Go Google Cloud for better SAP

Legacy SAP applications get a new lease on life when migrated to Google’s Cloud Platform, giving enterprises enhanced speed, performance and cost savings. This, according to Digicloud Africa, Google’s Cloud enablement partner for Africa, and its partners across the continent, is the experience of enterprises moving SAP to Google’s Cloud Platform, alongside myriad unexpected benefits.

According to Gregory MacLennan, CEO of Digicloud Africa, SAP on Google Cloud is a fit-for-purpose solution for organisations in Africa. This is based on Digicloud’s experience of Google’s transformative achievements across the continent and using Google's best-in-class network and infrastructure to host SAP applications for African companies across the continent.

Companies using SAP systems have a deadline of 2025 by which time all SAP customers must have migrated from any SAP DB to S/4HANA. Moving legacy SAP systems to the cloud as part of this migration creates a springboard for innovation, helping organisations gain a competitive advantage and become future-ready. 

Many more businesses are choosing Google Cloud because they not only want their cloud built on the digital native infrastructure that powers Google’s leading products (like Google Search and YouTube) but are also looking for a trusted advisor to transform their business with artificial intelligence and machine learning to drive smarter decision-making for stakeholders and to increase workload efficiencies. 

Key concerns for customers moving SAP to the cloud are business continuity, security and performance. The Google Cloud environment is delivering on all of these, and is also enabling agility, smart analytics and artificial intelligence, and machine learning innovation. 

There are many advantages to running SAP on Google Cloud. Google's private fibre network provides a global, secure and scalable foundation for SAP deployments and lets organisations optimise for performance or cost. In addition, automation tools such as Cloud Deployment Manager and flexible deployment options allow organisations to deploy at their own pace. Companies can also benefit from features such as Compute Engine live migration and automatic restart, which minimise downtime for infrastructure maintenance. 

African organisations are well placed to leverage the benefits of moving their SAP applications to Google’s Cloud platform. Google has a strong (and growing) foothold on the continent and its innovation and commitments to increased connectivity via the Equiano cable place it centre stage to deliver meaningful digital transformation across the continent with a network to support SAP on GCP in Africa. 

Digicloud Africa partner DotModus in South Africa notes that in June 2020, SAP announced its first data centre would be powered by Google. “This means that SAP customers have access to Google’s secure and reliable cloud infrastructure. With data security at the forefront for Google, you can rest assured that your data in SAP is safe and secure. By choosing Google Cloud, you have access to built-in features such as Compute Engine live migration and automatic restart to reduce downtime for infrastructure maintenance,” the company says. “In these ‘uncertain times’, every business could benefit from the stability and security that Google Cloud provides – especially for their mission-critical systems like SAP,” says Thomas Fowler, CEO of DotModus. 

Another Digicloud Africa partner, Incentro Africa in Kenya, says: “Google Cloud’s SLA capacity to run 99.99% on a single virtual machine is impressive and quite unique in the market. The “aha!” moment for many customers is, with Google Cloud, you need fewer virtual machines than with other cloud-based solutions, hence it is a less expensive proposition. We have testimonials from customers telling us that their SAP environments run 50% faster after migration to GCP. They also get better default availability without needing to invest in additional hardware, all this with improved performance and security.” 

Deimos, a Digicloud Partner in Nigeria, says: “Google is already well known to be the best value-for-money hyperscaler cloud platform. This is important when considering SAP, as this application requires machines with plenty of RAM to cater for all its in-memory data stores. Costs can easily skyrocket, so choosing a cloud known for cost-effectiveness is important. Google’s system and pricing policies are by far the simplest, and its distribution and partner network make its adoption straightforward.” Andrew Mori, CEO of Deimos, notes that having your SAP instances on Google Cloud means you immediately get access to Google’s innovation in the form of novel applications in artificial intelligence, managed services, security and scalability. 

To learn more about migrating SAP to Google’s Cloud Platform, click here.