Case Study: SAP On Azure Automating The Deployment For SAP S/4HANA

Case Study SAP on Azure
Automating the deployment

for SAP S/4HANA
About
Thames Water are the UK's

largest water and wastewater
services company, and
supplies 2.6 billion litres (570
million imperial gallons) of
drinking water per day, and
treats 4.4 billion litres (970
million imperial gallons) of
wastewater per day. Thames
Water's 15 million customers
comprise 27% of the UK
population.
Challenge
“ We selected Centiq as
they held the strongest
Thames Water are early adopters in
the world of digital change,
championing an agile and data lead
The business made the decision to
insource their Cloud Team,
bucking the trend of the industry,
reputation for expertise IT strategy. and tasking them with delivering
with SAP HANA and world leading automation, to
Microsoft Azure. We like An enterprise level drive to move the deliver SAP S/4 environments in
business to SAP S/4HANA as a hours rather than weeks.
working with smaller primary technology alongside a shift
boutique consultancies, to Microsoft Azure meant The first challenge faced by the
especially when they automation, and the benefits it can Thames Water team was the need
bring, was required in order to to blend both Microsoft Azure and
are so invested in the realise the benefits of both SAP technical skills to manipulate
outcome our business platforms, and enable a modern cutting edge technology from
needed. Working as a operating model. both vendors, ensuring the best
possible outcomes.
team, mirroring agile
The scope of this project which
working behaviours was involved automation at an The desire to use code at an
why we used the mantra infrastructure layer alongside the infrastructure layer, and also
‘If you’re doing it twice HANA database, the NetWeaver further up the stack, meant
platform and also the S/4 product support was required to
you’re doing it wrong” was a world first and furthermore a complement the newly formed in-
first for the utilities industry. house team.
“
Paul Haigh – Head of
Cloud, Thames Water
centiq.co.uk
Accelerated & Sustained Transformation
Driving Success
Centiq were selected to assist in the delivery of the project following an introduction from Microsoft based on
their unique combination of HANA, Linux, SAP on Azure and DevOps expertise. Through Centiq’s Define, Design, and
Build Methodology, and engaging all key stakeholders from day one in an agile working processes, where daily
reviews, and iteration demonstrations were standard practice. A 4-month duration to deliver the design for a
highly configured RedHat, SAP HANA Cluster on Azure, alongside the code needed to deploy the design, was
achieved. Following the success of Phase 1, Centiq were invited to implement a second phase project.
To deliver the design and build for S/4HANA and B/4HANA applications, championing automation and
Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.
“ We don't fix things anymore.

Where previously a substantial
amount of time and resource was
committed to working out why
something had broken. Leveraging
the power of code allows systems
“
to simply be rebuilt.
Paul Haigh – Head of
Cloud, Thames Water
How have you benefited How have you benefited

From using Automation for S/4HANA? From working with Centiq?
“Previously every production environment was taking 4-5 weeks to build and “Having a partner who is
deliver, a non prod environment up to 3 weeks. Third parties were engaged committed to working in
to deliver these with an average project consisting of 4 production and 15 an agile way, with SAP &
non prod environments. Automation processes have now brought these Azure expertise was key.
builds down to a number of hours (4-5). We wouldn't have
delivered the outcomes
A tangible saving in time and cost. The most recent SAP Data project has we have without these
gone from an expected greater than 6 month duration to 16 weeks. There is three things, and Centiq
also the added benefit of data insights being delivered at pace, enhancing have them all.”
customer service levels and experience.”
Business Benefit
• The flexibility and agility enabled by the adoption of code/automation has dramatically
increased the pipeline of innovation and the pace that change can be delivered.
• Enhanced customer experience - Data insights being delivered at pace enhancing customer
service levels.
• Internal Self Service - The adoption of code and automation has enhanced a self service
culture, and less reliance on IT teams and third parties.
• Tangible savings in time and cost - Automation processes have brought down the build time
of production and non production environments to a number of hours (previously weeks), and
can now be delivered by Thames’s Cloud Team as opposed to a third party.
centiq.co.uk

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Case Study SAP on Azure

Automating the deployment

Thames Water are the UK's

“ We don't fix things anymore.

How have you benefited How have you benefited

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