Technical Articles
SAP S/4HANA Deployment on Hyperscalers
This blog post targets SAP solution and technical architects and explains the deployment of SAP S/4HANA on Hyperscalers
What are Hyperscalers?
Hyperscalers are the big players in the Public Cloud market. They offer Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
This blog post focus is on Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering from Hyperscalers and SAP S/4HANA deployment on Hyperscalers
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides virtual servers, networks, storage, and systems software designed to augment or replace data centers or individually networked computers. There are 24 vendors currently offering Hyperscaler services in Public Cloud market, out of that these are SAP Certified Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Platforms as of today
- Alibaba Cloud Computing Limited
- Amazon Web Services
- Google Cloud Platform
- Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd
- IBM Cloud
- Microsoft Azure
- Open Telekom Cloud
Hyperscalers – Market share Comparison
Technology Drivers for move to Hyperscaler
Adoption of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) has more than doubled over the past couple of years, with Hyperscalers offering best of breed cloud computing services to fulfill enterprise specific needs. Hyperscalers are providing range of solutions for organizations who are looking to lower the overheads by deploying and expanding into public cloud infrastructure.
Technology drivers which make Hyperscalers the most sought- after cloud option are On-demand Elasticity, Infinite Scalability, Operational Automation, Global Presence, Security & Compliance
Which facts can help to choose the right Hyperscaler (Innovation as the goal)?
Consider your options for moving into Hyperscaler infrastructure
Match your business objectives to possible deployment strategies and options
Classic lift and shift
Re-host: Lifting SAP applications/landscapes as-is from on-premise and shifting to a public cloud environment. With this approach, the target is the exact copy of the top 3 layers in the technology stack – application, database and OS platform and there is little to no architectural changes. This enables rapid migration with minimal disruption, but it prevents from harnessing any key business benefits of public cloud migration. Realized using methods such as Classic system copy and OS-DB migrations
Re-platform: It is the technical migration of SAP applications. It maintains the existing applications but upgrades the underlying OS and DB by migrating to SAP HANA and a supported OS platform in a Hyperscaler environment – Example: SAP ERP to Business Suite Powered by SAP HANA. Use established approaches for system migration, leverage the advantages of “DMO with system move” Option.
Re-Architect: Re-imagine how the application is architected and developed using emerging application features. This is driven by a strong business need to add features, scale, or performance that would otherwise be difficult to achieve in the existing environment. Leverage the advantages of Data Migration – Landscape Transformation techniques
Transform
Convert or migrate to SAP S/4HANA hosted on a Hyperscaler from the well-known migration paths, in this type of migration, the application layer is transformed to SAP S/4HANA along with the OS and DB following one of the 3 transition paths – new implementation, system conversion and selective data transition. With this option customers gain the benefits of cloud native features but also have a new Digital Core Platform, Reinvented Processes and new UX. The benefits of transformation often outweigh the effort and costs of adapting to a new system.
SAP offers choice for the SAP S/4HANA Journey
SAP S/4HANA offers customers the choice of consumption which is a unique differentiator in the market. No matter whether we talk about SAP S/4HANA Any Premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud, it can be run on different infrastructures, including the Hyperscaler infrastructures.
Deployment Flexibility of S/4HANA
When SAP S/4HANA is consumed as a Cloud solution, SAP owns the governance of the solution according to SaaS principles. When SAP S/4HANA is consumed as a product, the governance of the solution is with the customer, but can of course be handed over to a 3rd party (including SAP) as part of classical software application management services (AMS).
SAP offers two SAP S/4HANA Cloud flavors, which differs in areas such as upgrade cadence, functional depth, content management and extensibility. SAP introduced these flavors of the cloud as the degree of standardization customers can adopt widely by industry and business model.
Two flavors for SAP S/4HANA Cloud: SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition.
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, essentials edition comes with the highest degree of standardization and is focused on core Finance ERP and service processes.
- SAP S/4HANA Cloud, extended edition focuses on the more complex processes of other industries such as Product centric and Manufacturing Enterprises, Consumer Products and Retail and offers a comprehensive, sub-vertical tailored industry scope, support of a broad set of partner solutions and multiple ways of custom extensions.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended Edition (EX) and SAP S/4HANA AnyPremise powered by Hyperscalers
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (SAP HEC) provides the same comprehensive SLAs for SAP HEC with AWS, Azure and GCP that customers already experience with SAP HEC in SAP data centers. SAP HEC represents best of both worlds; SAP operates and manages SAP systems in a private managed cloud with IaaS from a provider of their choice under one contract and comprehensive responsibility.
Summary
SAP S/4HANA AnyPremise and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Extended Edition can be operated on Hyperscaler infrastructure but multiple dimensions (Sizing, Operational support, SLAs, Contractual Condition, etc…) can influence the choice of the vendor. Utilize Project Embrace and SAP HEC (managed services from SAP) for guidance, best practices, or services in your SAP S/4HANA Journey.
References
https://support.sap.com/en/offerings-programs/ccoe/sap-hyperscalers.html
https://community.sap.com/topics/virtualization
– Brought to you by the S/4HANA RIG –
Hi Rami,
Awesome information!
We started to bring all our demo systems on Hyperscaler fully integrated!
The benefits of this transformation clearly outweigh the effort and costs of adapting to this new environment.
Best regards, Wolfgang
Thank you, Wolfgang. I echo your thoughts, good luck to your transformation.
Hello,
As I understand it, the Embrace Program is not restricted to Azure ; it is a collaboration program with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud as well as global strategic service partners (GSSPs)
Any idea when AWS and GCP will join ?
thanks
Dear Raoul,
Embrace Program is specific to Azure.
No updates yet on collaboration of AWS and GCP partnerships yet.
Best regards, Rami
How about IBM as well?
Great article. Thank you for sharing
Thank you Sabin 🙂
Rami - Are you completely sure about the EMBRACE agreement being open to AWS and Google Cloud Platform ? This does not sound right. Embrace is an agreement between Microsoft and SAP, which allows Microsoft to sell the SAP cloud platform on Microsoft paper - both AWS and GCP cannot do this....I think you should research this area better.
Shahab, you are correct. I include the role of Embrace Ambassador for LAC in my P&T Cloud responsibilities here at SAP and can confirm that the current agreement is exclusive to Microsoft with specific limitations as to a joint GTM strategy. That does not mean that we cannot work with the other hyperscalers, of course, but it does mean that those arrangements will not be under the auspices of the Embrace program.
Hello Rami,
Great Article and Thanks for your Efforts
Regards,
Anandha
Thank you Anandha
Hello Rami,
Great Article !!
Thank you Vivek
Are there any SAP solution specific differentiation exist. That means some SAP solution can run on only GCP and not on AWS and Azure cloud, like I was reading somewhere it states that SAP SuccessFactors is going to run only on Azure and SAP Commerce Cloud also runs only on Azure and not on GCP and AWS. Is this a valid statement. Not sure. If there are component wise differences, please include a comparative analysis.
This is a great blog Rami!
Hello Rami,
Excellent Article.
Based on the Article, i am assuming S/4 HANA Cloud Essential RUNS on only SAP. (as per the diagram under the heading - "SAP offers choice for the SAP S/4HANA Journey".
However in the diagram under the heading "Deployment Flexibility of S/4HANA" AWS, AZURE and ALIBABA cloud were shown as IAAS providers for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Is this with reference to S/4 HANA Cloud extended version only or for the S/4 HANA Cloud essential version also?
Best Regards,
Satya
Thank you Satya.
SAP S/4HANA public cloud (S/4 HANA Cloud essentials) deployment is renting infrastructure from third party(IaaS) vendor, IaaS providers share public Network, Server, DB, OS with multiple customers.
Best regards, Rami
Thank you very much for the clarification.
Hi Rami
Hope you remember me....and great article.
I am working with a pharma customer looking to deploy S/4 on AWS but has operations in China, Russia etc. who have specific requirements as to how their data is managed. Do you know where we can get guidance on how these specific requirements can be catered for?
Best Regards
Prakash
Awesome read, Public cloud adoption is going at very fast pace in SAP world and no doubt cloud had made life easier for architects.
Hi, Is there a place where I can find a project plan for the lift and shift migration.
Very detailed explanation!!! Excellent blog,,