Organizations today are facing the challenge of needing to update and modernize systems to provide increased flexibility, scalability, resilience, and availability while at the same time reducing cost. Many SAP customers are also facing the challenge of needing to determine infrastructure plans for their ERP future, as well as putting in place systems and solutions that will support digital transformation objectives. While moving to the cloud can address these needs, for organizations with concerns around data sovereignty and data gravity, the cloud may not be an option. In addition to questions around data residency and data sovereignty, there is also the need to support businesses that need to grow and scale rapidly. But this must be combined with a minimization of financial risk. And this risk can include the frequently overlooked costs of data ingress and egress which can accumulate quickly for organizations running a combination of cloud-based on on-premise solutions.

The Case for Change

To learn more about these challenges and what organizations are doing to address them, SAPinsider sat down with Sunil Patel and Richard Jones from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). Patel is the Director of Worldwide Ecosystem Sales and Alliances, while Jones is a Senior Product Manager for HPE GreenLake for SAP. “Organizations want a cloud like experience so that they can rapidly iterate and move forward,” says Jones. “They want flexibility—the ability to scale up when you need additional capacity and to scale down when you don’t need it. They also want to move away from the traditional capital expenditure up front cost to on ongoing operational expenditure model.” But cloud models aren’t right for every organization. Some countries have data residency requirements, and industries like telecommunications and healthcare may face those same requirements. “Within the SAP market we see some specific scenarios behind infrastructure change,” Patel stated, expanding on Jones’ comments. “One is for SAP S/4HANA modernization, which includes process transformation. It’s more than just a technical transformation that involves using faster infrastructure or a faster database. A second is workload rebalancing where an organization wants to balance their workloads across different environments including both cloud and on-premise. A third is infrastructure refresh which is about staying on the latest infrastructure.” But Jones says that infrastructure change is about more than just transforming SAP landscapes. It must also involve all the applications and systems that are auxiliary to that core SAP application suite. These are also a necessary part of running the business, and any change must also involve consideration of these solutions. Organizations are also looking to achieve the benefits of infrastructure change more quickly. This is represented in a need for a faster and more compressed timeline for both innovation and transformation. It also involves a need for not only a more rapid deployment of solutions, but a faster completion of both design and product development. These challenges align with those seen in recent SAPinsider research focused on infrastructure trends. Pressure to modernize infrastructure to reduce costs and simplify IT is one the biggest factor driving infrastructure change today for SAP customers. Only slightly less important is the need for more flexibility and scalability. Respondents reported that one of the strategies they were employing to address these challenges was to redesign IT platforms to allow for faster deployment of systems and software. Organizations looking to transform their entire SAP landscape in a timely manner is something that Jones has seen with many customers. Many are looking to transform their entire SAP landscape and need to perform that transformation in a timely manner. This can start with a small initial configuration, and then more capacity can be added as the transformation progresses. This allows them to scale landscape transformation according to their business requirements.

Addressing the Infrastructure Need

HPE is helping organizations address these needs using HPE GreenLake. HPE GreenLake enables organizations to have a cloud like experience complete with flexibility, scalability, and adding additional infrastructure as needed in an on-premise environment. Like the cloud, HPE GreenLake uses an operational expenditure model and allows additional infrastructure to be added as needed even though it is running in your data center. Solutions like HPE GreenLake allow organizations to address the challenges that exist around rapid iteration and transformation, modernizing infrastructure, and accelerating the pace of change. But they can address these challenges while keeping systems and data in local environments and reduce the need for local infrastructure administration. This not only helps reduce costs, but also avoids the ingress and egress charges that can exist when linking local systems with those running in the cloud. These offerings are also closely integrated with SAP, including with the RISE with SAP offering using SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, customer data center option where a vendor like HPE provides the infrastructure and management through to the SAP Basis level for an SAP S/4HANA Cloud deployment that is running locally. This includes meeting regularly with SAP architecture engineers to fine tune and add new features and functionality. Managed environments on-premise are worth exploring for organizations that want the benefits of the cloud but are not able to effectively leverage that environment. This may be because of security or data residency requirements, lack of cloud data centers in the region, or simply a need to eliminate latency. HPE has found significant interest from organizations in the public sector, utilities, financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare for which a managed environment on-premise offers significant benefits.

What Does This Mean for SAPinsiders?

As organizations refresh their landscapes in conjunction with the adoption of new solutions and technologies, particularly that of SAP S/4HANA, they want to ensure that the environment that they are putting in place provides the foundation for future innovation and transformation. Not having these capabilities will restrict the ability to remain competitive and provide the environments that their customers and users need. But what can you do to make the right infrastructure decisions?

• Start planning for infrastructure changes in conjunction with planned software updates. The most common time to update infrastructure is when you’re updating the software that will be using that infrastructure. An example of this is SAP S/4HANA, with a quarter of those surveyed in recent SAPinsider research planning to coordinate their move to SAP S/4HANA with an infrastructure change. This is also the perfect opportunity to evaluate all the current infrastructure options available to you. While you may already be comparing cloud and on-premise deployments, solutions like HPE GreenLake can offer the benefits of the cloud in your local environment and may be an option you had not considered.
• Align your business and IT teams to ensure that any new infrastructure meets goals for both users and the organization. Many organizations use KPIs like reduced cost, improved security, and increased scalability and flexibility as measurements for the success of any new infrastructure. But any success criteria should also include measurements that focus on the user perspective such as user experience or performance. Bringing together IT and business teams to help define these goals will help ensure that new infrastructure will be that not only meet organizational needs but will provide users with the features they require.
• Focus on infrastructure that will give you the performance, resilience, and security that you need. Solutions like HPE GreenLake can offer service level agreements that provide very high availability to SAP customers. This is crucial for systems which can be accessed by users around the world, all day, every day. They also provide a secure and high performing environment without the need for capital expenditure. Whether you choose a solution like HPE GreenLake, the cloud, or traditional local infrastructure, it is critical that you spend time evaluating what options will meet the requirements of your organization. Then focus on using that infrastructure to build a platform for your future.

About HPE

More than 25,000 customers run SAP applications on HPE infrastructure, and we’ve deployed more than 40,000 servers for SAP HANA. We understand SAP and what SAP HANA requires from your server and storage environment, keeping mission-critical applications protected, available, and ultimately modernizing your digital core.