We are rapidly heading toward a multi-layered technology future. In the cloud-driven transformation of business, the hybrid approach provides value without compromising security.
The rise of the “grocerant” trend in the retail sector is a sign of the times. By combining grocery stores with restaurants, customers get to enjoy the full benefits of a skillfully designed hybrid experience.
In much the same way, more and more IT managers are choosing the hybrid route when it comes to introducing cloud for business applications. And in this context, it is interesting to take a brief look at the range of options for running SAP solutions on Microsoft Azure.
Over the past couple of years, the partnership between SAP and Microsoft Azure has opened up new opportunities for pursuing agile ways of working and boosting innovation capabilities. For example, Azure makes it super easy to allocate more resources to SAP landscapes on-demand, such as memory and storage, and it's a great cloud environment for testing and prototyping concepts regardless of which industry you are in.
I can't help but notice the growing consensus that Microsoft Azure, with its fast and continuous updates, allows companies to become more service-oriented and flexible.
So, the choice is quite simple, right? Whether you are using SAP S/4HANA or any other SAP solution, just move everything over to Azure.
Hold that thought for just a minute.
Public cloud solutions clearly have some powerful advantages to offer. The most obvious benefit is cost savings that arise from not having to purchase, manage or maintain on-premise hardware.
In addition, you get to enjoy all the benefits of on-demand services. Consider the typical stumbling blocks associated with company acquisitions. With public cloud there is no need to wait for new hardware or additional resources for IT systems, which means that new business operations can be rapidly integrated.
Then there's added plus for international companies, or scale-ups, of always being up-to-date with regulatory compliance and security features. The same cloud rules and settings apply to the global infrastucture (instead of individual data centers).
Providers such as Azure offer unlimited resources and scalability – with ready-made templates for deploying SAP systems. At the same time, security is likely to become a concern in some cases. With public cloud, you are one of thousands of customers in huge data centers, and you might not even know for certain in what geographic region your data is stored.
This is where private clouds, which are more customer focused, and firewalls are unmatched for reliability – especially in the case of on-premise private cloud. So, why not strike a perfect balance between the two? By choosing a hybrid cloud infrastructure with Tieto's service offering you can:
In short, a hybrid cloud infrastructure gives you the best of both worlds. It allows you to separate critical workloads while benefiting from the raw capabilities of public cloud providers, for enhancing Big Data analytics or pursuing any other gain.
Recently, by all accounts, hybrid has been gaining traction. Take for example this excerpt from the survey of Nordic companies carried out by IDC (International Data Corporation) in 2017: "Cloud services are maturing, even though most Nordic companies adopt cloud on an opportunistic or ad hoc basis."
Typical opportunistic drivers were identified as applications or hardware reaching their end of life which, as the IDC report concluded, "implies that the trend toward hybrid cloud and complex architectures will continue."
We are rapidly heading toward a multi-layered technology future. In the cloud-driven transformation of business, the hybrid approach provides value in terms of responsiveness and shorter time-to-market without compromising security.
If your company is already running some of its operations on Azure, the impetus for consolidating will be strong and migrating SAP applications certainly does make sense in order to achieve a better overview of your business.
In any scenario, Tieto believes that flexibility and responsiveness should go hand in hand with security. This requires a strong transformation partner with extensive knowledge in SAP and Azure technologies.
To begin the journey of reaping the benefits of Azure as a springboard to future innovation, here are five fundamental steps:
Whatever path to cloud you choose to take or platform to adopt, Tieto can help you maximize the chances of success.
Our team consists of more than 900 SAP experts and hundreds of Microsoft specialists. They provide both private and public cloud solutions with full scalability to customers across the Nordics and further afield.
Want to know more about SAP on Azure with details about best practices, virtual machines or mobile engagement? Drop me a line at henrik.lorentzi@tieto.com — I'd be happy to provide a look behind the scenes and discuss your best way forward.
Henrik is the head of Cloud Services product management at Tieto with a team of IT product management professionals across the Nordic countries. He has a business driven mindset and his passion is to develop and launch new products and services. Henrik has an extensive experience in managing IT solutions and services in international environments.