SAP shifts up the innovation gear once again

Specifics on Qualtrics, new SAP Hana cloud services, new AI functions in SAP S/4 Hana, the new SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, the new SAP Analytics Cloud, the Embrace "cloud program" and more - SAP underlined with a whole range of innovations at Sapphire 2019 that the innovation engine at the global market leader for business software continues to run at high speed.

That's good for existing SAP customers, but also for new customers. And for new customers who are expanding the SAP community both via the Business Suite technology successor S/4 Hana and via the various cloud offerings. On top of that, the SAP partner community also benefits from the innovations.

Partners can thus expand their product and solution portfolio and thus extend what they have already achieved in the SAP market. A further perspective for the partner community is definitely given.

Nevertheless, it is not just the sheer number of innovations as such that SAP presented at Sapphire and that particularly stuck with you as an attendee of an SAP event year. Subjectively-objectively, it can be stated or said that SAP as a Cloud
solution provider has fully arrived.

With its "application satellite systems" (SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur or Fieldglass) and with S/4 Hana Cloud or the SAP Cloud Platform including Leonardo, SAP had long since provided concrete support for SAP cloud computing and also issued a "cloud-first strategy".

However, such a clear commitment to cloud computing with a postulated "quasi-must" has not yet been articulated in such a clear manner by SAP co-founder and Supervisory Board member Hasso Platter at a Sapphire, for example. The new SAP cloud solutions that have now been presented also speak a clear language.

Portfolio for SAP

SAP, customers and SAP partners have their eyes on hybrid or multi-cloud computing in particular. SAP on-premises here - also in the form of private cloud environments based on cloud technologies - and public or multi-cloud services use there.

In this context, it is essential to be able to generate or use data in a value-oriented manner in the age of digitization. Incidentally, this is a primary goal of the NetApp data fabric concept, which has existed for some time.

NetApp, as a long-standing and preferred SAP partner as well as a specialist in hybrid cloud data management, used Sapphire Now this year to showcase its broad and innovative portfolio, as well as its portfolio aligned with SAP, with around 50 experts in attendance. And this at three large demo stations:

SAP Hana Acceleration with Data Ontap; NetApp Cloud Solutions for SAP with the motto: "with our Spin It to Win It"; with the same functionality as on-premises, with Cloud Volume Ontap.

In addition, the topic of Shop Floor 4.0/Industry 4.0. With NetApp, for example, it is possible to move or relocate SAP/non-SAP workloads and data simply, easily, and quickly to a public cloud and back to on-premises systems or to a hybrid cloud environment or to multi-cloud environments and back again, as required.

Azure NetApp Files

In this context, NetApp cooperates with all SAP-relevant public cloud service providers and with well-known hyperscalers. At Sapphire, the focus was on the interaction of NetApp-for-SAP solutions and Microsoft Azure. And this on the basis of Azure NetApp Files.

Here, Cloud Volumes Services are used as enterprise-class shared file systems (Azure NetApp Files in the Azure Portal), with the well-known high and proven performance as well as the acknowledged wide range of features.
NetApp features, made available. One thing is already certain: NetApp will be back at Sapphire 2020.