Why there has never been a better time to migrate SAP to the AWS cloud

What is holding you back? It’s a question we often ask our clients as they consider the next steps for their SAP environments and cloud adoption strategy. The responses often fall between:

1. “ … it is such a vital IT landscape for us … we cannot afford any downtime or security failures”
2. “ … we are worried about what will break during the move … ”
3. “ … How much and what kind of resources will I need, how do I size this …”

No more excuses

You have probably spent years or even decades stabilizing SAP systems and you are probably not anxious to disturb them. But based on a study from former SAP analyst Derek Prior, who spent decades covering SAP for Gartner, more than 50% of SAP customers did not achieve the desired results across time, budget and value factors. And yes, upgrading or implementing SAP does introduce uncertainty across cost, effort, security, downtime, resources, etc. And yes, the transformation is complex and can be costly – unless it is done right – then it is completely worth it.

Capgemini was one of the first global system integrators to migrate SAP on AWS around 2011. Seven years later, and we now have established specific migration approaches for SAP environments – whether it be a homogenous or heterogeneous system migration. On the other end, AWS has the largest portfolio of certified SAP offerings and the most complete set of HANA-certified offerings of any cloud provider. They have the security, SAP certifications, infrastructure, and customer support. They provide the ability to provision environments in minutes/hours and consume them in an on-demand payment method that provide the desired results across the above factors.

Combined, Capgemini and AWS understand your business processes end-to-end and make sure you have all the systems, people, process and technology enabled to achieve the desired results on above mentioned factors.

The 2025 dilemma

There is also pressure coming from establishments for transformation. In addition to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force on May 25, SAP’s mainstream maintenance of Business Suite (and Business Suite on HANA) will soon come to an end. In fact, they recently announced a new strategy for innovation that requires customers to move their existing deployments to the new platform and in-memory database and associated platform and technology by 2025. This means that 100% of existing SAP customers are now making decisions about how they will move to the new SAP offerings before they lose support – and most of these are looking to move to AWS. Why? AWS currently has thousands of SAP customers running SAP on AWS. They have hundreds of global and multi-national customers running mission-critical SAP production workloads on an enterprise scale including Seaco, Lockheed Martin and Tata Motors, Liberty Mutual, Lion’s Gate, Kellogg’s, Bose, Zappos, Brooks Brothers, GE Oil & Gas, etc…

The real benefits

Still not convinced? Perhaps we need to take a step back and look at the benefits – the real benefits – of making the big jump. When we hear why clients want to migrate, we hear about cost savings. While that is absolutely an important factor to consider, there is so much more to it. As there is an overall improvement on how your business is run, certain benefits such as scalability, speed and flexibility start to emerge.

1. You will be able to scale systems accordingly, without having to worry about how to accommodate growth.
2. You will see an increase in performance
3. You will be able to add users, functionality or applications to your system without having to worry how it will impact your timeline
4. You will be able to spin up, spin down or change the configuration of your environment seamlessly
5. You will have a stable platform for future growth options in the areas of IoT, ML, AI.

It really is a no brainer at this point

Making the move

How to start is always difficult. But with Capgemini supporting your migration, the “how” is easy. We have an end-to-end portfolio of services to guide your migration journey, quickly and securely. Our approach is clearly appreciated as our receipt of the 2018 SAP Customers’ Choice Partner of the Year Pinnacle Award and AWS SAP Competency testifies to. We’re also positioned as a Leader in Gartner’s 2018 “Magic Quadrant for SAP Application Services, Worldwide.”

Jason Hatch

Expert in Cloud Assessment, Cloud strategy

I am responsible for developing Capgemini’s Cloud Solutions in North America, and advising our customers on how best to leverage cloud technology to support their business.