SAP implementation projects are highly complex projects based on long lists of functional and non-functional requirements with high organizational and IT dependencies. Such projects normally comprise the complete Enterprise Architecture layers of
1. Business processes and organizations
2. Data and information flows
3. Application architecture
4. Technology and infrastructure
Enterprises need to have a deep transparency into these layers following a complex blueprint and project plan. The project scope normally covers core and context areas of the layers. The value of Cloud contributes in the instant provisioning and inclusion of services in context areas.
Steer up with cloud services
With the evaluation of pre-defined services customers can try and test their scope and fit instead of trusting the blueprinting only which heavily reduces risks. It also moves the evaluation phase to the beginning of the project with the requirement engineering instead of having this after initial implementation.
1. gear: Gain speed on infrastructure and technology
On the technology and infrastructure with ready to use Infrastructure as a as a service (IaaS). Enterprises gain speed by using pre-configured IaaS offerings which already include the service in provisioning and maintaining infrastructure in the exact scalable size and with pre-defined qualities (SLAs). Enterprises can rent or subscribe to these IaaS offering and do not need to purchase and setup the infrastructure themselves which reduces technology and infrastructure use by several weeks or months.
- SAP offers with its SAP HANA Cloud Platform offering Servicer capacity and performance in different packages for monthly subscription.
- SAP offers with its SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud a fully managed hosting offering which provides productive and non-productive SAP environments with SLAs suitable for implementation projects
2. gear: Gain speed on application layer
On the application architecture layer SAP provides with its
- Cloud Appliance Library (CAL) pre-packaged SAP products which can be directly deployed on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform or in Amazon Web Services. Therefore enterprises do not need to setup the required solution landscape with its latest patches and upgrades themselves but receive a ready-to use core-application platform which can be configured to the specific needs. This reduces the time spend on installation by several days to weeks.
- With its Pre-Assembly Service for Rapid Deployment Solutions (RDS) SAP provides the ability for customers to pre-build a template and ready to use solution environment based on customers specific scope by technically harmonizing the required SAP software products and activate the necessary content packages. The template is provided as a virtual image in the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud or it can be deployed in any defined target data center. Customers can start configuring the solution to their needs instead of installing and testing the software themselves. This cuts the technical preparation phase of implementation projects down to 25%. More information can be found on the SAP Service Marketplace (user account required)
- With the usage of a cloud-based platform as a service (PaaS) such as the SAP HANA Cloud Platform customers can build extensions and customizations outside the standard solution with using a rich platform providing pre-coded code-elements for database and process and analytics capabilities of the underlying core system, APIs and integration adapters. This decreases the implementation time as the reuse of patterns speed up the project without the need to code and test these elements themselves.
3. gear: shift data to the lowest complexity
Using a data platform as a service (DBaaS) enterprises can use the latest capabilities of designing and maintaining data and information flows.
- With the DBaaS offering as part of the SAP HANA Cloud Platform from customers can use subscribe to the capacity they need with using the standard integration points and maintain the business and data flows through a hosted Solution Manager. This ensures direct execution from process and data modelling to SAP systems without the need to code it. Test scenarios can directly be defined and executed using Testing tools or the SAP Solution Manager capability. This reduces the implementation time up to 50%
4.gear: Full speed with standard process usage
With the use of software as a service (SaaS) offerings like
- SAP Cloud for customers (CRM processes)
- SuccessFactors (HR processes)
- Hybris (marketing, ecommerce processes)
- Ariba (procurement, SRM processes
- Field glass (workforce management processes)
- Concur (travel and expense processes)
customers can reuse pre-defined business functionality and integrate it into their business processes instead of rebuilding the functionality. With the adoption of the given process steps it is often quicker to adjust the internal process flow instead of customizing the solution to the internal process. This saves money and time of future functional updates and extensions as backward compatibility is ensured by the vendor and need to be elaborated by the enterprise.
Get your tailored roadmap for cloud adoption within a 2 weeks consulting engagement with the Cloud Strategy and Roadmap Service. SAP supports its customer in adopting cloud to their needs with providing the right solution selection, reference architecture, business case and cloud adoption methodology.
Decision trees, capability mappings and cloud integration checklists speed up the definition of hybrid landscape between on-premise and cloud-based SAP solution and components as well as third party products. More information on the Cloud Strategy and Roadmap Service can be found on the SAP Service Marketplace (user account required).
