SAP majors on cloud delivery, at last

Having first opened up the possibility of having SAP applications as a cloud-delivered service some two years ago, when the scope of its in-memory processing architecture, Hana, was extended beyond running just big data analytics applications and was targeted as the system to run all the company’s ERP-related applications, it has been assumed that `SAP in the cloud’ would become the accepted mantra for the company.

Now this has come to pass, with the company announcing significant steps forward in building out the Hana-powered SAP Cloud. The company has just announced solutions powered by Hana that will be offered via subscription, including new subscription models for SAP Business Suite.

It has also expanded its global datacentre footprint and added enhanced application migration services. These are intended to give its extensive customer base a clear and easy journey to the cloud. These advancements provide ultimate access to SAP Hana, greater choice of deployment and simplicity to customers.

“Today is a significant step forward for SAP’s transformation, as we are not only emphasising our commitment to the cloud with new subscription offerings for SAP Hana, we are also increasing the choice and simplicity to deploy it,” said Dr. Vishal Sikka, member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, Products & Innovation. “In addition, we are expanding our global presence with a comprehensive in memory-centric datacentre plan, dramatically simplifying our customers’ IT landscapes.”

Not surprisingly, the news has raised some comment, most pointedly from Miguel Milano, President EMEA at salesforce.com.

“Salesforce.com pioneered cloud computing 15 years ago and introduced an entirely new technology model, financial model and customer success model,” he said. “The cloud opened the door to social, mobile, and connected. Customers are transforming business models on our platform. That's why salesforce.com is growing 30 percent and SAP is not. Salesforce.com has delivered 15 years of innovation and customer success. SAP is 15 years behind.”

Such opinions may be factually accurate but arguably do not tell the full story. For example, given the different sizes of the businesses, the chances of SAP growing at 30 percent is, with the best will in the world, unlikely. And with a base of 253,500 customers, many of whom have been using the company’s ERP systems for longer than 15 years and have publicly voiced concerns about what they see as SAP’s headlong rush to move to the cloud rather than supporting on-premise users, it is reasonable to see this as a difficult, eggshell-strewn path to take when it comes to innovation.

So SAP’s Hana-powered Enterprise Cloud now offers applications such as SAP Business Suite, the SAP Business Warehouse application and the Hana platform on a subscription model. This allows customers to run their mission-critical SAP applications in a private managed cloud environment and complements the recent Cloud Platform announcement made in March, which enables customers to extend, build and run new cloud applications on top of the Hana platform. Some restrictions may apply for customer- and product-specific configurations.

With the enhanced cloud migration services, SAP can now offer customers choice and simplified migration of SAP applications to the cloud by exploiting its15,000 professionals and several delivery centres across the globe. This includes options for integration to on-premise SAP applications and other SAP cloud solutions, including those from SAP companies SuccessFactors and Ariba. Maintenance, support and upgrade services will continue under customers’ existing maintenance agreements for the migrated applications.

The company hasalso expanding its global presence with a comprehensive datacentre plan spanning four continents. SAP currently operates 16 datacentres worldwide and is broadening its footprint to comply with the local restrictions and regulations. As of this week, for example, SAP Japan has established its first two datacentres in the Asia Pacific region, in Tokyo and Osaka.

All SAP datacentres are built on Hana’s in-memory-centric architecture with the aim of dramatically simplifying the IT landscape, and include high-end servers optimised for enterprise mission-critical workloads. SAP also recently announced it will power all datacentres and facilities globally with 100 percent renewable electricity beginning in 2014.

The shift will help minimise the company’s carbon footprint as it moves to a cloud business model, and will help eliminate carbon emissions caused by its customers’ systems by moving them into a green cloud.