Microsoft Azure Certified for SAP Applications

by Pedro Hernandez 



A brief summary: It's official. As part of Microsoft and SAP's new expanded partnership, Microsoft Azure is now certified for SAP business applications.



SAP and Microsoft are delivering on some key components of their recently expanded partnership agreement. On May 19, the companies announced that as part of a joint deal to deliver new business cloud services and mobile solutions, SAP would give Microsoft Azure its seal of approval. Now, the companies have made it official.

"Azure is now certified by SAP for SAP Business Suite, SAP NetWeaver, and SAP HANA Developer Edition, with full support available from both Microsoft and SAP", Steven Martin, general manager of Microsoft Azure, the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant's cloud division, announced on May 28 in a company blog post. In addition to the certification, the deal includes connectivity between SAP BusinessObjects business intelligence (BI) and Microsoft's Power BI, Windows and Windows Phone 8.1 support, and data interoperability enhancements between SAP applications and Microsoft Office. While rivals at first glance, the companies are enduring examples of tech industry coopetition, according to Microsoft's Takeshi Numoto, corporate vice president of cloud and enterprise marketing. 

"This is an expansion of a partnership we've had for over 20 years", Numoto told eWEEK's Darryl K. Taft. Combined, the companies serve roughly "75 percent of the enterprise customers out there", he revealed, before pledging to have "multiple SAP assets … certified to run on the Azure cloud" by the end of June.

A key selling point of SAP on Azure is rapid deployment, simplified management and lower costs versus on-premises implementations, Martin continued. "They can deploy virtual machines to create the infrastructure needed for SAP solutions in just a few minutes".

 

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