Cloud, on-premise or hybrid: the decision before the transformation
The deployment model is less an IT question than the question of how much standard SAP you can and want to live with. We assess the variants against your requirements – with no hosting or licence interests of our own.
How you know you need this
The question typically comes up when
- you are facing the S/4HANA conversion anyway – the deployment model then gets decided along with it, consciously or not.
- your hardware or your data centre contracts are expiring.
- your IT team is getting smaller, but operations are not getting simpler.
- the group prescribes a cloud strategy.
What is often underestimated
Giving up modifications. In the Public Edition, changes to the standard are not provided for; what a custom development solves today has to be solved differently there, or given up.
The upgrade rhythm: twice a year, with no choice of date. Both are quite manageable, but neither is trivial – which is why they are an important part of the decision.
Which deployment model fits you
Three variants are available – and an honest short version to go with them:
Private Edition (RISE with SAP, now marketed as SAP Cloud ERP Private)
A system just for you. Your own ABAP developments remain possible, you set the timing of upgrades yourself, and the brownfield path from ECC stays open. This is the route for large enterprises with an established landscape, a high degree of customizing or regulatory requirements.
Public Edition (GROW with SAP)
You share the platform with other customers, upgrades arrive automatically twice a year, and extensions run via key user tools, released interfaces in the core and the Business Technology Platform. Significantly faster and cheaper – but only if you genuinely adopt the SAP standard.
On-premise
Remains sensible wherever data sovereignty, network separation or existing data centre contracts require it. Operation, maintenance and upgrades then stay with you.
The honest short version: if you can adopt the standard, public is faster and cheaper. If you cannot, the attempt ends up costing more than private from the outset. In large programmes, hybrid usually means the core in the Private Edition or on-premise, with individual companies or cloud solutions such as IBP or the Business Network alongside – then integration matters more than the deployment model.
What tips this decision
- What matters most is how much custom development sits in your system and how much of it is genuinely used. That decides whether the standard of the Public Edition is enough for you.
- Then come the obligations you cannot negotiate: data sovereignty, network separation, running contracts for your data centre.
- The comparison covers five years rather than the first year, because operations, maintenance and upgrades fall very differently across the three variants.
- At the end there is a decision paper for your committees: the recommendation with its reasoning and an outline of the migration route.
How an assessment of this kind runs with us is described once on the SAP overview. How we work – the shared framework
What you end up with
- A written recommendation with a traceable rationale
- A comparison of costs over five years
- A rough migration outline with timeline
What we do not do
- We do not operate systems and do not sell licences. Our recommendation therefore does not depend on what gets ordered afterwards.
- We do not take on SAP Basis tasks. Migration and operation sit with the hosting and implementation partner, with whom we put the recommendation into practice together.
Typical questions
- Is our data safe in the cloud?
- Data centres can be chosen, including within the EU. The real question is less technical than contractual: who may access what, what happens at the end of the contract, what evidence do you receive? That belongs in the concept, not in the small print.
- Do we lose our custom developments?
- In the Private Edition they remain possible in principle. They have to be adapted in any move to S/4HANA, and SAP increasingly expects a clean core there too. For the Public Edition, what is said above about giving up modifications applies.
- Will it get cheaper?
- Not automatically. Public is cheaper to operate; private shifts cost from investment to ongoing subscription. What applies to you is shown by the five-year calculation.
Initial consultation on the deployment model
Which decision are you facing – and by when? In the initial consultation we will tell you openly whether a detailed evaluation is needed or whether the answer may already be clear. The same applies if you are a consulting firm evaluating the deployment model for a client: then we sit at the table with your team.