In the following text we will address this question in a special moment – starting a project when the business already knows that the work will be carried out, the project system is needed “immediately", and the answer “where" has not been provided yet …
A well though-out foundation – it is not a good idea to hurry
To ensure the comfort of the project team consisting of both the implementation partner’s consultants and the customer’s employees it is necessary to provide the work foundation, that is, the SAP system it self, as fast as possible and in line with the expectations. With access to the system, subsequent functionalities, tested by users, are launched. It is not uncommon to change business concepts, launch new system functions or even new systems. In the world of project dynamics defined in this way it is very difficult to predict the final shape of the system landscape and sizing as early as at the beginning of the project, which directly affects purchase costs. In the case of on-premise implementations, knowing what the target environment is to look like has a huge impact on the decision about purchasing servers, arrays, and other necessary infrastructure elements. A mistake at this point can be costly and can lead to multiplied costs generated by additional purchases. And what if the project is frozen? The infrastructure costs have already been incurred. Based on many years of our project experience, we strongly recommend our customers – even those who prefer the maintenance of SAP systems in the on-premise variant – to use the option of renting the infrastructure temporarily in the cloud until the final stabilization of the project scope and related infrastructure needs.
Cloud computing – rental of infrastructure or system management?
Let’s consider a very often used infrastructure rental model, i.e. cloud computing. There are many offerings on the market – from global players to local computing centers that provide similar services. An undoubted advantage, especially during an IT project, is the flexibility offered by the cloud – with regard to changing possible technical parameters (an amount of RAM, CPU, disk space, network bandwidth, etc.). In most clouds offered on the market, there is no problem with phasing the project out and opting out of the service from month to month. The experience of our customers who have decided to use the cloud offered by All for One Data Centers, i.e. All for One Managed Cloud, is a combination of flexibility and IT system management services.
All for One Cloud Platform enables you to entrust the service of system administration at the level of virtual servers, operating systems, databases as well as applications – especially SAP – to technical consultants. What is important – in conjunction with the administration services, a service of managing backup copies, systems that enable restoration to a specified point in time, is offered. This is a very important factor that is worth bearing in mind when planning your own cloud-based infrastructure, and that is often overlooked in the design phase. In this way we change the project optics for our customers, allowing them to focus on the business part of the project, while the technical one is our responsibility.
Transparency as a top priority
In the project phase, the key aspect is the flexibility and ability to respond quickly to changing business needs. Cloud computing offers this ability – just like All for One Cloud. Another – no less important – element of the offerings is their transparency. During our talks with customers, we often come across an opinion that cloud offerings lack transparency, which means that customers without their own extensive IT resources find it difficult to estimate the actual costs of maintaining systems in the cloud. The price calculator says one thing, and the received invoice says another. In the All for One Cloud offering, price transparency is the most important element and is fully comprehensible at the level of the financial department. Combined with the flexibility element and another very important factor – a service of technical administration of systems – it is a real and very good alternative of maintaining the project systems.
The project – i.e. a testing time
The project time is a time to think over, determine the target system landscape, and to check out the system maintenance options. Some companies, however less and less often, still fear to move “their own systems" to the cloud. The project time is the perfect time to verify this way of delivering services without a long-term commitment, taking into account many aspects – flexibility, responsiveness to service requests, cost transparency, and so on. Considering all these aspects, we strongly recommend checking out our solution – All for One Managed Cloud.