5 SAP HANA Implementation Tips CIOs Sould Know

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5 SAP HANA Implementation
Tips CIOs Should Know

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Executive Summary
Even if you’re familiar with SAP HANA’s
powerful analytic capabilities, when it comes
to adopting the platform you may find yourself
in the dark. In this e-guide, hear from Jawad
Akhtar – long-time SAP expert in everything
from SCM to products like HANA and
Hybris – on how to make your SAP HANA
implementation successful with 5 key tips
For more information:
www.snpgroup.com The following content originally appeared on a TechTarget
Search site. Please visit www.techtarget.com/network for
more editorial content on a wide variety of topics of interest
to IT professionals.

3. 5 SAP HANA Implementation Tips CIOs Should Know | 3Brought to you by: Sponsored by:
Five SAP HANA implementation
tips CIOs should know
If you’re planning an SAP HANA implementation in the near
future, you’re probably on a fierce hunt for guidance.
That’s because despite HANA’s ability to analyze massive
amounts of data in real-time, HANA adoption rates have so far
been on the low side, although they do appear to be rising as
its functionality expands into a major platform for enter¬prise
applications and word about its success spreads. Still, the
dearth of real-life experience from which to learn may leave
early adopters feeling like they’re making an SAP HANA
implementation journey in the dark.
To make that journey a bit clearer, here are five tips to help
light your way. (Note: The first three tips apply to the HANA
database, and the last two are on HANA applications, or
S/4HANA Enterprise Management; see sidebar for more on the
difference.)
Spend time deciding whether you want on-premises, hybrid
or cloud versions of HANA. Maintaining an in-house database
infrastructure has always been an expensive undertaking, due to
the cost and overhead involved. CIOs must decide if the future
direction of their company requires them to partially or fully
get rid of their in-house database infrastructure and partially
or completely move to cloud. The decision on whether the cost
associated with the HANA database is justified may take longer
for companies that have already heavily invested in in-house
infrastructure. However, undertaking a cost-benefit analysis
greatly helps in this decision-making process. Often companies
only migrate their old and slow databases to SAP HANA to
speed up transactions processing, but leave the applications
side as it is or do it later on to take advantage of S/4HANA
Enterprise Management offerings.
SAP has positioned the HANA portfolio into two distinct
categories:
Technical. This is the powerfully fast database processing side
of HANA.
Functional. This is the application side, positioned as S/4HANA
Enterprise Management. It’s on the Enterprise Management
side of HANA, where there are ongoing innovations and
simplifications in business processes taking place. These are
released every quarter.
Companies may choose only the technical upgrade by choosing
HANA database and leave the functional side for implementation
later on, or they may do both at once. However, it is not possible
to implement Enterprise Management without first implementing
the HANA database.

4. 5 SAP HANA Implementation Tips CIOs Should Know | 4Brought to you by: Sponsored by:
Address hardware sizing by calling on the experts. HANA’s
simpler database, faster CPUs and flexible scaling requires CIOs
to diligently conduct hardware sizing when it comes to HANA,
since these are an altogether different ballgame than traditional
databases, and any misstep could lead to underestimating
or overestimating the required hardware. To make the most-
informed decision, CIOs should engage multiple SAP HANA-
certified vendors and then compare the results and reports of
each vendor. If most vendors suggest a similar database size,
then it is better to go for the higher estimation of database size.
If there’s a significant deviation in hardware sizing estimates
from one vendor to another, then CIOs should ask each vendor
to provide references to similar sizing projects that they’ve
undertaken or get help from SAP to validate the vendor-
suggested database size.
Tap into any available HANA knowledge and experience. At
this time, there aren’t too many reference clients and industry
referrals that CIOs can consult to see how well others have
done and the challenges they faced. Being a newer technology
that has not been adopted among a lot of enterprises, even SAP
consultants engaged in HANA implementation do not have a
depth and breadth of experience. Fortunately, SAP helps with its
early adopter program, known as SAP Ramp-Up. In this program,
SAP engages subject matter experts who then engage with
early adopters on a regular basis throughout the duration of
SAP HANA implementation to guide and advise on all technical
and functional aspects of HANA. SAP also incrementally shares
technical guides, user manuals, presentations, roadmaps,
accelerators and other assets to enable the client to effectively
and successfully implement HANA.
Access SAP Activate. For companies opting for HANA’s
Enterprise Management, the S/4HANA deployment
methodology SAP Activate ensures expedited and guided
S/4HANA Enterprise Management implementation. SAP Activate
leverages best practices, guided configuration and proven
implementation methodology to ensure a project’s success.
SAP Activate eliminates the traditional way of creating an SAP
Business Blueprint document that maps current business
processes with SAP Best Practices business processes and
then conducts a gap analysis -- SAP Activate gets straight to
the gap analysis. CIOs must be aware that it is still too early to
evaluate if SAP Activate will ensure that all important business
processes are captured, given that not all SAP Best Practices
are currently available in HANA. However, SAP does keep on
adding and building up the Best Practices library. So can CIOs
rely only on the library as it gets fully built out? Not likely. An
approach that seems to work well so far is to use traditional
business blueprinting, but also create a variant or additional
document by using SAP Activate.

5. 5 SAP HANA Implementation Tips CIOs Should Know | 5Brought to you by: Sponsored by:
Create an implementation roadmap and stick to it. SAP is
continuously rolling out newer functionality and innovations
with each quarterly release of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise
Management, which can evoke an intense case of FOMO
(fear of missing out). But it is critical that CIOs do not let
new offerings and features derail the ongoing SAP project. In
other words, don’t go back two-steps on an already-agreed
upon solution just to take advantage of newer innovations,
or the result will quickly become scope creep, skyrocketing
project costs and timeline slippages. CIOs should put a hard-
stop on adopting S/4HANA innovations until the initial SAP
HANA implementation is complete. Later, after SAP HANA
implementation has successfully gone live and business
processes have matured, CIOs can embark on “continuous-
improvements” projects to implement latest S/4HANA
Enterprise Management innovations available at that time.

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