Editor’s word: Vodafone is migrating its SAP system, the spine for its monetary, procurement and HR providers, to Google Cloud. Vodafone’s SAP system has been operating on-prem for 15 years, throughout which period it has considerably grown in dimension, making this one of many largest and one of the crucial complicated SAP migrations in EMEA. By integrating its cloud-hosted SAP system to its knowledge ocean operating on Google Cloud, Vodafone goals to introduce operational effectivity and drive innovation.
Vodafone: from telco to tech-co
Vodafone, a number one telecommunications firm in Europe and Africa, is accelerating its digital transformation from a telco to a tech-co that gives connectivity and digital providers comparable to 5G providers, IoT, TV and internet hosting platforms. Vodafone is partnering with Google Cloud to allow varied components of this transformation — from constructing one of many business’s largest knowledge oceans on Google Cloud to driving worth from knowledge insights and deploying AI/ML fashions.
One in all Vodafone’s core initiatives is ‘EVO2CLOUD’, a strategic program emigrate its SAP workloads to Google Cloud. Vodafone makes use of SAP for its monetary, procurement and HR providers; it’s the spine of its inner and exterior operations. Excessive availability and reliability are elementary necessities to make sure clean operation with minimal downtime. Furthermore, internet hosting SAP on Google Cloud is a basis for digital innovation and sustaining cybersecurity.
EVO2CLOUD: enabling SAP on Google Cloud
When full, EVO2CLOUD may have been one of many largest SAP to Google Cloud migrations. Over the course of two to 3 years, EVO2CLOUD will allow the transformation of a broad SAP ecosystem composed of greater than 100 functions which have been operating on-prem for the previous 15 years, to a leaner, extra agile and scalable deployment that’s cloud-first and data-led. With EVO2CLOUD, Vodafone goals to enhance operational effectivity, improve its NPS rating and maximize enterprise worth by incorporating SAP into its cloud and knowledge ecosystem, introducing knowledge analytics capabilities to the group and enabling future improvements. As such, EVO2CLOUD is offering standardized SAP options and facilitating the transition to a data-centric mannequin that leverages real-time, dependable knowledge to drive data-based company determination making.
SAP’s working mannequin on Google Cloud
Vodafone foresees a step change in its working mannequin, the place it could leverage an on-demand, extremely performant, and memory-optimized M1 and M2 infrastructure at a low price. Due to infrastructure as code, this improved working mannequin will present elevated capability, excessive availability, flexibility and constant enforcement of safety guidelines. Vodafone can be reshaping its safety structure and leveraging the most recent applied sciences to make sure privateness, knowledge safety, and resilient risk detection mechanisms. Moreover, it expects to extend its release-cycle frequency from bi-annual rollouts to weekly launch cycles, rising agility and introducing options sooner.
Briefly, Vodafone needs to construct agility and adaptability in all that it does — from design all the way in which to supply and operations, and DevSecOps will should be an integral a part of its working mannequin.
Leveraging knowledge to drive innovation
Earlier than migrating to Google Cloud, it was troublesome for Vodafone to extract and make use of its SAP knowledge. Now with the transition to the cloud and with Google Cloud instruments, it could increase the way it makes use of its knowledge for analytics and course of mining. This consists of operations and monitoring alternatives to map knowledge with different exterior sources, e.g., combining HR knowledge from SAP with different non-SAP knowledge, leading to knowledge enrichment and extra enterprise worth. Vodafone is continuous to discover alternatives with Google Cloud to determine much more methods to leverage their knowledge.
Why Google Cloud and what’s Subsequent
In reality, Vodafone just isn’t solely constructing its system on Google Cloud, however fairly sees this undertaking as step one in a three-phase transformation:
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Redesigning the SAP atmosphere and migrating to Google Cloud to make it prepared for integration with Vodafone’s knowledge ocean.
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Integrating SAP with Vodafone’s knowledge ocean that sits on Google BigQuery.
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Leveraging cloud-based knowledge analytics instruments to optimize knowledge utilization, processes, and the way Vodafone operates its enterprise.
Shifting to Google Cloud is in keeping with Vodafone’s data-centric technique, which goals to introduce enhanced options in knowledge analytics and synthetic intelligence, and successfully serves Vodafone’s workers and clients in additional real-time.
Transformation and alter administration
The migration to Google Cloud is underway with Vodafone, Google Cloud, SAP and Accenture working collectively as one crew to make this transformation successful.
“An progressive and strategic initiative, co-shaped with a really built-in partnership. A day by day collaboration amongst 4 events, Vodafone, Google, SAP and Accenture are executing the cloud transformation of a posh SAP property inside a compressed timeframe, for speedy advantages realization and accelerated improvements within the cloud.” – Antonio Leomanni, EVO2CLOUD program lead, Accenture
Vodafone not too long ago celebrated the pilot’s go-live, an necessary milestone on this program. Change administration has been elementary to this transformation, incorporating studying and enablement, monetary governance, lifecycle administration, safety, structure opinions and innovation. By specializing in these disciplines, Vodafone and Google Cloud are making certain the success of this transformation and strengthening their partnership.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the SAP migration aligns with Vodafone’s knowledge technique by enabling a step change in the direction of operational effectivity and innovation, by integrating SAP to Vodafone’s knowledge ocean. The important thing to the success of this ongoing migration is:
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Clear migration necessities and targets – infrastructure availability, safety and resilience.
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Sturdy change administration
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Software of the proper applied sciences and instruments
To be taught extra about how Google Cloud is advancing the telecommunications business go to us right here.