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SAP Enlists AWS in Multicloud Move
Business software giant SAP is retrofitting its flagship cloud platform to interoperate with other major public clouds, starting with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The SAP Cloud Platform can now be run on AWS, the company announced this week at its annual Sapphire Now conference in Orlando, Fla.
SAP is also testing support for Microsoft Azure via a public preview program, and plans to add the Google Cloud Platform to the roster of supported platforms "soon," according to a blog post Tuesday by Bjoern Goerke, chief technology officer at SAP.
Goerke claimed that the SAP Cloud Platform, which is based on Cloud Foundry, "is the first and only end-to-end digital enterprise platform that offers you the flexibility to use the infrastructure provider of your choice."
He added, "Regardless of which IaaS provider(s) you chose, it all can be managed and operated via a single, unified cockpit."
AWS, which was an exhibitor at the conference, also announced new initiatives with SAP aimed at the two companies' customers in the field of life sciences, where the workloads are focused on processing vast amounts of personal and biological data -- and, as a consequence, are subject to myriad compliance and regulatory rules.
Christopher Chen, global strategic technology alliances lead for AWS' Health Care and Life Sciences unit, described the initiatives as being mutually beneficial. "SAP has been a leader in providing solutions to the Life Sciences market for over 45 years, and many of our customers and APN Partners have been moving to HANA workloads on AWS," Chen wrote in a blog post. "Life Sciences customers often work in highly regulated environments, and through our collaboration with SAP, we aim to help their businesses run better by enabling this transition with new tools."
To that end, AWS said that it is preparing to release documentation for deploying SAP HANA workloads on AWS to ensure that companies maintain compliance with life sciences industry standards. AWS is also launching a "rapid test migration program" to help life sciences customers move their workloads to SAP HANA and the AWS cloud.
"Our goal is to help enable and accelerate the journey of digital transformation for Life Sciences customers as they adopt SAP's cloud-enabled innovations," Chen said. "Customers can leverage the tools and resources that SAP and AWS make available to help meet their compliance objectives with increased speed and agility while supporting mission-critical applications like SAP S/4HANA and SAP BW/4HANA."