At SAP TechEd 2012 in Las Vegas, SAP unveiled its plans for SAP HANA Cloud, a next-generation cloud platform based on in-memory technology.
As part of SAP HANA Cloud, the company also announced the general availability of SAP NetWeaverCloud, an open standards-based application service, and SAP HANA One, a deployment of SAP HANA certified for production use on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, as the first offerings based on SAP HANA Cloud.
SAP HANA Cloud is planned to include several key offerings.
SAP HANA AppServices in SAP HANA Cloud is a service that aims to allow developers to create next-generation applications using native SAP HANA, Java and other rapid-development services. A robust set of shared services are planned to provide comprehensive support for portals, integration, mobile, analytics, collaboration and commercial services beside unified cloud enablement and life-cycle management.
SAP NetWeaver Cloud is the first application service within SAP HANA Cloud that is generally available to customers and partners. With the platform, customers and partners can rapidly create powerful Java-based applications with consumer-grade experiences on mobile and portal, integration to on-premise and other cloud applications and the reassurance of secure deployment and management delivered by SAP. SAP NetWeaver Cloud enables over 9 million Java developers who want an open, flexible platform to easily and successfully build enterprise applications using the most popular Web and mobile frameworks. SAP also announced the availability of free, unlimited developer licenses for SAP Netweaver Cloud, removing the previous 90-day restriction in a sign of its growing commitment to the developer community.
SAP HANA DBServices in SAP HANA Cloud aims to provide database-as-a-service in the cloud. The first offering based on SAP HANA Cloud is SAP HANA One, a deployment option for the SAP HANA platform on AWS. SAP HANA One can be deployed for production use with small data sets, in minutes, opening a door to starter projects from customers, ISVs and startups.
SAP HANA One is provisioned by AWS on advanced hardware with memory capacity up to 60 GB of RAM per instance. With this update, SAP says it is further reaffirming its commitment to supporting enterprise businesses, start-up companies and ISVs. SAP is enabling them to quickly and cost-effectively deliver a wide range of applications based on SAP HANA One on AWS. Developers can go directly to the online store AWS Marketplace to find, buy and immediately begin using software that runs on the AWS Cloud, in order to provision and instantly access SAP HANA.
The paradigm of in-memory processing is at the heart of how business has to be conducted in the future, said Dr. Vishal Sikka, a member of the executive board of SAP AG, heading technology and innovation, during the executive keynote address at SAP TechEd. But, Sikka added, there is the other end of the spectrum which is the removal of layers of complexity, and the easing of access to the infrastructure, simplifying consumption in a way that brings value within minutes, or seconds in order to make things easier for end users. SAP has seen the success of doing HANA development and testing on Amazon, he said, adding that the logical next step is that for the small simple or offline cases, you can productively run HANA on Amazon and be up and running within 3 to 7 minutes, with HANA One.
Overall, with the announcement of SAP HANA Cloud, SAP says it is paving the way for developers to build impactful applications in the cloud with embedded analytics and the massive speed of SAP HANA, said Vishal Sikka, member of the SAP Executive Board, Technology and Innovation. Customers and partners will be able to build applications that meet the needs of the new reality – “lightning fast, instant mobile access, deep analytics with delightful user experience,” said Sikka in a statement released by the company. Putting SAP NetWeaver Cloud into the hands of developers today is a first step toward that vision, he added.
To avoid disruption and protect customers' investments, SAP NetWeaver Cloud enables seamless integration with SAP and non-SAP systems, either on premise or cloud-based, utilizing the connectivity service. Users can store data-intensive information using the available relational data persistency service, SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise or SAP HANA. Developer licenses, including development tools and resources, are available through the "SAP NetWeaver Cloud Developer Center.”