Achieving success with RISE with SAP in a multi-dimensional landscape

SAP has deemed RISE with SAP as a solution that removes the complexity of modernizing with cloud, helping companies with a simplified engagement and guided journey through business transformation.

For many SAP customers still running their SAP systems on-premise, RISE with SAP may present an opportunity to take advantage of the cloud transformation with SAP as an enabler towards SAP S/4HANA.

For those customers who already have the advantage of running SAP on cloud today, RISE with SAP may present the business case they are looking for to secure the funding and green light to transform to S/4HANA.

In either scenario, RISE with SAP may offer a solid path for an operational licensing model, aid in achieving business goals around the next generation IT landscape for SAP, and could unify cost and business goals with the OPEX-based cost model. Keep in mind, RISE with SAP is a simplified journey to cloud and S/4HANA with a definitive framework, void of one’s existing old code and customizations.

RISE with SAP Considerations for the Multi-Dimensional SAP Customer

As the RISE with SAP solution becomes more mainstream, a common question we receive from the field is how to achieve success in adopting RISE with SAP if the businesses’ current landscape is multi-dimensional. (If you need a quick refresher on RISE with SAP, read our 3 Takeaways blog post before continuing.)

It is uncommon today for a business not to have a multi-dimensional landscape for their SAP and surrounding applications. Most organizations are continuously running hybrid platforms- even if SAP workloads are still on-premises - where a SaaS platform may be delivering part of the organization’s services, mixed with proprietary applications that are either hosted with a public cloud partner or in a private data center.

To ensure success for such a centralized implementation, it is important that the business participates in a transformational plan around its applications. For companies with legacy applications, as well as non-SAP third-party applications playing a part in their overall SAP enabled or mission-critical business application landscape, we suggest the following considerations:

1. Understand the planned transformation for each SAP Business Suite and other partner application landscapes and its impact on business processes and business KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
2. Define SAP, migration partner, and internal team’s roles and responsibilities as part of the migration to RISE with SAP
3. Clearly establish the responsibilities of the business to enable the transformation journey
4. Review and close any gaps between the responsibility matrix and the end goal to assess where additional services such as Cloud Adoption Services or supplementary support services will be required.
5. Prepare a roadmap for S/4HANA transformation and define milestones as part of RISE with SAP move.

Integrating Applications and Other Cloud Platforms to the RISE with SAP Tenant

The RISE with SAP engagement with SAP will cover the SAP application side of the house, therefore the business must plan for the other applications deployed to enable business processes alongside SAP Business Suite.

Whether the business uses SAP software or third-party software to do so, surrounding applications must also integrate using RISE with SAP standards. RISE with SAP offers infrastructure components tied to various Full User Equivalent (FUE) pre-configured sizes that can be derived from the number of users and type of usage.

Further, 3rd party applications can be managed in the RISE with SAP tenant as an IaaS server by the business’ infrastructure team per cloud foundation guidelines defined by RISE with SAP. Sometimes, these guidelines may not meet requirements for the business’ entire application landscape, cloud adoption framework, cloud governance guidelines, or application security requirements. The business will have the option to deploy and manage applications on its own cloud tenant, managed within business requirements along with SAP applications being transformed and managed by RISE with SAP.

In the event the business is managing its own cloud tenant on the same public cloud platform RISE with SAP is being deployed, it is recommended that the business plan to engage deep infrastructure management and networking skillsets to aid in the delivery of all associated management and integration services setup for each application transformation.

The RISE with SAP tenant also comes with a fixed perimeter around security and guardrails. Whether surrounding non-SAP applications reside on the same or different cloud platform as the RISE with SAP tenant, each will need to have a network established as they would with any other public cloud virtual tenant. This would be like any other site-to-site or MPLS-based network, where connecting and establishing the networking topology and building a framework around the essential networking requirements ensures applications can communicate at the application layer.

Considerations for Cloud Adoption Services and SAP Application & DB Management Services

While SAP has published a detailed list of “standard services" included with the RISE with SAP transformation, it is highly recommended that the business plan for additional services, specifically around cloud adoption, application management, security, and additional SAP Basis support. This includes:

1. Transformation program management such as Suite on HANA or S/4 conversion and its integration and application architecture changes.
2. Single pane of glass view for all business applications & services including RISE with SAP enabled services
3. SAP Application functionality & configuration management, transports management, integrations setup, certificates management, data archiving management, architecting, management, maintenance
4. Advanced database management and analytics setup and techno-functional management of HANA database such as HANA DB Partitioning, Export/import of schemas, HANA XSA Administration, any other advanced DB feature implementation
5. SAP Security management including Fiori front-end end user roles and profiles management

Lastly, plan for appropriate mitigation strategies with all parties involved - SAP as a product owner, internal FTEs to assess capabilities around the overall transformation path, as well as third party migration and managed services partners and their involvement - to ensure you have enough skills and resources available that are required for your RISE with SAP migration and post go-live support.

For many SAP customers, the RISE with SAP offering is a clear pathway to S/4HANA and becoming an intelligent enterprise. As with any transformation change, however, RISE with SAP engagements will require the business to plan for and manage additional complementary skill sets and services, especially if the current landscape requires integration from critical surrounding data sources. To ensure success, it is recommended all resources be involved during the planning, migration, and optimization phases to maximize results, minimize risk, and take advantage of SAP’s offering to modernize your SAP environment while moving to the next step in your digital transformation journey with public cloud and S/4HANA.

If you’re looking for a trusted partner to help you plan and execute your cloud journey with confidence, talk to a Protera expert today.