Introducing SAP Infrastructure as a Service

To grasp the foundational concepts of SAP Infrastructure as a Service, we first need to familiarize ourselves with the following terminology:

• Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Infrastructure as a Service is a cloud computing model that provides on-demand access to computing resources such as servers, storage, networking, and virtualization.
• Hyperscaler- Massive cloud operations that provide a variety of services. Examples include Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Services, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Alibaba Cloud.
• Application programming interface (API) - API is the acronym for application programming interface — a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.
• SAP’s 4+1 Strategy- SAP uses 4 hyperscalers (AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud) in addition to SAP’s own infrastructure, the +1, called SAP Infrastructure as a Service.

Now, let's look at a short video that explores a possible business case for why SAP Infrastructure as a Service may be essential for your business needs.

SAP Infrastructure as a Service provides a comprehensive cloud solution, offering a suite of features tailored to streamline and enhance your business operations.

• SAP Infrastructure as a Service delivers the most stable, easy to consume, cost-effective SAP-owned infrastructure services for your cloud business needs.
• SAP Infrastructure as a Service offers self-service capabilities for customers to manage their projects.
• Both SAP-internal as well as customer applications run on SAP Infrastructure as a Service, benefiting from the highest availability for SAP applications.
• SAP Infrastructure as a Service replaces more than 20 legacy infrastructure stacks and offers 22 API services in a single infrastructure as a service platform.
• OpenStack API services support foundational functionalities (computing, storage, image creation, networking) and rely on best-of-breed hardware vendors (Lenovo, Dell, Cisco, Arista).
• The platform includes 11 in-house services tailored to address a wide range of scenarios, including SAP S/4HANA, machine learning, and high availability needs.
• In comparison to the hyperscalers, SAP Infrastructure as a Service offers stable API availability as well as a target Service Level Objective (SLO) which is equivalent to the lowest of hyperscaler objectives, at the minimum.