How to innovate while operating and managing SAP in the cloud

There’s a strong business case for migrating SAP environments to the cloud. Benefits include the ability to easily scale workloads, relieve IT staff workloads, and reduce costs, all while aligning with their business strategy. But it’s one thing to move SAP to the cloud, and quite another thing to get the most out of the cloud platform after the migration.

Operating and managing SAP in the cloud – in a way that allows your business to innovate –  was the topic of a recent @IDGTechTalk Twitter chat sponsored by @Wipro and @awscloud. Moderated by CIO, blogger, and industry speaker Isaac Sacolick (@nyike), the session brought together IT practitioners, consultants, and influencers to discuss how organizations can innovate while operating and managing SAP in the cloud.

So, about those business benefits…

“Getting out of the infrastructure biz is at the top of the list of benefits IMO.” – Will Kelly (@willkelly)

“It’s about moving up stack so that better service is provided to the org and end-users, and that opens up opportunities to be more data-driven and innovate.” – Isaac Sacolick (@nyike)

“Don’t ignore the need to move from a Capex to an Opex cost model. And the ability to have a ‘pay as you go’ TCO.” – Jack Gold (@jckgld)

“The data in #SAP is a key asset for any organization. With SAP BTP on #AWS & the AWS’ SaaS offerings, this data can be analyzed & value can be extracted in various ways, generating insights to help stakeholders make more impactful, successful decisions, faster.” – @Wipro

Participants had plenty of advice for IT teams making the move.

“Don’t let them push you before you are ready, but also don’t be so risk [averse] if you’re not. Not everybody has an environment or is mature enough to adequately consume cloud services or XaaS as whole cloth – avoid pedantry, but lean into some change.” – Amélie E. Koran (@webjedi)

“2 pieces of advice/insight to IT teams operating @SAP in the cloud. Don’t forget many of your users will crave both cloud-native and web-based mobile apps @SAPMobile. Second, user #authentication needs to be simple yet robust. #security of foremost concern.” – Adam Stein (@apstein2)

“Not to be philosophical here, but I would say one size never fits all. Knowledge counts, but experience across technology, business and even industry matters more.” – Joanne Friedman (joannefriedman)

The discussion then focused on how a cloud-based SAP environment can help to accelerate innovation.

“Look for new ways to transcend existing data silos. For example, a conglomerate is analyzing visual inspection data & using AI to identify opportunities for higher-yield manufacturing. It wouldn’t be possible if their data was still siloed at each plant site.” – Parag Karkhanis (@imparagk)

“The main advantage of SAP in the cloud is compute power for the data. With the cloud SAP can really crank through your data, provided that the data is located in the same cloud. Getting all the data to the cloud is a chore, so be prepared for a migration.” – Brent Kirkpatrick (@DrBKirkpatrick)

“You can’t have cloud innovation w/o #infosec. So ensure security is included to reduce vulnerability gap that businesses can’t afford in the current heightened risk landscape. Consider #NetSecOps in the innovation process.” – Ben Rothke (@benrothke)

Specifically, organizations can use cloud-native services such as analytics or machine learning to enhance or optimize their SAP environments.

“One customer used AWS Glue for multi-ERP ETL, Amazon Kinesis for ingesting data streams & Amazon Quicksight for BI to transform its operations and achieve automated visual inspection, analyze outcomes & build better forecasting models.” – Parag Karkhanis (@imparagk)

“After migrating SAP to cloud, customers modernize business processes by using cloud services. [For example,] customers have used Amazon Rekognition & AWS AI services to automate visual inspections to reduce defects in production process, lower costs & improve customer satisfaction.” Venkat Sri Vatsava Tatavarthy (@vattyreflects)

Participants agreed that few internal IT teams have all the knowledge and resources needed to do this on their own, making integration partners more critical than ever.

“Existing cloud giants have seen it all when talking about implementation in the cloud (security inclusive). A smart collaboration would translate into smooth workflow and lesser hassle. Very important!”  – Benjamin Ajibade A. M. (@Benni_aji)

“Both #SI and #tech partners [are] critical for enterprises successfully moving to or running #SAP in the cloud. I’ve seen SAP deployments succeed or fail based on this ingredient alone. Akin to missing Cinnamon in your chai! #inconceivable” –  Adam Stein (@apstein2)

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