Microsoft Azure vs. SAP HANA Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Azure
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.
$29
per month
SAP HANA Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
SAP HANA is an application that uses in-memory database technology to process very large amounts of real-time data from relational databases, both SAP and non-SAP, in a very short time. The in-memory computing engine allows HANA to process data stored in RAM as opposed to reading it from a disk which means that the data can be accessed in real time by the applications using HANA. The product is sold both as an appliance and as a cloud-based software solution.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Editions & Modules
Developer
$29
per month
Standard
$100
per month
Professional Direct
$1000
per month
Basic
Free
per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.Includes a one year free trial.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Features
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Azure
8.5
Ratings
6% above category average
SAP HANA Cloud
-
Ratings
Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Dynamic scaling8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Elastic load balancing9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-configured templates8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Monitoring tools8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Pre-defined machine images8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating system support8.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Security controls9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Automation8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
8.9
(0 ratings)
9.3
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.5
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Availability
6.8
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
4.5
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft AzureSAP HANA Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
Actually, migrating to Microsoft Azure is a good solution for almost any situation, especially when all components of your network are ready to become cloud-based. The only drawback I personally encounter frequently is that older software packages cannot always be easily picked up and moved to Microsoft Azure in an optimal manner.
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SAP HANA Cloud works effectively with SMBs or small to medium-sized enterprises and requires an affordable, scalable ERP system. Companies that must implement SAP S/4 HANA as soon as possible. Companies looking to take advantage of the newest innovation from SAP are looking to cut expenses on their IT infrastructure. SAP HANA CLOUD is not suitable for 1. Large companies with intricate operational procedures. 2. Companies with stringent policies regarding data residency. 3. Businesses with a sizable SAP landscape on premises 4. Companies must closely integrate SAP HANA CLOUD with non-SAP systems.
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Pros
  • Azure simply provides end to end life cycle. Starting from the development to automated deployment, you will find [a] bunch of options. Custom hook-points allow [integration] on-premise resources as well.
  • Excellent documentation around all the services make it really easy for any novice. Overall support by [the] community and Azure Technical team is exceptional.
  • BOT Services, Computer Vision services, ML frameworks provide excellent results as compare to similar services provided by other giants in the same space.
  • Azure data services provide excellent support to ingest data from different sources, ETL, and consumption of data for BI purpose.
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  • SAP HANA Cloud can help drive data analytics, data migration, and data management exceptionally well.
  • It offers an integration service that lets you integrate data and processes with 3rd party app or any other cloud app.
  • In-memory capability helps in faster data processing.
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Cons
  • In our experience, Azure Kubernetes Survice was difficult to set up, which is why we used Kubernetes on top of VMs.
  • Azure REST API is a bit difficult to use, which made it difficult for us to automate our interactions with Azure.
  • Azure's Web UI does a good job of showing metrics on individual VMs, but it would be great if there was a way to show certain metrics from multiple VMs on one dashboard. For example, hard drive usage on our database VMs.
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  • Requires higher processing power, otherwise it won't fly. How ever computing costs are lower. Incase you are migrating to cloud please do not select the highest config available in that series . Upgrading it later against a reserved instance can cost you dearly with a series change
  • Lack of clarity on licensing is one major challenge
  • Unless S/4 with additional features are enabled mere migration HANA DB is not a rewarding journey. Power is in S/4
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Likelihood to Renew
We have been very satisfied with Windows Azure and now a lot of our business depends on it as more teams are now deploying their applications into Azure. Our next step is to have our Infrastructure team move their resources to Azure. It will take awhile for that to happen but we are positive that it will.
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At this moment we are not focusing on SAP, however would love to in the future. This is primarily because of our limited ability to generate more revenue to fund for SAP partnerships and products. Our initial tryst with SAP Partneredge open ecosystem didn't go as planned and we have shelved that for now. Hope we can revive in the future
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Usability
Microsoft Azure's overall usability has been better than expected. Often times vendors promise the world, only to leave you with a run-down town. Not the case with our experience. From an implementation perspective, all went perfect, and from the user-facing experience we have had no technical issues, just some learning curve issues that are more about "why" than "how"
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SAP HANA Cloud requires significant expertise on technical side to admin and manage it.It surely is lot of improvement over previous versions of SAPThe modern, role-based SAP Fiori interface has enhanced the user experience for applications like S/4HANA, though the complexity of the underlying database remains. For the average business user, the usability of SAP solutions running on the HANA database has seen a major transformation, largely thanks to the Fiori user interface.
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Reliability and Availability
It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Support is easy with all the knowledge base articles available for free on the web. Plus, if you have a preferred status you can leverage their concierge support to get rapid response. Sometimes they’ll bounce you around a lot to get you to the right person, but they are quite responsive (especially when you are paying for the service). Many of the older Microsoft skills are also transferable from old-school on-prem to Azure-based virtual interfaces.
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One specific example of how the support for SAP HANA Cloud impacted us is in our efforts to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues. Whenever we encountered an issue or had a question, the support team was quick to respond and provided us with clear and actionable guidance. This helped us avoid downtime and keep our analytics operations running smoothly.
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Implementation Rating
As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
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Professional GIS people are some of the most risk-averse there are, and it's difficult to get them to move to HANA in one step. Start with small projects building to 80% use of HANA spatial over time.
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Alternatives Considered
I feel that Microsoft Azure typically outperforms Google Cloud Platform in hybrid cloud capabilities, integration aspects, and, primarily, security compliance features. Azure offered superior integration with Microsoft's enterprise software ecosystem, and it's second to none in my opinion. This made it the natural choice for most, especially if heavily invested in Windows, Office 365, or Active Directory deployments. We chose Azure over GCP because we simply needed Windows workload support as a strong driver, more access to global regions, and let's not forget that most tech teams in an organization are Microsoft Certified, which makes skillset transfer from on-prem to cloud a minimal learning curve over shifting to a different provider.
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It enables preview and better cloud service than other cloud platforms. Easy document transfer and faster document transfer are the key points for the selection of the HANA cloud server. The preview of data before its execution is also one of the factors in the selection of the HANA server.
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
Limitation of training deliverable by organization
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Return on Investment
  • Times and growth went into it. By balancing on-premises maintenance with continuous cloud improvements, we’ve budgeted and planned endlessly increased capacity.
  • In today’s world of cyber-crime, clients can put even more faith in what they’ve heard. We built an innovative single-sign-on hub for all users. Also, other business platforms use Azure application gateways, reducing worker switching time and increasing productivity.
  • Its step can automate to improve the investment. In addition, we can integrate our organization’s credentials into an authorization for other systems.
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  • perception that it is "expensive" - this is a messaging issue, not a real issue
  • perception that it only runs ERP - SAP is a victim of it's own success in this regard
  • perception that it isn't an industrial strength DBMS when, in fact, it is
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ScreenShots