2. Infrastructure
You know you want to move to SAP S/4HANA, but where do you want to host it?
SAP S/4HANA can run on-premises or on a private or public cloud. Organizations may choose to remain on-premises if they have special sensitivities around their data or specific performance requirements not compatible with hosting to the cloud, while a private cloud may be chosen in cases where geographical location is a priority or special aspects of the agreement negotiated makes it more attractive.
Public cloud allows organizations to reduce their own IT effort, scale flexibly and save money. Business case calculations also show that infrastructure and operating costs can be significantly reduced by relocating the SAP landscape to public cloud providers like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP), all of which are SAP S/4HANA certified.
Whether Azure, AWS, or GCP is best suited depends on the individual case and business requirements. Anyone who is already working successfully with a specific cloud provider might want to place their SAP there as well, making it easier for them to integrate the SAP platform with the rest of the application estate and share the data. On the other hand, a multi-cloud strategy can be desirable to avoid excessive dependency on a single provider and to combine the advantages of different providers.
With any of these cloud providers, customers will be able to customize and optimize the infrastructure, and the ability to scale the infrastructure up and down. SAP also offers hosting on its own data centres, which is another alternative. Customers will need to decide between all these options before landing on the best infrastructure solution for their needs.