During Actifio Data Driven 2020, I had the pleasure of interviewing Patricia (Trish) Vue from SAP. Trish is the head of the backup as self-service (BaaS) solution for the multi-cloud team inside of SAP, supporting all backup solutions for HANA and any other databases in the cloud. Our discussion focused on understanding the importance of cloud to SAP, understanding the critical role that SAP HANA plays in SAP’s strategy, as well as how SAP has diligently worked to provide HANA services in cloud. Lastly, we touched on the importance of data protection for mission-critical databases running in cloud environments and what the “Next Normal” means for Trish in regards to her role and responsibilities at SAP.
My first question to Trish was about the importance of SAP HANA to SAP’s strategic initiatives. “Our mission here at SAP for SAP HANA is to provide the data foundation for every business and for every professional to become a data superpower,” says Trish. SAP HANA is so critical to SAP’s strategy that they recognized early on that integrating it with the major cloud vendors was a must. As their customers move to cloud for other workloads, it’s a simple transition for SAP HANA as well. Trish agrees. “It’s a great strategy now to move SAP HANA into the cloud space and offer our customers SAP HANA anywhere, everywhere in the world.”
Our conversation moved to the coming together of SAP HANA and cloud. As technical lead for the team, Trish had some great insight. “Some of the challenges that we see on-boarding into the clouds are the larger instances that would be required in each of the regions. Not only that, high availability and disaster recovery is a major component.” In regards to high availability and disaster recovery, SAP treats them just like any customer would for their on-premises, mission critical HANA databases. “Using a backup solution that would be able to recover instantly to reduce RTO and bring us back to our RPO that we actually needed and required for our business customer is important. This is actually number one to ensure that when we move into the cloud, we do have the insurability of having a backup solution that’s going to work with us,” says Trish.
I’ve heard this before as well. It’s complicated enough that customers are running mission critical databases in the cloud. Ensuring they have a data protection solution that can meet backup and disaster recovery SLAs that they would normally get on-premises is essential. Otherwise, it’s a non-starter. Therefore, it’s great to hear that it’s a huge focus for SAP when running HANA in the cloud. Spoiler alert – the data protection solution that SAP is using is Actiifo (surprise, surprise)! End users won’t know it, but Actifio is responsible for backup and disaster recovery of SAP HANA DBaaS solutions running in the cloud. We’re very proud of this partnership and to be able to contribute to SAP’s success!
We then discussed the impact of COVID-19 on SAP HANA’s cloud strategy. SAP is seeing a surge in demand, so being able to provide DBaaS to their customers in a variety of cloud providers has proven beneficial. In fact, Trish mentioned “we’re able to deploy HANA much faster than you would actually do on the on-premises world.” This is due in part to the flexibility of cloud, as well as the deep integration and collaboration that SAP has worked on to get to this point. Another win for SAP’s customers!
Lastly, I asked Trish what the “Next Normal” looks like for her and SAP. While there will certainly be some challenges and learning experiences, she is confident that SAP can deliver. “We are the leader in working alongside with changes and working with our customers and making sure that the agility is there to provide them with the necessary means, meaning that they have the powerhouse of our data analytics right at their fingertips. We continue to support them in high availability, scalability, and disaster recovery in any infrastructure.” Well said!
I really enjoyed my discussion with Trish at Actifio Data Driven 2020. SAP is well positioned to provide DBaaS in the cloud with SAP HANA for their customers’ many needs. My thanks to Trish for participating, and we here at Actifio look forward to our continued success working together to ensure peace of mind for SAP’s customers!
If you’d like to watch the full video, check it out here.
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