Migrating SAP to the Cloud

Many on-premise SAP users will migrate to the cloud over the next 24 months. These projects are fraught with risk.

The expectations from the stakeholders, besides future cost reduction, is that user experience after this process remains the same or better. But any process lacking a truly objective comparison between before and after will inevitably fall into subjective comparisons. An automated method of measuring performance is required because relying on user perception is an imprecise way to measure KPIs.

SAP HANA adds complexity to the process because elements access it both in SAP and also components external to it. Ultimately, the migration of SAP is not an isolated event. It also needs to include applications layer, SAP and connected, and HANA. Ensuring that communication is fluid and performance is acceptable, not only during but after the migration is imperative in any application migration. Slowness, timeouts, access problems can affect the image of the project within the company and change the reputation of the entire IT organization. Objective benchmarking and reporting is critical.

Many of the new platforms can measure the migration process by establishing performance baselines. Additionally, many tools also provide automated discovery capabilities that map component dependencies and measure performance between nodes.

For example, during the migration, they can facilitate the planning process by identifying which databases speak to which applications, giving context and minimizing the risk of leaving key components behind. This intelligence allows for better planning of the activities and reduces the impact to the service, improving utilization of the communication links, and ensuring that elements with an intense "dialogue" are moved over at the same time.

Unlike on-premise infrastructure, the cloud is not something easily managed in terms of SLA, performance, etc. As a result, there is greater vulnerability to the performance variations of satellite systems. Also, you only have partial control of the overall business service.

Tooling that enables the insight to end-to-end performance and availability metrics over hybrid environments ensures visibility to where problems are, allowing the setting of realistic service parameters for your cloud service provider.

Finally, any efficient project requires effective management reporting. Visualization must be relevant not only for information technology stakeholders but also for the business partners. The ability to create business service views dynamically that associate the technology assets with a business service is no longer a "nice to have." Tooling should also provide intelligent reports, sent automatically to all stakeholders, information technology, and business, thus increasing transparency and improving project image.