Congratulations! You have chosen to run your business better using SAP Business One. That was a good decision.
But that is not all. There are other decisions.
Should you have your own server in the office? Is it secure to have a cloud solution? Which option is more cost effective in the long term?
SAP Business One can be deployed with the below options:
Perpetual SAP software licensing with on premise server
Perpetual SAP software licensing with private cloud hosting
Perpetual SAP software licensing with public cloud hosting
We have listed some frequently asked questions to help you with the decision.
This is straight forward – you can only go with Perpetual software licensing with On-Premise server (option A). There is a one-time investment on the SAP software licenses and an annual recurring fee that includes the new SAP support releases as well as maintenance coverage.
Different SAP vendors offer varying scope of service for the maintenance fee. You need to find out more on what the fee includes.
As you are maintaining your own SAP server in your premises, you may want to consider these:
Data back-up: ensure that you have off-site back up of your data. And don’t forget to test the back-up solution regularly.
Down-time: what if your server fails? Can your company afford any system down time? You can consider having a second server in your office, or subscribe to comprehensive disaster recovery service that enables some/all users in your company to switch to the recovery server.
UPS: in the event where there is a power outage, you need to have a back-up power supply for the server.
Replacement of server: a general guideline is to replace your server every 3 to 5 years, so do not forget to include this in your IT budget.
Security: data security is in your hands. Ensure that you have security policies and procedures to protect your IT infrastructure against virus and ransomware threats.
IT team: if you do not have internal IT team to manage the server, consider a 3rd party managed services contract to look after your SAP server/systems.
Mobile and remote users: if you have users who are on the go and would like to use SAP’s mobility application, you will need to setup security certificates. To connect users who are not in the same office where the physical server is, you can set up VPN private hosting from your office.
The SAP software Licensing for both the Private and Public cloud hosting is perpetual and the investment for SAP licensing is upfront (CAPEX)
The main differences between the two are:
Private Cloud Hosting
This is similar to the on-premise option described above, the difference is you engage with a company to host your SAP infrastructure, i.e. the infrastructure instead of lying in your office premises will be hosted in a data center either locally or abroad as per the company’s decision. In this case, the infrastructure is dedicated for your business alone. The complete management, maintenance, data backups, security, failover is managed by your company’s IT team or a third party managed service provider deputed by the company. You pay a recurring hosting fee and the amount depends on the scope of service considering colocation charges, connection, maintenance, etc.
Public Cloud hosting
The main differentiator between public and private cloud is that you aren’t responsible for any of the management of a public cloud hosting solution. SAP Application and data is stored in the provider’s data center and the provider is responsible for the management and maintenance of the data center. This type of cloud environment is appealing to many companies because it reduces lead times in testing and deploying new products. Even though you don’t control the security of a public cloud, all of your data remains separate from others and security breaches of public clouds are rare.