Published on the 28/08/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Australian and New Zealand enterprises are the first in the world able to use an enterprise-grade cloud-based version of SAP Hana’s in-memory analytics…
HP and SAP have agreed to offer a cloud-based version of SAP’s Hana in-memory data analytics system to ANZ enterprise customers for a monthly fee – although the solution isn’t entirely elastic as users have to commit to five year contracts. SAP’s Jeremy Goddard, general manager for platform solutions and applications said that about 20 organisations – mainly utilities, big banks and retailers – were currently in discussions about the system.
The SAP Hana system is being offered as a private cloud service out of HP’s Australian data centre. Goddard said HP was also exploring options to host a version of the service in a New Zealand data centre.
SAP Hana has been designed to speed data analysis by performing searches in-memory to deliver near real-time results. For organisations planning to analyse big data collections, in-memory analytics is increasingly touted as the most effective way to deliver business insights swiftly enough so that the business can take action based on those insights.
Analysis which is too slow has been likened to attempting to steer a car using the rear-view mirror.
IDC predicts that enterprise enthusiasm is such that the big data technology and services market will grow at 31.7 percent – seven times faster than the overall ICT market – with revenues reaching $US23.8 billion by 2016.
By offering a cloud-based version of its systems SAP is providing enterprises with the opportunity to deploy big data analytics quickly and as an operating expense rather than capital expense item.
The deal with HP is not the first time the service has been offered from a cloud – it’s possible for example to buy SAP Hana through the Amazon Web Services cloud. Goddard said, however, that the Amazon-based service could only go up to 64 Gbyte of memory which was too limited for many organisations, although he agreed it could deliver a useful proof of concept.
Gartner has already recommended that the way most organisations should get to grips with big data in-memory analytics is to run a proof of concept. It may well be that enterprises will want to try SAP Hana on the Amazon cloud first, before committing to a five year deal for the HP hosted offering.
