What is our primary use case?
We have a wide range of use cases for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. These include production planning, materials management, sales management, treasury, finance, appliance maintenance, real estate, and warehouse management. Additionally, we also implement safety management.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features depend on the nature of the business and its management requirements. 60% of our transactions involve materials monitoring, sales, and distribution. These functionalities are supported by SIP (Service Integration Platform), which plays a key role in our operations.
What needs improvement?
There are areas of improvement because managing the environment is quite complex. There have been issues with operational monitoring, infrastructure management, and overall holistic control of operations.
Additionally, the change request process is time-consuming, which is a significant disadvantage in an environment with numerous business processes, extensive landscape projects, and multiple enterprise operations. Lengthy change requests hinder business agility.
Furthermore, scalability is a concern since it operates on Amodo, which is not designed for micro-scale operations. This makes scaling the environment challenging and sometimes leads to difficulties in managing rollouts and system server resource usage. Another drawback is the availability of the right resources for the job.
Sometimes, when an issue arises, the necessary expertise and resources are not immediately accessible, resulting in prolonged resolution times. In some instances, inexperienced individuals are assigned tasks, which can be problematic as they may not fully comprehend the requirements. It is crucial to have experienced professionals who understand the intricacies and complexities of the system. They need to align themselves with the business goals because downtime can be categorized into technical downtime and system functionality downtime. Functionality downtime refers to instances where the system's performance is insufficient to meet the business's expectations, resulting in reduced efficiency in business transactions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When it comes to stability, it's another problem where we are the ones informing that the system is up. This lack of visibility into the environment is detrimental to the business model.
I would rate the stability a four out of ten. It's an area that could use improvement
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a three out of ten. It is not very scalable.
Moreover, it took a considerable amount of time to scale the environment, more than a month in some cases. When it comes to scaling, one challenge is avoiding bottlenecks and efficiently migrating servers to accommodate customer requests without causing disruptions. In terms of users, we have over 9,000 users for HANA Enterprise.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is okay. Because the platform is always evolving. So, there are significant delays in the process. Transitioning from the initial setup to regular support and environment management takes considerable time. We manage multiple systems, ranging from 26 to 40 landscapes simultaneously.
While certain tasks are completed quickly, overall, there are delays in achieving desired results and maintaining flexibility throughout the environment's lifecycle.
In fact, it sometimes feels like the setup process is never-ending, and despite the delays, it can be challenging to identify the cause of any issues. In such cases, we often find ourselves on support calls, going through routine procedures to troubleshoot, and involving the support team in testing and other related tasks.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's very, very expensive. When comparing it to other hyperscalers, the pricing for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud is significantly higher. It's not cost-effective.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for others considering HANA Enterprise Cloud is to thoroughly assess the pricing and understand their business model. It's important to trust but also verify as much as possible to avoid a fully managed service that leaves you unaware of what is happening. Better collaboration and providing standby resources would be beneficial to improve cooperation.
Additionally, it's advisable to have a fast-track resolution plan in place with SAP support to avoid delays caused by ticketing processes for issue resolution.
Overall, I would rate the solution a five out of ten.
*Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.