HP rebuilds services for modernising SAP environments

HP also says they can help manufacturers to upgrade to the latest version of SAP ERP and to establish a roadmap that works towards building an SOA (service-orientated architecture) to enable faster business change. Says Deb Nelson, senior vice president, Marketing and Alliances, Technology Solutions Group, HP: “Today, we see SAP customers are faced with a tough balancing act: the pressure to modernise while managing their IT environments. Together, we’re helping customers gain agility and greater return on their SAP application investments while reducing the cost of their SAP environments.” SAP has also now named HP as a strategic global technology partner for SAP ERP 6.0 Upgrades. HP and SAP share nearly two decades of collaboration and HP is a global leader in SAP application installations – so it comes as no surprise. “SAP and HP Services are working closely to accelerate the upgrades of our joint installed base customers,” says Martin Riedel, head of Global Upgrade Office and senior vice president at SAP. “Based on HP’s commitment, SAP will provide HP with access to SAP upgrade-related tools and key SAP experts in the SAP Upgrade Competency Centres.” In a related move, HP also announced new Integrity Reference Configurations for SAP Applications, which, says the company, will help simplify and speed the transition from a user’s existing environment to the new SAP environment. Briefly, HP’s new solutions include: HP Upgrade Services for SAP ERP 6.0, taking existing SAP ERP users to an enterprise services-enabled environment based on NetWeaver; HP Upgrade Factory for SAP Applications, providing what the company describes as “industrialised technical upgrades”, with standard processes, best practices, methodologies, tools and templates; and HP Application Outsourcing for SAP Applications, in which HP takes over SAP application management.