How Do I Migrate SAP To AWS?

SAP is a leading ERP solution for many businesses. It has SAP HANA, which is available both in the cloud and on premises. The on-premise iteration is hosted on your servers and can be quite costly to run. Companies seeking to cut costs while enjoying powerful data storage, analytics and retrieval should consider going to the cloud where they pay per use.

If you are planning to make the switch from your server-hosted SAP to a cloud service, you are likely looking at Amazon AWS. As industry guru Protera explains, it offers low costs of ownership, reliable performance, security and enhanced scalability, among others. Here is a quick look at how to migrate your SAP HANA to Amazon AWS.

Available Migration Frameworks

You may use any of the following frameworks for a smooth migration to the Amazon AWS platform.

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework

The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) is the most popular framework among organisations that want to migrate to the AWS cloud. It contains the best practises to help the business through the digital transformation process to the cloud. CAF breaks down the migration process into manageable components. The components range from governance, business, operations, security, people and the platform.

The business can pinpoint the pain areas in any of these six areas and prioritise them to ensure a smooth migration process. The framework also has four pillars that include: envisioning the priorities; aligning capacity to dependencies; launching the product; and scaling the cloud platform to meet needs.

The 6 Rs Application Migration Framework

This framework was developed by Garner to help organisations understand the technical aspects of the migration process. The organisation starts by evaluating the nature of the current environment, establishing interdependencies and determining how to migrate each component successfully. Here are the six considerations to make in the framework:

• Retire: Get rid of the obsolete applications
• Retain: Holding off upgrades and changes to specific applications until after migration
• Rehost: This involves migrating applications to AWS as they are on your server environment
• Repurchase: You may move the current licence to the cloud or find an alternative cloud-based application.
• Replatform: This stage involves making minimal changes to your SAP due to the capabilities acquired from AWS. It makes the platform run better without requiring a complete overhaul.
• Refactor: This process involves redesigning your legacy landscape to the cloud-based architecture. It enables you to get newer features, scale performance and enhance specific features.

Planning for Your Migration

It is important to plan extensively before you embark on the actual migration. Here are a few things to keep in mind.

Map the resource allocation in your current SAP environment. This includes everything from configurations to network connections. Use the Application Discovery Service to know the resource allocation for each application.

Understand your options while on AWS: Check if the available options on AWS match your SAP environment and resource allocation. Where possible, use the same configurations and architecture.

Backup data and structure: AWS has several tools for backing up your SAP. A popular one is the Storage Gateway, which is a virtual installation on the premise servers to manage the library, replicate files and block storage. Plan back up and restoration process as a fallback if things go wrong.

Migrating to AWS

The actual process of migrating your SAP HANA to AWS is quite straightforward. If you have done your planning right, the process should go smoothly without any hiccups. The EC2 instance memory gives you the option to consolidate several SAP databases into a single instance or several instances. They are divided into HANA and ABAP One Server, Multiple Components in One System (MCOS), Multiple Components in One Database (MCOD), and Multitenant Database Containers (MDC).

Your second step is to back up the SAP structure and databases on AWS. The AWS Quick Start for SAP NetWeaver does the work for you by automating the process. It also helps in the third step, which is the classical migration. The process starts with a homogenous system copy to export the source SAP HANA database.

The final step involves replicating the system. You then perform a SAP HANA takeover on the standby one you created earlier. Finish off by installing the application servers. You may reconnect the application to the newly migrated system.

So How Do I Migrate SAP To AWS?

The SAP HANA migration is a complex, yet necessary process for any business that needs to cut costs, enhance reliability, safety and performance of their ERP solution. Amazon AWS provides incredible capabilities and features to make the process easier and perform better.