South Florida Water Management District Upgrades Business Plumbing With SAP S/4HANA
Key Takeaways
⇨ Urgency and Strategic Migration: SFWMD faced critical software obsolescence and high renewal costs, leading to a strategic migration from SAP ECC on Oracle to SAP S/4HANA, with the help of Infosys Public Services (IPS).
⇨ Seamless Transition Amid Challenges: Despite pandemic constraints and an approaching hurricane, the migration was completed remotely with minimal disruption, enhancing system performance and reducing data management cycle times by 70%.
⇨ Enhanced Business Capabilities: The upgrade not only optimized business processes but also significantly improved application response times, establishing a strong foundation for future enhancements and improved service delivery for SFWMD.
SAP S/4HANA was released in 2015. For those unfamiliar with the world of SAP, S/4HANA runs on HANA, which is an in-memory database. Intended initially for data mart and data warehousing, it is now an all-in-one data platform that manages analytical, transactional, and app development. This migration allowed SFWMD to jettison the Oracle database and the impending licensing costs and transition from Solaris to Linux.
SAP S/4HANA is designed to handle more complex problems and manage more data than SAP ECC. SAP S/4HANA can be run on-premises and in the cloud. SFWMD opted to stay on-premises, at least as a first step.
With HANA’s in-memory computing database infrastructure, analysts don’t have to waste time loading or to write back data. Developers can create and run customized applications on top of HANA.
For those of you relating to this situation very closely, note that SAP plans on terminating its standard maintenance support for SAP ECC in 2027, which will require the transition.
The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is a regional governmental agency that manages water resources in the southern half of Florida, including sixteen counties from Orlando to the Florida Keys and nine million residents.
Infosys Public Services, a US-based subsidiary of Infosys, helps federal, state and local, and non-governmental organizations become more connected and agile by renewing existing systems and building new digital capabilities.
Despite a worldwide pandemic and an oncoming hurricane, the two companies successfully upgraded the agency’s legacy SAP system.
A FAMILIAR TALE OF SOFTWARE OBSOLESCENCE
The SFWMD story is certainly not unique. SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) was SAP’s flagship product before 2015. It was a collection of modules that covered the gamut of business applications from logistics to finance and HR. All the modules were customized and linked through your database of choice. SFWMD ran the Oracle database on Solaris, with the last major upgrade performed in 2009!
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