7 Reasons to Migrate SAP to AWS

CIOs all know that ERPs like SAP run the business, especially for large complex enterprises that have developed their back and front office workflows over the years, if not decades. For enterprise CIOs, overseeing the SAP platform is often job number one, and managing workflow enhancements, acquisitions that require integration, data model changes, or new compliance requirements are always challenging.

And the complications multiply if the ERP’s infrastructure isn’t reliable or end-users experience frequent performance degradations. It’s hard for the CIO to garner support for digital transformation or investments in emerging technologies when leaders and employees can’t depend on the ERP, the enterprise’s most essential business system.

So will progressive CIO move their ERP to run on AWS?

Why run SAP on AWS?

The idea of running a global ERP on a public cloud strikes the fear of conservative CIOs struggling to maintain and upgrade their on-prem installation. It’s fairly common for large enterprises to have a highly customized ERP, with tailored business rules, workflows, data fields, and reports hard-wired into them.

But progressive, forward-looking CIOs recognize the need to run SAP, an agile and intelligent ERP, on a public cloud like AWS, which can be a major step to unshackling the business.

When transitioning from on-prem to AWS, the key to success is selecting a partner with a safe and fast framework for migrations. These transitions focus on automating the upfront assessment, infrastructure configuration, and data migration, which can help CIOs avoid the costs and complexities of a do-it-yourself migration.

CIOs can then focus on gaining the benefits of running SAP on AWS. Some of these benefits include:

• Enable easier integrations between the ERP’s financial and operational data with the front office customer experience data and third-party sales, marketing, and industry-specific operations platforms.
• Promote a data-driven organization by enabling real-time access to operational data and promote a culture of asking questions and learning answers.
• Accelerate experimenting with predictive analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, where SAP is a key data source for enriching data and creating training datasets.
• Reduce IT service management incidents tied to supporting the ERP platform’s infrastructure and increase services that help business users with their workflow and data needs.
• Connect SAP to other IT operational systems such as cloud ops, monitoring, and security tools.
• Leverage automation and AWS’s infrastructure services to simplify the planning and executing of application upgrades.
• Shift from a Capex to an Opex model, which can be beneficial to enterprises focused on M&A and looking to centralize their ERP.

But probably the most important reason is the shift in focus. Business leaders can take advantage of out-of-the-box configurations instead of customizing proprietary workflows. Business end-users are happier when SAP meets performance expectations and are more open to partnering with IT on other technology initiatives. Instead of IT worrying about expanding the SAN or upgrading network architectures, they can leverage AWS services and a common skillset to support the underlying infrastructure. The C-Suite can sleep better at night knowing they have Wipro FullStride Cloud Services as a strategic partner to oversee the platform transformation knowing that Wipro’s business outcome focused approach helps clients maximize the true transformative potential of the cloud to propel growth and define new revenue streams.

That shift in focus is exactly what progressive CIOs seek when moving SAP to AWS and expanding the organization’s technology and data capabilities.  

Isaac Sacolick, President of StarCIO, is the author of the Amazon bestseller Driving Digital: The Leader’s Guide to Business Transformation through Technology, covering many practices such as agile planning, DevOps, and data science, that are critical to successful digital transformation programs. Sacolick is a recognized top social CIO, digital transformation influencer, and has over 700 articles published at InfoWorld,  CIO.com, his blog Social, Agile, and Transformation, and other sites.

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