GCP – Just in time for TechEd, our latest innovations for SAP customers

With SAP TechEd kicking off this week, we thought it would be a good time to update you on the ways that Google Cloud continues to enhance our offerings for SAP customers. 

We’ve released new capabilities for both running SAP applications on Google Cloud as well as ways to get more out of your SAP data including our advanced analytics, AI and ML capabilities. Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new and what’s coming soon. 

SAP Application Certifications: We continue to add to a growing list of SAP application solutions certified by SAP to run on Google Cloud. The most recent additions include:

• Custom machine types for N2 and N2D

• N2 and N2D Custom Machine Types – SAP NetWeaver

• AMD N2D certifications up to 96 vCPUS – SAP NetWeaver

• 6TB OLAP Scale-up for SAP HANA

• 12TB OLTP Scale-out for SAP S/4HANA

• SAP ASE (Sybase) Certification

• NetApp CVS Performance – SAP HANA (all sizes)

Scaling up SAP on bare metal to 18TB/24TB: Google Cloud already offers 6TB and 12TB VM-based offerings for specialized SAP workloads such as very large HANA deployments. For customers looking to scale beyond 12TB per server, we will have 18TB and 24TB bare metal configurations. This makes lift-and-shift migrations easier for even the largest on-premises SAP systems, clearing an even wider path to cloud migration.

Backint for HANA/4 backup: Google Cloud’s SAP-certified Cloud Storage Backint agent for SAP HANA lets customers use Cloud Storage directly for backups and recoveries for both on-premises and cloud installations of SAP databases. The Backint agent is integrated with SAP HANA so you can store and retrieve backups directly from Cloud Storage by using the native SAP backup and recovery functions. When you use the Backint agent, you don’t need to use persistent disk storage for backups. Our latest release enhances support of large or high-frequency backups and also allows customers to supply their own encryption keys for backups in addition to Google Cloud’s native encryption.  

Connector for SAP Landscape Management (LaMa) (in preview): SAP LaMa simplifies, automates, and centralizes the management of SAP systems running in different infrastructures, whether on premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both. Google Cloud connector for SAP LaMa interfaces with Google Compute Engine and Cloud Storage operations so customers can schedule system management events connected to Google Cloud infrastructure right from SAP LaMa. System administrators can now handle management tasks such as snapshots, mounting and unmounting storage, relocating servers, and performing system refreshes without having to leave the LaMa interface.

BigQuery integration: A key goal for SAP customers is to enrich data from their SAP assets with non-SAP data in Google Cloud’s analytics solutions. SAP customers can confidently derive more use and value from their data via consolidation on BigQuery, our fully managed, enterprise data warehouse. Using robust integration solutions from our partners—SAP, Informatica, Qlik, Datavard, Software AG, Boomi, and HVR customers have more choice on how to best accelerate and simplify the delivery of SAP data to BigQuery, whether it originates from legacy SAP environments, SAP HANA, or SAP application servers. We’re also working to add real-time data connectivity and integration options with Google Cloud native solutions such as Data Fusion so customers can build complex ETL/ELT data pipelines from their SAP systems leveraging existing skillsets and investments. Stay tuned for more announcements in this space in 2021.

Apigee API management platform: APIs have emerged as a pillar of modern digital business practice. For businesses using SAP either in the cloud or data centers, Apigee can provide value in three different ways. First, unlocking the value of legacy systems. Every company in the world has valuable data and functionality housed in its systems—but activating that value via APIs means being able to leverage systems for faster time to market of new experiences. Second, modernize legacy systems. Apigee provides an abstraction layer between client facing applications and backend systems during the backend modernization process to minimize business disruption. Third, Creating cloud-native, scalable services. In addition to repackaging SAP data as a microservice and providing capabilities to monetize this data, Apigee takes on some essential performance, availability and security functions: handling access control, authentication, security monitoring and threat assessment plus throttling traffic when necessary to keep backend systems running normally while providing applications with an endpoint that can scale to suit any of your workloads.

Cloud Acceleration Program (CAP): This first-of-its-kind program empowers customers with solutions from both Google Cloud and our partners to simplify and de-risk their SAP cloud migrations. Google Cloud and our partners have created specialized migration solutions, accelerators, and methodologies for both lift and shift as well as migrating to S/4HANA. We have also created new ways to extend SAP solutions to drive fresh insights quickly and efficiently. In addition, CAP provides financial incentives to defray many of the costs associated with moving SAP systems to Google Cloud and safeguard customer migrations.

Partner spotlight: OpenText

An enterprise environment generates a staggering number of documents and unstructured content—contracts, orders, invoices, receipts, emails to name a few. Each requires proper governance to store and manage over its lifetime. For SAP customers, attaching these documents to each transaction is relatively easy, but their sheer volume increases database size and slows performance and it is hard to collaborate across multiple stakeholders, applications and processes. .

OpenText’s enterprise content management (ECM) turns documents into a resource rather than a burden, making them securely accessible to those who need them, whenever and wherever they need them, while improving the performance of the organization’s SAP solutions and reducing compliance risks. Now, Google Cloud has selected OpenText as its preferred ECM partner, which multiplies the advantages that OpenText brings to SAP customers by letting them take advantage of advanced technologies such as analytics and AI, streamline and automate workflows, and manage and capitalize on critical data. With Google Cloud as OpenText’s preferred partner for enterprise cloud, SAP customers using OpenText gain flexibility and more powerful capabilities, including:

• Containerized managed services with full hybrid functionalities across existing on-premises infrastructure and Google Cloud.

• Offloading data. Documents and other unstructured content from SAP to an integrated archiving and content management system, streamlining the SAP database to make cloud and/or SAP S/4 HANA migration faster and less complex.

• Multiple deployment options on virtual machines, servers or containers, on premises or in the cloud.

There’s more to come

It is our goal to become the perfect home for your SAP solutions, for worry-free, highly scalable infrastructure as well as the ability to extract the most value possible from data within your organization and beyond using groundbreaking analytics and cutting-edge innovations.

Join Google Cloud (virtually) at TechEd and tune into our session, DT137, Innovate your business with Google Cloud industry solutions. 

To learn more about Google Cloud for SAP, including technical resources, visithttps://cloud.google.com/solutions/sap.