SAP has announced the acquisition of the small and emerging Swedish software development company, Sap Cloud. SAP will use the Sap Cloud technology to extend its mobile and enterprise experiences to more mobile workers. Sap will integrate the Sap Cloud solutions into its own portfolio of products and will begin developing new offerings in the coming months.
What types of mobile activities can the SAP Cloud provide? -The Sap Cloud is about more than just tool for end users to develop new apps. It also covers areas such as life-cycle management and integration and already comes with predefined modules that support businesses in their lifecycle. It is important to note here that these are not on-premise hybrid installations, but are instead off-the-shelf SAP solutions running on the SAP server. This means they can be easily implemented into SAP on-premises and provided to departments.
Will my departments be able to migrate to the Sap Cloud? – With the Sap Cloud, there are different deployment options. The two main options are manual migration and hybrid deployment, which are when you create a custom environment from scratch and deploy your Sap Cloud solutions. However, the manual process is quite tedious and involves manual deployment of SAP objects, while the hybrid approach allows you to reuse objects, configure security settings and can migrate them automatically during their lifetime. You therefore have the freedom to alter your environment at any time, to tailor it to your requirements.
How easy is the process of migration from an on-premise system to the Sap Cloud? – The process of migration from an on-premise ERP to the Sap Cloud is not as complex as you may think. One of the many benefits of cloud integration is that you do not have to deal with the complexity of server integration, which is one of the factors responsible for making the migration process easier to manage. SAP recommends that you should take advantage of cloud integration as a way of making the ERP migration process easier and smoother.
Is it secure? – SAP recommends against using the public cloud in most cases. The reasons for this are a number of. The biggest reason is that SAP objects are data, which is meant to be protected by copyright law, and therefore it would be difficult to enforce a right to the use of the public cloud on SAP systems. Secondly, SAP data is prepared on servers and is therefore protected by enterprise firewall protection. SAP would still need to ensure compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley Laws as well, which prohibit the transmission of sensitive information outside of specific companies or to clients who cannot prove a valid business reason for accessing it.
