IDC has defined 5 stages of cloud migration

  • Layer 15
    Experiment
  • Layer 15-1
    Evaluate
  • Layer 15-2
    Automate
  • Layer 15-3
    Expand
  • Layer 15-4
    Optimize

Each stage of cloud migration represents different levels of maturity and will also present unique challenges to an organization.

  • Group 2552

    The goal is to conceptualize the logical steps needed to migrate workloads or groups of workloads in a way that is efficient and cost-effective—not just say “yes” or “no” on a workload-by-workload basis.

  • Group 2553

    There isn’t a simple way of categorizing workloads as “suited for the cloud” or “not suited for the cloud” based on the workload functionality.

Market growth shows enterprises increasingly choose  file-based workload to migrate or rehost in the cloud

  • Group 2473

    Spending on public cloud file storage grew 153% annually in 2019.

  • Asset 13

    Steady growth of public cloud file storage services revenue has resulted in the segment expanding from less than 1% of the total public cloud storage services market, to 8% in 2019 — which represents more than $1 billion in total revenue.

  • Layer 2-1

    Much of growth is driven by cloud migration, as many file-based workloads and/or applications are not native to the public cloud but are being rehosted from on-premises environments (e.g., “lift and shift”).

  • Layer 2

    But significant challenges exist running file-based workloads in the public cloud, specifically with meeting the right levels of service and performance required to run mission-critical applications.

SAP migrations are some of the most complex and challenging migrations to undertake

Factors that play a role in an organization’s SAP cloud migration process:

  • Complexity

    of the landscape

  • Business

    criticality of the landscape

  • Scalability requirements

    of the landscape

  • Security requirements

    of the landscape

  • Size and level of fragmentation

    of the landscape

  • Real-time

    aspects

  • Resiliency requirements

    of the landscape

factor

  • Available skill sets

  • Timing

  • Budget

  • Return on investment

  • On-premises/edge capex reduction

  • CSP selection

  • CSP requirements

  • Integrations with on-premise components and with SaaS components

On average, enterprises that are moving either SAP on any DB or on SAP HANA, or S/4HANA to IaaS say they expect to migrate half of their on-premise SAP deployments to an IaaS cloud provider in the next 12 months; only 2% expect to migrate almost all of their deployments.
  • Group 2557

    However, the performance and scaling limitations of the native file storage that the cloud service providers offer have been an impediment for SAP customers that want to move to SAP on IaaS.

  • Layer 15-Nov-05-2020-01-52-36-48-PM

    Couple that with the unacceptable risk of planned/unplanned downtime during migration, and risk also becomes a significant challenge.

  • 6.7 %
    Less than $1,000 per hour
  • 18.2 %
    $1,000 to $4,999 per hour
  • 20.7 %
    $5,000 to $9,999 per hour
  • 18.4 %
    $10,000 to $24,999 per hour
  • 17.0 %
    $25,000 to $99,999 per hour
  • 9.2 %
    $100,000 to $249,999 per hour
  • 1.7 %
    $100,000 to $249,999 per hour
  • 1.4 %
    $100,000 to $249,999 per hour
  • 0.6 %
    Don’t know

Enterprises rely on storage OEMs to fill gaps, and ensure performance/reliability of their SAP migration, making cloud migration a reality

The number of storage vendors with SAP-certified shared file system solutions in the market continues to grow. In many cases, these solutions are delivered alongside a cloud services provider partner.

We recommend evaluating these integrated and/or native file services to help execute file workload migration, specifically for SAP.

These services allow SAP customers to:

  • Path 1233
    Achieve the file-storage performance requirements they need in the cloud
  • Group 2559
    Reduce risk, complexity, and resource demands from businesses’ SAP migration path to the cloud
  • Path 1234
    Complete workload migrations on time and on budget

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Storage services like Azure NetApp Files help make cloud migration a reality

Azure NetApp Files is a complete enterprise file-storage service from Microsoft certified for use with SAP and S4 that simplifies landscape deployments in Azure. This high-performance file service delivers low-latency file access with the agility that meets SAP production KPIs with built-in data protection and enterprise features not available with other cloud storage services. It’s a simple, easy-to-deploy solution for complex SAP workloads and as a shared file service, it is the only  production environment that supports scale-out with a standby node, oering application node failover lowering your overall risk profile migrating to Azure.

Built on NetApp technology, Azure NetApp Files brings with it many integrated data management capabilities to solve your business-critical SAP landscape requirements such as fast SAP backup and recovery and business continuity needs with multi-region data replication.

Find out more at: https://cloud.netapp.com/ma-anf-lp-aware-register

All IDC research is © 2020 by IDC. All rights reserved. All IDC materials are licensed with IDC’s permission and in no way does the use or publication of IDC research indicate IDC’s endorsement of Microsoft and NetApp’s products or strategies. #US46858020