Dominique Heller

5 Years of SAP on Azure – Postponed

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The event is postponed until further notice

The health of our customers, partners and employees has the highest priority for ITPC AG. Against the background of the current situation regarding the spread of the coronavirus, we are therefore postponing our 5-year SAP on Azure celebration until further notice.

About the event

In March 2020, ITPC is celebrating 5 years of SAP on Azure in Switzerland! In these past 5 years, we closed over 35 projects in diverse countries and different industries, helping our customers to accelerate their digital transformation, increase flexibility of their SAP landscape and reach cost savings.

Agenda:

  • SAP on Azure in Switzerland: How did ITPC and the market develop in the past 5 years?
    Vincenzo Boesch, Founder and CEO at ITPC AG
  • Empower every person and organization on the planet to achieve more. Microsoft’s partners like ITPC, make more possible
    Thomas Winter, Head of Partner & SMEs – Member of the Executive Board of Microsoft Switzerland
  • Panel discussion
    SAP on Azure customers
  • Technical insight to SAP on Azure: How do we ensure security for our customers?
    Thomas Brülhart, SAP Technology Consultant, SAP BASIS Project Team Lead at ITPC AG
  • Microsoft Vision – SAP on Azure
    Harald Bolbach, Strategic Pursuit Team at Microsoft Corporation
  • Between hype, fear and reality – Which topics are driving digital transformation?
    Benjamin Talin, Intl. Keynote Speaker | CEO at MoreThanDigital & 361 Group

New date to be announced

The new event date will be displayed on this site as soon as it has been fixed.

Participants who have already registered to the event will be informed immediately of the new date.

If you also do not want to miss any updates regarding this event, write us an email at events@itpccorp.com and we will keep you informed!

Dominique Heller

ITPC reaches five-year milestone of enabling customers’ digital transformation with SAP on Microsoft Azure

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Read the official press release here (German): https://www.netzwoche.ch/news/2020-03-02/sap-on-azure-in-der-schweiz-was-geschah-bisher-und-wie-geht-es-weiter

Swiss-based ITPC AG, a Microsoft Partner with Gold Cloud Platform Competency specializing in SAP basis consulting, this month announced that it has reached the important five-year milestone of enabling digital transformation for customers with SAP solutions on Microsoft Azure. The company helped pioneer SAP solutions running on Azure in Switzerland in 2015, and today is a leading provider of the solution throughout Europe. ITPC will commemorate this five-year achievement with an event on March 19, 2020 at Microsoft Switzerland in Wallisellen.

In the five years since ITPC first began working with Azure, the company has observed a pronounced change in the Swiss market’s view on cloud for SAP landscapes.

Cloud receptiveness in Switzerland has evolved dramatically in recent years. When we started working with Microsoft, many organizations did not know about the benefits of deploying their SAP landscape on Microsoft Azure and were skeptical about running productive workloads on a public cloud platform. Today, they’re following the global trend as everything, including business-critical applications such as SAP, moves to the cloud. We support our customers in their digital transformation, as they are able to quickly adapt their SAP infrastructure to new market demands and innovations thanks to SAP on Azure.

Vincenzo Boesch, Director and CEO of ITPC AG

With SAP becoming an increasingly integral part of a company’s business, having a dynamic SAP environment has likewise become a prerequisite for success. Cloud computing provides organizations with the agility to scale and adapt their business models to market opportunities, creating the foundation for a flexible infrastructure that fosters innovation and growth. By moving their SAP infrastructure to Azure, organizations free themselves from the restrictions of physical infrastructure, enabling them to continuously transform and adapt their SAP systems and ultimately push forward with their digital transformation. Azure also helps deliver the adaptability that current ERP systems require, creating room for innovation, such as the upcoming S/4HANA transformation. Additionally, from a financial perspective, because the cloud follows a consumption-based model, operating expenses are typically significantly lower than an equivalent on-premises infrastructure, while hardware investment and maintenance costs all but disappear—providing companies with a compelling economic incentive to move to the cloud on top of the performance reasons.

Since first introducing the solution in 2015, ITPC has completed over 35 SAP projects on Azure, installed over 250 SAP instances on Azure, and currently has 15 customers with production SAP workloads in the cloud. To commemorate its five years of success at helping customers digitally transform their business with SAP on Azure, ITPC is hosting a celebratory event with Microsoft on March 19, 2020 in Wallisellen. At this event, attendees will hear directly from organizations that have already completed their SAP on Azure transformation as they discuss their journey and the advantages of Azure. In addition, Microsoft will provide insights into its vision for Azure and the role of partners, while a special guest speaker will reveal how organizations should approach the next steps of their digital transformation.

We are pleased to have specialized partners such as ITPC on whom we can rely to accelerate digital transformation for SAP customers by helping them transition to the cloud. Thanks to ITPC’s deep knowledge and experience with SAP on Azure, our customers consistently and smoothly evolve their SAP experience to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, ensuring customer satisfaction.

Thomas Winter, OCP Lead at Microsoft Corp.

Register for the event here

5 Jahre SAP on Azure
Dominique Heller

ITPC Company Overview

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Who is ITPC Group? Where are we and what do we do?

Visit the ‘About us‘ section or watch the short video to get an understanding of who we are and what we do in less than 2 minutes:

Contact us now for more information or to start your SAP project!

Dominique Heller

SAP S/4HANA Deadline extended from 2025 to 2027

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SAP has announced that it will provide mainstream maintenance for its core applications of SAP Business Suite 7 until the end of 2027, extending the previously set S/4HANA transformation-deadline of 2025 by two years.

It’s crucial to highlight that the mainstream maintenance has merely been extended and that the S/4HANA implementation still lies ahead of all organizations that have not yet migrated to the new generation of SAP Business Suite. If organizations that run SAP are not on S/4HANA by 2028, they need to pay extra fees for the mainstream maintenance from then onwards.

This extension does not mean it’s time to rest!

‘This announcement is not a signal to slow down. This is now the time to commence plans and move forward so that SAP customers can harness business value from what is the most significant technology change in SAP’s recent history.’

GEO Scott, CEO, Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG)

Implementing S/4HANA cannot be done in a day. It takes a lot of planning and involves numerous of different departments, as it concerns big topics such as licenses and the organization’s cloud strategy. Such a migration is complex and takes time – so you should start now.

SOLHANA – Solutions for HANA

‘S/4HANA is the architecture and platform of the future for our customers.’

Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board, SAP Product Engineering, SAP SE

Start benefiting from the full innovation potential from SAP by starting your S/4HANA transformation with SOLHANA – Solutions for HANA. We are a single point of contact that accompany you in your transformation journey, covering expertise in both SAP and Linux.

Contact us now to begin the evaluation of your optimal pathway to S/4HANA.

Read the official news here: https://news.sap.com/2020/02/sap-s4hana-maintenance-2040-clarity-choice-sap-business-suite-7/

Dominique Heller

Crayon – SAP Licensing Breakfast Roadshow 2020

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Learn the latest and most important news about SAP and how to optimize your SAP licensing at our Breakfast Roadshow. The event will take place in three locations in February 2020 and be hosted by our partner, Crayon.

Dates and venues:

The roadshows start at 08:15 and end at 11:45.

Agenda:

  • SAP Basic Knowhow: Licensing Basics, SAP Evolution, Contracts
  • SAP licensing: licensing models, pricing, discounts, maintenance
  • New licensing model: Indirect usage / digital access
  • Measurement: Reporting Process (SLAW2)
  • Crayon Services: SAP Optimization Service “SOS”, Content, Process, Results
  • ITPC – SAP on Azure: Background, Advantages and Customer Examples/Scenarios, Migration to Azure, HANA on Azure
Register now

Register now to secure your spot: Registration page

Observation: the event will take place in German.

Dominique Heller

The Microsoft Cloud is live in Switzerland

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Read the official news here: https://news.microsoft.com/de-ch/2019/08/28/the-microsoft-cloud-switzerland-is-up-and-running/

The two Microsoft cloud datacenters in the regions Zurich (Switzerland North) and Geneva (Switzerland West) are up and running! As of now, Microsoft offers data residency for security and control along with redundancy across the Zurich and Geneva areas. While Azure and Office 365 are anticipated to be available in Switzerland in the coming months, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform are expected to come in 2020.

‘For us, the Microsoft Cloud Data Centers are an investment in Switzerland – for Switzerland. In conversations with our customers, it became very clear that local data storage is extremely important for them. We are very proud that we are now able to guarantee that.’

Marianne Janik, General Manager of Microsoft Switzerland

The demand for the Microsoft Cloud in Switzerland has been proven high, coming from all sizes of organizations and across all industries. The new Swiss datacenters help organizations comply with regulatory requirements, as it achieves in-country disaster recovery with geo-redundancy.

The Swiss Microsoft Cloud Early Adopters

Microsoft Azure services are now available for a selection of Early Adopters, which comprises more than 30 customers and partner organizations. Why are they deploying the Swiss Microsoft Cloud?

  • UBS Group: The world’s largest wealth manager is using the cloud to modernize some core business applications, leverage digital channels on a global level and enable their digital transformation.
  • Swiss Re Group: The Swiss reinsurance organization uses the cloud to deploy innovative solutions, to process data and to operate critical applications.
  • Die Mobiliar: The Swiss oldest private insurance company deploys the Microsoft cloud to increase scalability, security, performance and stability of its IT systems and applications.
  • BKW Group, the international energy and infrastructure sets on technologies such as Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and Blockchain to overcome the challenges of the energy sector, such as energy efficiency in buildings. The new datacenters enable them to stay compliant and store the data securely in Switzerland.
  • Skyguide: with the Cloud, the Swiss air navigation service provider is able to scale air traffic control to millions of drones and support the growth of the ecosystem through its integration with other applications.
  • City of Zug: as the city administration requires data to be stored within the Swiss national borders, deploying Office 365 in the cloud now became possible.

How can you move to the Swiss datacenters?

Was data residency keeping you from deploying your SAP landscape in the cloud? Now this is not an issue anymore! Start planning your SAP on Azure migration now with us.

We want to calculate your individual SAP on Azure business case for you – all we need for that is the details of your SAP landscape, by filling in the following excel template: http://www.saponazure.cloud/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/06/SAP_System_Questionnaire_v1.4.xlsx with this information, we are able to tell you how much it will cost.

For more information on our SAP on Azure services, visit https://saponazure.cloud or SAP on Cloud!

Source: https://news.microsoft.com/de-ch/2019/08/28/the-microsoft-cloud-switzerland-is-up-and-running/

Dominique Heller

Microsoft’s official launch of the Swiss Datacenters: 29. August 2019

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Microsoft has announced in March 2018 the expansion of its cloud services from new datacenters in Switzerland (Microsoft announcement). After a long wait and great anticipation, the time has finally come to jointly celebrate the launch of the Swiss datacenters!

Join this celebration at Microsoft’s official remote launch event: Innovate Switzerland! The event will take place on Thursday, 29. August in Geneva, Bern and Zurich and will be broadcasted to us, so you can be fully informed about the new datacenters.

What?

Microsoft’s official launch of the Swiss Datacenters

When?

29. August 2019, 10:00 – 11:00

Where?

Microsoft Teams

Agenda?

How the availability of the Microsoft Datacenters can unleash / enable innovation in Switzerland without compromising on security and data residency: Sharing customer examples from across industries and Swiss regions; discussing the importance of ICT-driven innovation for Swiss companies

Obs: the broadcast will take place in English

Register now:

Registration is not possible anymore, as the event has already taken place.

Read more about SAP on Cloud here: https://www.itpcgroup.com/services/sap-on-cloud/

Dominique Heller

Why and how are SAP customers moving to S/4HANA?

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IDC conducted a study with 300 SAP clients to understand better if and how they are preparing for their S/4HANA transformation. The participants of this survey, which was published in April 2019, were from organizations with 1’000-25’000 employees across multiple industries and covering 10 countries.

Here are the key findings:

Why are companies moving to S/4HANA?

54% of the companies are planning on deploying SAP S/4HANA within the next three years. The following reasons were mentioned:

  • S/4HANA is part of the organization’s digital transformation strategy
  • S/4HANA gives more speed and agility to the organization’s systems
  • They require innovation
  • They need to be able to scale fast
  • S/4HANA is part of SAP’s future strategy

How are companies moving to S/4HANA?

Once the decision to implement s/4HANA is taken, the organization needs to choose the migration path. The best way to move to SAP S/4HANA is dependent on the organization’s current SAP landscape and requirements for S/4HANA.

Some organizations – for  example those running earlier versions of SAP software that have few elements which can be reused in an SAP S/4HANA environment – may elect not to convert, but instead to opt for a “greenfield” installation that requires data migration from the old system into a completely new SAP S/4HANA environment.

Others prefer the “brownfield” conversion is the likely path: upgrading live systems and reusing existing system elements selectively.

What is the chosen pathway of the organizations in this study?

  • 33% will be a system conversion
  • 23% will be a new implementation
  • 77% will use a partner to assist in the S/4HANA transformation

What are the benefits of migrating to S/4HANA?

The advantages of going through this transformation can be grouped into two categories, which include:

From a business perspective:

  • Improved agility
  • Digitally enhanced and digitally enabled the business
  • Improved visibility
  • Optimized processes
  • Encouraged innovation
  • Reduced costs

For the IT Organization:

  • Optimized processes (such as maintenance, HA/DR)
  • Improved agility
  • Allows IT to offer innovation to the business
  • Digitally enabled the organization
  • Reduced costs
  • Simplified the landscape (fewer systems to manage)

How can you move to S/4HANA?

SOLHANA – short for “Solutions for HANA” – is a single point of contact for organizations searching for a service provider to plan, implement and operate SAP S/4HANA in their organization. We provide fast, professional and reliable support in line with your requirements so you can fully concentrate on your core business.

Contact us now so you can start preparing for your S/4HANA migration.

For more information, visit www.solhana.com or S/4HANA Transformation!

Source: https://www.itpcgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/SAP-Customers-on-the-Move-to-SAP-S_4HANA.pdf

Dominique Heller

Microsoft Datacenters in the Middle East

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Microsoft’s new datacenter regions

Microsoft is investing strongly in the global digital transformation and economic growth, launching two new datacenter regions in the Middle East. The cloud services are being delivered by the two new cloud locations, in Abu Dhabi and Dubai:

ME MS Cloud regions
Microsoft launched two new datacenter regions in the Middle East.

Azure and Office 365 are already available from the Middle East, since the launch of the datacenters last week, with Dynamics 365 and Power Platform following by the end of 2019.

The importance of the cloud

Microsoft’s cloud already serves more than a billion customers and 20 million businesses across the world. With these two new regions, the organization aims to increase this number even further – as a recent Microsoft study unveiled that 70% of the organizations in the Middle East plan to migrate their IT infrastructure to the cloud by 2020.

The two new datacenters are especially interesting for government organizations and enterprises residing in the UAE that need to comply with their in-country regulations. Having cloud regions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai allows for them to transition to the cloud while maintaining security and meeting compliance needs.

Furthermore, these new regions are expected to create more than half a million jobs in the region by 2022:

“We are working closely with governments in the region to ensure both businesses and individuals are appropriately skilled to take advantage of these opportunities, and we are aligning a number of these initiatives to our new datacentres in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.”

Samer Abu-Ltaif, President of Microsoft Middle East and Africa.

What are you waiting for to start your SAP datacenter transformation?

By moving your SAP landscape to the cloud, organizations are able to:

  • Achieve significant cost savings in CAPEX and OPEX;
  • Increase their ability to react to innovations and
  • Prepare for the upcoming S/4HANA migration.

Have we aroused your interest in migrating your SAP landscapes to the Microsoft Cloud? Contact us so we can discuss further advantages personally!: https://www.itpcgroup.com/contact/

For more information on SAP on Cloud visit: SAP on Cloud or www.saponazure.cloud

Source: The official Microsoft announcement about the new datacenter regions in the Middle East: https://news.microsoft.com/en-xm/features/microsoft-opens-two-more-datacentre-regions-in-the-middle-east-and-africa-strengthening-its-cloud-footprint-in-the-region/

Dominique Heller

Microsoft Swiss Data Centers: Update

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Today, we were invited by Microsoft Switzerland to a very special event dedicated to all communication and marketing managers from the Microsoft Partner Network. The goal of this information- and networking-event was to inform us in first-hand about the current status of the Swiss data centers and the planned activities for the launch of the highly anticipated Microsoft Cloud in Switzerland.

Much has happened since Microsoft first communicated the launch of the Cloud in Switzerland, but they have been quite secretive about the details of this launch. Unfortunately, there are still many things they cannot tell us (yet) and others that, even though we know, we cannot share with you (yet). But here is what we you can know so far:

Microsoft is right on schedule

Even though there is no specific and public date yet, Microsoft is on schedule with the plan: the launch of the Swiss datacenters will take place in 2019! We will be informed of the exact launch date in time and the launch itself will be, of course, celebrated and communicated accordingly.

Advantages of the Swiss datacenter

The Microsoft Cloud in Switzerland brings many advantages, from which Microsoft highlights the following:

  • Compliance
  • Data residency
  • Performance

The Swiss datacenters are especially interesting for highly regulated industries which require for the data to be saved and remain locally. Microsoft’s new Cloud is FINMA-compliant, displaying the highest security standards.

Two locations in Switzerland

Microsoft is launching two data centers, which are paired within Switzerland, based in the greater Zurich- and Geneva-areas:

For security reasons, the exact location is kept under high confidentiality – even within Microsoft itself. However, both data centers are deliberately set up at a distance of approximately 200km from each other for geo-redundancy reasons. This ensures, for instance, disaster recovery scenarios.

Have we aroused your interest in migrating your SAP landscapes to the Microsoft Cloud based in Switzerland? Contact us so we can discuss further advantages personally!: https://www.itpcgroup.com/contact/

For more information on SAP on Azure, visit: www.saponazure.cloud

Read the official Microsoft announcement of the Swiss datacenters: https://news.microsoft.com/de-ch/2018/03/14/microsoft-cloud-services-expand-in-europe-including-new-swiss-datacenters/