In the past, most companies that purchased SAP could control the way they wanted to use it. From customizations and add-ons to the choice of database, hardware or any additional cloud services, customers had the freedom to select the options that were right for them.

Today, with the move to RISE with SAP, SAP is paring down these options and implementing the following step-by-step strategy for themselves:   

1. Set an end date for SAP ECC systems maintenance (2025-2027).
2. Remove the option to use old contracts when moving to S/4HANA and only offer S/4HANA contracts. SAP will not support most old agreements and specific customer terms and conditions as of July 2023.
3. Offer either the S/4HANA on-premises solution at a significantly greater cost than RISE with SAP (especially for those customers who have no existing agreement in place) or don’t offer it at all.   

If you wondered if there was a typo in Step 3, there wasn’t. SAP really is charging more for the on-premises solution than for RISE with SAP, despite the additional software, databases, services and tools that come with RISE with SAP. 

RISE with SAP is a great, comprehensive solution. It’s a complete bundle of software, processes, analytics and services. It is faster to install than S/4HANA on premises and requires fewer customer resources. This speed and convenience, however, comes at a price.

RISE is available in two different editions: Public and Private Cloud Edition. While Public Cloud Edition does not offer any flexibility at all, Private Cloud Edition offers at least some flexibility. Overall, RISE with SAP is significantly less flexible than the on-premises solution. For those organizations which have customer specific requirements or processes, RISE with SAP might not be the right option. Unfortunately, SAP will not have a solution available for all cases. The recent sale of SAP IS-Health is a great example. This solution worked quite well for many healthcare providers, and it’s no longer an option with RISE with SAP.

Additionally, RISE with SAP includes cloud services — Microsoft Azure, AWS or Google Cloud — so bundling those solutions with other services to get better prices is no longer possible. SAP makes this choice for you.

Customers can still choose between the Public Cloud Edition and Private Cloud Edition, and the Private Cloud Edition does offer somewhat more flexibility. However, SAP provides no opt-out option. This means that customers who have gone the path of RISE with SAP are stuck with this choice. SAP will be in control over your data, pricing, measurements and all future changes in the solution, including taking away solutions where SAP does not see any value or where the costs of maintenance are too high.

One additional consideration is that RISE with SAP is treated as an OPEX (operation expenditure) and S/4HANA on-premises is treated as a CAPEX (capital expenditure). In the long term, a rental is more expensive than a purchase combined with maintenance.  

What can organizations do when faced with this situation? There are companies who have experience with these transitions and financial discussions, and they can support you and give you the right insights, tips and tricks while avoiding any pitfalls in your contracts or missing any optimization opportunities. 

There are also several steps you can take yourself to ensure you are prepared:

1. Determine your current entitlements and needs. Fully understand the package you can bring into the negotiations with SAP and make sure your assessment is comprehensive.
2. Optimize your landscape. Get rid of your “shelfware” — those licenses you don’t need anymore — and don’t bring them into the new contract. Match your user licenses with the appropriate functionality to avoid negotiating the wrong package for future licenses.
3. Look at your upcoming needs and make a roadmap for the next 3-5 years. Starting with a larger package will help you negotiate better terms.
4. Simulate the pricing options upfront. Most often, the SAP offerings will be in favor of SAP. Even the STAR services simply provide a general direction for the number of licenses that could be required rather than a clear indication of what you really need.
5. Clean up your roles and authorizations. These will potentially have a big impact on your licenses in the future. It would benefit SAP for their customers to set licenses based on roles and authorizations rather than on actual usage.
6. Ask for several packages to understand the differences and find out which package best fits your requirements.

What you sign today could have an impact on your organization for the next 17 years; your S/4HANA contract or RISE with SAP contract might last until the end of life of S/4HANA in the year 2040. However, if you follow these steps, you will be in a position of strength to start your negotiations for the transition to RISE with SAP or S/4HANA and secure an agreement that will benefit your organization for years to come.

The post Who Truly Takes Control in Today’s SAP Agreements? appeared first on Snow Software.

There is some debate, however, as to how many customers have already made the switch. Just last quarter (Q2 2023), SAP removed the product conversion to SAP S/4HANA from their pricelist, stating that most customers had already migrated their contracts to S/4HANA.

However, the DSAG Investment report for Germany recently stated that of all SAP ERP solutions used, SAP ERP ECC is still clearly in the lead with 79 percent, ahead of S/4HANA On-Premises with 41 percent. This is followed by S/4HANA Private Cloud with 8 percent and S/4HANA Public Cloud with 3 percent. That leaves thousands of customers who have yet to transition and likely do not have new contracts in place.

To encourage adoption of the latest technology, SAP has quietly introduced another significant change with the release of their new Q3 2023 price lists — a gradual, time-based reduction of credits customers could receive with S/4HANA conversion.  

Converting now vs. later

Prior to the release of the latest price list, customers were getting up to 90% credit from their previous investments if they changed their contract to S/4HANA. Alternatively, customers could choose to receive 100% credit if they increased their maintenance base to 111%.

Going forward, SAP is reducing this credit to only 80% (or 100% with an increase to 125% maintenance base). Beginning in 2024, it drops to 70% (143% maintenance base). SAP customers routinely have contract values in the tens of millions of dollars, so 10% of that value results in a meaningful financial impact for those customers who haven’t yet transferred their contracts.

Plans for the future

SAP has a clear vision of where they see their customers in the future — on HANA and in the cloud — and they have a set strategy to get there.  

Their primary product will become RISE with SAP. SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition will still be accepted options. On-premises will not be the model for the future. SAP CEO Christian Klein made that clear when he stated that SAP’s newest innovations will be available only in these cloud options.

Your quick conversion prep plan

With the changes in credits, 2023 is suddenly attractive timing for a new S/4HANA contract. After all, 80% credit is better than 70%. Additionally, Q2 results fell short of expectations, so it’s possible the next two quarters will represent attractive timing for negotiations. 

To prepare for these negotiations effectively in the tight timeframe, it’s important to have a clear view of both your current and your desired future licensing situation. To get that view, we recommend the following steps:

1. Compare the packages from SAP. Understand how they fit to your requirements and identify any possible gaps.
2. Clean up your roles and authorizations. The licensing will be based upon the assigned authorizations rather than on usage. Eliminate any shelf-ware (unused products), and only buy what you need.

It sounds simple, but there are many potential pitfalls. Getting support with experienced consultants and tools could provide you with the right information in just a couple of days. You’ll need the extra help to get the best package for your requirements in the shortest possible time and with the most possible credits for your efforts.

The post The Clock Is Ticking: Getting the Most From Your S/4HANA Conversion appeared first on Snow Software.

In a typical example, a software vendor would offer on-premises solutions as a one-time purchase with a yearly maintenance fee, usually with an initial investment of 100% and about 20% yearly maintenance. Subscriptions, however, come with a yearly payment calculated over a mix of the initial investment and maintenance over a fixed timeframe, e.g., 4 or 5 years. This means that the customer is paying the same purchase amount for the first 4 or 5 years, but after this time, the customer does not own any license entitlements anymore and the subscription starts paying off. The difference could be 20%-25% more profit per year for the software vendor.

Like other vendors, SAP is not immune to the lure of extra profit. They may employ special tactics to convince you that cloud and subscription options are the best path forward for your organization. They could:

• Set an end-of-life timestamp on the on-premises solutions
• Increase the support costs for on-premises
• Offer the newest features only in their cloud solutions
• Increase the price for their on-premises offering (instead of lowering the subscription prices)

SAP is already speeding up the cloud transition process for customers. They’re now offering fewer credits for conversion from old contracts into their new cloud-based world, and they will keep lowering these credits by 10% per year. This means that waiting with the transition to either S/4HANA, S/4HANA Cloud or RISE with SAP will start costing you significant money — approx. 10% of the contract value per year!

This new directive could also impact those customers who only did a product conversion for their transition to S/4HANA. While these contracts keep their validity for on-premises installations, changing them could become more expensive in the future. Switching to RISE with SAP, for example, would not be possible based on old contracts and would require a transition to new contracts.   

Customers now really need to think about their current situation and where they want to be in the next 3-5 years. No matter what the customer specific answer might be, changing the contracts in 2023 might not be a bad idea at all. If you want fast support and clarity about license optimizations, contractual questions, cost estimations or any other factors for the different licensing options, Snow Software and our partners can support you in the shortest timeframe for your next SAP journey.

The post Insights: The New Era of SAP Cloud Subscriptions appeared first on Snow Software.

The risks of slow adoption and improper sizing

In a recent report based on SAP reported data, Gartner^® calculated that “around 11% of SAP’s 35,000 ERP customers have adopted Digital Access”.¹ Four years after SAP introduced the Digital Access adoption program, the majority of customers, the remaining 89%, are still covered by the legacy Named User metric, terms and conditions. This majority will need to determine whether Digital Access is the best choice for their business.

Additionally, the report states that “almost 70% of SAP customers are buying Digital Access licenses without proper sizing. Customers who fail to size license volumes before buying, risk future true-ups 24 times greater than the original purchase cost.”² Gartner also finds that, “customers in the retail, manufacturing and financial services sectors are particularly at risk of excessive digital access licensing costs with average document counts significantly higher than in other industry sectors.”³ 

Choosing a cost-effective model

Make the most of your existing SAP investment by adopting the most cost-effective licensing model for your indirect access requirements, now and in the future. SAP customers planning their migration to S/4HANA should consider their indirect access licensing requirements as a key part of this transition. 

Under the Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP), you can either license for growth or maintain your status quo. Either way, you should ensure sizing is correct now, because the discounts only apply to your first purchase. 

How should customers size their indirect access requirements?

Gartner suggests that SAP customers should size their existing SAP environments based on both models to see which is the best fit for their needs and perform a comparative and total cost of ownership analysis.  

To do this, you need to know: 

• Which of your licenses currently have entitlements matched to usage  
• Which third-party applications are likely to pose the greatest risk 
• How many digital documents your organization requires and whether you have any existing unused licenses or products that you could include in contract negotiations with SAP 

Snow Software has been helping customers with this challenge since SAP announced the Digital Access metric. We’ve drawn upon that experience to produce our latest Snow Infographic, (3-min. read) that outlines the 5 best steps to get started. You can also dive deeper with our new e-book, “Resolve SAP Digital Access Challenges in 5 Steps” (10-min. read), to guide you through steps you should take to be in the best position for licensing indirect/digital access. 

If you want to know more about how Snow Optimizer for SAP^® Software can help you right size your SAP^® Digital Access licenses and protect your organization against unforeseen costs, contact us for a demo today.

1&2&3. Gartner Research, “Resolve SAP Digital Access Licensing With This 3-Phase Approach” by analysts: Jan Cook, Mike Tucciarone, Ciaran Hudson, Roberto Sacco August 25, 2022. 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.   

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

SAP is the trademark or registered trademark of SAP SE or its affiliates in Germany and in several other countries. 

The post 89% of SAP Customers Still Need to Recognize SAP® Indirect/Digital Access as a Priority appeared first on Snow Software.

Visibility into containers for better cost and risk management

IT and Engineering leaders are transitioning from virtual machines (think VMware) to container technology to:

• Build new, distributed applications
• Lift and shift large enterprise applications
• Refactor legacy applications

Benefits from adopting container technologies include:

• Faster software delivery
• Streamlined application lifecycle management
• Ability to move legacy applications to modern architectures

Containers are an exciting new technology, but increased adoption brings risk to IT. Most ITAM teams have established processes in place for virtualized technologies. However, the majority lack visibility into how and where containers are being used. This means IT and ITAM teams are unable to forecast the costs of applications running inside containers or the risks associated with their use.

The new container visibility feature available on Snow Atlas offers details on how many containers are used and how long they have been running, with a view on Microsoft^®, Oracle and Red Hat containerized applications in this first release. Container visibility is available for Kubernetes environments running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure^® environments.

As detailed in the below screenshots, ITAM professionals will be able to:

• Discover hosts, nodes and container instances running in Kubernetes in Amazon EKS and in Azure AKS
• Discover and normalize standard Microsoft and Oracle containers
• Identify the number of containers running licensable Microsoft and Oracle software
• Identify the number of (virtual) resources that have been assigned to a container and match the relationship between container and host/node

Click here to register your interest in our free beta program for container visibility.

Agentless billing visibility of Azure and AWS consumption

One of the biggest pain points we hear from ITAM professionals is how to start proactively managing cloud costs. For ITAM teams seeking more control over cloud spend, Snow recommends focusing on how much your organization is spending in the cloud and understanding what is getting purchased with that spend.

To make it easier for ITAM teams to gather public cloud spend data, Snow is launching agentless billing visibility of Azure and AWS. This functionality gives ITAM teams a spend snapshot across AWS and Azure in the terminology and views used by IT asset managers. With this new service — available to all Snow Atlas customers — ITAM teams have improved views of their organization’s spend profile in public cloud, natively within their SAM tool. By building this feature natively within the SAM solution, Snow is empowering ITAM teams to drive conversations about spend optimization with cloud stakeholders and FinOps teams.

This is our first iteration in providing comprehensive visibility to cloud license usage that complements our leading capabilities for SaaS visibility. As shown in the below screenshot, ITAM and SAM leaders can slice and dice public cloud consumption to identify spending patterns. Starting with a complete view of expenses, you can pick date ranges, apply filters and group data based on resource group, cost category or region. Short term or even one day spikes in public cloud expenses can be identified and addressed.

Finally, the ability to save customized views enables teams to continuously stay on top of public cloud expenses.

This new feature is released in beta and is free for customers to trial. We’re excited to get your feedback on how to iterate and improve this capability.

For organizations with more mature cloud practices as well as FinOps or cloud operations practitioners, Snow Cloud Cost powered by Anodot provides greater depth of visibility, insights and analysis on public cloud spend, controls for budget management and spend allocation, detection of anomalies and recommendations for optimizing spend.

Expanded support to reduce S/4HANA migration risks

With mainstream support for the ECC platform ending in 2027 and core SAP^® products being optimized for the SAP HANA database, the question is not “if” your organization will transfer to S/4HANA, but when and how.

For organizations embarking on a migration to S/4HANA, six critical questions you need to answer are:

1. How many SAP licenses will I need in the future?
2. What types of licenses will I need?
3. Do I have special agreements that I want to keep?
4. Should I opt for a contract or product conversion?
5. Am I prepared for measurement based on authorizations?
6. How should I license digital access?

“Gartner estimates that over 16,000 SAP Business Suite clients have yet to buy and implement SAP S/4HANA licenses before support is discontinued in 2030.”²

To support these challenges, we’ve enhanced Snow Optimizer for SAP^® Software with the addition of a new module, Snow License Intelligence, which offers:

• Out-of-the-box rulesets for simulating S/4HANA licensing scenarios, including more than 200,000 SAP transactions analyzed and assigned to SAP user types and >70 rules for both usage- and authorization-based licensing
• Continual maintenance to match SAP’s evolving licensing scenarios
• Easy customization to customer-specific situations and licenses
• Fast implementation for new projects and M&A
• Automation enabling reduced resources for SAP license management
• License management best practices

Use asset data to build a more sustainable enterprise

Finally, Snow is announcing a new service that will support organizations with their sustainability goals.

Our solution uses your existing Snow data to create a customized sustainability report including:

• Certified sustainable laptop and desktop analysis: Get insight into the number of certified sustainable laptops and desktops in your organization to support certification analysis and sustainability goals
• Server migration to the cloud carbon impact: Evaluate the estimated reduction in CO2 emissions your organization may be able to make when moving on-premises servers to the cloud
• Device carbon calculator: Assess device energy efficiencies and associated carbon emissions to drive more energy-efficient procurement choices.

Customers are already realizing significant value and impact for their sustainability initiatives. In just 9 months of using these customized sustainability reports, one of our largest customers increased their number of TCO-certified laptops from 25% to 61%, and their number of TCO-certified desktops from 8% to 54%.

Gain visibility and act on intelligence

With a large degree of uncertainty in the broader macroeconomic environment, ITAM professionals need to focus on optimizing costs, negotiating better renewals and improving operational efficiency.

The latest releases from Snow give ITAM teams the data they need to see the software, container and cloud services running in their environment. These new capabilities also provide the intelligence to make actionable decisions and recommendations based on that information to improve their business.

At Snow, we not only empower organizations with a complete picture of their technology environment but provide the intelligence to take meaningful action. This perspective is a powerful agent of business agility and resilience.

Request a demo to see how these new features can help your organization today and into the future.

<sub>1 Gartner.  “CTOs’ Guide to Containers and Kubernetes — Answering the Top 10 FAQs.”  Published 31 May 2022.  Arun Chandrasekaran, Wataru Katsurashima.

2 Gartner.  “Offering Managers Insight: Opportunities in the SAP S/4HANA and RISE with SAP Market.”  13 April 2022.  Fabio Di Capua.</sub>

The post What’s New at Snow: ITAM Solutions for Rising Cloud Costs, Visibility Into Containers and Asset Data That Drives Sustainability Initiatives appeared first on Snow Software.

Unfortunately, the implementation of SAP S/4HANA or RISE with SAP won’t stop the time-consuming yearly SAP system measurements or the extended audits. On the contrary, the way these new systems are being measured and audited are changing, and this may come as a surprise to SAP S/4HANA customers.

To fully grasp the new reality for SAP system measurements and audits, SAP customers first need to appreciate that there are two key factors that influence the measurement:

• The kind of contract
• The type of installation

The contract

At the beginning of every system measurement or audit, the contract(s) and respective price and condition lists of SAP, should always be the starting point. This is the single source of truth where all information about entitlements, terms and conditions can be found. There are different options organizations may choose when migrating to S/4HANA. The S/4HANA contracts will differ depending on whether the migration has been via a “product” or “contract” conversion.

Product Conversion – Phased Approach

Contract Conversion – For Customers Already Committed to S/4HANA

The contract includes details about the “User Licenses” (product conversion) or “Use” (contract conversion), inclusive of any special agreements.

It also describes which SAP engines or add-ons are licensed. This is relevant for contract conversions as S/4HANA add-on users don’t usually require “Use” licenses; as with S/4HANA, the add-ons are licensed separately. The contracts may additionally contain any agreements regarding indirect usage or digital access. As the contracts form the basis for any SAP system measurements and possible extended audits, it is vital that customers know and understand the content.

The installation

The second differentiator is the installation type. This distinguishes between a classic on-premises installation (which might also run in the cloud), an S/4HANA public cloud installation and an S/4HANA private cloud installation.

1. SAP S/4HANA on-premises installations are measured like any other SAP Business Suite system, with the support of USMM and LAW.

Customers must set the right “User” or “Use” licenses, according to their contract. But there are two details customers may not be aware of:

The “Use” licenses need to be set according to the respective role and authorization a user has and not to their actual usage (e.g., used transactions). This could have a massive impact on the amount of required expensive Professional Use licenses. The only way to avoid any over-licensing is to clean up and take away unnecessary roles and authorizations.

The HANA database is not measured automatically with the USMM; this has to be done manually. The HANA database measures itself and produces a measurement report and exports to an XML file. It only measures the maximum usage quantities, which leads automatically to the highest costs for their customers. Customers also need to be aware that SAP has a new tool in which the HANA Runtime licensed databases are being checked for full use. This tool is in the pilot phase.

2. SAP S/4HANA private cloud installations are also measured with the support of USMM and LAW.

Again, there are two bits of information customers may need to know:

SAP requires consistent user names for the user consolidation. In the past, users could also be consolidated based upon first and last name or e-mail address. This won’t be possible anymore within the SAP S/4HANA private cloud installation.

SAP has been talking about implementing monthly automatic measurements and an automatic consolidation with the dashboard in SAP LUI.

3. For SAP S/4HANA public cloud installations, SAP came up with a new measurement.

The measurement will be by assigned roles, with the help of a business catalog and the respective role classification according to the SAP S/4HANA service description. The minimum amount of required full-use equivalent licenses (FUEs) will be automatically calculated according to the highest classification (e.g., Developer Use, Advanced Use, Core Use, Self Service Use). 

• 1 x Developer Use = 2 FUE 
• 1 x Advanced Use = 1 FUE 
• 5 x Core Use = 1 FUE 
• 30 x Self Service Use = 1 FUE

Finally, customers need to consider indirect use and digital access. While SAP is still not capable of measuring the number of indirect users, they are very able to identify any possible indirect use. With support of the SAP passport, SAP can now measure the number and kind of digital documents created in a digital way. The measurement will be done with the support of the USMM. The calculation starts after the implementation of the SAP passport, and it’s worth noting that a full calculation will be available to SAP a year after that.

With all the different system measurement changes occurring, it is crucial for customers to have a complete in-depth understanding of exactly what they have entitlements for, what they use and what they truly need in this new, multifaceted S/4 world.

Learn how Snow Software can support you through the transition to S/4HANA and help you prepare for the next system measurement and audit, whether this is for your legacy, hybrid or new landscape.

_{* According to a joint survey by the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) and the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG) in April and May 2021, 24 percent of participating ASUG and DSAG members said they are already live with S/4HANA, while a further 21 percent (ASUG) and 20 percent (DSAG) are currently going through the transformation process. Approximately 37 percent of DSAG members (30 percent of ASUG members) are planning a relevant project, but have not yet started it. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.}

The post How To Prepare for Changes in the Modern SAP System Measurement Landscape appeared first on Snow Software.

The move to S/4HANA is still top-of-mind

During the opening keynote, Paul Cooper, U.K. and Ireland SAP User Group chairman, talked through the recent UKISUG survey results that echoed the importance of the S/4HANA migration:

• 74% of organizations say they are using or planning to use S/4HANA
• The number of organizations using S/4HANA has risen to 26% from 16% since last year
• Nine out of ten organizations who have moved to S/4HANA are satisfied with it

The survey wasn’t entirely encouraging, though. According to the numbers, existing customizations are proving to be an issue for organizations looking to make the move, with 92% of respondents saying that these customizations represented a challenge for them and 58% saying they plan to rebuild their customizations on the SAP Business Technology Platform. What is clear from the survey is that the migration to S/4HANA is top-of-mind for the SAP user community. While there are challenges involved, organizations are still looking for ways to migrate successfully.

RISE with SAP adoption

In the second part of the keynote, Michiel Verhoeven, U.K. and Ireland SAP managing director, focused on putting the customer first through three key initiatives:

1. SAP is investing in the U.K. and strengthening their presence for customers by building new offices in the Scalpel, London area 

2. SAP is committed to improving customer experience by putting the customer at the heart of everything they do

3. SAP believes RISE with SAP will play a key role in ensuring customer success and increasing SAP accountability to its customers

We heard a story from a company about their SAP journey and adoption of RISE with SAP and, interestingly, they haven’t planned their move to S/4HANA yet, but they have used the RISE offering to consolidate their contract and move their ECC systems to the cloud. Overall, they were very happy with RISE, are ahead of where they expected to be and are in the great position of being able to accelerate their project.

During their lessons learned session, they highlighted the importance of understanding their legacy on-premises licensing and knowing which licenses had been superseded with the RISE contract as each entity moved to the RISE platform to ensure they were not paying for licenses and maintenance they no longer used.

The discussions we had with companies looking to adopt RISE or modernize their SAP landscape with the adoption of SAP Business Technology Platform or other SAP Cloud products highlighted the often unrecognized value of existing SAP investments. Some of the delegates we spoke to on the exhibition floor were looking at how to move to S/4HANA but were struggling to justify the business case now. Everyone we talked to agreed that the chance to renegotiate the contract with SAP is not something that happens often, so it’s important to take advantage when it does.

Establishing a baseline

Regardless of whether organizations choose to adopt RISE with SAP or migrate to S/4HANA in the original way, via a product or contract conversion, they need to establish a baseline of what they actually use by optimizing their current systems. Optimization is key to identifying any redundant shelfware and maximizing ROI from the original investment. Snow helps organizations establish this baseline and identify their future licensing needs by:

• Helping you estimate how many Full Use Equivalent (FUE) licenses would be required through the use of our ruleset engine
• Measuring your current engine consumption today to assist with future planning
• Measuring and monitoring compliance of the HANA database
• Estimating the number of digital documents required, utilizing the SAP passport measurements for those on the latest SAP basis releases (Note: There was no announcement made at the UKISUG about whether the Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP), introduced in April 2018 as an incentive to move to the Digital Access license model, would be extended beyond December 2021)

Every customer scenario is unique. Before deciding on going with RISE or renegotiating your contract, it’s important for you to know what your current license investment is and what the most cost-effective contract and licensing model will be for your business going forward. See how Snow can help. 

_{SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.}

The post S/4HANA and RISE: Top Takeaways From the 2021 UKISUG appeared first on Snow Software.

Control SAP spend, regardless of deployment method

We have seen SAP continuing to focus its efforts on increasing adoption of its Cloud products, with SAP reporting a $366M increase in cloud revenue for the first half of their financial year, and encouraging companies to move to S/4HANA, where they have seen a 17% adoption increase this year.

Snow Optimizer for SAP Software 3.1 offers expanded depth and breadth of functionality to help customers reduce manual effort and ensure they are not paying more than necessary for their software licenses. Explore some of the key features from the release below.

Increasing S/4HANA public cloud visibility

Many customers deploy a hybrid deployment of their SAP ERP landscape, where they run most of their large and important ERP business processes on-premises, using ECC or S/4HANA, and other processes in the cloud. In this latest version, customers also have visibility into the S/4HANA cloud licensing data, giving them insights into their licensing data, regardless of the deployment method adopted.

Role-based licensing and authorizations

Many customers have a requirement to not just be able to change their user master data but to change their authorization roles as well. With Snow Optimizer for SAP Software 3.1, customers can change access rights from within Snow Optimizer. Administrators can see which roles have been assigned to a user, and what functionality is actually used, allowing them to easily remove access to all the functionality that is not being used and deliver value from a security perspective.

At Snow, we believe that SAP may choose to audit based on roles and authorizations in the future. With this new functionality, customers will be able to easily control access rights assigned to users and validate the assignment of users against what has been assigned in the system.

Enhanced contract management

With Snow Optimizer for SAP Software 3.1, customers will now be able to build metrics to model when multiple engine metrics are in use, as is the case for some standard engines, improving accuracy, reducing reliance on external consultants and saving the time it takes to manually calculate engine measurements.

Visibility of applications running on the HANA database

If a customer has bought a runtime license, they are able to run S/4HANA on the HANA database, but to run other native applications a full use license is required. This could lead to potential compliance risk. Snow Optimizer for SAP Software 3.1 can show you which native applications have been installed and measure the results of these applications so you can ensure you have the right balance of runtime and full use licensing.

Advanced compliance analysis functionality

Allow customers to retain, analyze and compare historical compliance data giving them improved, long-term visibility of their compliance position.

Take control of Oracle Java licensing

Before Oracle changed the licensing rules for Java in 2019, many companies used this technology to run their applications because it was essentially free.

However, in 2019, Oracle changed the licensing metric and made it so that any version after 8u202 required a commercial license when using Java for business, commercial or production use. The license metric is based on Oracle’s Named User Plus (NUP) licensing type and its processor licensing. NUP licensing is fairly simple to calculate as it’s based on the number of individuals who have access to Java, but customers are still struggling to understand the number of licenses actually required in their organization.

When we look at datacenter usage and processor licensing, understanding license requirements becomes far more complex and the costs can ramp up significantly, especially when applying Oracle’s virtualization rules to Java. For larger companies, it would be easy to ramp up costs into the hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars annually.

For customers who do not use Oracle databases, these metrics will be new to them and understanding them is even more complicated.

To ensure they get their licensing right, organizations need to identify where Java is deployed, what infrastructure it’s deployed on and whether it’s virtualized.

With Snow’s latest technical preview release, we can now provide an accurate overview of the entire Java estate including chargeable commercial features, enabling customers to understand their maximum liability under the Oracle licensing rules. Join our upcoming webinar for a deeper dive into the Oracle Java licensing model and to see how Snow provides better visibility into usage. 

Leading through new challenges

At Snow, we believe that IT leaders who are empowered with end-to-end visibility of their technology consumption and resulting spend are better prepared to make strategic decisions and keep their organization resilient during these times of change and uncertainty.

Request a demo to see how these new features can help your organization today and into the future.

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The idea behind RISE with SAP is to give the customer the solutions and services they need to start their business transformation in one simplified package, provided by SAP and supported by a network of SAP partners. The key to the simplicity is that everything is in one place – so all necessary products are bundled together, and customers sign a new single contract to manage all aspects of their SAP landscape.

RISE with SAP includes: 

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud – SAP’s modular cloud ERP solution
• Business Process Intelligence – provides insights into performance through process analytics to help customers quickly understand, innovate and transform business processes.
• Technology Cloud Credits – allows organizations to integrate their technology with other solutions by using the data model and business services on the SAP Business Technology Platform to connect it all
• SAP Business Network Starter Pack – enables customers to create digital connections with all their trading partners
• Embedded Tools and Services – helps customers achieve a smooth transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud

The business solution itself is from SAP and companies wishing to adopt RISE with SAP need to partner with a chosen systems integrator or hyperscaler to get specific implementation and administration help.

RISE with SAP offers help to customers looking to transform. By grouping everything together into one offer and under one contract, the solution aims to help reduce the complexity and ease the path to a S/4HANA cloud implementation.

According to Gartner, RISE with SAP may be a valuable proposition for smaller clients, but less so for bigger clients with a more complex IT architecture that require full control of their infrastructure and hosting partners¹.

User Group Response 

Shortly after the launch, in April and May 2020, a joint survey of the Americas’ SAP user group (ASUG) and the German User Group (DSAG) found that adoption of S/4HANA was increasing with more than 40% of organizations either already live with S/4HANA or having started a project to transition.

However, the majority of these adoptions were on-premises deployments (DSAG 57%; ASUG 27%), followed by private cloud (DSAG 23% and ASUG 24%) and managed cloud services (12% DSAG; 19% ASUG) with very few deploying S/4HANA public cloud. As both user groups cited the biggest challenge in using cloud services as licensing models and costs (DSAG: 72%, ASUG: 41%) – it’s not surprising that cloud adoption is lower.

Licensing Considerations

If you’re considering adopting RISE with SAP, having factual data to base your licensing decisions on is critical to avoid overspending. Read on to see how Snow can help you gather some of this information and prepare.

1. Full Use Equivalent Licenses

The calculation of Full Use Equivalent (FUE) is based on the S/4HANA cloud licensing model. For example, one FUE equals: 1 SAP S/4HANA for advanced use, or 5 SAP S/4HANA for core use or 30 SAP S/4HANA for self-service use. 

It’s crucial to know how you are currently using the system and ensure your users are set up to use the most cost-effective license type before entering negotiations for the calculation of FUE licenses required. Snow can help existing SAP customers identify and model scenarios to get the right estimate of FUE licenses to match their licensing needs.

2. Engines

Engine licensing is complex, especially when multiple metrics are in place. Being able to measure and review exact consumption today will help you better understand your organization’s requirements tomorrow.

3. HANA Database

Knowing how many gigabytes are being consumed by the HANA database, which applications are being run and keeping track of consumption is key to managing the costs involved and understanding how much you are likely to need in the future.

4. Digital Documents

Where digital document licensing has been an option for licensing indirect access for legacy customers, under the new licensing methodology it becomes the standard when new contracts are signed. So, it is important to know how many digital documents you are going to create in order to license correctly. If you purchase too many, it may be difficult to adjust the number down in future years. Snow can help organizations estimate the number of digital documents and extrapolate usage into the future to ensure you don’t purchase too many or too few licenses. 

With accurate data to base decisions on, you can be sure you’re making the right decisions for your organization.

At Snow, we believe that having visibility into all your factual licensing data gives you the insights you need to make informed decisions when opportunities, such as RISE with SAP are presented. We pride ourselves on our market-leading solution that gives a single view of licenses and usage across multiple SAP systems.

Understanding what you currently have and use puts you in a great position when it comes to deciding on the best way forward on your journey to S/4HANA. Request a demo to see how Snow can help. 

¹ Gartner, “Quick Answer: What Is RISE with SAP and Why Does it Matter for SAP Partners?” by Fabio Di Capua, Paul Saunders, Chris Pang, David Groombridge. June 14, 2021.

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In previous years, Snow has hosted the forum as in-person events across EMEA, APAC, and the Americas. But this year, we were thrilled to see a whole new level of engagement in a digital format.

See some of the highlights below including conversations around Indirect/Digital Access, the move to S/4HANA, industry insights, how the SAP platform is evolving and more:

SAP customers are no longer cutting budgets

During the forum, Robert Hollands, Vice President of Research at SAPInsider, shared findings from their recent 2021 Benchmark Report on the State of the Market. With the largest and fastest-growing SAP community worldwide including more than 435,000 members across 103 countries, SAPInsider is one of the leading authorities in the market on SAP.

The benchmark report revealed that 30% of respondents had to eliminate or postpone SAP projects with another 11% saying they had to reduce staff working with SAP because of what happened with the pandemic last year.

However, 63% of those surveyed said they expected SAP budgets to stay the same or even increase in 2021. Likewise, most companies will increase staff and expand their existing skillsets this year, with 92% of respondents reporting their SAP support staff will stay the same or grow.

Visibility is a top priority

As organizations focus on growth, efficiency and visibility remain top priorities. SAP customers are focusing on making the most of their budgets and developing a good understanding of what’s happening in the SAP landscape so that they have sufficient leverage during negotiations. S/4HANA remains a big topic of conversation and one of the key areas of investment for many organizations. During this period of uncertainty, customers recognize that having visibility over what is currently in their environments and in use is key to maximizing ROI from any future investment.

The results of these findings match what we’ve heard from our own customers and the questions raised during the forums. Organizations want to understand their spending and make the most of their investment in SAP technologies. But having clear visibility of contractual entitlements is only part of it. Being able to match entitlements in the most optimal way to usage is crucial to truly understand spend.

Identifying current exposure for indirect access

Indirect/Digital Access proved to be a hot topic during the forum with several conversations focusing on how to get a thorough grasp of who is accessing SAP data through a third-party connection. SAP is offering incentives to switch to the digital access model, but without knowing current exposure for indirect access, it is hard for customers to know which type of license model to adopt.

Snow experts discussed the licensing options available and how Snow Optimizer for SAP® can provide visibility of indirect access scenarios to help organizations make the right choice.

The Rise with SAP offering

Yet another buzzy topic from the forum was the new Rise with SAP offering that was announced as a way of simplifying and streamlining customers’ transition to S/4HANA. It’s very early days for this offering and it will be interesting to see how it shapes up in the coming months. This announcement doesn’t change the date for the end of support of Business Suite 7 in 2027, so customers still need to consider the move to S/4HANA. As S/4HANA is a new product rather than an upgrade, anything that makes this transition easier for organizations can’t be a bad thing. But it is still imperative for SAP customers to understand their current licensing landscape and usage so they only pay for what they need in the new S/4 world.

To learn more about the market changes and key challenges facing SAP licensed organizations in 2021, watch our full event on-demand.

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