Navigate SAP on Azure waves

SAP and Microsoft announced in October 2019 to expand the Embrace collaboration, which began earlier that year. It is a cloud collaboration where the tech houses work more closely together to enable seamless deployment of SAP S/4HANA ERP solutions to Microsoft Azure and leverage SAP Cloud Platform capabilities in Azure. The collaboration between SAP and Microsoft enables reference architectures, project plans, and best practices that accelerate projects and support smooth transitions.

The goal of the collaboration is to facilitate and support the transition of enterprise ERP systems to the Azure cloud environment. Several companies have either already moved their SAP platform to the cloud, or are planning to move there. The trend to move to the cloud is on the rise. Cloud environments are already being used to a significant extent globally in various industries, and as a result, companies have accumulated experience in exploiting it, including for business-critical entities.

SAP customers can choose to initialize a public, private, or hybrid cloud service, or operate their system in an on-premise environment. Although cloud services are often more cost-effective, the main motivators for the transition are usually the availability of information, the improvement of service quality and the deeper exploitation of technological ecosystems together. The cloud allows for scalability, flexible experimentation, and a global dimension that is very relevant to all business in an ever-changing world and now with remote working becoming more common.

SAP’s decision to select Microsoft as its primary partner for the platform reflects the shared commitment of these tech giants to drive the growth of cloud ecosystems, further strengthening the joint offering. The collaboration aims to simplify and streamline the migration of SAP ERP and S/4HANA to the cloud, but it will also lay the foundation for smooth project implementations for new SAP customers. Of course, the opportunities created by digitalisation and cloud services for companies are also at the center.

Last year, Islet carried out an SAP S/4HANA innovation project for Transmeri Group, in which the company’s SAP ERP system was transferred to SAP’s latest ERP technology, S/4HANA, in a “Proof of Concept” project, and the conversion was done on Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure. Transmeri and Islet were among the first to carry out an innovation project in Europe. The POC project was a success and this year Transmeri took the first step in the S/4HANA migration when its current SAP ERP was migrated to the Azure cloud platform and its continuation is now the migration to S/4HANA on Azure. The experiences of the project are very positive.

If you would like to discuss migrating your SAP environment to Azure or different paths to SAP S/4HANA on Azure, please get in touch! Also listen to our “SAP on Azure” webinar on the subject (in Finnish).

Tommi Luoto
CTO, Isletter
tommi.luoto@isletgroup.fi
+358 40 574 1261