SAP Surround
Unlimited modernization possibilities with Azure
Co-Authors: Rajesh Kumar and Roshan Menon
In the past few years, the way organizations work has changed a lot as businesses of all sizes, geographies, and industries are turning to cloud services. Gartner predicts that this trend will continue over the coming years where most companies will have cloud-first or cloud-only policies. Factors behind this change include things like lower operating costs, improved time to market, better collaboration, and increased flexibility. The new emerging market scenario typically involves modernizing your applications and moving some or all the IT environment into the cloud. However, with an increase in the number of cloud offerings and demand for data utilization, there is a need for a solution that provides seamless integration of on-prem services with cloud services and leverage analytics offerings.
Microsoft Azure has become one of the widely used cloud service providers in recent times. It provides the freedom to build, manage and deploy applications on a massive, global network using various tools and frameworks. With over 95% of Fortune 500 companies trusting their business on Azure, it provides 90+ compliance offerings making the largest portfolio available in the industry. It has become the industry leader’s solution for going to a partially or completely cloud-based architecture. Azure solutions don’t just make it faster and easier to add and scale infrastructure, they make it cheaper. With its Pay-as-you-go pricing model, it gives the user flexibility to keep the high cost associated with infrastructure to a minimum.
SAP has a wide footprint in large & medium organizations for various systems across business verticals. Although SAP leads this space, their Cloud and Data & AI capabilities lack modern innovation and mainstream acceptance. SAP customers often turn to other platforms for these capabilities.
Why SAP Surround on Azure?
SAP Surround on Azure integrates SAP system and other surrounding services in Azure providing an end-to-end analytics solution. Leveraging Microsoft Azure Cloud to modernize SAP Surround landscape and drive intelligent business decisions can provide the following values to clients:
- Real-time insight
- AI-enabled order analysis solution for demand prediction, purchase pattern
- Architecturally flexible and scalable solution
- Modular AI solution that can be leveraged for any industry
- Actionable insights to business analysts and other users without access to core ERP system (SAP)
There can be many SAP business scenarios where SAP systems can be easily and quickly integrated with other surrounding services in Azure. Some of the examples include:
- Azure Logic Apps integration with SAP
- Azure Power Platform integration with SAP
- Azure Data Factory, Data Lake Storage, Power BI integration with SAP
- Azure Internet of Things (IoT) Integration with SAP
Sample Business Scenario
A vending management company, which manages self-dispensing units for multiple consumer product brands are struggling with ineffective management of inventory. They want to have an AI-infused order analysis solution that would help them learn where the demand is high, and what type of products consumers are purchasing. The order data is stored in the SAP systems; however, one of the roadblocks for them is the lack of direct access to SAP for analysts, nor they are SAP functional users.
The solution utilizes the following components to design and develop a solution to fulfill client requirements:
- Azure IoT Hub to capture real-time data from Vending Machines installed in various locations and managed by a single vendor
- Azure Data Factory to automate data integration between SAP HANA and Azure
- SAP HANA to store usage data captured from the IoT devices in addition to the product and device description
- Azure ML service to predict usage, consumption and profitability of products and vending machines
- Power BI to visualize insights from the captured data
With the increasing demand for cloud services and continuous changes in the business landscape clients are always looking for solutions that bring more to the table while utilizing their existing architecture. Azure is one of the leading cloud service providers that have a footprint in multiple geographies. SAP is also a widely used platform across multiple businesses and has been there for quite a long time. A seamless merger of the two giants opens up possibilities for future collaborations that might strengthen the cloud front and create a unique ecosystem that offers innovative solutions to the clients.