SAP Expands Cloud Options With New Private Cloud, ‘Rise With SAP’ Offerings
SAP is building its recently unveiled Joule AI copilot software into a new top-tier ‘Rise with SAP’ service as part of the company’s efforts to accelerate customer moves to the cloud.
SAP Wednesday launched the 2023 release of its private cloud edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, a version of the company’s ERP application set with greater flexibility and more functionality targeting businesses and organizations with complex needs.
The company also debuted a new Premium Plus package of its Rise with SAP cloud transition software and services that incorporates the company’s recently unveiled Joule AI copilot.
SAP also disclosed that it is developing a new service that will offer expert help for Rise with SAP customers to support their upgrade to a current release of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
[Related: SAP Launches Datasphere Next-Generation Data Warehouse]
The software giant’s latest moves are part of the company’s aggressive efforts to encourage customers to move from on-premises editions of its applications to the cloud. The company has said it will provide many of its latest technology innovations, including in such areas as AI and sustainability, only in its cloud software.
In a recent interview with CRN, SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach noted that unlike most software vendors SAP offers its software for on-premises, public cloud and private cloud deployments and hosted by the vendor. But he said the emphasis today is on the cloud.
“We want to make sure that we put the investments where we believe it’s going to be the best platform for the customers to grow, to realize value and to get the best out of this innovation,” he said. “This is why we’re putting all these innovations like AI capabilities, like the Green Ledger [sustainability solution] that we launched recently, in the cloud.
“If you look at our channel sales business right now the cloud business has already outgrown the on-premises business,” Fahrbach said. “The cloud indirect sales business, bookings and – obviously – revenue, is much bigger right now than on-premises.”
The new SAP 4/HANA Cloud, private edition, offers customers their own dedicated virtual private cloud that shares no compute or data storage resources with other customers, as do applications running on a public cloud platform. The 2023 release of SAP 4/HANA Cloud, private edition, includes the core functionality of the SAP ERP Central Component and line-of-business applications based on the newest architecture.
The company also said that going forward the private edition, as part of Rise with SAP, will follow a two-year release cycle for major application innovations and features with software packs containing security, regulatory and other updates generally delivered every six months.
Rise with SAP, launched in January 2021, bundles SAP’s cloud ERP application set with transformation services, business analytics and partner expertise to help customers move to the cloud.
The new Premium Plus package for Rise with SAP offers additional tools for developing tailored systems for businesses with complex requirements. The new package includes resources for building sustainability calculations into business processes, for example, as well as the ability to create an ERP portal for managing supplier networks.
The new package also offers more sophisticated tools to help financial managers improve financial forecasting and planning operations. And it utilizes the new Joule AI copilot to develop operational insights by sorting through and contextualizing data from multiple systems.
The new conversion and modernization program for Rise with SAP provides offerings tailored for each customer’s unique starting point, according to the company. The program includes the SAP Customer Evolution service that offers one-to-one sessions with SAP experts for implementing SAP S/4HANA Cloud, an adoption framework for planning a conversion, and SAP Signavio Process Insights – the company’s business process management software – for building the business case for the cloud migration.