SAP Expands SAP Business One, Version for SAP HANA, to Amazon Web Services

SAP announced the expansion of its SAP certified solutions, including the SAP Business One app, to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) with the ability to launch SAP solutions in the cloud.

The move signifies a further push from SAP to partner with third-party companies to make its services more readily available to SMBs. In September, SAP announced that its certified solutions would be available through Azure, Microsoft's cloud platform.

"Putting SAP Business One on Amazon is a smart move," Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst at Constellation Research, says. "At this point in time, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are in an all-out war for infrastructure as a service, and this is the most cost-effective option for customers."

Though SAP announced the incorporation of its own cloud system as recently as September, the company has opted to capitalize on Amazon's strengths and utilize AWS. AWS, first launched in 2006, boasts scalability and flexibility, as well as security, efficiency, and high availability. According to Amazon, 1,219 companies have partnered with AWS already, including Kellogg's and Lionsgate. For SAP, the partnership is an attempt to leverage Amazon's trusted, familiar name and make the process easier for resellers installing the software for customers. AWS also offers expertise in certain areas of the cloud that can support heterogeneous application environments. "Amazon provides a great and reliable structure for us to run our applications," says Alain McHugh, senior director of SAP Business One Marketing. "We partner with resellers to sell Business One to the end customer. This gives our resellers a packaged environment to actually work with Amazon to get their app up and running in the cloud."

SAP Business One runs on the in-memory computing platform SAP HANA, architecture which handles complex query processing and can also be used for application development. SAP Business One, in its ninth version as of March, provides SAP users with modules to manage their business operations by analyzing data in real time. Among its tools are modules that aim to automate key processes, such as Financials, Sales, Business Partners, Banking, Inventory, and Material Resource Planning. Each of the modules runs on its own but is also connected to the others, with add-ons available.

Holger Mueller, principal analyst and vice president at Constellation Research, also commended the move. "We applaud every move to standard [infrastructure as a service] by enterprise software vendors," he says. "This marks already the second partnership around cloud infrastructure for SAP, as IBM and SAP just announced a partnership a few weeks ago."

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