In times of global upheaval, many organizations are taking advantage of uncertainty to accelerate their digital transformation exercises. Or, such a project may have come about due to takeover, merger, or an impactful structural transformation. Whatever the case, altering the technology driving any business is far from a minor undertaking.

Technology touches every aspect of the enterprise, so IT and digital infrastructures have to reflect and second-guess the changes through which the business goes. Part of the issue is the cultural realignment that’s sometimes necessary: changing the technology won’t make things change. Technology supports the change made in everyday business processes.

Most organizations today have at least one core IT system that acts as the backbone of the whole enterprise.

For medium and larger businesses, ERP systems like SAP span multiple divisions and departments. SAP often powers collaboration and communication and acts as a single source of truth. From the central ERP, the business decision-makers can create change, and also monitor results, often in real-time.

When a large ERP provider like SAP announced its discontinuation of support for SAP Business Suite on Windows (and UNIX), this formed the catalyst on which many enterprises embarked on larger digital (and business) transformation exercises.

By moving to SAP S/4HANA on SUSE Enterprise Linux, companies are presented with an opportunity to adapt, refresh, and invigorate a significant part of their digital systems.

Is migrating SAP onto a Linux-based platform an overwhelming problem? Perhaps not. Linux is, as IT professionals know, running most applications and services already, especially those in the large public clouds. But nevertheless, the transformation over to a new platform, for such a business-critical system, might seem overwhelming or risky to businesses.

The great news is that there are several specialists that will not only help organizations transition their SAP solutions to a Linux-based cloud, but also help and advise if that change is made in-house. Furthermore, the provider of the fastest, most secure, and most optimized SAP solutions on Linux is, without doubt, SUSE. This is a company that always puts business first, and so can guide the entire process.

As something of an SAP specialist, and with long experience at an enterprise level of helping organizations with their IT strategies, the company offers overarching reinvigoration or reinvention of IT right across the enterprise.

So before you make the leap from SAP Business Suite to S/4HANA on Linux, there are a few thought processes to run through, according to the company. Regardless of your organization’s size, SUSE knows the central (and vital) role SAP plays in the way your business runs. Therefore, either with the company’s help or as part of your internal strategizing, you should consider:

Determine which is the best migration path for your business

Some organizations may take SAP’s actions as a signal to move everything into the cloud. SUSE can help decide whether this should be done wholesale (rarely), or more likely, in a stepwise, cautious manner, with extensive road-testing and sandboxing.

Determining that migration plan will be a core part of the digital transformation process – a journey that’s effectively continuous in today’s business environments.

Assessment of the skills already in-house, or required

Are the right training programs in place? Does your team possess the skills both to migrate SAP to Linux, and indeed, to fully support and implement any further digital changes, upgrades, reassessments happening at the same time? Is any outside help required, and if so, should that be on a part-time or fixed-term basis?

Realize the benefits of Linux and open source

Any return on investment of a digital transformation project should take into account the potential opportunities for optimization and efficiency offered by an open yet established platform like SUSE Enterprise Linux. Linux is both powerful and extensible, and by nature, completely personalize-able according to an enterprise’s individual requirements.

Its platform-agnostic nature is a plus-point, but not all Linux distributions are the same. SUSE has optimized its offerings for SAP and holds many benchmarks for the ERP – this is a market leader in its field.

Plan, perform risk analysis, test

Risk analysis, ahead of time, helps decision-makers avoid obvious mistakes. The team at SUSE have, to use the phrase “been there, done that.” With on-tap expertise and the technology to produce massively positive results, even for enterprises with no open-source experience, the planning phase can be a guided process.

Options, possibilities

The move to SAP S/4HANA opens up many new possibilities offered by the open-source Linux. But only SUSE also offers tight integration with SAP. There’s simply no need, in any case, to jump into the unknown alone.

With expertise across multiple platforms, in IoT, Edge, DevOps, systems, networks, and cloud, the SUSE team brings technology and business together.

If your business has SAP at its core, Tech Wire Asia recommends this supplier of SAP migration knowledge and enablement. Whether it’s a full IT transformation or the first steps into big data, you’ll need a technically-accomplished, but business-focused partner to drive the project.

If you recognize that an SAP redeployment onto Linux is the perfect opportunity to develop a fuller, more impactful digital realignment (if not a full transformation), get in touch with a representative local to you today.