SAP Business One Powered by HANA in the Cloud. A Partner s Guide to Productive Offerings Supported by SAP

Transcription

1 SAP Business One Powered by HANA in the Cloud A Partner s Guide to Productive Offerings Supported by SAP

2 SAP Business One Powered by HANA in the Cloud A partners guide to productive offerings supported by SAP SAP, SAP Business One, Crystal Reports, SAP HANA and SAP Business One version for HANA are registered trademarks of SAP AG. or its affiliated entities. Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft Office are trademarks or registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. XEN Server, XEN APP and similar names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Citrix Systems Inc. Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS), and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) are registerd trademarks of Amazon Web Services or its affiliated entities. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. I Business Network, LLC is a certified business partner of SAP an Authorized Citrix Service Provider and a Microsoft Partner. i P age

3 Contents Executive Summary... 1 SAP Business One HANA Cloud... 2 Infrastructure Specifications... 3 Services Provided... 5 Complimentary Products... 6 Financial Evaluation... 7 Technical Specifications... 7 Specification Assumptions... 8 Contract Term... 8 Support Services... 9 Additional License Requirements... 9 Scenario Evaluations User Cost Comparison User Cost Comparison User Cost Comparison User Cost Comparison Qualitative Evaluation Application Performance Application Delivery Partner Programs Conclusions ii P age

4 Executive Summary If you are reading this document you understand that: The value of the cloud goes far beyond the technology that powers this application delivery method. The cloud is a tool that facilitates ease of access to information. The cloud has and must continuously be managed and secured to ensure the information flows to the right people at the right time. The SAP HANA in memory computing technology is a lot more than just a database. SAP Business One powered by the HANA (B1H) in memory computing is the stated direction for the SAP Business One product. In February 2014, Portugal Telecom became the first hosting company to offer HANA development environments at the Business One Innovation Summit held in Miami. I Business Network (I BN) was next to announce both productive and development environment availability at the America s SAP User Group Business One Summit in September. Most recently SAP has announced support for productive environments in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 environment for specified configurations of virtual servers. This whitepaper is intended to provide information on the differences between the I Business Network and AWS productive offerings for B1H available in North America. The primary differences between the offerings are both technical specifications and services provided with the hosting environment: I Business Network (I BN) AWS EC2 Nature of Service I BN provides an application service which allows AWS EC2 deployment is an infrastructure only the partner to focus on sales and service. AWS provides a deployment guide for implementation of SAP Business One. I BN creating the HANA server and a NAT server for provides a pre installed and tested HANA terminal services. The remainder of the environment ready for configuration implementation is up to the SAP Partner Cost Comparison I BN is more cost effective in smaller AWS requires a 1 year commitment for deployments and has a smaller up front cost competitive pricing in user environments than AWS reserved instances Maximum Supported Users HANA appliances in the I BN cloud provide AWS EC2 virtual environments are supported by support for up to 200 users SAP for up to 30 users Partners can earn margin on the infrastructure through bundling of software and infrastructure but have limited margin on infrastructure for Bring Your Own License in the AWS environment I BN provides predictable infrastructure margin AWS exposes its pricing model to the public of up to 30% and higher margins with bundling reducing the ability to bundle partner provided value I BN s Application Delivery as a Service utilizes I BN s product knowledge for Business One to provide both infrastructure and product installation and maintenance expertise. AWS is best suited for an SAP partner that has or seeks managing cloud infrastructure as a core competency, while the I BN offering allows partners to focus on sales, configuration and support of SAP B1H. 1 P age

5 SAP Business One HANA Cloud SAP HANA is an integral part of the SAP strategy and will become the default platform for Business One. SAP has publicly stated and today you will see features only available in the HANA edition. For example, the new HTML 5 based Fiori user interface in B1H is the new standard for all SAP applications and is not available in the SQL Version. So the investments made for the Fortune 500 companies are realized in the easy to use package of SAP Business One for the Fortune 500,000. In North America AWS and I BN are the two supported options for B1H in a cloud environment. I Business Network I Business Network (I BN) was founded in 1999 specifically to provide hosting services for small and mid sized business ERP applications. I BN partnered with Dell and Citrix to build its virtual computing platform specifically to the specifications of the applications it is certified to host. I BN partnered with Quality Technology Services, the largest independent provider of data center services, for facilities management. I BN operates out of two QTS facilities for backup, data replication and redundancy. I BN offers a hybrid private cloud using a dedicated HANA appliance with virtualized Windows servers and a multi tenant vanilla B1H cloud. I BN is SAP Certified in Hosting Services and is an authorized SAP sales and implementation partner for Business One, and offers both Software as a Service (SaaS) licensing and BYOL. I BN was the first authorized data center in North America for SAP Business One (B1) in 2003 and the only partner SAP Certified in Hosting Services and certified for implementation and support in North America. I BN offers its services directly and through a network of SAP partners and Extended Business Members. SAP B1H Offering SAP Experience Amazon Web Services Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a collection of remote computing services (also called web services) that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com since AWS is located in 10 geographical "regions": US East (Northern Virginia), where the majority of AWS servers are based, US West (northern California), US West (Oregon), Brazil (São Paulo), Europe (Ireland), South Asia (Singapore), East Asia (Tokyo), China (Beijing) and Australia (Sydney). Each Region is wholly contained within a single country and all of its data and services stay within the designated Region. AWS offers virtual private cloud environments (Amazon VPC) in their Amazon Elastic Compute (EC2) platform. AWS operates a Bring Your Own License (BYOL) model where the customer must have licensed the software directly or through an authorized SAP partner. AWS is not a Certified Partner for SAP, however their AWS EC2 platform has been designated as supported for productive use. Some SAP partners have selected AWS EC2 environment for hosting of SAP Business One. 2 P age

6 Infrastructure Specifications The following table outlines the infrastructure specifications: I Business Network Amazon Specified Servers Three Server Configuration Three Server Configuration HANA Database HANA Database Windows Services Windows Client Windows Client NAT Instance Database Server Dell Certified HANA Appliance Specified EC2 instances powered by XEN Windows Services Server Windows on Citrix XEN N/A Windows Client Windows on Citrix XEN Windows on EC2 powered by XEN NAT Server N/A Linux on EC2 powered by XEN Remote Access Method Citrix XenApp Remote Desktop Services (RDS) Microsoft Licenses Included Windows Server Standard Windows Server Standard Remote Desktop Services Microsoft Excel Antivirus Included Bring Your Own License (BYOL) Data Replication Included Included Backup Service 10 days incremental included BYOL. Additional charge for storage in AWS EBS. Development Environment 30 days free per year Available on demand at standard rates The HANA database server is the critical component for B1 powered by HANA that must be certified or designated by SAP as supported for productive use. I Business Network I BN has 3 standard bundles for private clouds and a multi tenant offering powered by physical Certified HANA appliances Small Cloud designed for 3 10 users o Utilizing a 64 GB certified appliance that supports up to 25 users Standard Cloud is designed for users o Utilizing a 128 GB certified appliance that supports up to 50 users Large Cloud is designed for o Utilizing a 256 GB certified appliance that supports up to 100 users Multi tenant cloud o A vanilla environment utilizing the SAP Cloud Control Center for multitenancy that can support multiple tenants with up to 100 total users per mini cloud Amazon AWS has two virtual server configurations approved for productive use by SAP c3.8large is certified for up to 25 users o C3 stands for compute optimized with large numbers of virtual CPUs (vcpus) r3.8large is certified for up to 30 concurrent users. o R3 stands for memory optimized with large amounts of memory AWS is not supported for large implementations 3 P age

7 I BN also offers custom environments including HANA appliances with up to 512GB RAM which support up to 200 users. SAP originally did not certify virtual environments for production due to performance issues. In standard Windows environments virtual servers the virtualization components will consume 1 5% of the CPU capacity plus some memory. Today s cloud environments utilize tremendous computing power in the data center, therefore performance is very similar to equivalent physical environments, with the difference being you only pay for what you use. With HANA the utilization of the infrastructure is very different and the impact of virtualization on performance is much greater. Where virtualization typically results in scalability for servers, with HANA the effect of virtualization is opposite. For example: The AWS r3.8xlarge environments has 244 GB RAM and supports a maximum 30 users. Alternatively, I BN large bundle has 256 GB RAM and supports a maximum of 100 users. From a server and SAP component perspective, Amazon recommends placing the HANA Studio on the SAP Business One client server where I BN places all Windows based services components on a separate Windows Services server. Segregating components eliminates the potential for performance degradation for users by SAP service components. In addition to the HANA Studio, I BN installs the SAP Business One Service Manager and its related components such as the DI Server on the Windows Services server. AWS requires a Network Address Translation (NAT) server to translate the public IP address required to access via the web to a private IP address for security reasons. This Linux server is configured by the customer or SAP partner as their agent. In the I BN environment access is configured by I BN utilizing Citrix technology and provides secure access via the Citrix Receiver. 4 P age

8 Services Provided The starkest difference between AWS and I BN is the services provided by the hosting company. AWS provides an infrastructure service while I BN provides a more comprehensive application delivery service. I Business Network Amazon Installation Services Pre Installed by I BN None All standard SAP components testing prior to turn over to customer or partner I BN provides site survey and assists with setup and testing of onpremises peripheral devices. Security Setup Performed by I BN Performed by customer/reseller Operating System Patches Performed by I BN in scheduled Performed by customer/reseller maintenance windows Support Services Unlimited technical support via phone, e mail or support portal. Amazon offers 3 applicable support Comprehensive service SLA that includes 1 hour response time for critical issues and covers all components of your environment. Included in monthly service fee: Development environment setup Cloud provisioning and migration Standard firewall management Additional support services for a fee Enhanced monitoring and alert system Application support for SAP Business One and third party products Enhanced integration support levels Basic Plan: Provides access to customer service and technical support for system health issues that are detected by AWS, technical FAQs, best practices guides, the AWS Service Health Dashboard, and the AWS Developer Forum Business Plan: One hour response time, available 24/7 via phone, chat, or including 3rd Party Software Support for OS, web servers, databases, storage, FTP, and Enterprise All Business plan components plus mission critical responses within 15 minutes and a dedicated Technical Account Manager who is intimately aware of the customer's specific AWS architecture 5 P age

9 Complementary Products Both organizations offer extended services beyond the infrastructure. AWS has a Service Marketplace which includes third party offerings to enhance its infrastructure. These include: Software infrastructure o Application development software such as various versions of Linux, LAMP stacks, PHP, and Windows operating systems. o Databases and analytics such as HANA, Revolution Analytics, Hadoop platforms, and Grok o Security applications such as Antivirus, threat managers, virtual firewalls and spam blockers Developer Tools such as monitoring software, source control, and testing Business Software o Collaboration tools such as WordPress, project management suites, videoconferencing o CRM packages like Sugar CRM including 27 free packages o Financial services for web feeds, timekeeping, and OpenERP o Storage and backup to augment AWS replication A good percentage of AWS packages are for developers and to fill the requirements for a complete cloud solution. I BN can support any third party extension available in the B1 community and also develops solutions that are applicable to the SME ERP market. These offerings include: Microsoft Products o In addition to Excel which is included in the I BN bundle, other office and productivity applications are supported, such as Visio, Word, Access, and Outlook (including the B1 Outlook Integration). o I BN can provide Microsoft development tools on the Services Server for partners that develop applications. Citrix ShareFile is an enterprise class file sharing service similar to Drop Box, with stronger security features that are seamlessly integrated with SAP attachments and other cloud file storage. o Local plug ins for Outlook and Windows o Mobile clients for Android, Windows and Apple OS with remote wipe capability 2SimpliConnect integration platform o Packaged and customizable integrations for ecommerce o Custom integrations using Task Centre by Orbis and/or other tools like B1iF or Tiger Sheep Environment Management o I BN s Solution Provider Program also includes white labeling of environments and training for higher volume partners who want to provide Level 2 infrastructure support in addition to Level 1 software support. o Advanced monitoring packages powered by Citrix Edgesight and UpTime. 6 P age

10 Financial Evaluation As AWS and I BN provide different services, the two companies price their services differently. AWS as an infrastructure provider charges by resources o A base fee for the server type selected o Additional fees for data transfer, storage, or server resources such as memory and CPU above base level I BN as an application service provider charges by user count o A fee per user that covers infrastructure and license costs for the environment based upon an application standard or bundle o Additional fees for value added services above base o Additional fees for memory or storage required for enhancements beyond core applications. To create an effective cost comparison, certain assumptions have to be made for equivalency of offering: Technical specifications and sizing. o Although SAP has specified two HANA instances which are supported, there is no specification for the AWS Windows instance required for the SAP Client. o I BN recommends a Cloud Bundle based upon user counts and the SAP HANA sizing tool. o Third party extensions can affect server sizing. Contract term which can affect discount levels. Support service level which directly affects pricing of AWS. Additional required components not included in base AWS infrastructure services. The following sections outline the assumptions made in these key areas: Technical Specifications Rather than have a single point estimate, the technical specifications were selected for 5, 10 and 20 user levels to utilize the two supported AWS environments while allowing room for customer growth. For environments larger than 30 users, AWS will not be supported by SAP and if a Cloud deployment is required, consult your I BN sales representative. Since it began hosting B1 in 2004, I BN has developed best practices based upon historical performance. Customers select B1 because of the flexibility of the product and its ability to adapt to their unique and changing requirements. Adaptation often includes integrations, customizations and third party products. For systems above 30 users, I BN recommends the customer, partner and I BN Cloud Services team develop custom specifications due to the likely complexity of the environment. I BN has found that enhancements that include high volume transaction processing (intercompany, ecommerce, large batch processing, etc.) should be segregated from the database and client components for consistent acceptable performance. The AWS deployment guide for B1H does not include this component which is often required by customers. Because the core SAP services do not require Microsoft SQL Server in a B1H environment, I BN configured the services server without SQL licensing (60% more expensive at AWS with SQL) which 7 P age

11 may be required for certain 3 rd party extensions. Accordingly, I BN has developed specifications with and without that third SAP Windows based server for comparison purposes. Specification Assumptions The following specifications were based upon SAP minimum requirements and historical patterns in the I BN data center: SAP Clients require approximately 1GB storage for a profile and 250MB RAM per user in addition to requirements of the Windows SAP customers typically require GB for storage of installation files, attachments, point in time backups and other documents in a hosted environment. Customers with larger databases, inventory images or other requirements have occupied terabytes of storage. As AWS provides replication and not backup services, it is the customer s responsibility to set backup procedures in the HANA system (available SAP B1H 9.0 PL14 or SAP B1H 9.1 PL3) or to procure a backup service compatible with AWS. CPU utilization is very low on the SAP client. CPU utilization is also low on the Services server except in situations where large calculations such as b1i for intercompany, or other batch processing requirements exist. Contract Term AWS has a defined price for on demand services and then discounts for 1 or 3 year terms (Reserved Instances) with different discount levels depending upon the anticipated utilization of the Reserved Instance (RI). Reserved Instances are available in three different types: light, medium, and heavy utilization that require a one time payment to reserve instance capacity and reduce on going Amazon EC2 costs. Light Utilization RIs offer the lowest upfront payment of all of the Reserved Instance types. Light Utilization RIs allow you to turn off your instance at any point and not pay the hourly fee. Light Utilization RIs are ideal for periodic workloads that only run a couple of hours a day or a few days per week. Medium Utilization RIs have an upfront payment, but a much lower hourly usage fee. Medium Utilization RIs allow you to turn off your instance at any point and not pay the hourly fee. Medium Utilization RIs are best suited for workloads that run most of the time, but have some variability in usage (like web server traffic where demand may increase or decrease throughout the year). Heavy Utilization RIs offer the most absolute savings of any Reserved Instance type. They re most appropriate for steady state workloads where you re willing to commit to always running these instances in exchange for our lowest hourly usage fee. With this RI, you pay a little higher upfront payment than Medium Utilization RIs, a significantly lower hourly usage fee, and you re charged that lower hourly rate for every hour in the Reserved Instance term you purchase. 8 P age

12 For ERP systems the Heavy Utilization is typically the most appropriate for a variety of reasons: Workload may peak at month or quarter end or during a busy season, however, financial systems usage tends to be relatively consistent Many ERP systems run integrations with customer service, e commerce, warehouse management or manufacturing systems or other functions that often run 24x7 Businesses with international or even bi coastal operations need extended hours for all employees to have access. Furthermore, backup or batch processes often run during off hours requiring the instance to be operational With AWS, utilizing a RI requires a term commitment at a specified rate, but offers significant discounts. As computing costs do not appear to be rising, selecting a 1 year term with a heavy utilization RI was selected for cost comparison purposes. For private instances of B1H Cloud, I BN is acquiring a HANA appliance and is requiring a 1 year commitment. For multi tenant cloud in a SaaS model, SAP requires a 1 year commitment as well. After 1 year I BN continues to offer the service on a month by month basis at the then current prices. In its 15 years providing hosting services, the monthly price has never been increased on a customer for equivalent services. Support Services As depicted in the previous section, AWS provides 3 levels of support service for productive EC2 instances. When comparing these services with the standard I BN infrastructure support plan, the Business service level is most applicable. However, Amazon personnel will not have any specific Business One knowledge or expertise found in the I BN Support team. Additional License Requirements The AWS IaaS service does not include all the equivalent products included in the I BN Hana bundles. The minimum additional license requirements include: Antivirus = $45/month Backup $125/month plus AWS usage fees for additional storage Microsoft RDS CALs & Excel $10/user/month or $110 for RDS CAL and $80 Excel (one version) No additional storage fees are included at this time as replication for backups is assumed in excess storage on 2x420 storage drives. The above prices are the lowest cost options on the AWS Marketplace at the time this whitepaper was written. Actual license costs may differ based upon business requirements and current add on availability. All those costs are included in the standard I BN service offerings. 9 P age

13 Scenario Evaluations 5 User Cost Comparison The following graphic includes price comparisons for I BN vs. AWS as specified in their deployment guide and AWS recommended (in an equivalent configuration to I BN with a services server) for a 5 user system. AWS 2 OD AWS 2 server configuration, on demand pricing AWS 2 1yr AWS 2 server configuration with a 1 year Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance AWS 3 OD AWS 3 server configuration, on demand pricing AWS 3 1yr AWS 3 server configuration with a 1 year Heavy Utilization Reserved Instance I BN Managed The fully managed I BN HANA Cloud offering I BN Dedicated A managed I BN dedicated Hana Cloud bundle. At the 5 user level I BN services are lower than AWS, both up front and over a 2 year horizon for all scenarios. 10 P age

14 10 User Cost Comparison The following table includes price comparisons for I BN vs. AWS as specified in their deployment guide and AWS recommended (in an equivalent configuration to I BN with a services server) for a 10 user system. For 10 user environments, the I BN platform is again less expensive than AWS at the wholesale level. In the 2 server configuration, the AWS TCO and I BN dedicated environments meet, however, the I BN scenario is providing a third server and also includes a variety of services, such as development environments and installation services, not included in the AWS offering. Furthermore, I BN s offerings have no long term commitments after the initial period, whereas AWS requires annual or longer terms to receive discounts. 11 P age

15 20 User Cost Comparison The following table includes price comparisons for I BN vs. AWS as specified in their deployment guide and AWS. At the 20 user level the comparable AWS environment achieves cost parity with I BN between 19 and 24 months excluding the value added services provided by I BN (such as development environments, installation services, product expertise mentioned in various sections of the document). Based upon its experience with SAP Business One, I BN would not deploy a 2 server configuration for 20 user environments for performance and reliability reasons. 30+ User Cost Comparison There is no cost comparison above 30 users at this time as AWS does not provide supported environments above 30 users. I BN s costs continuously decrease as the 30 user level is attained and continue their decline for base services beyond 30 users. I BN also assigns a technical account specialist with deep SAP experience to assist with proper sizing of larger custom environments at no additional charge. Custom environments tend to have more integrations, extensions and custom development which affect sizing and configuration to ensure proper performance. 12 P age

16 Qualitative Evaluation Application Performance There are a number of factors that will determine application performance including: Hardware platform Hardware configuration Application delivery method Software deployment configuration It was previously stated how the addition of a third server for larger deployments, high volume transactions or other factors that could impact client performance will improve performance. Performance degradation also occurs with virtualization of the HANA appliance resulting in higher specification requirements in the AWS EC2 cloud and the limitation on the number of users. In addition the Application Delivery method can impact performance. Application Delivery I BN utilizes Citrix technology to improve the customer experience. This technology is bundled into the per user price and provides: MAC and Linux support Printer support Speed and bandwidth Customers have migrated to I BN due to limitations in a straight RDS/terminal services environment for multiple problems such as printing Crystal reports from a MAC. Citrix also uses considerably less bandwidth than straight Microsoft, allowing better performance from locations with limited bandwidth or supporting more users with less bandwidth. At AWS you can add Citrix technology, but this has to be added to the cost of both the software and your installation and management time must be added to the comparison above. The cost of Citrix is included in I BN base pricing and I BN has multiple Citrix Certified professionals who manage the SAP B1 Cloud offerings. Partner Programs AWS has a partner program, AWS Partner Network (APN), that provides partners the ability to brand themselves as AWS partners and provides support to members. After getting a number professionals certified in the platform you can apply for membership in one of their partner programs (consulting, channel, etc.) and be listed on their site. In addition to training costs, there is a $2,000 annual fee for membership. I BN has a Solution Provider Program which has no cost and provides a framework for providing services on the I BN cloud and with other members of the program. In addition to discount levels based upon competencies, the program includes discounted transfer rates for setup fees, professional services, and intellectual property developed by members of the Network. 13 P age

17 I BN serves as a clearing house for member organizations to offer their products, services and intellectual property to members of the Network. Partners not only gain access to the I BN cloud and related products and services, but also gain access to leads for intellectual property sales and professional services for other members. There are no fees for being a member of the Network. Conclusions As a solution provider, you must decide what core competencies are important to your organization. AWS is suited for a company or SAP partner that has or seeks managing cloud infrastructure as a core competency, while the I BN offering allows SAP partners to focus on the sales, configuration and support of B1H. I BN packages the technology into bundles for ease of consumption: o I BN provides an installed and tested environment o AWS technical specifications only includes the HANA server and NAT server requirements o I BN bundles all the firewall, anti virus, backup and application delivery components which need to be aggregated in the AWS environment. With I BN s three server offering the partner s learning curve is reduced to the HANA Studio where AWS SuSe Linux Certification is a requirement. I BN is cost competitive and allows for a more predictable business model. o I BN provides margins up to 30% off its SRP for infrastructure services o Bundling software with infrastructure can increase margins above the 30% level o AWS infrastructure costs are exposed to the public limiting ability to mark up infrastructure services for customers migrating to the cloud. While AWS manages one of the largest clouds in the world, it is an infrastructure company, it has minimal investment in understanding SAP Business One and this portion of its portfolio is immaterial to the company. I BN was founded to deliver small to mid size ERP systems via the Internet and SAP Business One is core to its strategy. I BN has dedicated resources tasked with being experts in B1H and designs its technical infrastructure specifically for the needs of the application and customer base. I BN works closely with SAP in the development and testing of the SAP products and services. I BN has been asked to send representatives to China and Israel for advanced testing and troubleshooting of both core SAP Business One and the Cloud Control Center. I BN is dedicated to the SAP partner channel. o In 2014 I BN engaged Geoff Ashley, former VP of Sales for SAP Business One, to assist in design of its partner program. o I BN surveyed more than 30% active SAP channel partners in addition to partners of other ERP products to enhance its compensation program and services offerings specifically to meet the needs of the partner community. 14 P age