SAP Brings Customers More Choices to Benefit From Virtualization and Cloud Infrastructures

LAS VEGAS, Oct. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Addressing the demands of customers for more choice in managing cloud and virtualized infrastructures, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced short and mid-term product and partner-related plans around cloud computing and virtualization management. As part of its product strategy, the company detailed a new solution designed to manage SAP system landscapes in data centers using modern virtual infrastructure and clouds. With a focus on accelerating technology collaboration with some of its key technology partners, SAP announced that it is helping partners to create new reference architectures for best-of-breed virtualization hardware offerings from Dell and IBM in order to offer more choices to customers seeking to advance their SAP landscapes to virtualized private clouds. SAP's announcement of its collaboration with Cisco, EMC, VMware and the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) was the first such instance of collaboration with technology partners. SAP has seen continued momentum from customers such as Columbia Sportswear Company for running SAP® software on virtualized private cloud architectures in their quests to deliver enhanced agility and reduce total cost of ownership (TCO). Today's announcement was made at SAP® TechEd 2010, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, from October 18-22.

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Landscape Management Solution from SAP for Virtualized and Cloud Infrastructures

Virtualization and cloud technologies are unstoppable, undeniable trends in today's data centers. Virtualization and cloud computing continue to be the top two technology priorities for CIOs, according to Gartner(1), and a recent internal study among SAP customers indicated that 70 percent surveyed are actively evaluating virtual and cloud platforms.

SAP is designing a landscape management solution to help reduce the capital investment and operational costs of SAP systems while improving business agility. The solution aims to simplify and automate the effort required to provision, deploy, monitor and manage SAP systems and landscapes focusing on virtualized and cloud infrastructures for on-premise SAP systems. The landscape management solution is planned to be able to integrate with existing system management frameworks as well as with the SAP® Solution Manager application management solution.

This new solution, being developed with on-going input and involvement from more than 40 customers and partners, is expected to provide a unified view and management of the virtualized infrastructure and the SAP landscape layer. Planned features include SAP system clone and copy framework, automated capacity management, SAP landscape visibility in all layers, and capabilities intended to help simplify the provisioning and management of SAP systems in virtual and cloud infrastructures.

The SAP offering is designed to integrate with the offerings of SAP partners working in a complementary fashion. This solution is planned to be available to customers in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Collaboration With SAP Technology Partners

As companies continue to face pressure to derive greater value and lower costs while driving a strategic IT agenda, virtualization has become a key opportunity to reduce TCO through increased operational efficiencies. New cloud reference architectures from partners are providing this kind of value with validated deployment and management methodologies, bringing SAP's large customer base the flexibility and choice it needs to design infrastructures that support virtualizing new or existing SAP landscapes. By providing support on reference architectures from Dell and IBM in the areas of virtualization, application performance and management and security, SAP plans to make it easier for customers to deploy the solutions — including private or hosted deployment options — that are better suited for their unique needs and will help optimize TCO and improve their business agility. SAP will continue to play an advisory role in the further evolution of these partner-driven architectures as they are validated in customer projects.

"The combination of Dell's Virtual Integrated System architecture, which helps customers move to a private cloud model in their data centers, and SAP enables customers to leverage the agility of the cloud and extend their application investments," said Joyce Mullen, vice president of alliances at Dell. "This technology combination also allows customers to choose and manage right-sized IT resources that best fit their business needs. We look forward to working with SAP to help businesses unlock the benefits of virtualization around the globe."

"Clients are looking to cloud computing to streamline their operations and explore new business opportunities," said Mike Hill, vice president of cloud services, IBM. "The combination of SAP and IBM cloud technology and services can help our joint clients meet their business objectives and drive more value out of their IT investments."

Customer Proof-Points Demonstrate Reduced TCO Through Virtualization

Companies strive to manage right-sized resources for their organizations, empowering their businesses to deliver IT as a service reliably and securely from a common portal, and provision hardware resources based upon business need. As a result, SAP has collaborated with best-of-breed hardware partners to deliver the broader technology choices, multiple deployment options, compatibility and lower TCO that its customers demand in a virtualization reference hardware platform.

Since 1938, Columbia Sportswear Company has been a global leader in the design, sourcing, marketing and distribution of active outdoor apparel, footwear and related accessories and equipment. To become more efficient with its overall IT costs, Columbia selected SAP software and decided to run it on VCE's Vblock™ Integrated Infrastructure Packages.

"Columbia is a new SAP deployment customer, and we chose the Vblock solution to capitalize on proven technology aggregated under a single support agreement," said Dan Hein, director of Global Information Shared Services, Columbia Sportswear Company. "Considering Columbia's advanced sizing, IT landscape design and need for performance optimization across the enterprise, we needed the assurance of a reliably scalable environment. We feel SAP on Vblock will be a catalyst for speeding up time to value of our deployment and improving upon our TCO, and that's why we'll be running our new SAP production system on Vblock."

"SAP continues to deliver key products and technologies that enable customers to reduce TCO and improve the business agility via moving SAP systems into virtual and cloud infrastructures," said Kaj van de Loo, senior vice president, Technology Strategy, SAP AG. "The landscape management solution from SAP will continue to be developed in close collaboration with customers and partners to meet their specific needs."

To register or read more about SAP TechEd 2010, visit www.sapteched.com. To learn more about the communities of innovation at SAP, visit "SAP Communities" on YouTube or the SAP Developer Network site. For further interaction with event participants, become a fan on Facebook and visit the SAP TechEd forums and blogs. For announcements, blog posts, videos and other coverage during the event series, visit the SAP TechEd newsroom at www.sapteched.com/news.

(1)Gartner Executive Programs (EXP), "Leading in Times of Transition: The 2010 CIO Agenda," January 2010

SAP® TechEd 2010 in Berlin, Las Vegas, Bangalore, and Shanghai

More than 14,000 SAP customers, partners and technical experts are expected to convene at SAP® TechEd 2010, the company's largest ecosystem education event series. The conference brings IT managers, software developers, administrators, and business process experts together to see, hear, and share how they and their peers can stay one step ahead of business change. Choosing from hundreds of hours of expert-led sessions and hands-on training, attendees can gain the inspiration and skills they need to maximize impact on their organizations. In its 14th year, SAP TechEd 2010 was held in Berlin, Germany, October 12-14, and is being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 18-22; Bangalore, India, December 1-3; and Shanghai, China, December 1-2. Follow SAP TechEd on Twitter at @sapteched and join the conversation at #SAPTechEd.

About SAP

SAP is the world's leading provider of business software(*), offering applications and services that enable companies of all sizes and in more than 25 industries to become best-run businesses. With more than 102,500 customers in over 120 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE, under the symbol "SAP." For more information, visit www.sap.com.

(*) SAP defines business software as comprising enterprise resource planning, business intelligence, and related applications.

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