reporting and analytics, plus support for sophisticated prediction and optimization scenarios and more to solve your business needs.

            SAP Content Category: SAP Cloud Technology [SOURCE]

As seen in this description of a Sapphire session, we are talking about multiple applications.

A recent job offering for a “Senior Developer/ Development Architect (f/m) SAP HANA Cloud” also demonstrates the desire to create “a competitive portfolio of HANA powered cloud solutions”

Our mission is to grow and deliver a competitive portfolio of HANA powered cloud solutions while ensuring architecture consistency and readiness of technology for scale.

……

We are looking for a technical expert that enjoys building new competencies and developing an architecture and platform roadmap in close collaboration with domain experts. If you are not easily set back by uncertainty and a dynamic environment, please read on.

EXPECTATIONS AND TASKS

You will be working with subject matter experts from various engineering teams and need to be able to clearly and convincingly articulate the case for HANA cloud applications. Responsibilities will include:

* Analyze and formulate a roadmap for making cloud operations of new HANA powered applications successful within the context of SAP's overall platform strategy.

Based on these developments, I wanted to take another look at the HANA Application Cloud and see how it fits into SAP's Cloud Strategy. As I worked on my blog, I noticed that I was including more and more slides, so I decided to do a video where I explain the content.

POV

SAP should present a unified Cloud Strategy that includes all various components / offerings. Currently, I have the feeling that the HANA and Cloud teams are not synchronizing their efforts as much as they should.  

Analysts should also avoid the compulsive urge to place all SAP's applications on their two PaaS environments - SaaS applications that are created based on the HANA Application Cloud environment can exist independently of SAP's Java-based PaaS.  The HANA-specific functionality in such architectures does not match that of Neo and an attempt to force such applications into the Neo "mold" will result in the lose of those features that give them their competive advantage in the marketplace.