SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, customer edition, is now available on Lenovo’s TruScale infrastructure-as-a-service platform.
The two companies introduced the new option during Lenovo’s Tech World 2020 conference, which is taking place online today and tomorrow.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud is a privately managed version of SAP’s S/4HANA ERP solution that users can host in SAP’s data centers or in a public cloud environment. The customer edition gives buyers the additional option of deploying the system on their own hardware. A version compatible with Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s consumption-based GreenLake solution shipped in August. Today’s announcement means that businesses with data sovereignty requirements, latency concerns, or “data entanglement” issues can run the product on Lenovo’s usage-priced TruScale platform as well.
“Simply said, it is challenging to separate the SAP S/4HANA application from the data that is needed to move applications and data to a hyperscaler cloud in a remote data center,” said Peter Pluim, executive vice president and global head of enterprise cloud services and SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, in a media statement. “With Lenovo TruScale, customers do not need to move their SAP workloads, yet they can still secure the merits of a modern, OPEX billed cloud infrastructure.”
Unlike similar offerings, TruScale imposes no minimum requirements, according to Kirk Skaugen, a Lenovo executive vice president who is also president of Lenovo’s Data Center Group.
“You pay only for what you use, can scale your resources up and down dynamically, while delivering that solution either on or off prem. It really is a no compromise solution,” said Skaugen in a Tech World presentation.
Lenovo is in the midst of a concerted effort to expand its single-digit U.S. data center market share. In April, the company introduced a new data center partner program with an overhauled benefits program designed to provide richer rewards to members who help drive sales growth.
According to Skaugen, the new program attracted over 1,000 net new partners in the first quarter of Lenovo’s current fiscal year, which ended in June. The company also doubled the number of partners at the new program’s top-tier platinum level during that period, according to Steve Biondi, Lenovo’s North American channel chief, in an earlier conversation with ChannelPro.
Lenovo has maintained a 92% on time customer delivery schedule for data center orders this year despite the coronavirus pandemic and other challenges, according to Skaugen. The company introduced a “partner stimulus package” featuring a more predictable flat-rate incentive scheme and extended credit terms in April to help partners manage cash flow during the coronavirus-related recession.
The Data Center Group and Intelligent Devices Group jointly launched a revised partner portal in July.
