SAP has taken the decision to offer a cloud-based version of its HANA in-memory database technology. The HANA Enterprise Cloud service will run from SAP’s own data centres but there are plans to enable hosting partners to run the service, which will open up fresh opportunities for the channel – as well as helping drive HANA adoption. We would expect it to be offered via Amazon too, given that a version for developers is already available via the service.
The move demonstrates that sophisticated applications can be provisioned via the cloud. As we have previously said, we believe 2013 will be a make or break year for SaaS ERP (see here). Although HANA Enterprise Cloud is not a SaaS offering (it is not subscription based or multi tenant - customers get dedicated storage, networking and compute power) the shift to the cloud is a sign that there is scope for more complex offerings than CRM and HR business applications. As SAP has ported Business Suite to HANA (see here), and HANA can handle both analytic and transactional workloads, the door is opening to enterprise ERP in the cloud, and for large organisations as well as SME’s (which Netsuite for example, caters for).
The proof will be in the sign-up rate and there may be glitch there because the service is based on a traditional licence model rather than subscriptions. Customers need to licence HANA and whatever applications they want to run on it, so there is a need to commit budget up front. As enterprises are still figuring out the best use cases for HANA for this could be a big ask. They will also have to pay a monthly subscription for managed cloud services based on the size and scale of data and applications. Pricces have not been revealed but we would expect the cloud offering to be less expensive that an in-house implementation, thus opening HANA to a wider market. SAP is developing utilities and administration tools to ease the provisioning process, but customers will need to work with SAP services staff to determine which applications would be best run on HANA in the cloud, and SAP services will help with migrating workloads. Nevertheless it is a bold move that could help drive the case for a new range of cloud-based enterprise applications - and further the cause for big data among businesses of all sizes.