RISE with SAP on IBM Power Virtual Server to accelerate transformation
The new offering is designed to move SAP S/4HANA workloads from IBM Power Systems on-premises to cloud within 90 days.
A guided journey delivering outcome-driven services, cloud ERP and platforms, RISE with SAP helps organizations rethink their operating model. The new hyperscaler offering is expected to reduce risk and improve SAP S/4HANA Cloud migration time from IBM Power Systems on-premises to cloud within 90 days.
As IBM Power servers are ranked number 1 in availability among SAP-certified infrastructure, they are engineered for fewer disruptions and faster migration, supported by the highly resilient and secured IBM Cloud platform. As such, the IBM Power Virtual Server will enable customers to rapidly transform on-premises SAP ERP systems on cloud, modernize business processes and become more agile.
According to Rob Thomas, Senior Vice President, Software and Chief Commercial Officer at IBM, the tech giant has worked hand-in-hand with SAP to provide a seamless and fast migration path for customers that rely on the IBM Power platform for their SAP workloads and applications.
“This new capability helps reduce the complexity of moving to the cloud and accelerates impact, benefits we experienced firsthand in our own modernization journey using RISE with SAP,” said Thomas.
With deep expertise with SAP S/4HANA Cloud modernization and managed services projects, IBM recently moved its quote-to-cash and record-to-report processes to RISE with SAP on IBM Power Virtual Server. This is reportedly one of the largest and most complex SAP S/4HANA Cloud modernization projects of any SAP customer to date.
The IBM project which focused on 150,000 users across 175 countries in 18 months resulted in a 30% reduction in infrastructure costs and related operations by rationalizing overall server and data footprint and increasing process automation. The transformation work was led by IBM Consulting, which also provided the technical services, implementation and application management services expertise required to help securely move and run these complex solutions.
“SAP is helping organizations run their best through cloud-based enterprise applications embedded with the power of SAP Business AI. This announcement is yet another milestone in SAP’s long-term partnership with IBM, offering our joint customers a clear path to the cloud designed for faster time-to-value, increased flexibility, and continuous innovation,” said Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE.
IBM Consulting and partner ecosystem to accelerate transformation
More than 10,000 SAP customers over 50 years have used IBM to deliver and run SAP on IBM systems. Making this work is not just the relationship between IBM and SAP but also the strong partner ecosystem for both IBM and SAP.
To ensure smooth deployment for customers, IBM is currently in the process of working with global systems integrators and services partners to architect, deploy and migrate RISE with SAP projects. Customers can also use SAP S/4HANA Cloud by working with IBM Consulting or any other SAP partner.
As IBM and SAP have a strong partner ecosystem, they intend to work together with combined solutions, capabilities, and joint go-to-market efforts. RISE with SAP on IBM Power Virtual Server customers and IBM Business Partners will also have access to a new IBM Transformation Suite for SAP Applications to help begin the migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and RISE with SAP. It will include a bundle of best-of-breed software and services for the assessment of current environments, data migration and automated testing.
Over in Southeast Asia, Gauri Bajaj, ASEAN Ecosystem Leader at IBM (pictured above) pointed out that many ASEAN customers currently run their SAP implementations in Power environments on-premises.
“For our business partners, they will be able to unlock new opportunities to sell a RISE with SAP transformation by leveraging a customized investment program from IBM to support early-stage technical assessments by SIs or resell partners, migration execution, and the deployment of surrounding non-RISE (SAP and non-SAP) workloads to cloud,” said Bajaj.
Bajaj also mentioned that IBM partners who are SAP certified can provide advisory, application management, migration, and implementation services for customers.