In this blog post, we’ll examine the obstacles preventing many organizations from launching an SAP S/4HANA migration, especially when migrating from an existing system on-premises to the cloud.
SAP S/4HANA in the Cloud: What’s Holding You Back?
Migrating workloads to the cloud lies at the heart of the digital transformation strategy for many enterprises. The latest Cloud Computing Study from IDG found that 81% of organizations house at least some applications in the cloud.
By late 2021, 59% of enterprises plan to house the majority or all of their workloads in the cloud. Only 5% plan not to leverage any cloud-based resources. Given the importance of digital transformation to business processes and today’s digital business models, we’ll see how long this tiny minority can hold out.
The study didn’t report on which workloads were still on-premises for these organizations, but it’s a safe bet many of them involve heavily integrated ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems. In a corporate fact sheet dated August 2020, SAP claimed that 77% of all business transactions worldwide touch an SAP system.
With so many touchpoints throughout the enterprise and into the supply chain, migrating to a cloud-based ERP software system is one of the most challenging digital transformation initiatives an enterprise can undertake. It’s understandable if SAP users haven’t yet jumped at the opportunity to migrate their core ERP to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud.
Also read: How SAP S/4HANA Fuels ERP Digital Transformation
Here are three obstacles that often cause business and IT leaders to think twice about moving SAP S/4HANA workloads to the cloud.
1. Platform launch-related delays
SAP S/4HANA was first released in 2015. Early on, confusion regarding the migration path created some hesitancy. SAP also said they would be discontinuing support for SAP ECC, the predecessor to S/4HANA, in 2025.
Later, the date was changed to the end of 2027, with the option to pay higher maintenance premiums to receive support through 2030.
This gave users a little breathing room but also a reason to delay data migration planning. Still, experienced SAP administrators know the clock is ticking. Migrating to a new version of SAP can be a multi-year proposition. To go live before support ends, they will need to kick off a migration planning project soon.
2. SAP Cloud concerns
SAP solutions include a SaaS version of S/4HANA. This can be deployed in an SAP single or multitenant cloud. While SAP is the undisputed leader in ERP solutions, not every business or IT leader is ready to trust them with their cloud environment. For example, those organizations that leverage multiple clouds might have concerns about connectivity and latency between an SAP-managed cloud and dependent solutions running on AWS or Azure.
SAP’s cloud offerings have also created some concerns over control of the environment and applications. In an SAP cloud, the vendor maintains control over when new releases and upgrades are implemented. This can create concerns for enterprises when they have non-SAP business systems tightly integrated to their ERP backbone. Without the time to test the impact of a new release, they could find themselves scrambling to restore these connections.
3. Gap in talent and resources
SAP S/4HANA can also be deployed in a hyperscale cloud environment, like AWS, or in a proprietary cloud. However, these options require the enterprise to have both application, user experience, and environment expertise. It’s rare to find an in-house IT team with those skill sets, especially for an ERP system that’s been completely rearchitected.
Businesses often ask themselves: Has my team migrated an SAP instance before? Can my team manage a Brownfield or Greenfield deployment? Would my deployment require a third-party provider’s assistance?
In addition, unless using a third-party data center, a proprietary cloud deployment carries with it the same overhead burden as any other on-premises deployment. Most organizations migrate to the cloud to reduce or eliminate costs such as facility maintenance, investments in hardware, and staff expenses.
Brownfield vs. Greenfield: What’s the difference?
SAP S/4HANA migration projects typically fit into one of three types:
- Greenfield approach – This is one in which the organization is migrating from a non-SAP ERP application.
- Brownfield approach – A brownfield migration refers to a migration from SAP ECC to S/4HANA in which existing datasets are migrated.
- There is a third option that goes even deeper called Selective Data Transition. This usually refers to a migration in which the company is an existing SAP customer (like SAP HANA or ECC), but the SAP implementation is fresh. In this migration path, only select data sets are migrated.
Also read: Top 5 SAP ERP Challenges for IT Organizations
Plan for and overcome SAP migration risks
Migrating to SAP S/4HANA requires planning, and application, and environmental expertise. Unfortunately, many organizations that provide SAP migration services focus on one or the other. Working with a managed service provider helps organizations overcome many of the risks of an SAP migration and ongoing management of their production environment. Providers work closely with your internal team to help overcome bandwidth issues and skill set gaps.
List of questions to ask for your SAP S/4HANA migration
During your migration planning phase, you need to answer these vital migration questions:
- Is this the right time to upgrade?
- Do we have the right system architecture for a smooth implementation and adoption?
- Will our data migrate as is? Or do we need to scrub/recreate some data sets?
- Should the migration be completed in phases?
- How long will it take to complete, and what are the milestones?
- How much downtime should we expect? How can we minimize the impact on business operations?
- How will we keep our data secure during the migration? How will we keep it secure once we go live?
By nature, ERP migrations are a project that involves many different individuals with unique skill sets from across the organization. Ensuring vital responsibilities are covered and assigning people to the right roles is essential to an effective, surprise-free transition.
TierPoint’s SAP Managed Services for S/4HANA offering is an innovative and comprehensive solution for the modern enterprise that combines a best-in-class, high-availability private cloud platform with SAP Managed Cloud expertise. Managed SAP S/4HANA provides the benefits of the cloud (converting CapEx to OpEx, lowering overhead, reducing IT burden, real-time monitoring, etc.) combined with greater flexibility and control over your environment as well as expert SAP and cloud services.
To learn more about Managed SAP S/4HANA and our other managed services offerings, visit us on the web. You can also download our Managed SAP S/4HANA fact sheet and schedule a consultation with one of our SAP migration specialists.
The major challenges businesses face when managing SAP ERP
Enterprises choose SAP because the product has the functionality they need for business operations. This is borne out in Software Review’s April 2021 Data Quadrant, which classifies SAP S/4HANA as a product innovator, thanks to its high ranking for product features and customer satisfaction. What keeps SAP S/4HANA from being classified as a Leader in Software Review’s April 2021 Data Quadrant is its fairly low rating for vendor experience and capabilities.
This underscores an undeniable truth anyone who’s ever implemented an ERP system, like SAP S/4HANA (or SAP ECC previously), knows ERP functionality can only take you so far. Eventually, the capabilities of the implementer/service provider – whether that’s SAP or a third-party – have a significant effect on the success of the implementation. Here are five challenges we see most often in our work hosting instances of SAP S/4HANA:
Challenge #1 – The instance of SAP is not customized for the enterprise
Just because you can customize an ERP application doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. This is especially true of a functional leader in the ERP space like SAP. In fact, the more customizable a solution is, the easier it is to misconfigure it, which can lead to application failures and IT security issues. And once configured, the system may need to be recalibrated to the needs of the business with every release of a new version or enhancement.
Challenge #2 – SAP requires specific skills to architect, implement, and optimize
A mission-critical SAP business application will test every element of your IT from infrastructure, to application architecture, to cloud services, and beyond. It’s highly likely that your SAP implementation also includes other application dependencies, such as a third-party CRM or supply chain planning application, that will need to be accounted for during implementation and with every upgrade.
Challenge #3 – SAP requires too many IT resources for day-to-day management
ERP systems have a lot of moving parts, and SAP S/4HANA is certainly no exception. Keeping up with the technical requirements of SAP S/4HANA can be a full-time job in itself. Then there are the day-to-day application requirements. For example, the very nature of the data housed in an ERP system makes it an attractive target for data thieves as well as other types of cyberattacks, including ransomware and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS).
Implementing patches as quickly as possible is one element of a defense-in-depth IT security strategy. Unfortunately, with so much on their plate, it’s easy for ERP systems administrators to delay patching while they’re handling “more immediate” challenges.
Challenge #4 – Hardware obsolescence has an impact on SAP performance
Hardware plays a significant role in solution performance. Unfortunately for many enterprises, it’s challenging at best to gauge capacity requirements. They don’t want to tie up capital by overinvesting in hardware, but an IT team that’s stretched thin may not notice when SAP performance begins to degrade due to capacity issues. Just as detrimental to the business, your organization may not be able to scale up IT infrastructure fast enough to take advantage of a sudden, unexpected market opportunity.
Challenge #5 – SAP doesn’t operate in a vacuum
When a mission-critical SAP system goes down, the company goes down. However, unplanned downtime isn’t always a function of the application or the vendor. It can be caused by the environment, such as when a provider loses connectivity, or an untested disaster recovery plan fails just when you need it.
Managed SAP S/4HANA: The best of both worlds
At TierPoint, we have the skills and infrastructure to help you address all five of these challenges. We teamed up with NTT DATA Business Solutions, an SAP Global Platinum Partner, to provide an even deeper array of managed services for our enterprise customers. With the TierPoint and NTT DATA Business Solutions Managed SAP S/4HANA solution, you’ll get:
- A high-performing, secure private cloud environment
- Expert assistance implementing and configuring SAP to meet the needs of your business
- Ongoing monitoring of your SAP environment and instances to ensure optimal performance and availability
- IT architectural expertise and regular hardware refreshes so you don’t need to worry about hardware-induced performance issues
- Day-to-day management of your SAP environment and instances (e.g., patching, updating, maintenance) so you can focus on more strategic IT initiatives
To learn more about how our Managed SAP offerings can help your IT organization, reach out to one of our service representatives.
Why Pennsylvania for a data center?
When developing a data center location strategy and selecting a data center location, it’s not always about what the location offers. Just as often, it’s what the location doesn’t have that makes it suitable for housing sensitive workloads and meeting high-availability computing needs. Pennsylvania is one such location:
- Not a very seismically active part of the country.
- Surrounded by hills, thus less likelihood of tornados.
- Not as susceptible to flooding as other parts of the country
Population density within Pennsylvania is also low compared to many other Northeastern states. Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania (1.5M people), but the number of people per square mile is less than half that of New York City. Especially when coupled with a high volume of business traffic, bandwidth used by consumers in a densely populated area can put a strain on network availability. For businesses that need reliable connectivity and lots of bandwidth, low population density is a big benefit.
While less populated, Pennsylvania is still very close to major centers of business. Three of the major markets served by Pennsylvania data centers include New York City, Baltimore, and the District of Columbia. The furthest commute from some of the popular Pennsylvania data center locations to these major metros is just over three hours; the shortest is less than an hour.
Businesses that choose to colocate will typically own (or lease) their hardware and often take all or most of the day-to-day responsibility for managing it. It’s very important to these companies that the data center is within a relatively easy commute. Distance is also a critical factor when choosing a disaster recovery site. They want their disaster recovery data center to be close enough to visit if they need to, but far enough away that it remains unaffected by a regional disruption.
The benefits of Pennsylvania for data center colocation
We’ve talked about the benefits of housing your data in a Pennsylvania data center. Let’s now turn to how a colocation facility in Pennsylvania can help meet some of an organization’s other critical requirements.
Security and compliance
Companies that choose colocation services are often trying to balance security and compliance with cost structure. They want to decommission their on-premises data center and convert at least some of their CapEx into OpEx. However, maintaining responsibility for the hardware they own or lease gives them a better sense of control.
Online gaming is another type of business served by Pennsylvania data centers. Dave Callan, TierPoint’s V.P. of Sales for the Atlantic Region recently wrote about how colocating equipment in Pennsylvania can help these businesses achieve their IT goals. Read his full blog post here: Online Gaming in PA: Finding the Right Data Center Provider
High availability and low latency
Many hospitals and major financial institutions choose to house their equipment in data centers located in Pennsylvania. These organizations have high availability requirements, and they need low latency connections so they can create a better customer experience. All of the benefits of housing workloads in a Pennsylvania data center that we have already mentioned are vitally important to them.
Managed Services
Banks and hospitals also have stringent compliance and security requirements, and they often feel most comfortable taking a hands-on approach to their hardware. Data center colocation in Pennsylvania gives organizations like these the best of both worlds. Data center providers often offer additional managed services, remote hands, and IT security monitoring, to help fill gaps when staff can’t be there in person.
Business Continuity options
Business continuity workspace is another benefit of data center colocation with a provider. Data center providers often allocate hundreds of seats and meeting room space for clients to use in the event of a disaster.
During COVID-19, many businesses were forced to rethink their work-from-home policies, and they discovered it was possible to send at least a portion of their workforce home. However, a different type of disaster could quickly impact connectivity to the home, and business continuity workspace gives these employees a place to go.
Our five key Pennsylvania colocation data center regions
In our experience, we found these regions to be the best data center locations for our clients. Here are some of the benefits:
Valley Forge
Our Valley Forge data center houses over 600 clients in a 137K square foot facility and offers every product in our portfolio. While many of these customers house their primary workloads in Valley Forge, the data center is also used as a recovery site for many businesses based in Baltimore.
Allentown
Our Allentown-TekPark data center, at 122K square feet, is often the choice for our D.C. clients. Although it’s a little further away than Baltimore, TekPark is set up to handle the level of computing power required by these clients. In fact, we just completed a major power upgrade to this facility to increase computing density, ensure redundant power, and make it hyperscale-ready.
Lehigh Valley and Bethlehem
Our data centers on Courtney Street and LeHigh Valley in Bethlehem are smaller sites, with 25.9K and 27.7K square feet respectively. A few hours outside the major metro zones, many of our customers choose Bethlehem for disaster recovery, so we’ve configured these data centers to handle their high-compute needs.
Philadelphia
At 25.7K square feet, our Philadelphia data center is also a great disaster recovery site, but its strategic location in the Philadelphia Navy Yard also makes it a popular choice for a primary production site.
All five of our Pennsylvania data centers are connected by a dark fiber network ring that can provide sub-2ms connections. We also have dark fiber connectivity down to 401 North Broad in Philadelphia and up to 60 Hudson and 11 8th Ave in New York City. Our fast connections to these well-known data centers allow us to offer faster recovery times to clients using our Pennsylvania data centers for disaster recovery.
Many of our clients take a hybrid approach to cloud computing (public and private), housing workloads in a mix of on-premises data centers, TierPoint cloud services, colocation, and disaster recovery sites. No matter what combination they choose, all of our Pennsylvania customers benefit from our security-first approach. This includes industry-standard security best practices such as checkpoints, gates, fences, 24x7x365 on-site personnel, badge/photo ID access, biometric access screening, secure cages, and full-building video capture.
Come and see one of our Pennsylvania colocation data centers
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of colocation, download our Strategic Guide to the Data Center and Colocation. This resource goes deeper into how colocation works, the advantages of colocation, and how colocation can help optimize a hybrid IT infrastructure.
Learn more about our data centers to understand why we’re one of the best colocation providers in Pennsylvania. To help you decide whether one of our Pennsylvania data centers is right for your needs, we’ve posted our data center spec sheets online:
Are you ready to see one of the data centers for yourself? One of our expert advisors would be happy to give you an on-site tour of any of our Pennsylvania data centers.
Schedule a tour to learn more about our Pennsylvania data centers today.
]]>This interview explores the opportunities and challenges of SAP S/4HANA migration. In partnership with NTT DATA Business Solutions, TierPoint offers Managed SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud. Together TierPoint AVP for partner strategy and enablement Alvaro Gonzales and Bill Strasser, SVP for managed services at NTT DATA Business Solutions, an SAP Platinum Partner, explain what is S/4HANA, benefits of S/4HANA, what holds business back, and how to ensure a successful migration from an existing SAP deployment. You can read this interview or watch the video podcast below.
What is SAP S/4HANA?
Alvaro: What is SAP S/4HANA and how is it different from SAP ECC and other SAP solutions?
Bill: S/4HANA is SAP’s new engine, an intelligent enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that establishes the company’s vision of the enterprise digital core. S/4 will eventually replace SAP ECC. For years, SAP has directed all its new intelligent technologies into the S/4HANA platform, such as intelligent robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI). SAP brings it together in a cloud-based model with more embedded analytics and a better user experience to create a state-of-the-art ERP solution.
Why choose SAP S/4HANA?
Alvaro: For what reasons do businesses migrate to the SAP S/4HANA platform?
Bill: Our installed base of S/4HANA clients reveals five or six major reasons. The first is that S/4HANA has a new digital core foundation that leaves old baggage behind. The second is a performance improvement from much faster in-memory database computing.
A third reason businesses move to SAP S/4HANA is the new user interface and improved user experience. You’ll hear about Fiori, a set of SAP apps that work on any device anywhere. Fiori gives the user a single pane into S/4HANA, as well as all the solutions that go into it.
SAP’s cloud scenario is the fourth reason. S/4HANA can be hosted on-premises, in a data center, in a private cloud, or in a hyperscale cloud—wherever you want.
Simplification is the final reason. With ECC, disparate solutions plug in—supply chain management (SCM) and customer relationship management (CRM), for example—and sit outside SAP, because they can’t be absorbed into the ERP. With S/4, in contrast, SAP simplifies the underlying database, tables, and structures to create a solution that is much easier to run and manage.
On top of that, S/4 has embedded analytics. With ECC, you potentially have a separate business warehouse solution with a different front end. How do you visualize it all? S/4HANA brings it all together with Fiori and embedded real-time analytics.
Alvaro: S/4HANA sounds like a big step forward. SAP is known for providing excellent information but at the expense of much complication.
Bill: Yes, it’s a big step. There’s a whole industry grown up around analytics for business warehouse and business objects. S/4HANA provides a simplified and thinner analytics view.
What causes delays in migration to S/4HANA?
Alvaro: Many businesses haven’t shifted yet to S/4HANA. What’s holding them back?
Bill: I’ve seen three major drivers of delay. One is that SAP allows companies to stay on ECC until 2027, even 2030, by paying higher maintenance premiums. Another was early confusion about the migration path to S/4 and what are the business cases, so businesses took no action. Now there are defined migration paths and defined business cases, and it is much easier to define your path to S/4HANA.
Alvaro: You mentioned the business case. Sometimes the issue is the hours and the resources it takes to migrate. There are lots of moving parts associated with new infrastructure. If the gear that SAP ECC runs on is not on end of life, a business might wait to sync up the move to S/4HANA with the move to new infrastructure.
Bill: Agreed. As part of the move to S/4, you have to think about the underlying infrastructure. Is it on-premises today? In a private data center? Or colo?
The shift to S/4 is not short term. It requires a long-term plan for where the ERP solution resides. Will it be a cloud services provider, like TierPoint? Hyperscalers want this business, too. S/4 infrastructure is a major business decision with a long view.
What roles do experience and hosting play in a successful S/4HANA migration?
Alvaro: You mentioned well-known paths to conduct the migration to S/4HANA. We at TierPoint know that data center migrations are straightforward because we have done hundreds of them. In comparison, an IT professional might do a data center migration once in their career. Is the migration to S/4HANA like this?
Bill: Yes, migrations are daunting and risky without expertise. For us, S/4 migrations are now lower risk and lower cost with shorter timelines. We have a personalized factory model, with every customer a little bit different. We take everything off the client as much as we can, so they are not bogged down. Migration to S/4HANA is starting to hit the mainstream now, whether from on-premises to a TierPoint data center or another option.
Planning a cloud migration in 2021? Download our new eBook: Journey to the Cloud: Maximize the Benefits and Minimize the Risks
Your first two steps to S/4HANA
Alvaro: To wrap it up, what advice would you give our readers about where to start?
Bill: Step one is to get the facts. Work with a partner like TierPoint or NTT DATA Business Solutions to find out what it takes, what is the path, especially if you don’t have the expertise. There are several steps in the journey, including prerequisites. Together you’ll build out a plan with your partner.
Step two puts business drivers behind the change to build the business case. More IT-centric discussions have less influence and leverage with the business, so engage the business and bring the benefit of S/4HANA into the discussion about the migration path and how you get there. This step tilts the business case and drives your project forward.
Alvaro: Thank you. Working with NTT DATA Business Solutions is enormously valuable for our clients because your experience is not just technical, you also help the business to plan, justify and understand what they should get out of this, and then execute the migration plan.
Learn more about SAP S/4HANA
At TierPoint, we have the skills and infrastructure to help you implement SAP S/4HANA. We teamed up with NTT DATA Business Solutions, an SAP Global Platinum Partner, to provide an even deeper array of managed services for our enterprise customers. Learn more about the TierPoint and NTT DATA Business Solutions Managed SAP S/4HANA solution.
Tip #1 – Align yourself to the business’ goals
There was a time when IT was all about the nuts and bolts of keeping the business running. You could almost forget the IT department existed—at least until a server went down. Nowadays, however, many business leaders are looking to tech as a way to build a competitive advantage. IT professionals can use this to increase their value to the company.
Let’s say one of the business’ goals is to reduce CapEx expenditures. IT has plenty of opportunities to show leadership how that goal can best be met through new technologies and approaches. Of course, it can be scary to suggest something new. For example, the business may be best served by migrating from an on-premises data center to the cloud. But what will that mean for the existing IT staff whose job it is to maintain their on-prem infrastructure?
I once heard a CEO say that the most valuable IT people in his organization were those who weren’t afraid to innovate themselves out of a job. I’m sure that’s true, but the IT professional needs to still look out for themselves as well. The rest of Kong’s tips can help you add value to your organization without derailing your career.
Tip #2 – Learn to love (or at least appreciate) sales
IT professionals often say they hate sales —and sometimes salespeople—but what they fail to appreciate is that sales is the business of business. Even not-for-profits need to engage in sales and marketing activities to some extent. If you’ve ever been to a fundraiser for a non-profit, you know there’s plenty of selling involved!
“The outcome of having no income is going out of business.”
Kong Yang, Nutanix
IT professionals that can help sales be better at what they do will find they have some of the best allies in the company on their side. In my experience, salespeople can be quite influential with company leadership when it comes time to approve budgets for specific initiatives.
Tip #3 – Develop foundational skills
Here, Kong suggested taking direction from Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, who advises business people to think about what’s not going to change. Your internal customers are always going to want things like improved uptime, greater system responsiveness, and better service levels. Find a way to deliver the core services your customers want, and you increase your value to the company.
“When you identify those big ideas that are stable in time…they’re usually the customer needs.”
Jeff Bezos, from a keynote at re:MARS
Tip #4 – Develop your EQ (Emotional Quotient)
We all know it takes brains to be in IT, but IT professionals can make it pretty far in their careers without ever developing their emotional skills. It’s worth doing, though, because a high EQ can separate you from the rest of the pack. You become the go-to person who is not only technically competent but also reliable and a team player.
If that’s not reason enough, people with high EQs tend to handle stress better, and IT is one of the most stressful professions around.
Tip #5 – Develop your soft skills
According to Kong, soft skills are those skills that aren’t measured by the certifications you hold. EQ is certainly a soft skill, but so are things like empathy, perseverance, and love. Yes, love. According to Jack Ma, Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, it’s the soft skills that will allow us to maintain our dominance over the machines.
“A machine does not have a heart, [a] machine does not have soul, and [a] machine does not have a belief. Human being have the souls, have the belief, have the value; we are creative, we are showing that we can control the machines.”
Jack Ma, Bloomberg Global Business Forum, September 20, 2017
Tip #6 – Practice
When it comes to developing soft skills, Kong suggested adding the acronym TLC to the IT dictionary. However, in this case, it doesn’t stand for “Tender Loving Care.” Instead it stands for Try, Learn, Communicate. The essence of Kong’s message was that many IT people aren’t going to pick up soft skills easily. They need to try them out, learn from the experience, and communicate with others about the importance of applying soft skills in IT.
We wouldn’t think twice about spending months, if not years, developing certain IT skills. Even then, in many IT disciplines, the learning never really stops. We should take the same approach to soft skills.
Tip #7 – Explore new paths
IT professionals need to be careful about identifying themselves too much with specific technologies. For example, there are still roles that require expertise in COBOL, but they are fewer and fewer. If your expertise is tied to a technology that won’t outlast your career, you probably need to broaden your focus. And let’s face it, with as fast as advancements are being made, unless you’re approaching retirement, most technologies fall into that category.
These paths need not be in IT, either. For instance, many IT professionals have discovered gratifying careers in sales and product marketing, and these two disciplines can benefit greatly from their technical expertise.
Tip #8 – Develop your network
While this was the final tip Kong shared, it really can be the most helpful thing an IT professional can do to further their career. A trusted network of people who understand what you’re trying to achieve – but aren’t people you report to or who report to you – can be a real asset. They can let you know which soft skills you need to work on most. They can be a sounding board for your ideas. They can help you explore new paths, sometimes even opening up doors you didn’t know existed.
Hear more insights from Nutanix
If one possible path for your career involves leadership, read Kong’s post in our BraveIT series on practicing leadership. Want to offload day to day tasks, while focusing your IT team on revenue-generating projects? Contact us to learn more.
At BraveIT 2020, Nutanix shared insights on enabling a remote workforce. Check out the full session below.
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What is VDI?
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI is the hosting of desktop environments on central servers. It is a form of desktop virtualization—the desktop operating system (OS) images run within virtual machines (VMs) and are delivered to clients over a network. Those client endpoints can be PCs, tablets, thin client terminals, and even zero client devices with neither storage nor operating system. The endpoint devices do not need to be preinstalled with the OS or applications—only a browser.
Why VDI is good for employees
VDI puts the power of your enterprise IT infrastructure at the fingertips of your remote employees without the hassle of company-owned machines. Workers get location flexibility and mobility benefits with secure access to powerful hardware and software applications. Not only can they work at home securely on a personal laptop or other type of device, but they can also get work done anywhere securely on a borrowed device.
Why VDI is good for businesses and IT departments
The business as a whole and IT operations specifically reap big benefits from VDI, including potential cost reductions and improved security controls. Plus, VDI expands workforce mobility and the company’s pool of potential employees.
Concerns about the cost, complexity, and performance of VDI have held many companies back in the past but that has changed with advances in technology around the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) model. Previously, a large capital investment and do-it-yourself (DIY) overhead discouraged the use of virtual desktops. Now, improved technology lowers the cost per resource, and managed service providers like TierPoint offer a more economical OpEx-based (operational expense) delivery model while lifting operational responsibility from your IT organization.
Similarly, VDI performance was hindered in the early days but that is no longer the case. Ten years ago, VDI desktops could not match a normal desktop experience. Now, network speeds and physical and virtual resource performance are much higher, so the best VDI solutions deliver performance that rivals locally installed applications.
How hosted private cloud & VDI add more value
VDI is a cloud-based solution to desktop infrastructure. A private cloud hosted by a data center provider offers many benefits for virtual desktop infrastructure: predictable spend, security controls, performance, flexibility, and less overhead.
Predictable spend
No variance monthly for usage or transport and the use of existing licenses makes for a predictable spend. As a bonus, there is no additional bandwidth charge when VDI is accessed point to point.
Security controls
Private cloud infrastructure is under your control and part of your network. IT is secured with the level of encryption you want and by your firewall. Workers can use networks under your control, such as a point-to-point network when on site and the corporate VPN when remote.
Performance
Single-tenant cloud infrastructure eliminates performance degradation due to noisy neighbors while enabling you to shift and upgrade resources as needed without increasing recurring per-user costs.
Flexibility
Private cloud architecture is yours to modify as needed for security, compliance, performance, and any other reason.
Less overhead
When a third-party data center provider hosts your private cloud, your IT team can spend less time managing the infrastructure while benefiting from a secure, resilient facility. Your organization controls the management of data, applications, databases, and operating systems. That said, most private cloud providers also offer an array of managed services that relieve your team of day-to-day tasks as well as providing services such as disaster recovery.
Virtual desktop services powered by Nutanix Frame
As a cloud and managed services provider, we deliver one-stop support from design to configuration and from deployment to monitoring and lifecycle maintenance of your enterprise virtual desktop solution. Plus, your managed VDI solution can be combined with security, disaster recovery and productivity features such as managed multi-factor authentication (Managed MFA), Managed Office 365, and more.
Learn more about the value of a TierPoint private cloud for VDI and how our Virtual Desktop Services powered by Nutanix Frame can get your remote workers the tools they need.
Why VDI? Companies choose VDI for these reasons:
1. VDI keeps your workforce working, no matter the disruption
Cloud-based desktops promote business resilience during disruptions. Hurricanes, power outages, and pandemic WFH (work from home). Primary PC out of service? Can’t get to the office? Is your office not fit for habitation? Working from home for the foreseeable future? Not a problem. VDI is ideal for employees who need an alternative mode of access to their corporate desktop and familiar apps. An enterprise virtual desktop solution can serve users in any location and on any device that has a browser.
VDI is a popular remote desktop solution for a variety of scenarios: employees and contractors working from home, while traveling, hot desking, and in co-working spaces. A fast, full desktop experience and secure access to critical information and applications from a company-owned or bring-your-own device (BYOD) is available anywhere with internet connectivity.
2. VDI can improve your employee retention and acquisition initiatives
Your ability to support a remote or mobile workforce with virtual desktops enables your company to retain valued employees when they relocate or require a work-from-home solution. Plus, VDI might make your current employees happier, too. Technology-related factors make up 30% of what drives an engaged employee, according to Forrester.
In the same way, VDI can enable your company to acquire talent from farther afield—in other cities, rural workers, even globally.
3. VDI is device-agnostic and delivers desktops to a range of devices
Physical devices are a never-ending burden for IT. Forrester reports that 67% of organizations expect to replace corporate-owned laptops at least every three years. In contrast, VDI is device agnostic. Users connect to a secure VDI environment with authentication from any device with an HTML5-compatible browser and internet connectivity. VDI can extract valuable years of service from laptops, tablets and thin clients.
With VDI, the hardware on the user’s device does not drive performance. Higher performance in a managed VDI environment is driven by cloud-based hardware. Specifically, optional GPU hardware in a hosted private cloud delivers the higher performance needed for graphically advanced and compute-intensive workloads.
4. VDI creates another layer of IT security
Cloud desktops offer more security than running an OS or workspace locally, especially outside of your organization’s enterprise perimeter. Three advantages of VDI that can improve security are:
- VDI access is controlled with modern authentication and authorization technologies.
- Data from the virtual desktop lives on centralized infrastructure hosted in a secure data center, not on the user’s device.
- A virtual desktop environment is fully and centrally controlled from a data center where administrators can apply software patches and updates, change configurations, and enforce security policies.
Also read: A Strategy to Overcome Cloud Computing Security Risks
5. VDI enables digital transformation and cloud adoption
Digital transformation enables organizations to innovate changes across business processes and technologies to meet evolving market demands. A private cloud is, for many organizations, an integral part of their transformation to a hybrid or multicloud environment.
VDI is one of the many valuable uses of a private cloud. VDI can deliver a Windows workspace service sized based on your current and future requirements. Use cases range from office productivity to graphics-intensive applications.
A virtual desktop service is a win-win solution for users and IT transformation. A managed VDI service promotes business innovation and allows IT teams to shift away from management and upkeep of physical equipment, decreasing IT management overhead. VDI is scalable, so it can adapt as your business needs change or your user base grows to reach employees worldwide.
A managed VDI solution can help you now
While VDI does solve a number of common and immediate challenges, it is not without complexity when it comes to implementation and ongoing maintenance. For enterprises that are new to the concept or just not interested in the ongoing burden of infrastructure upkeep and VDI control plane maintenance the right solution for your IT team may be a VDI service delivered by a qualified Managed Services Provider, also known as DaaS or Desktop as a Service. A DaaS solution provides configuration, deployment, and ongoing administration and support for your managed dedicated VDI solution deployed in a secure, hosted private cloud infrastructure — all managed for you.
As a leading cloud and managed services provider, TierPoint delivers one-stop support from design to configuration and from deployment to monitoring and lifecycle maintenance of your enterprise virtual desktop solution. Plus, your managed VDI solution can be combined with security and productivity features such as managed multi-factor authentication (Managed MFA), Managed Office 365, and more.
At TierPoint, we are your virtual desktop experts. We take responsibility for design, configuration, deployment, and ongoing maintenance and support for all components. Our service includes proactive monitoring and performance optimization to ensure the utmost availability and best desktop as a service experience for your users. Learn about a TierPoint Hosted Private Cloud with Managed VDI implemented with Nutanix Frame.
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The value managed services providers offer for SaaS applications
Here are the six ways managed services are driving SaaS company success.
1. Enable multicloud environments
There are any number of reasons why a SaaS company might leverage multiple cloud types for its applications. One of the most common is to ensure the resiliency of their applications and services. Many SaaS companies house their data in a hosted private cloud and then leverage AWS or Azure as a backup solution.
Other times, there are various functions in your applications that may work better in one cloud environment than another. Or you may have pockets of customers that have a strong preference. For example, your government sector customers might prefer Azure while the pharmaceutical companies you serve might prefer a robust private cloud.
Just because your staff knows one type of cloud environment does not make them an expert across the cloud. You could hire additional staff to manage your various cloud environments. Or, you could work with a managed cloud provider to fill in the gaps.
Also read: The Four Pillars of Provider Multicloud Management
2. Help to lower costs
The most obvious way a multicloud managed service provider can help lower costs is by allowing you to get rid of the overhead of maintaining an on-premises or private data center. This includes the cost of the building and all that entails (security, HVAC, rent, energy, etc.). It includes the cost of the hardware (regular refreshes and maintenance). And it includes the cost of the personnel required to run the data center (IT, janitorial services, security, etc.). All in all, a private data center is a pretty expensive proposition.
But outsourcing your data center needs to a managed service provider can also help you spot overspending in the cloud. It’s not uncommon for a SaaS company’s developers to spin up a cloud environment to use for development purposes – and then forget to spin that instance down again when it’s no longer needed. These resources then sit idle even though you’re still paying for them.
Poor utilization of resources can happen for other reasons as well, but with so much on their plate already, many IT departments in SaaS companies find they don’t have time to keep an eye on infrastructure utilization the way they should. A managed service provider can keep an eye on utilization rates and identify underutilized cloud resources.
3. Ensure SaaS application compliance
By definition, SaaS companies are responsible for the handling and storage of their customer’s data. Sometimes that data is covered by an existing regulation such as PCI DSS (retail), FERPA (education), HIPAA (healthcare), etc. At other times, the information is simply personal and not something the user would want listed on the dark web.
According to McAfee’s Cloud Adoption & Risk Report, enterprises have an average of 14 misconfigured cloud infrastructure and platform instances running at any one time. Most notably, 5.5% of all AWS S3 buckets used to store data are misconfigured, making the data they contain publicly accessible. Whether anyone sees the data or not, this is a compliance violation that can lead to some pretty hefty fines in many regulated industries.
4. Power SaaS system security
The internet is filled with bad actors with malicious intent, but not all of these actors are human. We’ve seen a progression from first-generation bots that were designed to perform functions like scraping websites for information or filling out forms to fourth generation bots that can mimic human behavior.
These bots are capable of more than just stealing data. They can encrypt your customer’s data and demand payment, usually in bitcoin, in an attack known as ransomware. According to CyberEdge Group’s 2020 Cyberthreat Defense Report, 62% of organizations were victimized by ransomware last year, up from 56% in 2018 and 55% in 2017. The same report found that of those that paid the ransom, only 67% were able to recover their data. This type of attack can destroy a SaaS company’s reputation.
Bad bots can also overwhelm your systems in a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This is just as bad for the SaaS company because the end result is similar. Your customers can’t access their applications and data.
It’s hard for many SaaS companies to keep up with the latest threats. Because companies like TierPoint are in the business of IT security, we can afford to stay abreast of the latest threats as well as tools and strategies to combat them. We can help keep your systems secure and your customer’s data safe.
5. Make the IT staff more agile
If your business is software, not infrastructure, you’re probably already asking your IT staff to wear a lot of hats. Chances are, you could sit down and list at least a dozen IT-related tasks and responsibilities that take you away from your core business: providing great apps and superior service to your customers. Outsourcing these tasks and responsibilities to a qualified managed service provider can free up time, allowing you to focus on the things that move the business forward.
6. Improve up-time
I’ve already alluded to many of the ways that a managed multicloud provider can improve up-time. By managing the security of your environment, you can limit your risk of downtime due to ransomware, DDoS, and other cyber threats. A managed service provider can design a well-architected disaster recovery strategy that minimizes downtime and data loss in the event of a disaster. A managed services provider can keep a watchful eye on your environment and identify potential issues, such as over utilization of resources or malfunctions in the system, that can affect up-time and performance.
We can help you manage your cloud applications
Whether you’re adopting multiple cloud platforms, improving the security and compliance of your environment, looking to save on facility costs, or just looking to free your IT staff from day to day management of your cloud environment, a provider can help your business gain the competitive edge. As a managed services provider, we can help. We operate over 40 data centers across the U.S. and offer cloud, colocation, security, network and disaster recovery solutions that work for your business. Contact us today to see how we can help you address your IT challenges.
Putting Power Systems infrastructure and applications into the cloud adds many advantages: rapid scalability, ease of management, reduced IT staff, access to new technologies, and distributed access for remote workers. Power Systems plus the cloud is really the best of both worlds.
What you need to migrate IBM Power Systems to the cloud
Careful planning is needed before a legacy application is moved to the cloud. If you’re considering migrating some or all of your Power Systems AIX or IBM i applications, here’s a guide to help you plan your cloud migration strategy.
Development, disaster recovery or production
Cloud-based environments can serve three basic purposes:
- Development – The cloud can provide a development “sandbox” for writing and testing new code
- Disaster recovery – Cloud environments are often used for disaster recovery solutions. Replicating applications and data to the cloud can give you a ready-to-use backup in case of an outage or cyber-attack on the main production system.
- Production – Re-hosting all or part of your production IBM systems to the cloud can also give you access to the latest hardware improvements and operating system updates, without your IT staff having to do a thing. The cloud also provides a convenient and cost-effective way to meet seasonal demand for IT resources without having to buy additional hardware.
IaaS or DRaaS
There are two options for moving Power Systems applications to the cloud: infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS).
IaaS is an infrastructure-only option which includes storage capacity, network functionality, CPU, and memory. IaaS can help extend an on-premises system by providing additional storage or virtual servers as needed, sparing the customer the cost of buying new hardware to meet occasional surges in demand. The customer can implement whatever platform it wants, which is convenient for organizations with older versions of the IBM i or AIX platforms.
DRaaS is good for ensuring that on-premises servers can failover to an alternate system in the cloud in case of a natural or man-made disaster. The on-site applications and data are replicated to a cloud virtual server which acts as a “cold” or “hot” spare in case of disaster. By using DRaaS rather than a simple data backup to the cloud, you can significantly reduce downtime and data loss.
TierPoint’s IBM Systems disaster recovery service is an example of a DRaaS solution. Examples of IaaS offerings include: Data Storage Corp.’s (DSC’s) eHost, the IBM Cloud with Power Systems Virtual Servers. IBM Power Systems platform for Google Cloud, and .Skytap’s cloud for AIX and IBM i on IBM Power.
Migration help
Many cloud computing providers offer cloud migration tools and services to help you transition to their cloud environment. Alternatively, you can contract with a cloud managed services provider who can both conduct an application and data migration, and manage your environment.
A migration isn’t always as easy as a lift and shift. Migration planning providers may need to conduct a pre-migration assessment, create a roadmap and timeline for the migration, and help carrying out the migration. Management services cover the day-to-day administration of a cloud environment—such as updates, application performance and security monitoring, and tech support.
Pre-migration audit
You’ll need an inventory of your Power Systems portfolio including servers, applications and licenses, application interfaces, and the various categories of data (e.g., financial data, public data, personally identifiable information covered by privacy laws, etc.) Also take stock of your in-house resources. What types of Power Systems and cloud services expertise exists among your employees, and what training opportunities can the managed services provider or consultant offer? Educating your staff enables them to liaise with IBM and cloud solutions vendors, as well as troubleshoot problems in an emergency.
Workload sizing
Before you can move application workloads to the cloud, you need to size them. Knowing the performance data on your workloads will help you cost effectively plan your cloud requirements. Otherwise, you may have to spend more to add virtual machines, memory, and storage capacity post migration. There are tools for analyzing the performance of IBM i and AIX applications, such as the IBM Workload Estimator or Systems Workload Estimator.
Data backup
Perhaps the most critical element of any migration is a good copy of your data. No one wants to lose half their business data to an untested backup. In the past, data was copied to tape and the tapes were sent to the cloud provider for upload. However, tape backups are more time consuming and more vulnerable to loss or theft.
Lately, transferring data directly to the cloud has become more popular. For direct transfer, you can use an ETL (extract, transfer, and load) tool or replication service from a third-party provider, such as Google, TierPoint or Data Storage Corp.
Schedule the migration
Because migrations can go awry, it’s best to choose a date and time when few end users will need the system. Typically, migrations and backups are scheduled on the weekend or late at night. Some migration services, such as TierPoint’s DRaaS, can replicate data in the background, without impacting the end user experience.
When you finally do migrate your systems, whether it’s in phases or all at once, make sure to build in extra time for tweaking and testing. Ultimately, a cloud migration should provide you with the flexibility and scalability you need to meet the needs of your business while retaining the Power Systems infrastructure that you’ve come to depend upon.
Migrate and protect your IBM Power Systems environment
Managed services providers (MSPs) can help you manage all of the considerations outlined in this post and more. When working with a managed services provider, you also gain the expertise needed to manage these large and complex migration projects without adding a burden to your IT team. Along with our partner, Data Storage Corporation (DSC), we provide migration, disaster recovery, and other managed services for cloud and hybrid cloud environments (private and public cloud with other workloads).
Data Storage Corporation (DSC) is a provider specializing in IBM iSeries disaster recovery and helps organizations protect their data, minimize downtime and recover and restore data within their objectives. TierPoint is a leading provider of secure, connected data center and cloud solutions. Together, they provide a comprehensive solution for managing IBM iSeries migration, hosting and disaster recovery. Learn more about how you can protect your IBM iSeries environment and migrate to the cloud.
To learn more about migrating legacy systems to the cloud or protecting it with a disaster recovery solution, contact us today.
Remote working tools and applications for your workforce
To help you navigate this new virtual office reality, we’ve compiled a list of key productivity applications and remote working tools that employees will need to do their jobs.
Remote collaboration tools
Virtually all organizations depend on digital collaboration tools to work with supervisors and coworkers. They’re even more critical in today’s work-from-home environment. Cloud and web-based tools such as instant messaging, web email, and video chat tools are essential one-to-one communication tools and are often platform agnostic. Collaborative suites combine these basic tools with collaboration tools ranging from team discussions and video conferencing to screen sharing and collaborative document creation and editing. For example, WebEx has video conferencing, whiteboards, screensharing, and instant messaging. Slack and Microsoft Teams are also popular remote collaboration suites.
Productivity applications
Productivity application suites combine work tools such as word processing and spreadsheets with collaboration capabilities. For instance, Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365 provides email and calendaring, Word, Excel and PowerPoint as well as collaborative services such as Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online. All of these tools are integrated to create a seamless experience for your remote workforce.
Also read: IT Productivity Applications – The Right Tools for the Job
Device & application security
Cyber-attacks are rapidly rising and weak IT security on remote devices puts your organization at risk. Security for remote employees is a critical element of a mobile workplace. The first step is to make sure all remote employees have basic security protections on their laptops, tablets, and smartphones. This includes antivirus software and a firewall. In addition, you’ll want to equip them with enterprise-level protections necessary for secure remote computing. The key security tools you’ll need are:
Identity access management
Cloud-based identity access management (IAM) solutions can ensure that users are only allowed to interact with IT environments that they have authorization to access, including applications, data, and networks. IAM offers IT control over what end users are allowed to do such as read, download, or edit a document. IAM solutions use role-based rules to determine what each worker, job type, or seniority level can do. Two examples of IAM are IBM’s Cloud Identity and Microsoft’s Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Software as a Service.
Also read: Cybersecurity’s Next Big Thing: Identity Management
Multi-factor authentication
Beyond user IDs and passwords, multi-factor authentication devices and apps can greatly improve security. Authentication fobs are hardware devices that generate random pass-codes for employees logging into a work application. Alternatively, employees can download a smartphone authentication app to generate the codes. Facial recognition tools, such as Windows Hello, are also gaining traction in multi-factor authentication.
Secure transmission
Remote employees need a way to connect securely to their workplace applications. In many cases, this means a virtual private network (VPN). A VPN is useful for employees that may need to use public wi-fi networks, or need access to sensitive data. The VPN encrypts the internet traffic and watches for threats. However, not all remote workers may need a VPN. Secure desktop applications such as Azure Remote Desktop Services and Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops may satisfy many organizations’ security needs.
File-based encryption
For securing data and files, our experts recommend using a file-based encryption solution that follows the file wherever it goes. An encrypted file can’t be opened without authorization. Even if the data is stolen, it remains safe. This technology allows you to grant or revoke access to a file even if it’s already on an unauthorized user’s device.
Mobile Device Management (MDM)
To effectively manage the devices an end-user may utilize in a remote environment, you’ll want a mobile security management or mobile device management solution to establish control over company data. This solution enables IT to monitor and control the laptops, smartphones and other devices accessing the corporate network and applications. MDM usually requires a client agent on the remote device and prohibits non-compliant devices from accessing resources. There are many MDM options on the market. One is Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS) service for Microsoft 365, which includes mobile device management as well as enterprise security functions like identity and access management and cloud security broker for multicloud environments.
Also read: The Strategic Guide to IT Security
Ensure your workforce has the right remote working tools
Security, productivity and communication tools are vital to keeping your business running efficiently, as you adapt to remote operations. Managed Services providers, like TierPoint, can help you migrate to and manage cybersecurity, productivity, and communication tools for your business. Contact us to learn more about finding the right solutions to enable your remote workforce.
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