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MIGRATING SAP® TO THE PUBLIC CLOUD

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

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According to McKinsey’s most recent
IT-as-a-Service cloud survey, 51% of large According to IDC,
enterprises will have at least one primary

%
workload running in the public cloud by 2018.
This represents a 400% increase in public cloud
adoption since just 2015. Among mid-sized
enterprises, 40% will have one such workload
running in the public cloud, as opposed to only
28% in 2015.
of enterprise IT will be
Enterprise migration to the public cloud is still
in its early stages, but statistics like these show
off-premise by 2018.
that the pace of migration is accelerating.
According to IDC, 60% of enterprise IT will be providers to evolve their infrastructures and
off-premise by 2018, due in large part to the management tools to a level where medium-
shift to public cloud infrastructure. and large-sized enterprises could gain
confidence in their ability to achieve the
The logical argument for public cloud migration required levels of performance, availability,
has always been strong. The business model security and transparency for important
alone is compelling – moving from a business applications.
capital-expense to a “pay-as-you-go” model
makes life much simpler and more efficient. For SAP customers, the question is: Is the
However, it took some time for public-cloud public cloud right for me?

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What are my options?

Most organizations are very familiar with the costs, overhead and challenges associated with building
and running an on-premise data center, not to mention the order-of-magnitude costs and challenges
associated with acquiring and certifying an on-premise HANA environment. If this traditional
approach doesn’t fit the forward-thinking strategy of the organization, two primary outsourced
models exist: hosted private cloud and public cloud.

A hosted private cloud with a managed service provider can provide a similar operational model to
an on-premise deployment, except for the capital investment. The right managed service provider
can offer a full range of infrastructure hosting, security and application managed services to ensure a
high level of production availability and responsiveness. If this model is not a good fit, or there is a
desire to consolidate IT workload processing in the public cloud, then it is worth considering the
public cloud for mission-critical enterprise workloads (such as SAP) as well.

Why the public cloud?

As mentioned earlier, the logic behind public cloud migration is clear. Let’s assume you’re upgrading
to SAP S/4HANA. In the on-premise world, you’d need to undergo an extensive hardware refresh to
properly support the system. For the typical midmarket enterprise, this type of refresh can cost
upwards of $250,000, and for large enterprises it can be an order of magnitude larger. In a
public-cloud environment, however, you would not have these concerns since the infrastructure is
provided as a service, and you only pay for what you consume. In other words, by moving to the
public cloud, a large potential capital expense (CapEx) becomes a much more manageable
operating expense (OpEx).

This ability to upgrade software without a commensurate hardware investment comes as welcome
news to enterprises. It can greatly speed an SAP upgrade, since there is no need to await approvals
on a large capital expense. There are ancillary benefits as well. For example, if you no longer need to
procure and manage server and storage resources in-house, you also no longer need the specialized
skills to manage those resources. This enables a re-allocation of IT personnel from “keeping the
lights on” activities to more strategic projects. Additionally, with its massively distributed and
redundant infrastructure, the public cloud typically provides greater performance, reliability and
scalability than is possible in on-premise implementations.

Public cloud challenges

Of course, there’s no such thing as “all good news” in IT, and the public cloud is no exception. While
the benefits of the public cloud are compelling, there are also significant challenges that must be
met, in order to have a successful SAP implementation.

Financial Challenges
The first mistake many enterprises make when migrating to the public cloud is overestimating the
cost savings. While it is true that the public cloud relieves enterprises from having to invest in

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expensive hardware infrastructure, it is also true that managing business-critical applications in the
public cloud requires personnel and partners who understand how to navigate the landscape and
keep applications running at peak efficiency. This navigation not only includes system monitoring
and management; it also involves working with the cloud provider’s personnel to resolve any issues
related to the underlying infrastructure. This can offset the long-term cost-savings of public-cloud
deployment, so it is important to value the public cloud’s superior business model, as well as its
performance, reliability and scalability advantages, over any perceived cost savings.

Additionally, while the transition from CapEx to OpEx provides great advantages, enterprises need
to monitor their public cloud activities carefully to avoid unexpected costs. For example, over time
it’s easy to fall victim to “workload sprawl,” where lack of “housekeeping” around storage and
compute requirements results in enterprises paying for unnecessary resources. This can dramatically
escalate the cost of using the public cloud. This problem is avoidable, but it requires dedicated and
vigilant monitoring of cloud resource consumption.

Data Sovereignty
It is critical for public-cloud providers to support appropriate transparency into customer
deployments, so they can gain a holistic view of system status and performance. Nowhere is this
more important than with data management.

Ironically, one of the most attractive aspects of the public cloud is the resiliency provided by a
massively distributed and redundant infrastructure. However, this infrastructure can also create a
significant risk to multinational enterprises: understanding where data is located.

Privacy laws vary from country to country, and many countries today mandate that customer data
cannot be stored beyond their jurisdiction. This means enterprises cannot simply leave it up to the
cloud provider to decide where data will be stored – there need to be service agreements in place
to ensure that data is stored in a way that complies with local regulations. The good news is, the large
public-cloud providers have built out their infrastructures to the point where it is highly likely there
will be an in-country data center for local storage. However, these same providers must provide
enterprises with visibility into the geographic location of all data – including production data,
backups and archives – so they can ensure compliance on a global scale.

Security and Compliance

In addition to understanding the location of data, enterprises need to have sufficient security
capabilities in place to maintain control over that data. This is particularly true in regulated industries
where lack of control over data is a non-starter, due to compliance concerns.

In the context of SAP deployments, public cloud providers need to provide capabilities such as
end-to-end encryption, along with identity and access management controls, to be a viable option
for enterprises. Management procedures for cloud security should be similar to those of internal
systems, and there should be an effective incident-response process in place for any security events
detected by the cloud provider.

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Ultimately, security is a shared responsibility between the public cloud provider and the client.
Getting alignment and clarity of roles on both sides, along with the monitoring tools to ensure those
roles, is a critical consideration for public cloud deployments – particularly among enterprises in
regulated industries.

Performance Issues
Unlike telecom and other traditional service providers, there are no service-level agreements among
public cloud-providers. Even though the large providers have massively scalable and redundant
infrastructures, there are occasional outages that make the headlines. Beyond the headlines, there
are always performance issues from time to time with complex applications like SAP, regardless of
the production environment. In the public cloud, enterprises need to be able to resolve these issues
in conjunction with the cloud service provider, which can be a tricky dance if the enterprise does not
understand how to navigate the cloud provider’s support organization.

The first step to mitigating performance issues is to understand your organization’s appetite for
them. Will an occasional slowdown or even outage have a profound material impact on your
business, or will it simply be an annoyance? The answer to that question can help to inform the right
public-cloud strategy – pure cloud or hybrid. For organizations with a high tolerance for performance
issues, pure cloud is a relatively easy decision. For those with more demanding requirements, they
could keep critical data and application components on-premise or in a hosted private cloud while
putting less critical resources in the public cloud, at least until they have enough experience with the
public cloud provider to understand if there are any performance disparities between cloud and
on-premise.

Beyond that, enterprises need to implement performance-management strategies similar to those

used on internal systems. They need to establish performance benchmarks for public-cloud-based
applications, and resolve issues as they arise before they become disruptive. Establishing this kind of
performance monitoring will require tools and expertise beyond those offered by public cloud
providers, which tend to be high level and do not provide the granular diagnostics required to
identify the root cause of performance issues.

Management Issues
As mentioned earlier, complex applications like SAP periodically have performance issues in any
environment. Resolving these issues is more complex when deployed in a public-cloud environment,
simply because there is an outside party responsible for the infrastructure part of the equation. For
this reason, it is important to have people and processes in place to harmonize public cloud provider
and internal teams, so issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.
In most cases, this “issue response” effort takes the form of an alert activating a team to diagnose
and resolve the problem. Creating this process should involve multiple constituents, including
network engineering, cloud engineering, backup/disaster recovery engineering, as well as all
relevant managed-services consultants. There needs to be one or more people who have a “hotline”
into the public cloud provider, to ensure prompt resolution should a performance issue be
diagnosed as infrastructure-related.

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Getting Started in the Public

Cloud An experienced, certified partner can ensure
The first step toward moving to the public cloud long-term cost and performance optimization
by managing important functions such as:
is to build your business case. As with any other
major IT initiative, it is important to understand Database Tuning
the full range of costs, risks and benefits before The database can have a profound impact on
moving forward. system performance. Implementing custom
configurations and settings based on the
Key elements to consider include: specific implementation can ensure optimal
OpEx and CapEx - Understand the long-term performance at all times.
financial impact of moving to the public cloud. Patch Management
CapEx is relatively easy to calculate. OpEx can Unpatched applications remain the most
be a bit trickier, because it’s important to fully common point of security vulnerability for
understand which skill sets can transfer from an enterprises. Having a dedicated resource
on-premise world to a public-cloud world, and focused on patch management can
which new skill sets will be required, either from dramatically reduce the “attack surface”
employees or partners, to ensure a smooth available to potential security threats.
transition and ongoing operation.
Configuration Management
Security and compliance - For enterprises in Tracking and managing application
regulated industries, it’s important to seek out a configurations is an ongoing process, since a
public cloud provider that can provide the variety of factors can change application
transparency and control over data required to settings. When this activity creates a bad
ensure appropriate levels of security and configuration, it can cause performance
compliance. In situations where this may be problems or even outages both in the
questionable, a hybrid-cloud approach could application itself, and interdependent
be appropriate. applications.
Timing - There may be natural inflexion points Software upgrades
where it makes sense to migrate to the public Upgrades in complex applications like SAP can
cloud. For example, upgrading enterprise cause system instability both in the upgraded
software often requires a commensurate application and its interdependent
upgrade of server and storage hardware. applications. Proper preparation and
Obviating that capital expense makes management of upgrades is required to
migration to the public cloud extremely prevent service interruptions.
attractive. Many SAP customers are
encountering this exact situation with the Application performance monitoring
upgrade to S/4HANA. In the public cloud, it’s important to be able to
identify the source of application performance
How much cloud? - Public-cloud migration is issues quickly and accurately, and to have
not an “all or nothing” proposition. For ready access to service-provider technical
enterprises looking to take a phased approach teams in the event the problem resides in the
to public cloud adoption, a hybrid-cloud infrastructure.
implementation can be a sensible first step.

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As part of the cost/benefit equation for public cloud, it is wise to include considerations for a
third-party partner who can assist with public-cloud migration and management. Partnering with
professionals who have “been there, done that” can help organizations avoid potential landmines
associated with the public cloud. They also can ensure long-term cost and performance optimization
by managing important functions such as database tuning, application and security patches and
settings, software upgrades, and application performance monitoring.
Ideally, such a partner will combine deep experience managing SAP implementations, with
demonstrated public-cloud expertise. One of the best ways to test the latter qualification is to seek
out partners that hold certifications from the large public-cloud providers. Having an experienced,
certified partner can ensure that your journey to the public cloud meets or exceeds the projected
benefits from your business case.
It’s “when,” not “if”
Moving SAP and other mission-critical applications into the public cloud can seem daunting, but
much of the perceived risk in the process can be mitigated by working with partners that have
certified expertise in public cloud migration and management. Many organizations are taking a
phased approach toward migration, first starting with a hybrid cloud migration and gradually moving
to all cloud. This can be a way for organizations to begin realizing the benefits of the public cloud,
while maintaining the most sensitive data and other assets in house.
Regardless of how enterprises move to the public cloud, the trend has progressed from trickle to
flood. The wave of new deployments will become further proof-points for the public cloud
infrastructure, which will permanently drive the public cloud from “early adopter” to “mainstream”
status. As a result, for most SAP customers and enterprises in general, the question is “At what point
is the public cloud right for me?”

Symmetry™ is a leading applications management and hybrid cloud hosting solution provider with deep expertise in SAP application management.
An SAP partner since 2005, Symmetry is certified in SAP Hosting, Cloud and SAP HANA® Operations. As a true extension of your IT team, Symmetry
places a laser focus on the customer’s experience and offers highly flexible, tailored solutions to meet the unique business needs of enterprise clients.
Symmetry supports global enterprises across all industries through a customer centric high-touch approach that delivers deep technical expertise
combined with scalable, redundant, high availability cloud infrastructure supported by a 24x7x365 operations support model. With a long history and
proven methodology for delivering hybrid solutions comprised of managed private cloud hosting infrastructure with enterprise application
management services, Symmetry delivers IT solutions that help reduce the total cost of ownership and maximize the performance and security of our
customers’ most mission critical systems.

Ready to see if the public cloud is right

for your organization? Please contact
our Business Development Department:

888-796-2677
www.SymmetryCorp.com
salesinfo@symmetrycorp.com

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