A Hybrid Journey to RISE with SAP: Unlocking Value Through Strategic Partnership

For large enterprises managing complex, regulated SAP industries, the road to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, Private Edition through RISE with SAP is anything but straightforward. The transition from highly customized ECC systems to modern platforms involves technical, operational, and organizational hurdles—especially as businesses contend with 2027 lifecycle events, economic volatility, increasing security threats, and a persistent skills gap.

To help enterprise leaders navigate this complexity, Red Hat, Avantra, and Lemongrass have come together to form a strategic ecosystem that underpins and accelerates the hybrid journey to RISE with SAP. The upcoming webinar will share practical insights, technical strategies, and customer anecdotes to help decision-makers reduce risk and unlock value.

Choosing the Right Platform

“Defining the open hybrid platform.” That’s how Justin Hibbard, Global Ecosystem Technical Strategist at Red Hat, describes their role in this journey for enterprise users. “Platform choice is important,” he said. “Choosing a platform that gives you the openness to choose where you run your SAP workloads to reduce your risk through the transition is key.”

At the foundation is Red Hat’s leading open hybrid cloud platform, offering consistency across on-premise, cloud, and edge deployments. With over 25 years of co-engineering with SAP, Red Hat codifies SAP Notes and best practices into its platforms to simplify operations and lower TCO. As Hibbard put it, “We’re hybrid by design but also incredibly low friction.”

Avantra adds intelligent automation and monitoring, which is especially critical during periods of transformation. “Monitoring is key,” Hibbard said. “You need to know what state things are in when you arrive, how change affects service, and what you need to do to mitigate risk.” Avantra’s tools support day-two operations, reduce operational complexity, and increase visibility—key capabilities when enterprises are straddling legacy infrastructure and cloud environments.

Lemongrass specializes in migration and modernization, helping customers move from customized on-premise SAP landscapes to more standardized and secure environments. They bring automation and integration capabilities through SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), making systems smoother, more secure, and future-ready. “It’s not about switching to RISE overnight,” noted Wolfgang Bausch of Red Hat. “It’s a journey—and our ecosystem supports that journey at every step.”

This synergy is crucial for regulated industries—including finance, defense, insurance, and the public sector—where cloud transitions must meet strict compliance and operational requirements. “If it were easy, they’d have done it already,” Hibbard said. “These are thousand-employee-plus organizations with deep legacy investments, environments that are complex that need to be moved in management chunks, with contained dependencies”

The webinar will include real customer examples and lessons learned through early adoption—particularly around the sunset of platforms like SAP PI-PO in 2027 and the push to integrate SAP’s latest AI innovations. “If you want to take advantage of SAP’s AI features,” said Hibbard, “you’ve got to be on a modern platform.”

Ultimately, this strategic partnership helps enterprises “connect beyond SAP,” as Bausch put it—linking modernization, security, and operational efficiency through a broad partner ecosystem. The result? A lower-cost, lower-risk, higher-value path to RISE with SAP—and beyond.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Platform choice defines the pace and safety of your SAP journey. The transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition isn’t just about moving workloads, it’s about choosing a platform that supports flexibility, resilience, and long-term value. Red Hat’s open hybrid cloud platform enables customers to deploy SAP systems on-premise, in the cloud, and at the edge, all with a consistent operational model. With over 25 years of co-engineering with dedicated teams working with SAP in Walldorf, Red Hat has embedded automation and best practices directly into its platform to streamline operations and reduce friction. Business technology leaders should begin by assessing where hybrid deployment models can reduce complexity, particularly in environments juggling legacy systems and modern cloud expectations.

Automation and monitoring are essential to derisk transformation. Avantra provides intelligent monitoring and automation tools that complement Red Hat’s platform, giving enterprises real-time visibility into their SAP environments before, during, and after major changes. This is especially important in hybrid scenarios where legacy infrastructure coexists with cloud-based services. Integrating these tools early in your transition allows your team to reduce reliance on scarce manual expertise, close operational gaps, and ensure system stability as you modernize. The result is faster, safer decision-making with fewer surprises during migration.

Strategic partnerships unlock modernization beyond the SAP core. Moving to RISE with SAP isn’t a binary decision—it’s a phased journey that requires the right ecosystem. Lemongrass brings deep migration expertise, helping customers standardize complex SAP landscapes while layering in integration with SAP BTP. Together with Red Hat’s hybrid platform and Avantra’s operational tooling, this partnership offers a comprehensive solution that supports compliance, modernization, and scalability across industries like finance, defense, and the public sector. Join the upcoming webinar to hear customer stories, explore best practices, and learn how this collaboration can accelerate your path to RISE with SAP. Learn more here: Accelerate your SAP Journey with Valuable Partnerships