SXiQ completes first wave of SAP migration for leading water company

SXiQ completes first wave of SAP migration for leading water company

SXiQ has completed the first wave of a large scale SAP migration for a principal supplier of water, wastewater, drainage, and bulk government irrigation services.

Business challenge

This leading water supplier was utilising on-premise SAP, running on aging IT infrastructure, in an internal data centre. SAP is a mission critical application for the organisations employees to access shared common data and the existing version was end of life. The business needed assurance of a clear path forward for SAP.

This organisations operating model is to move critical applications to the AWS cloud, and it was decided that the best option was to start migrating SAP which would ultimately offer a better service to the end users who needed to access the critical data SAP contained. It was important during the migration not to affect the end users directly and create a seamless change management process

 Why SXiQ:

This leading water supplier looked to SXiQ as their hybrid cloud partner based on our deep experience in operating in AWS and SAP, as well as and migrating and modernising in the cloud.

The customer trusted in the engagement and understood the importance of having experts that understand the challenges SAP migrations can present, with the ability to successfully enable the customer organisation to operate in a cloud environment.

SXiQ was chosen as the partner for the migration project because of:

• Our deep expertise and technical leadership in providing the strategy on how SAP would be migrated.
• Our flexible delivery model was able to adjust and pivot as business requirements changed and ensured a smooth and timely migration.
• Our strength in cloud and datacentre technology.

 Solution

SXiQ’s solution aimed to reduce SAP costs to the organisation and offered a better user experience in accessing SAP data for the end users, which will help accommodate better business decisions.

The SXiQ team worked closely with the customers team to deliver the following multi-wave migration solution which includes:

• Migration of the SAP application off aging infrastructure to the AWS cloud to improve the user experience.
• As this is a large migration the solution has been broken down into waves and the first wave was completed in November 2022. SXiQ is currently migrating waves two and three, with an anticipated completion in 2023.
• Configuration of 67 SAP servers in AWS
• Migration of 5TBs of SAP data from 7 applications (1 full and 6 incremental backups transferred)
• Approximately 170 integrations (SAP and non-SAP)
• Document and transition support so the application could be managed by a third part in the cloud

 Business outcomes

Wave One of the SAP migration, completed in November 2022, resulted in:

• Improved scalability of the SAP application which is critical and used to share data across the organisation;
• Better data management for end users who rely on real on real-time data to make informed decisions;
• Reduced costs within the IT department as a result of hosting SAP on AWS cloud.

This was the largest move of SAP services that the water supplier has done in its history. Through a collaborative team environment, with focused energy, SXiQ and this organisation delivered Wave One of the complex SAP migration with only minor incidents – all related to the need to tune in the new cloud environment. For such a large change to go through so smoothly is testament to the expert delivery and positive team environment.

 Key success metrics

Wave one of the SAP migration delivered:

• Configuration of servers to the cloud and tested to ensure there was no impact to users and business as usual to access mission critical data.
• Migration of 5TBs of SAP data from 7 applications (1 full and 6 incremental backups transferred), ensuring they were functional and meeting business needs so users were not impacted by the migration and could still access all functions of SAP.
• Zero down time within business hours as a result of the migration.

Waves two and three of the migration are currently in progress.

 Client testimonial

“The SXiQ team not only rose to the challenge of delivering the complex Wave One SAP migration, but they also empowered healthy debate, focused energy and developed a tremendous team environment. With the support of SXiQ, we were able to commit to a migration date and meet it, with very minor business impact. The success of Wave One is a testament to the expert skills and commitment of the SXiQ team. We are looking forward to working together on the next stages of this project.”

Project Manager – IT