The corporate world has started leveraging the benefits of digitalization with the advent of emerging technologies. Companies, irrespective of their business models, rely on advancements in these technologies to ensure growth through digital transformation. Introducing SAP Cloud solution, which has advanced features for bringing automation and digital transformation in any enterprise irrespective of the industry vertical it operates.
We will dig deep into SAP Cloud hosting and its role in transforming enterprise technology in this article. Let’s start with a basic understanding of this approach in brief.
Understanding SAP Cloud Hosting
SAP has got the largest subscriber base consisting of over 30 million users in the cloud segment. SAP Cloud Hosting offers a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) product known as SCP (SAP Cloud Platform). It gives a development and runtime environment for cloud-based applications or software for enterprises. Simply put, SAP offers hosting services for the company’s applications or business software in the cloud.
Talking about some interesting facts about SAP Cloud hosting, we can mention-
- SAP has cloud customers spanned across 25 industries in 191 countries worldwide
- One of the world’s largest cloud deployments has over 2 million users connecting to the SAP Cloud solution
- SAP Cloud runs the world’s largest global business network with over 1.2 million companies
- SAP runs a leading Enterprise Social Business Platform that has over 10 million users
There is no exaggeration in mentioning that SAP is the preferred choice of global enterprises for the cloud ERP platform. Whether it is innovating existing business systems or complimenting new processes, SAP Cloud hosting is capable of addressing diverse and complex requirements. Let’s discuss the key business benefits of SAP Cloud Hosting.
Top Advantages of SAP Cloud Hosting
A cloud ERP is a growth engine for modern enterprises. It brings super agility and digital transformation while offering many benefits to your business. SAP Cloud solutions are designed to address the needs of SMEs and established enterprises. Here are some top business benefits of SAP Cloud hosting.
Seamless integration
SAP Cloud can integrate existing solutions and hybrid system landscapes seamlessly. It ensures the seamless interaction between core SAP systems and software-as-a-service (SaaS) offerings by SAP. Also, the SAP HANA Data Management Suite tools and SAP Data Hub solution can integrate with existing business systems easily, making it possible for users to call up data from various systems and solutions using their fingertips. As a result, the SAP Cloud Platform combines heterogeneous solutions and hybrid system landscapes together under one roof.
Rapid Deployment
SAP Cloud Hosting enables entrepreneurs to deploy preconfigured applications and services rapidly. It offers a wide range of pre-configured business services to assist companies to deploy and integrate complex solutions in their business systems. Also, these services are useful for building innovative applications quickly. As a result, companies can get the advantage of reduced TTM (Time to Market). Customers can also consume partner-built solutions and apps using their fingertips. It means that they can benefit from the ever-growing SAP ecosystem.
Robust Business Applications
SAP Cloud Platform is based on open standards and offers developers a range of development tools and capabilities. Official SAP Partners can make the necessary add-ons and applications according to the platform’s standards and functionality. Programmers can leverage their existing ABAP know-how with agile methods and DevOps principles to build new business services and apps. What’s more, they can use the integrated programming framework Cloud Application Programming Model for SAP Cloud Platform to concentrate exclusively on the business logic for building business applications and processes.
Holistic Management
Modern businesses can get a holistic approach to the management of all interfaces in the entire life cycle. SAP Cloud hosting can make it easier to manage various application interfaces (APIs). This is a key competitive advantage because API management is one of the primary requirements to be fulfilled for every intelligent and future-ready enterprise. SAP Cloud ecosystem is capable to manage APIs for legacy systems and new, encapsulated container solutions. It means that you can build a solid foundation for your bimodal IT without having to worry about managing your APIs.
Consistent Experience
This is one of the biggest business benefits of SAP Cloud hosting. User acceptance is key to the success of any intelligent business app and you can get a high acceptance rate by offering a consistent experience. SAP Cloud solutions can make it possible for custom business applications by ensuring intuitive application interfaces – across all end devices.SCP comes with all the software development kits (SDKs) that companies need to create tailored apps with interactive interfaces. As a result, users can work effectively across all devices.
Transforming Enterprise Technology with SAP Cloud Hosting
Cloud computing is rapidly transforming the way enterprises operate. It helps them improve their agility, efficiency, and innovation by providing access to scalable and cost-effective IT resources. One of its key benefits is that it facilitates businesses seamlessly integrating existing solutions and hybrid systems. For example, the SAP Cloud Platform is designed to make it easy to connect different systems and business applications. This can enable your business to reduce the complexity of IT environments and improve overall efficiency.
Another critical benefit of cloud technology is its ability to help businesses rapidly deploy preconfigured applications and services. SAP Cloud Platform offers a wide range of pre-built solutions that can be easily customized to meet the specific needs of businesses. Businesses can save time and money, and get their new applications and services up and running more quickly.
In addition, cloud-powered SAP solutions can assist businesses in coming up with native business applications. SCP gives development tools and capabilities to build and deploy applications more quickly and easily. This can improve time to market and get their new applications into the hands of their customers faster.
Last but not least, entrepreneurs can improve the user experience with cloud-based applications. Official SAP partners can create the necessary modules and focus on developing intuitive user interfaces to achieve this objective. As a result, companies can increase the adoption rate for their applications.
Best Practices for Migrating to SAP Cloud Hosting
Migration to SAP Cloud is one of the key concerns for enterprises, but successful migration to the SAP Cloud solution can be a big boon for daily operations.
As per the joint survey of SAP and IDC, companies face the challenges like complex legacy landscapes, raw master data, and high requirements for customization. Out of these challenges, legacy ecosystems is the biggest one for 60% of the companies. It is, therefore, necessary to follow the best practices for SAP Cloud migration.
Here we will see the right approach and the best migration practices so that you can make the most of SAP Cloud solutions.
Right Approach for Initiating Migration to SAP Cloud
The migration process starts with the assessment of your existing system and infrastructure. It is essential to find whether your company’s infrastructure is ready for cloud technology.
Assess the Cloud-Readiness
It is the first step in your organization’s transformation journey. You can identify the requirements and limitations of your current infrastructure. It will help you find the necessary applications and data you want to migrate to the cloud. It helps you understand your cloud-related needs and create a plan for migrating existing applications.
The second step of the cloud migration process is making a proper roadmap. It begins with an assessment checklist. Here we give a pre-migration checklist.
Pre-Migration Assessment Checklist
Migrating your on-premise business system to the cloud involves many aspects. Here we cover all the major aspects you should consider.
- Get Insights
It is about understanding the system’s hardware configuration, performance data, and network connections.
- Identify Applications
This includes mapping all the dependencies between your SAP applications, third-party products, and underlying infrastructure. An official SAP Partner can help you with it.
- Analyze Configurations
You need to analyze your current SAP configuration for making the necessary changes to support new SAP features or functionality.
- Assess Security
It is essential to ensure that your SAP system is properly secured and that you have a plan in place to migrate your security settings to the cloud.
- Test Planning
You can test your migration plan to ensure that it is robust and that you have identified and addressed any potential risks.
Your SAP Cloud hosting partner can assist you in preparing this assessment checklist and making a proper roadmap for a successful migration.
Here are some additional tips for completing the checklist:
- You can start by gathering as much information as possible about your current SAP environment. Be it hardware, software, and applications, you need to consider every component.
- It is better to use a variety of tools to gather information. These days, many tools are available to assist you in assessing your SAP environment.
- Work with a reliable SAP partner to complete the checklist. Your SAP partner can help you identify any potential risks.
After making a blueprint, it is of the utmost importance that your company gets the advantage of best practices for cloud migration. Let’s go through SAP best practices.
SAP Best Practices for Migration
Corrupted data records, missing inputs, and inconsistent source data can majorly halt the SAP system’s migration to the cloud. To avoid these problems, you should plan your data migration strategy carefully and make sure that your SAP partner follows the following best practices:
Analyze and Clean Your Data
Proper data analysis can assist you to find duplicate records, missing values, and errors in various documents or information. You can create a data migration plan after addressing these mistakes or inaccuracies. The data migration plan includes the data that needs to be migrated with sources and destination systems. Also, it is necessary to consider migration tools and the testing plan.
Build a Step-by-Step Migration Strategy
Your data migration strategy consists of a 5R approach for different SAP system elements.
- Retain: Keep the SAP system as-is on-premises
- Refactor: Refactor the SAP system to make it more cloud-friendly
- Replatform: Move the SAP system to a cloud platform
- Rebuild: Build a new SAP system in the cloud
- Replace: Replace the SAP system with a different solution
Moreover, you can identify the lower-risk SAP solutions and prioritize them as the “pioneers” for cloud migration. This will help you minimize the risk of disruption to your business.
A horizontal strategy involves migrating all of your SAP systems to the cloud at the same time. A vertical strategy involves migrating one SAP system at a time. You can take a call on whether a horizontal strategy is useful or a vertical migration strategy (and vice versa) with the assistance of a reputed SAP Cloud hosting provider.
Migrating SAP applications to the cloud can be a complex and challenging task. However, by following these best practices, you can minimize the risks and ensure a smooth migration.
Concluding Remarks
In this digital age, businesses are under pressure to transform their operations and embrace new technologies. SAP Cloud Hosting offers a centralized and integrated system to bring digital transformation to all sizes of businesses and achieve their goals. Companies can manage and control all the departments through a centralized approach thereby increasing productivity.
SAP Cloud solutions can increase agility and improve customer experiences while reducing operating costs. Businesses can increase the security of confidential data and meet compliance-related requirements. All you need to consult a reliable and renowned SAP Partner to leverage these benefits through the right execution and 24×7 support.
