How to make a smooth transition from proven ERP systems to SAP HANA on IBM Power

Kunkelmann sees the areas of power infrastructure and operations as relatively uncritical. “If you look at the IBM Power infrastructure, there are only a few hurdles to overcome when converting to SAP S/4HANA. This is because S/4HANA is based on the SAP HANA Platform, which in turn is based on Linux,” explains the SAP and IT expert.

And there are some small differences in operation, such as a Hardware Management Console (HCM). But in general, these differences in operation are quite small compared to the operation of SAP S/4HANA on x86 and can therefore be managed relatively easily.

On the other hand, there are serious differences in the operational area. “The extent of this depends above all on where the “classic SAP customer” comes from and which business model they operate. Effects occur, for example, in the areas of backup or high availability.” the LogiPlus Managing Director explains one of the key challenges.

But he has a very specific solution to this problem. “However, a customer can prepare for this very well, for example by installing a small SAP S/4HANA sandbox and testing this installation in advance.” For Kunkelmann, however, the application changeover is one of the main challenges during the migration. “This is usually associated with considerable effort. First of all, all “inhibitors” that could jeopardize a successful conversion from ERP to SAP S/4HANA must be identified and eliminated. This means cleaning up the legacy system (“housekeeping”) and identifying in-house developments, known as Z programs. These must be adapted to conform to S/4HANA as part of the changeover.”

The resulting advantages with HANA on IBM Power are immense: maximum flexibility for the actual resource requirements (memory and cores), significantly higher availability for business-critical S/4HANA workloads, better performance and improved TCO compared to x86.