A Foundation for Innovation

The business world looks very different now than it did just a few years ago—and that development isn’t going away soon. Today, organizations are laser focused on innovating in the cloud and leveraging the skills they already have available to maximize value. Shifting market conditions and consumer demands make agility a key priority for businesses. To remain competitive, they must be able to leverage AI, multiple footprints, and the capabilities of all partners. Organizations need a consistent and standardized platform at the base of their operations to make the most of the universe of business solutions available.

Doing More with Less

Businesses must try to generate as much impact as possible from the systems they have in place. with an increasing focus on business intelligence and analytics. Stefanie Chiras, Senior Vice President of Partner Ecosystem Success at Red Hat, provides some analysis: “Organizations are looking to get the most benefit out of their current systems and they are looking to innovate out in the cloud. They are looking at: ‘How do I leverage skills? How do I keep my skills? How do I maintain my skills? How do I have the best skills in place? Which do I support in-house? Which do I put on to a managed service?’” This push for increased efficiency coincides with a growing emphasis on hybrid cloud solutions, as organizations focus more and more on cloud adoption. Red Hat and SAP are deepening their partnership to help businesses with cloud transformation. SAP will bolster its internal IT landscape by running a growing part of its cloud infrastructure on Red Hat Enterprise Linux. The new initiative aims to:

• Help bolster innovation in hybrid cloud environments
• Enhance intelligent business operations
• Support cloud transformation across industries
• Drive holistic IT innovation

Reliable Foundation

SAP users are always on the lookout for new capabilities and new applications, whether they are from SAP or third-party vendors to increase their innovation possibilities. Yet they also do not want to sacrifice consistency, confidence, security, and efficiency within their SAP environment. The deepened commitment between SAP and Red Hat in regard to Red Hat Enterprise Linux aims to provide that solid foundation. “Customers can now achieve that greater business agility, accelerate their cloud deployments and drive innovation building on Red Hat. Since it is scalable and flexible, our open hybrid cloud strategy platform helps bring in that agility. With this newly expanded collaboration with SAP, Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the preferred operating system for net new RISE with SAP solution deployments,” said Chiras. Linux is the bedrock of SAP S/4HANA. Customers who already rely on SAP S/4HANA for their mission-critical systems are already reliant on Linux as well. This platform provides users with enough business agility to innovate at their own pace and is vital for organizations looking to grow. “As organizations look to expand business intelligence and analytics systems across the open hybrid cloud, they need an operating system foundation that is tested, validated and trusted for these critical operations on every footprint,” said Gunnar Hellekson, Vice President and General Manager of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux Business Unit.

History of Collaboration

This additional collaboration between SAP and Red Hat is roughly a decade in the making, as Red Hat brings years of experience developing the resources needed to maximize innovation. The two industry leaders have partnered on a number of significant projects, making the opportunity to power SAP software workloads with Red Hat Enterprise Linux the logical next step. “We've been working to create platforms that enable this vision for 10 years. Innovation has continued in the industry and open source has driven a lot of that innovation. As our ecosystem has innovated while all of these things change, the strategy holds true. That strategy is exactly about creating business agility and the ability to consume change in an easier way. And so, while our strategy hasn't changed a lot of the opportunities that it opens up have changed,” said Chiras. As the leading provider of open source solutions, Red Hat is no stranger to collaborating. Sourcing solutions this way helps deliver efficiency to accelerate cloud adoption and business transformation. “Red Hat has done open source for over 25 years. I always say that open source taught the world a new way to do development and it has led to so much innovation. And now as we pull that together, we look at that balance that customers are looking to do in order to keep everything running with the maximum efficiency, leverage, new innovation. They're doing that with mission critical workloads like SAP,” said Chiras. Additionally, Red Hat collaborates with hundreds of cloud providers and thousands of hardware and software vendors. Along with its open source solutions collaborators, Red Hat cultivated an ecosystem of trusted partners. By deepening the connection with SAP, Red Hat gains access to SAP’s broad partner ecosystem as well, providing a wide array of solutions for users.

SAP S/4HANA Impact

SAP S/4HANA is on the tips of every SAP user’s tongue. With so many options for deployments, Red Hat’s new initiatives will help streamline that choice. With those options narrowed down, IT and other teams can focus on acquiring skills. “In today's market, it is critical to invest in the right skills that can contribute across a vast set of options that the business may want to take. Do I want to deploy it on-prem? Do I want to deploy in this public cloud, that public cloud? Red Hat Enterprise Linux allows them to build upon that investment of having really strong capable skills. That's where that standardization and efficiency really pays off,” said Chiras. Those who want to hone technical skills and learn more about hybrid cloud technologies can partake in the Red Hat Learning Subscription Premium. It offers virtual and instructor-led Red Hat classes, as well as labs where users can take a more hands-on approach to their education.

Consistency

Having consistency across an SAP environment not only impacts the teams that are implementing applications, but also impacts those administering and securing systems. Those who have already deployed SAP HANA-based systems also stand to benefit from the new Red Hat–SAP initiative. No IT environment will be stagnant for the long term. Those who have already deployed can surround their SAP environment with new workloads.

Partnership

In the new business world, organizations must do more with less to stay afloat and separate themselves from the competition. Innovation and efficiency have never been more prized. To help drive hybrid cloud innovation and enhance customer value, Red Hat and SAP are enhancing their partnership. Red Hat and SAP have years of shared history and experience providing businesses with a platform for innovation. The newly announced initiative offers enhanced intelligent business operations and support for cloud transformations across industries. With the combined power of SAP software workloads and Red Hat Enterprise Linux, organizations can maximize innovation and gain a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace.