“What is a Cloud Readiness Assessment and why do I need one?”

You’ve decided that a cloud-first IT strategy is the way forward, you’re well on your way to moving business applications and utilities and in these remote working times, it’s become a valuable tool to assist in collaboration and enable efficient home working. However, SAP is still on-premise.

You know you need to move SAP to the cloud, and perhaps now with a 2025 SAP support deadline being extended, that migration is a stand-alone project that focuses on security and version updates. 

How do you start planning for such a migration of a system that has become the backbone of the company?

 

View our “Cloud Readiness Assessment” one-pager here for the highlights or keep reading to learn more.

The reference architecture provided by Microsoft is a huge starting point, the work of technical and engineering teams from both Microsoft and SAP to provide standard SAP on Azure workloads makes starting the project less daunting, however, it can be difficult to translate your own environment into a to-be architecture to gain indicative costs and benefits to get the project sanctioned and off the ground.  With a standard lift and shift approach there is often little gain – so a ‘lift and migrate’ or ‘lift and transform’ starts to become a reality.

What is noticeable, is that there is a lot of information out there aiming to help companies build their business case and gain stakeholder buy-in – however it is often unclear or rushes businesses towards initiating a migration project without helping them understand what a migration would mean for their business in terms of time and resources involved or how to prepare for each step along the way.  We’ve all seen countless articles around it saves time, it saves cost, its scalable, better TCO – but which of these needs do you have, or is your business case for a move to the cloud-based on something entirely different?

At Absoft, we have developed our Cloud Readiness Assessment with this in mind. As a Microsoft Partner, we have first-hand knowledge and access to the latest technology as it is released and can design with you, a to-be landscape which is fit for purpose and what you need.  How your SAP system supports your business, the individual interfaces that underpin business processes, back up, disaster recovery and data retention requirements all feed into the Microsoft Azure architecture and can add or remove cost to the hosting and management of your new cloud environment.

Download our “Cloud Readiness Assessment” one-pager here to learn more.

 

What is a cloud readiness assessment and what should I expect from it? 

The first stage of the cloud readiness assessment is to look at your current landscape: versions, interfaces, infrastructure and start to make a plan of what can be moved as-is and what might need some sprucing up before it could be effective in Microsoft Azure.  That’s not to say a lift and shift is not available, but its always a good idea to declutter your house before you move!

We will look at everything from downtime requirements through to resource availability for testing and provide you with a high level plan of what a migration project might look like as well as indicative costs for migrating, hosting and managing the landscape there after to feed into any project approvals or business cases which might be required. 

Whilst this is largely a technical project, using a partner with expertise in the functional aspects of SAP as well as being SAP and Microsoft Azure technical experts gives a holistic approach.  You need to understand the intricacies of SAP to fully appreciate how the interdependencies of interfaces and business processes are affected in a technical move.

 

Why do I need to do a Cloud Readiness Assessment?

Unfortunately, we talk to many customers who spend a large amount of time and effort putting together a business case and then don’t realise the benefits they thought or said they would during the planning stage.  This is often a reality with a lot of infrastructure projects due to scope changes, or lack of up-front planning and understanding.  As we all navigate through these difficult times, realising cost and efficiency benefits of projects is more important than ever.

At Absoft, we have first-hand experience of working with customers who have arbitrarily used the Microsoft public pricer to cost up a like for like environment to what they currently have on-premise, only to discover that there is very little benefit available to them.  That’s why it is important to work with a partner who has experience and knowledge of how SAP on Azure workloads are designed, so the most cost-effective design can be out together – we are yet to see a well-designed SAP on Azure landscape not provide some level of cost-saving.

The upfront planning that can be generated from a Cloud Readiness Assessment does exactly that for you – looking at your unique needs and landscape to generate a plan that provides a cost-effective project and management thereafter. 

Get in touch today to book your Cloud Readiness Assessment with Absoft. 

 

Why Absoft’s Cloud Readiness Assessment?

Absoft are an SAP, Microsoft Azure and SUSE Linux Partner with a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience of moving complex SAP landscapes to Microsoft Azure.  That holistic approach to project planning and execution provides you with greater scope control and reduced risk of costs spiraling because we take all parts into consideration from the off.

We offer an initial up-front Cloud Readiness Assessment free of charge for customers, delivering a high-level scope for starting your move to Microsoft Azure. Download the one-pager here to learn more.