Successful SAP Modernization
Requires More Than Just the Cloud
Many organizations today rely on their SAP environments to run their entire business. But as these same organizations move to modernize their infrastructures and to migrate their ERP and other critical applications to hybrid cloud and cloud-native systems, they are also finding that the systems they rely on could prevent their ability to transform their SAP systems and boost their investments. This eBook looks at the challenges organizations face in modernizing their SAP environments, especially around upcoming SAP changes that will require enterprise-ready Linux operating systems to run critical SAP applications. It then analyzes the steps that leading businesses are taking to put in place the right foundation to boost reliability, performance and return on investment as they transform their SAP platforms.
Require high availablility for SAP
Need to maximize ROI
Slow infrastructure costs
Upgrade aging infrastructure
Aberdeen research has found that businesses aiming to modernize their enterprise application infrastructure, especially for core applications like SAP ERP solutions, face a number of key challenges in not only transforming these enterprise applications, but in readying them to be able to leverage technologies like hybrid cloud and microservices.
Among the top identified challenges for organizations modernizing enterprise application infrastructures are:
While organizations are actively working towards modernization and are focused on transforming and migrating their ERP platforms to better leverage emerging technologies, many don’t understand that bringing their core enterprise systems into the modern age requires much more than just the cloud. Most of their infrastructure will need to be updated and improved to ensure a successful transformation. Sometimes these changes are a requirement. For example, to support SAP S/4HANA in future versions, businesses will need to be running it on an enterprise Linux operating system.
Aberdeen research has found that organizations that are leaders in infrastructure modernization leverage solutions and operating systems that are designed to be future-proof. In fact, the number one criterion that they base selection of technology solutions on is the ability to grow to meet future needs.
Organizations also need to have visibility across their ecosystem. There are technologies that prioritize recommendations based on deep analysis with targeted expertise. This allows organizations to evaluate all of their ecosystems, including hybrid cloud environments.
By ensuring that their modernization of SAP and other enterprise applications is built on a strong foundation of operating systems and technologies that are built for new technologies and that leverage automation and boost agility, these leading businesses are able to innovate and adopt key new technologies at a much higher rate than competitors not ready for modernization.
7x more likely to be benefiting from artificial intelligence and automation
4.5x more likely to be building applications based on containers and Kubernetes
3x more likely to have a hybrid cloud infrastructure
For businesses in the industrial sector, ERP systems are vital to successfully manage their operations, which is true for Tomago Aluminium, Australia’s largest aluminum smelter, who were implementing a modernization and hybrid cloud initiative to boost agility and reliability. Their previous managed public cloud deployment for their SAP HANA workloads lacked visibility into performance and the implementation hindered their efforts to modernize and transform. To better support their modernization efforts, Tomago Aluminium migrated their SAP HANA infrastructure to an on-premise solution based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Solutions running on IBM server and storage hardware. After this migration, they saw improved control and insight, increased efficiency, and enhanced system and data security and, like the leaders in Aberdeen research, they improved their adoption of automation.
24x7 availability and optimized processes at scale
Improved development efficiency with automation
Enhanced security with faster issue resolution and greater control
Aberdeen research has shown that other businesses that have modernized their entire infrastructure and application environment see similar benefits to those achieved by Tomago Aluminium. By increasing agility and flexibility in improved capabilities such as enterprise operating systems, these businesses transform not just through the cloud, but in their on- premises and hybrid capabilities.
Analyzing the key gains that organizations realize through this modernization and transformation, we see that, like Tomago Aluminium, they report improvements in security, agility, and reliability.
“ Tests run by Principled Technologies show that businesses that modernize their infrastructure for enterprise ERP applications like SAP can boost visibility across their ecosystem and reduce time to detect issues by up to 96% ”
Modernization and digital transformations bring benefits, but leading organizations understand that these gains are only achieved by improving all areas of the infrastructure needed to run SAP ERP solutions. In order to effectively improve and innovate, businesses need to ensure that core systems, such as the enterprise Linux operating system required for SAP S/4HANA, are designed to handle their workloads today and in the future.
Aberdeen research has found that when organizations carry out end-to-end modernizations that focus on simplified deployment and management, seamless integration with all systems, and intelligent automation, they can successfully transform and ready their SAP infrastructure for modern hybrid technologies and microservices.
Learn more about Red Hat's SAP ERP solutions
