When Migrating, SAP SW is Only the Tip of the Iceberg

When it comes SAP Cloud Migration, the SAP licensed software applications and databases are only the tip of the iceberg. Most large enterprises currently running SAP ERP Software have between 500 and 1000 supporting applications that feed data to or receive data from SAP ERP software that many SAP customers pursuing cloud migration don't focus on until after their cloud decision is made. Bundled into that complexity are some applications at the edge (i.e. think SAP Extended Warehouse Management as well as non-SAP applications at the edge) and some large data repositories which pose significant problems due to wide-area network bandwidth costs and latency hampering large data movements. While greenfield deployments require this labor intensive development of the bottom-of-the-iceberg interfaces from scratch many existing SAP ecosystems already have these interfaces in place. This is one of the most overlooked areas of cost/difficulty/delay when migrating SAP to the cloud and is likely the number one topic of advice provided by SAP Cloud migration veterans.

Sound advice for large enterprises currently running SAP ERP Software and considering a cloud migration is as follows. Much of this advice is related to the assessment of the overall costs and complexity of moving large amounts of data regularly in the normal course of business. Most customers are used to fixed fee telco charges with no variable fees for data movements so the concept of paying variable fees per GB for data movements is often overlooked and not accurately budgeted in overall SAP Cloud costs. Coupled with this is how best to maintain/develop/support the applications that feed data to/receive data from SAP ERP.

1. Identify all supporting upstream/downstream applications currently sending data to/reporting from SAP (including systems that may remain on Netweaver).
2. Identify the physical location of the current data and estimate how large the data movements will be for each interface, export, etc.
3. Calculate the budget for public cloud provider bandwidth costs for data movements (initial cost as well as estimated monthly costs for data transfer between availability zones, intra/inter continental data transfers, and egress fees) Azure Bandwidth Pricing Details. As stated above, most customers are used to fixed fee telco charges with no variable fees for data movements. In addition, calculate the egress fees for moving the data out of the public cloud at the end of the agreement term as it is a cost that cannot be avoided should a different cloud decision be made in the future.
4. Draw out and calculate the budget for initial and ongoing telco costs of redundant wide area network data lines.
5. Add your calculations to the overall SAP Cloud hosting pricing.
6. Estimate the time and costs necessary for developing, updating, or maintaining the supporting upstream/downstream applications currently sending data to/reporting from SAP (as identified in step 1 above) both in the public cloud and in the optimum datacenter for your unique needs (can be your existing datacenters or convenient colocation datacenters).
7. Compare the total overall costs of bringing the SAP Cloud to your data (incorporating your current datacenters or conveniently located colocation datacenters) with options such as SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Customer Edition and HPE SAP GreenLake Cloud Everywhere) vs the overall costs of moving your data to the Public Cloud.
8. If you do decide to move to colocation datacenters (many of which have cloud adjacency to the large public cloud providers) consider the fact that there are no variable data transfer charges within large colocation datacenter providers between availability zones, no charges for intra/inter continental data transfers, and no charges for egress fees. This contrasts sharply against these variable charges from the hyperscale public cloud providers. The trade-off is the fixed monthly fee of the colocation datacenter data lines vs the variable and more difficult to budget fees of hyperscale public cloud providers.

Most often the gotchas in SAP Cloud Migrations are in the costs and complexities arising from the portion of the SAP ecosystem iceberg that lies below the water. SAP assessments and ongoing budgets should not overlook these costs and complexities especially with so much pressure from SAP and SAP Consultancies eagerly promoting their services for migrations to the Public Cloud. Like any project, proceed only with a fully educated and informed decision.