SAP Announces HANA Enterprise Cloud

SAP has unveiled a new service it calls HANA Enterprise Cloud. When the service rolls out later this year, it will allow organizations to access SAP’s HANA in-memory database on a cloud computing basis.

V3’s James Dohnert reported, “SAP has announced that it will start to offer its HANA analytics database platform as an enterprise cloud service. HANA Enterprise Cloud will allow users to run SAP Business Suite applications in the cloud. SAP says the by bringing its wares to the cloud it can reduce prices and offer users increased flexibility.”

Computerworld’s Chris Kanaracus added, “With the service, SAP is tearing down the assumption ‘that on the cloud you can only have simple applications,’ said SAP executive board member and technology chief Vishal Sikka in an interview prior to the announcement. Such a notion is ‘nonsense,’ he added.”

Fortune’s Michal Lev-Ram noted, “A limited cloud-based version of HANA was already available through Amazon (AMZN) Web Services. But SAP (SAP) says customers will now be able to access applications powered by HANA—think enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management tools—via SAP’s own cloud, which consists of seven data centers around the globe. Next week, the Germany-based company is expected to unveil more cloud-related announcements and share additional details on this new flavor of HANA at its annual customer conference in Florida.”

According to the SAP press release, “Core SAP(R) Business Suite applications powered by SAP HANA, announced earlier this year, have been met with widespread interest and enthusiasm. Customers around the world recognize the value of running their enterprise in real time. In recent years, many have been quick to embrace the numerous advantages offered by the cloud. With today’s announcement, SAP will bring together the ease of the cloud with the industry-leading innovation and performance of SAP HANA in a simple and powerful model.”