The move is expected to take two to three years, and is just the start of its SAP cloud transformation
Vodafone has begun the epic migration of its SAP/4HANA enterprise resource planning platform, which runs finance, procurement and human resources, to Google Cloud.
The project is called EVO2CLOUD and is expected to take two three years, according to this blog, which itself is a joint venture by personnel from the hyperscaler and the operator.
The plan is to enable “the transformation of a broad SAP ecosystem composed of more than 100 applications that have been running on-prem for the past 15 years, to a leaner, more agile and scalable deployment that is cloud-first and data-led”.
Vodafone reckons that being able to use Google Cloud’s M1 and M2 infrastructure will allow a “step change in its operating model”. Google describes its M1 machine series as having up to 4TB of memory and the M2 machine series up to 12TB of memory – both are well matched to run in-memory databases like SAP/4HANA and in-memory data-analytics workloads.
Apparently, this is the first stage of a three-phase SAP transformation as the blog elaborates:
- Redesigning the SAP environment and migrating to Google Cloud to make it ready for integration with Vodafone’s data ocean.
- Integrating SAP with Vodafone’s data ocean that sits on Google BigQuery.
- Leveraging cloud-based data analytics tools to optimize data usage, processes, and how Vodafone operates its business.
Put another way, this is Vodafone’s data-centric strategy in action, which is designed to introduce improved data analytics and AI so that Vodafone’s employees and customers are better served in something closer to real time.
Vodafone announced a six-year engagement with Google Cloud back in May 2021, with a stream of subsequent initiatives since, including the AI Booster announced in July.