With the recent trend in the cloud ecosystem & associated support models, clients are looking for “RISE with SAP” construct where SAP owns the Infra layer including Operating System and database. There is a need to have more clarity on the dependencies which will help to have successful cloud move.

In this regard, following are some of the learnings and Best practices from various engagements which was executed across various geographies/industries etc.,

• Time Zone for Business– UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is the standard time zone considered/set for SAP systems in RISE & will not be altered/updated. So make sure to align on other possible solutions, in case of different time zones. This will have major impact on interfaces, batch jobs etc., if OS is in one time zone while SAP application servers are in different time zone.
• Support window & service location – Critical factor to consider when dealing with client & service provider to be in same geography/zone for the smooth execution of the project. Plan to have SPOC in the county where major stakeholders are operating to avoid delays in the service execution.
• Non-SAP application Support – Not all non-SAP applications are supported. Example – Non-SAP Application which may require 3rd party agents to run at OS etc.,  also not supported.  Plan to have a replacement or compatible applications/tools/agent etc., or run in sidecar mode.
• Many of the clients may be using SFTP services as part of the business transactions while dealing with interfaces & this may not be supported by default. So plan accordingly at the early stage of the project.
• Inventory of the systems in scope  – Plan to provide the exact BOM, number of systems etc., (including size) to have more clarity. Any change here may result in change request associated with lead time to deliver. This may have impact on delivery schedule.
• SLA of the services – It is expected to have sufficient lead time irrespective of the category. proactively create the service requests to get the faster/quicker response. Most of the time adhoc requests are not honored. So planning the futuristic view/requirement is the essence here.
  Typical turnaround time varies from 1-2 weeks. Strong governance & orchestration is a must.
• OSS messages with SAP for Product support – Any incident which is raised may require co-ordination across multiple teams within SAP to get the resolution though all associated teams falls under SAP Global support team.
• DATA transfer during Migration from source DC – Typically happen thru BLOB storage. Irrespective of the mechanism network latency and transfer rate to be considered here else this may impact overall Business downtime. Also engage cyber security team to consider cyber security aspects too while transferring the data.
• Business continuity plan with well defined RPO/RTO – to be discussed and finalized based on client need. Please consider this while evaluating.
• Mock run – One mock run is supported in 24/7 model apart from cutover. If you are planning for more mock/simulation runs then plan accordingly!

Conclusion – Commercials may be one of the top driver while evaluating such deals. From overall Risk & Governance perspective consider above parameters which are critical & essentials in arriving the right strategy.

I hope these insights are useful, request you to contact us for any help/support in building the strategic roadmap for such initiatives.