Microsoft Azure For Your SAP Solutions

Microsoft Azure For Your SAP Solutions

Contents 1 Executive summary 2 Challenges 3 Benefits 3 Microsoft Azure use cases 6 SAP on Microsoft Azure 6 Microsoft Cloud OS 7 What is Microsoft Azure? 8 Fundamentals 10 Scale 11 Infrastructure 11 Customer use cases 14 Deployment scope for Microsoft Azure for SAP 15 Next steps 15 Conclusion Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions

Microsoft Confidential. For internal use only. Materials herein are not for use by third parties including but not limited to OEMS, DSPs, ISVs, IHVs, or resellers. Authorized vendors may use materials only pursuant to an express work request and/or agreement from Microsoft. Copyright information 2014 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is provided as-is. Information and views expressed in this document, including URL and other Internet Web site references, may change without notice. You bear the risk of using it. This document does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this document for your internal, reference purposes. You may modify this document for your internal, reference purposes. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions

Executive summary Businesses of all sizes are running SAP in the cloud to simplify infrastructure management, improve time-to-market, and reduce costs. Microsoft and SAP together plan to offer interoperability that helps redefine the landscape for Microsoft and SAP solutions through shorter development and deployment cycles, reduced costs, and access to core applications. Microsoft and SAP also plan to offer integration of the upcoming landscape management software from SAP, Microsoft System Center, Microsoft Azure, and Microsoft Windows Server Hyper-V technology, bringing greater agility for cloud management and deployments. This integration has the potential to enhance flexibility, scalability, and management in the cloud all while reducing costs and risks. Not only does integration streamline and clarify support and escalation processes, SLAs, and resources, but it gives organizations access to unique advantages that only Microsoft can provide: One Cloud OS across private, public, and hybrid clouds One management solution for on-premises and online environments A unified platform that is enterprise-grade, hybrid, and peoplefocused A support agreement for SAP solutions and database on Microsoft Azure Enterprise-ready infrastructure that has global presence under familiar enterprise agreements Dynamic application delivery at lower prices This paper discusses how SAP and Microsoft plan to continue their collaboration to support the deployment of SAP solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform. This paper is intended for CxOs in business IT and technical leadership roles, to help them understand the capabilities and potential value of running SAP solutions on Microsoft Azure. There are several business use cases that lend themselves to using Microsoft Azure as part of the SAP landscape, such as spinning up development and test systems quickly, and serving new SAP project requests. Continue reading to learn how your organization can benefit from using Microsoft Azure as part of your SAP solutions. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 1

Challenges If your organization is like many others, you face the challenge of running SAP workloads in your data center to address evolving market conditions and to respond to developers and business units needs for dynamic infrastructure. While fulfilling those needs for SAP workloads, typically a central IT department also must ensure reasonable system costs, ease of administration, compliance with regulations, compatibility, security, and scalability. Some of the biggest challenges to business, central IT, and application development teams involve delays, lack of focus, capacity planning, and provisioning on limited capacity, all of which are inherent in on-premises implementations of SAP solutions. More specifically, challenges might include the following: For the business overall: Inability to make timely changes to SAP applications based on market conditions Difficulty in controlling costs of development and test environments for SAP applications at on-premises data centers Need to reduce capital expenses for the organization Difficulty in planning capacity for new projects For central IT: Inability to quickly service SAP application requests from onpremises data centers that have limited capacity Finding time to provision production replicas to build and test new SAP functionalities Limited resources for backup and archival environments for all SAP workloads High cost and complexity to refresh hardware For application development: Delays in getting infrastructure built for developing and testing SAP applications Funding expensive central IT cross-charges to support SAP application development and testing Need for application teams to understand infrastructure to limit time spent updating applications Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 2

Benefits Running SAP workloads on Microsoft Azure has many benefits that can prevent frustration and streamline operations, not to mention saving time and money. Increased efficiency Provides an alternate hosting environment Increases efficiency for specific types of SAP workloads such as development, test, and archives for regulators Lower cost Offers the potential for 40 to 75 percent savings over traditional hosting scenarios As compared to traditional data center acquisition and management, reduces power requirements and overhead, and lowers the cost of storage and management Through a subscription to MSDN, provides use of SQL Server for no additional fee Gives the flexibility for deployment in the cloud or on-premises your organization can go into production on Microsoft Azure or export virtual machines and go live on-premises or through a hosting provider Facilitates deployment, in that users can more easily provision a production web application in minutes without waiting for support from procurement, hardware, or IT Agile provisioning Supports infrastructure provisioning that is 200 300 times faster for development and testing Empowers users to instantly self-provision the infrastructure they need Microsoft Azure use cases This section explores some goals typical of small and medium businesses that run SAP solutions, and demonstrates how running workloads in Microsoft Azure can save costs and increase business agility. Scenarios might include developing and testing software, conducting audits, maintaining archives, training users, managing projects, and running small production jobs. Use case 1: Manage timely changes to SAP workloads by development teams Because SAP solutions handle multiple workloads, IT administrators need to maintain and provision numerous sets of IT infrastructure to build realistic test or quality assurance (QA) environments. Without Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 3

sufficient resource allocation, teams may need wait for IT support to complete their development and test work, which can lead to delays in project completion and reduce overall agility for the organization. Development teams need to ensure that changes to SAP workloads are incorporated in a timely manner. The best way to allocate resources and support requests coming from multiple SAP application project teams is to provide self-service for IT resources and reduce dependency on IT administrators. How Microsoft Azure helps: With the ability to more quickly provision and roll out infrastructure for SAP workloads by as much as 200 300 times faster as compared to an on-premises data center, IT can provide immediate value by streamlining development, testing, and deployment phases. As a result, SAP application teams can make changes faster. How organizations benefit: By provisioning instances within 20 minutes and paying for only the compute, storage, and network resources that the SAP application actually uses on an hourly basis, the business can function with greater agility. Use case 2: Fund intermittently used development and test infrastructure for SAP workloads IT needs to proactively plan and budget for infrastructure required to build and test SAP workloads, especially when development and test infrastructure is used intermittently. Administrators must have a way to cross-charge either the central IT department or their own infrastructure without investing in existing infrastructure. How Microsoft Azure helps: Organizations can reduce capital and operational expenditures by switching off development and test systems at the end of the business day. Moving to Microsoft Azure also reduces the amount of time required to deal with equipment and services, manage a development and test server farm, and back up data. How organizations benefit: Organizations can save as much as 40 75 percent in hosting costs by stopping instances when they re not in use. Use case 3: Increase data center capacity to serve new SAP project requests IT must be ready to increase data center capacity to serve new SAP project requests. How Microsoft Azure helps: Organizations can free on-premises data center capacity by moving development and test for SAP workloads to Microsoft Azure without up-front investment. As business requirements change, organizations can easily move Azure deployments back to the on-premises data center. Because the virtual hard disk (VHD) Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 4

that contains the operating system runs under the same name as the on-premises system, no additional preparation is necessary. Also, Microsoft Azure virtual machines use the same format as the Windows Server Hyper-V or VHD. How organizations benefit: Organizations have the flexibility to shift capital expenditures to operational costs. Use case 4: Provide consistent training environments based on templates For periodic, repeatable events such as training and demos, organizations need to be able to deploy SAP workloads that have predefined images without making up-front investments. How Microsoft Azure helps: Organizations can store pre-defined images of the training environment and use them to create new virtual machines. Organizations can use these images to move SAP modules for training and demo purposes from on-premises systems to Microsoft Azure through a virtual private network (VPN) without consuming onpremises network resources. All components of SAP and non-sap software either can be installed on a single virtual machine or distributed across multiple virtual machines that have separate SAP systems. The virtual machines are accessible over a public network. How organizations benefit: Organizations can save money by provisioning only the instances they need for training, and then deleting them after the event is completed. Use case 5: Archive historical systems for auditing and governance Running and managing historical systems for auditing and governance in the on-premises data center is expensive, especially when you consider the cost of energy, people skills, hardware, software licensing, and compliance. How Microsoft Azure helps: Microsoft Azure supports migration of physical machines to virtual machines and allows users to switch back to on-premises data centers when needed. Microsoft is committed to giving organizations detailed information about security compliance programs to help them make their own regulatory assessments. How organizations benefit: Organizations can save as much as 60 percent on storage due to the lower cost of cloud storage, and can quickly spin up the archival system when they need it. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 5

SAP on Microsoft Azure SAP on Microsoft Azure is supported on the following platforms: SAP NetWeaver 7.x platform SAP applications based on NetWeaver 7.x technologies SAP HANA One and SAP HANA Developer SAP Business All-in-One Windows Server 2008 R2 and SQL Server 2008 R2 and later versions SUSE Linux for SAP HANA One and SAP HANA Developer The initial scope of deploying SAP on Microsoft Azure is based on SAP NetWeaver on Windows Server and SQL Server. For supported Virtual Machine sizes and sizing information around those, please check SAP OSS note #1928533. Microsoft Cloud OS Microsoft Cloud OS is the Microsoft vision of a unified platform for modern business that spans data centers and cloud to simplify IT and deliver apps and data to users on virtually any device at any location. Microsoft has the necessary assets across virtualization, identity, data platform, development, and management to provide a consistent experience across on-premises, cloud, and third-party service providers. Through its Cloud OS vision, Microsoft empowers organizations with the following capabilities: Enterprise-grade services that include more affordable virtualization and cloud integration across the globe, with high levels of security, privacy, and reliability to meet business demands. Hybrid design through one consistent platform across multiple environments and clouds. A people-focused approach to extend the existing IT and developer skill sets to the cloud. Enablement of modern business apps by supporting mobility and a wide variety of devices. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 6

What is Microsoft Azure? Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 7

Microsoft Azure is an open and flexible cloud platform that makes it possible for enterprises to more quickly build, deploy, manage, and scale applications in the cloud. Microsoft Azure offers end-to-end solutions for compute, storage, database, and networking resources. As a comprehensive, enterprise-grade cloud platform, Microsoft Azure makes it easier than ever to build new apps and move existing apps to the cloud. In addition, it enables both platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) cloud computing models. Fundamentals As your organization takes the journey to the cloud, it needs a secure and trustworthy platform and a strong commitment to cloud technologies. This section explores fundamental characteristics of Microsoft Azure that make it a trustworthy platform. On-premises and cloud Microsoft believes in the and proposition. By using Microsoft Azure, enterprises can more easily integrate the public cloud with on-premises systems across infrastructure, apps, identity, and databases to create a hybrid cloud environment. Open, broad, and flexible For organizations that run Microsoft workloads along with other open technologies, Microsoft offers a cloud experience that satisfies heterogeneous needs. Microsoft Azure supports a wide variety of languages that include Java, Microsoft.NET, PHP, Python, and more. Microsoft Azure provides an out-of-the box experience for open frameworks such as Hadoop, and for web frameworks such as WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Trustworthy and security-enhanced platform Microsoft Azure platform provides transparency in its service offerings, strong support for organizations in relationships backed by Microsoft, and decades of Microsoft technology experience. Microsoft Azure platform is transparent in the following ways: Supports industry standards such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001 and the Security, Trust, and Assurance Registry (STAR) for the Cloud Security Alliance. Undertakes yearly audits with independent third parties Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 8

Provides a rich set of financially backed monthly service-level agreements (SLAs) a differentiator from other cloud providers such as Amazon, whose SLAs are fewer and on an annual basis. Monthly SLAs typically are more stringent than yearly SLAs. Clearly explains regulatory compliance and privacy policies in the Trust Center, an online portal. Provides real-time status for services through a service dashboard. When problems occur, Microsoft also provides root-cause analysis. With Microsoft and Microsoft Azure, organizations can rely on an existing relationship and account team to get support: Enterprise-ready support 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year Enterprise-ready procurement attached to an existing Enterprise Agreement A Microsoft Azure practice in Microsoft Consulting Services, and continued support from trusted advisors as your organization starts the journey to the cloud Microsoft Azure is not an initial attempt by Microsoft to enter cloud computing. Microsoft has more than two decades of industry experience with cloud technologies, and today runs more than 200 global services. Here are some details to show the scale and extent of Microsoft operations: 9.9 billion messages per day via Windows Live Messenger 600 million unique users monthly on Windows Live and MSN More than 1 petabyte of updates served monthly via Windows Update 5 million Live Meeting conference minutes per year More than 200 billion authentications through Microsoft Azure Active Directory Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 9

Scale Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 10

Consider the global scale at which Microsoft Azure operates: 8 global regions across different contents Support available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year More than 1 billion customers, 20 million businesses, and 76 markets worldwide 280 years of combined industry experience in infrastructure, security, product development, and global operations Local teams and sales offices throughout the world 19 countries that provide local currency support Infrastructure Microsoft Azure also provides infrastructure services that allow for hands-on configuration and management, similar to on-premises servers many organizations have today. However, these servers are hosted in Microsoft data centers, which makes it possible to use Azure as if you were operating their own data centers in the cloud. With Microsoft Azure, you can extend on-premises data centers immediately and move applications as they are to Microsoft Azure and maintain full control over the application environment. Microsoft Azure offers IaaS and PaaS in one consistent platform. IaaS provides flexibility and PaaS eliminates complexity. Your organization can use IaaS and PaaS together or independently to build apps of the future. This capability differentiates Microsoft Azure from offerings by other vendors. Customer use cases Many companies use Microsoft Azure to solve business problems. This section summarizes case studies for companies that run SAP on Azure. Case study 1: Kordia a Business-focused telecommunications company gains performance and flexibility in the cloud Kordia needed to upgrade its critical SAP environment and patch SAP workloads. It also wanted a quick and cost-effective way to clone an SAP production system, apply SAP patches, and hand over the system to business users for testing without affecting business. Solution: Kordia hosted its SAP Business Suite development and test systems in Microsoft Azure. At any time, Kordia could shut down its production clones or resume running them. By not running the virtual machines continually, the company cut costs significantly. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 11

Benefits: Kordia saved as much as 70 percent in Microsoft Azure costs by stopping non-production SAP Business Suite systems during nonworking hours. Case study 2: Zespri the largest Kiwifruit brand in the world Zespri was looking to transform its infrastructure environment to Microsoft Azure to increase organizational agility and reduce costs. Solution: The company moved 13 virtual machines for their SAP development environment into the Azure cloud. Performance to date of the systems is within their acceptance criteria. Benefits: The ability to re-provision virtual machines with a couple of clicks provided the agility to make changes without impacting time or budget constraints. Running SAP landscapes on Azure provides the performance they need and the ability to deliver value to their business. Case study 3: Global audit, tax, and consulting services company The company needed a faster and less expensive way to manage production-level test environments for its development team. Developers were wasting time setting up test environments instead of adding business value with improvements to applications. Solution: The company moved its production-level quality assurance for global SAP implementation to Microsoft Azure (450 instances from an existing solutions), running with SQL Server as the database. Benefits: Savings of 40 75 percent from lower costs to host SAP on Microsoft Azure and from the ability to turn off unused resources A higher level of agility to manage and provision the environment (hours, not weeks) Consistency in creation of environment and images Overall savings estimated to be more than $3 million per year Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 12

Case study 4: Global snack food company A snack food company was looking to replace its current expensive outsourcing contract for SAP systems because it had no way to control costs. Solution: The company wanted to move 126 historic systems from a physical data center to Microsoft Azure. It was necessary to convert all systems from older Oracle, MaxDB, and AIX solutions to Windows Server and SQL Server. The company planned to use the Fastrak Management Center to provision environments. Benefits: Computed savings of as much as 75 percent for hosting costs by switching off unused resources Ability to target to the minute when systems run and be charged accordingly Computed dramatic reduction in support costs due to a consistent, modern OS and database Cost savings estimated at more than $1.5 million per year Case study 5: Global audit, tax, and consulting services company The company needed a way to increase capacity by four times for demonstration systems within its current budget. It also needed a way to quickly deploy demonstration systems for new client training without having to invest in new hardware. Solution: Move 54 internal partner demo systems to Microsoft Azure, with the ability to rapidly replicate each of the systems for client training and use Fastrak Management Center to provision environments. Benefits: Savings of as much as 75 percent for internal hosting costs A consistent golden copy that can be rapidly updated and replicated Estimated overall savings of more than $1 million per year Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 13

Case study 6: Global medical technology company A medical technology company realized that it could save costs by moving its SAP Business Suite training environment to the cloud. With greater flexibility, the company could more quickly provision systems and reduce dependency on its internal data center. Solution: Move 37 Sun and Oracle systems with 5 terabytes of associated storage to Microsoft Azure and use Fastrak Management Center to provision environments. Benefits: Savings of as much as 50 percent for hosting costs due to the ability to switch off unused resources Agility to update and provision training systems only when required Overall estimated savings of more than $1 million per year Deployment scope for Microsoft Azure for SAP The initial scope of deploying SAP on Microsoft Azure is based on SAP NetWeaver on Windows Server and SQL Server. In IaaS deployment options for SAP, you can deploy SAP systems on Microsoft Azure as follows: Microsoft Azure only: Deployment of SAP systems is not connected to your on-premises domain. SAP systems are not part of operational procedures within the rest of the SAP landscape. Hybrid-IT deployments: The on-premises domain is extended to Microsoft Azure. SAP systems in Microsoft Azure are fully integrated with on-premises operational procedures and processes. Before you deploy SAP on Microsoft Azure, consider the following points: Microsoft Azure supports these environments: Two-tier (system and database on the same image) Three-tier (system on one image, database on the other image) Environments have the following qualities: Cannot be blended across premises and cloud Can be run fully in Microsoft Azure and connected via remote desktop or.sap file Can connect to on-premises data centers through VPN (VNET) to look like part of on-premises networks Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 14

Next steps How to buy Microsoft Azure for SAP solutions You can buy Microsoft Azure through Microsoft or your Azure preferred reseller in the following ways: Extending an Enterprise Agreement Direct subscription to Microsoft Azure You can also deploy SAP solutions for Microsoft Azure through the SAP Cloud Appliance Library. Where to learn more For more information, please visit: SAP and Microsoft Alliance http://www.microsoft.com/enterprise/partners/sap.aspx Microsoft Azure http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/ SAP Business Suite http://www.sap.com/solutions/business-suite/index.epx SAP Cloud Appliance Library http://cal.sap.com/subscription/?pguid=d21f5b3b-1f36-4c28-bf66-866840894ec0 Microsoft Azure calculations http://www.windowsazure.com/enus/pricing/calculator/?scenario=full Conclusion This paper briefly described the benefits that organizations can derive by deploying SAP solutions on Microsoft Azure. Only Microsoft provides one underlying operating system for the cloud, which you can use across private, public, and hybrid clouds. With a pay-as-you-go pricing model, your organization can save time and money while developing and testing SAP applications you can stop running virtual machines when they re not needed and export virtual machines to the onpremises test environment for production. By hosting SAP solutions on the Microsoft Azure platform, your organization benefits from lower prices, a single point of support, and the ability to use the enterprise-ready global presence infrastructure under a familiar Enterprise Agreement. Microsoft Microsoft Azure for Your SAP Solutions 15