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Unlock SAP on Azure without the risk, cost, or time

Successfully migrating SAP to Azure requires careful planning. Read the eBook below (no strings attached) to get started.

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Abstract

Whether to migrate to the cloud is no longer much of a question for enterprises—now, it’s just a matter of how. Cloud migration still presents challenges and risks, but with the right planning and solutions, it doesn’t need to keep you up at night. We outline some of the key factors that you need to consider to successfully move SAP systems to Azure.

SAP Migration Solutions

SAP business applications are so important to large enterprises around the world that we would say many enterprises simply can’t live without them. More than two-thirds of global transactions involve an SAP system, and this means that organizations pay a high price for any disruption.

Businesses dedicate a lot of resources to keeping their SAP systems performant and protected, so it’s no wonder that teams may be reluctant to make any major changes—including cloud migration.

But the cloud ship has sailed, and SAP migration has become a must rather than an option. In many organizations, moving IT infrastructure to the cloud is a mandate, and application owners have even more reason to make the leap to the cloud. That’s because the end of life for SAP R/3 software is 2027. After that, all customers must migrate to SAP S/4HANA, which runs only on the SAP HANA database.

Sooner or later, every organization will make the move to the cloud, but that doesn’t mean that it’s smooth sailing during migration and for long-term operations. But smart planning and the right cloud infrastructure choices—such as Azure NetApp Files storage service—can ease the journey.

Here are some common challenge areas to keep in mind as you plan your roadmap to SAP cloud migration.
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Data management gone missing

When organizations move to the cloud, they often find that data management isn’t up to par with on-premises systems. Without these capabilities, organizations face higher risk of data loss and performance issues that can slow cloud migration and affect overall functionality.

For example, when ready-to-use enterprise file storage is unavailable, organizations must often build their own file servers. This can limit performance and scalability, not to mention taking up valuable time and resources.

But cloud migration should solve old problems, not create new ones—which is where Azure NetApp Files comes in. The solution is a fully-managed storage service in Azure, providing enterprise-class file storage with the capabilities you've come to rely on in on-premises solutions.

The service delivers the tools your SAP landscapes need to make the most of the cloud, from integrated backups, scheduling, and built-in data replication to instant data cloning capabilities. Your teams can easily migrate and run landscapes using the familiar Azure portal, or automate with Azure CLI.

Sub-par performance and scalability

Cloud infrastructure often doesn’t provide the speed that you need for large landscapes, limiting cloud-based solutions to SAP project landscapes and small-scale production landscapes. But you shouldn’t have to choose between performance and agility. Azure NetApp Files is built in the Azure data center with direct access to compute nodes in order to deliver agility, high performance, and ultra-low latency.

Scalability is also key for SAP landscapes, but cloud deployments often fail to deliver, offering limited scalability and downtime protection. Azure NetApp Files is the only SAP HANA production-certified file storage environment in the cloud with support for SAP HANA scale-out with a standby node. It allows you to scale seamlessly, with scale up and scale out solutions up to 192TB databases and protection against node failure.

Azure NetApp Files also enables you to dynamically adjust both service levels and capacity up and down—with data in place, no time-consuming copies required—so that you can get what you need for your SAP landscapes without paying for more. It enables you to deploy up to 100TB in seconds any time you have high-performance storage needs.

These performance options empower you to increase productivity and speed—meaning you can deliver projects up to eight times faster.
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Unavailable availability

For SAP workloads, data availability is everything. Your data simply must be available when your SAP applications need it. When it’s not, you can experience major disruptions for systems and applications that depend on database operations.

With Azure NetApp Files, users get high reliability and availability, without having to build their own protection models. It also offers standard 99.99% availability and with it being shared storage, it opens the door to scale-out deployments with standby compute node support that keeps your SAP landscape running even in the face of compute failures.

Questionable data protection

Data is the lifeblood of SAP workloads, so you need to feel confident that it’s protected and secure, whether in flight or at rest. This is even more important for organizations with sensitive information such as financial, personal, and healthcare data that must comply with strict data storage requirements. Azure NetApp Files offers the highest levels of data protection, with secure, always-on FIPS-140-2 compliant data encryption at rest.

You also need to be able to back up and restore to prevent accidental data loss and corruption. NetApp Snapshot technology allows you to quickly back up your data and recover copies almost instantly.

With Azure NetApp Files, you can achieve:

    • 99%

    • faster SAP HANA backups

    • 70%

    • faster SAP HANA restore/recovery

    • 70%

    • faster SAP HANA system refresh

You can do all this without having to pay for and manage additional data for snapshot copies. NetApp Snapshot copies do not add to your Azure data footprint, saving you time and money.

Azure NetApp Files also has built-in support for disaster recovery efforts, enabling you to quickly and efficiently move your data across regions when you need to create secondary copies to protect against site failures.

Migrate to the cloud with confidence

When you are moving your SAP landscape to the cloud, the risks and challenges are real. But Azure NetApp Files, as the only SAP-certified file storage service, provides a real solution. It offers a fully managed way to get the high performance, reliability, and data protection for your SAP landscapes—in the cloud. Learn how Azure NetApp Files can make your migration easier and faster, while lowering your risk and improving performance.

Next steps

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