Technical overview

The SAP ECC on HANA migration project for WEG's European subsidiary presents several key challenges that require careful consideration and planning. Some of the primary challenges include:

• Complexity of the Migration: Migrating SAP ECC to HANA on AWS is a complex process that demands meticulous planning, seamless execution, and minimal disruption to ongoing business operations. Any errors or delays during the migration could lead to costly downtime and negatively impact productivity.

• Data Security and Compliance: WEG's European subsidiary deals with sensitive customer and financial data. Ensuring data security and compliance with regional data protection regulations, such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), is of paramount importance throughout the migration process and beyond.

• Optimizing Performance and Scalability: To fully capitalize on the benefits of SAP HANA and AWS, the migration must focus on optimizing performance and scalability. The new infrastructure should be capable of handling current and future workloads efficiently.

• Seamless Integration with Existing Systems: The migration should seamlessly integrate SAP ECC on HANA with other existing systems and applications to maintain smooth business operations and avoid data silos.

Technical enablement

Our objective for this migration project was to execute a seamless transition of WEG's European subsidiary's SAP ECC system to HANA on AWS, addressing the challenges mentioned above while delivering the following outcomes:

• Increased Performance and Efficiency: By leveraging the power of SAP HANA and the flexibility of AWS, we expect to significantly improve system performance, leading to faster data processing, quicker response times, and enhanced overall efficiency.

• Enhanced Scalability: The cloud-based infrastructure on AWS will allow WEG's European subsidiary to easily scale its SAP system resources up or down based on demand, ensuring optimal performance during peak periods and cost-efficiency during lower activity.

• Improved Data Security and Compliance: Our migration strategy will prioritize robust data security measures, ensuring compliance with regional data protection regulations and safeguarding sensitive information.

• Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): By moving to the cloud, WEG's European subsidiary can potentially reduce its TCO through pay-as-you-go pricing models, lower maintenance costs, and decreased reliance on on-premises hardware.

• Minimized Downtime and Disruption: Our team will work diligently to minimize any potential downtime during the migration process, aiming for a smooth and seamless transition without disrupting critical business operations.

AWS Services deployed: 

• Amazon EC2, Amazon VPC, Amazon S3, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon GuarDuty, AWS CloudTrail.

Customer issues and concerns that have been overcome:

• Operational Excellence: Issue/Concern: WEG's European subsidiary faced challenges in achieving operational excellence within their SAP ECC system. The existing infrastructure lacked the performance and scalability required to meet growing business demands efficiently. Frequent downtime and slow response times were affecting critical business processes.

Solution: The migration to SAP ECC on HANA on AWS addressed these issues by providing a more powerful and scalable infrastructure. HANA's in-memory database technology accelerated data processing, leading to faster response times and improved operational efficiency. AWS's cloud-based infrastructure enabled auto-scaling, ensuring that resources are dynamically allocated to match workload demands, thus enhancing overall system performance.

• Security: Issue/Concern: Data security was a top priority for WEG's European subsidiary, especially considering the sensitive customer and financial information they handle. The need to comply with stringent data protection regulations, like GDPR, added to the complexity of maintaining robust security measures.

Solution: The migration to AWS brought significant enhancements in data security. AWS offers a wide array of security services and compliance certifications, ensuring that data is protected both at rest and in transit. Data encryption, access controls, and network security measures were implemented to address security concerns. AWS's robust security framework contributed to reinforcing WEG's data protection practices and achieving compliance with regional regulations.

• Reliability: Issue/Concern: Reliability was a critical concern for WEG's European subsidiary as any system downtime could lead to disruptions in operations, impacting customer service and business continuity.

Solution: AWS's infrastructure is designed for high availability and reliability. The migration leveraged AWS's multiple availability zones and fault-tolerant architecture, minimizing the risk of system failures. Additionally, AWS's global network of data centers ensured that WEG's European subsidiary had access to reliable and redundant resources, providing enhanced system uptime and reliability.

• Excellence in Performance: Issue/Concern: WEG sought to achieve excellence in SAP system performance to support its diverse business processes effectively. The legacy infrastructure was struggling to handle the increasing volume of data and transactions.

Solution: SAP HANA's in-memory computing capabilities, combined with AWS's high-performance computing infrastructure, significantly improved the system's performance. The migration reduced data retrieval times, accelerated complex queries, and improved report generation, enabling WEG's European subsidiary to achieve excellence in system performance.

• Cost Optimization: Issue/Concern: WEG aimed to optimize IT infrastructure costs without compromising on performance and security. The existing on-premises setup required substantial investments in hardware, maintenance, and data center operations.

Solution: Moving to AWS's cloud infrastructure enabled WEG's European subsidiary to adopt a more cost-efficient model. The pay-as-you-go pricing allowed them to scale resources based on demand, optimizing costs during low-activity periods. Additionally, the reduction in physical data center requirements and hardware maintenance costs contributed to the overall cost optimization.

Third-party solutions applied:

• • Hashicorp Terraform: Infrasctructure as Code;

  • Hashicorp Vault: Secrets and key management service.

Project schedule:

Project Start: March, 2022

Projet End: December, 2022

Key Results:

• • Performance Improvement: The migration to SAP HANA on AWS is expected to deliver a significant performance boost. Post-migration, the SAP system may experience up to 50% faster data processing and response times compared to the previous on-premises setup.

  • Cost Savings: Moving to the cloud can lead to cost optimization. By transitioning to AWS's cloud-based infrastructure, WEG's European subsidiary could potentially achieve a 30% reduction in overall IT infrastructure costs over the next fiscal year.

  • Scalability: With AWS's scalable cloud resources, WEG's SAP system will be able to handle increased workloads during peak times. The system will scale dynamically, and the auto-scaling features could help handle up to 2 times the previous system's peak load without any performance degradation.

  • Data Security Compliance: The migration will reinforce data security and compliance practices to align with GDPR requirements. As a result, data breach incidents may decrease by at least 80% within the first six months of the migration.

  • Downtime Reduction: During the migration, planned downtime for critical systems is expected to be minimized. The team aims to achieve less than 4 hours of downtime for the entire migration process, resulting in a 60% reduction in downtime compared to initial estimates.

  • Enhanced Disaster Recovery: AWS provides robust disaster recovery capabilities. The migration will lead to an improvement in recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO) by 70% and 80% respectively, ensuring data and application availability during unforeseen events.

  • Increased User Satisfaction: The improved system performance and responsiveness are expected to result in a 20% increase in end-user satisfaction, as measured by post-migration feedback surveys.

  • Efficiency Gains: The streamlined SAP environment on HANA and AWS will lead to enhanced business process efficiency. Specific key processes may see up to a 25% reduction in processing time, translating to better productivity and resource utilization.

  • Environmental Impact: The migration to AWS's cloud infrastructure aligns with WEG's commitment to environmental sustainability. The transition will result in an estimated 45% reduction in carbon emissions associated with data center operations.

  • Global Scalability: The successful migration will serve as a blueprint for future SAP migrations across WEG's other subsidiaries worldwide. This standardized approach could lead to up to 40% faster migration timelines for subsequent projects.

Lessons learned:

• • Thorough Planning is Crucial: The project emphasized the importance of comprehensive planning before initiating the migration. A detailed assessment of the existing infrastructure, business requirements, and potential challenges is vital for creating a robust migration strategy.

  • Engage Stakeholders Early and Continuously: Involving key stakeholders from the beginning and maintaining open communication throughout the project is essential. This helps in understanding specific business needs, aligning expectations, and addressing concerns proactively.