Factors to Consider when Choosing an SAP HANA Managed Hosting Provider

[Former Member]

Once you’ve decided to implement SAP HANA in a managed hosting environment, you’ll begin the process of evaluating potential partners. There are three key things to consider: the size of your implementation, network needs, and application environment consolidation.

This is the first entry in a four-part blog series in which we will examine these factors more in-depth. Here is a brief overview on how each aspect plays into your decision.

Size of Implementation

How much HANA power you think you need and how much you’re planning to grow in the future are the first things to consider when choosing a hosting provider. HANA is sold in units of 64GB. Some companies can provide you with a single unit implementation, which is enough for small businesses or companies looking to set up a quick test/dev environment. However, most companies looking to seriously benefit from exponential speed improvements or grow rapidly in the future will most likely need a larger implementation.

Network Needs

Since HANA’s speed is determined solely by the hardware and the network, your hosting provider’s infrastructure is crucial. The throughput of the data will depend on the proximity of your provider’s data centers to your HANA users, as well as whether the network is public or dedicated. If you’re implementing HANA, you’re going to need a network as fast and agile as the software.

Application Environment Consolidation

The final factor to consider when choosing a HANA managed hosting provider is the complexity of your environment. Are you planning to connect applications to HANA? Do you have legacy machines you would like to colocate in a centralized location? What other applications would you like to host? Consolidating all your hosting with one provider makes it easier to connect applications and simplifies everything from contracts to bookkeeping, so you’ll need to choose one that can accommodate all your needs.

Please check back next week when I will go into more detail about choosing an SAP HANA managed hosting provider based on the size of implementation.

Binoy James is director, enterprise applications product management, at Savvis, a CenturyLink company.