Why Azure for SAP¶

An executive brief for CIOs, CDOs, and enterprise architects evaluating Azure as the cloud platform for SAP workloads.

Executive summary¶

SAP is the transactional backbone of global enterprise. 98 of the Fortune 100 run SAP. SAP SE generates EUR 36.8 billion in annual revenue from a customer base of 437,000 organizations in 180 countries. SAP ECC (Enterprise Central Component) manages the finance, supply chain, manufacturing, HR, and procurement processes that keep these organizations running. The 2027 end-of-mainstream-maintenance deadline for ECC 6.0 and Business Suite 7 is the largest enterprise software migration event in history.

Microsoft Azure is SAP's preferred cloud platform. This is not marketing language --- it is a structural relationship formalized through a 30-year partnership, co-engineered infrastructure, joint go-to-market investment, and the deepest integration of any hyperscaler with SAP's product roadmap. This document presents six strategic advantages of running SAP on Azure, an honest assessment of considerations, and a decision framework for enterprise and federal organizations.

SAP will end mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC 6.0 (EHP 8) and SAP Business Suite 7 on December 31, 2027. Extended maintenance through 2030 carries a 2% annual premium surcharge and delivers no new functionality, no regulatory updates beyond critical, and limited security patching. Every month of delay compresses the migration window and increases organizational risk.

1. The Microsoft-SAP strategic partnership¶

Microsoft and SAP have the deepest partnership of any cloud-ERP combination. This partnership is structural, not tactical --- it spans three decades and has been continuously expanded.

Partnership timeline¶

What the partnership means in practice¶

• Co-engineered VM certification --- SAP and Microsoft jointly certify Azure VM families (M-series, Mv2, E-series) for HANA and NetWeaver workloads. No other hyperscaler has this level of co-engineering.
• Azure Center for SAP Solutions --- A first-party Azure service for deploying, managing, and monitoring SAP workloads. Not available on AWS or GCP.
• RISE with SAP on Azure --- SAP's managed cloud offering runs on Azure infrastructure. SAP chose Azure as the preferred platform for RISE deployments.
• Copilot + Joule integration --- Bi-directional AI assistant integration between Microsoft 365 Copilot and SAP Joule. Users access SAP data and processes through the Microsoft 365 surface they already use daily.
• Fabric Mirroring for SAP --- Near-real-time replication of SAP HANA data to Microsoft Fabric OneLake. No ETL development. SAP data appears as Delta tables in the same lakehouse as all other organizational data.

2. Certified Azure infrastructure for SAP¶

Azure provides the broadest range of SAP-certified virtual machine families of any hyperscaler. SAP certification means that SAP has validated the VM configuration (CPU, memory, storage throughput, network bandwidth) against SAP Standard Application Benchmarks (SAPS) and certified it for production HANA workloads.

SAP-certified Azure VM families¶

Storage certification¶

3. Azure Center for SAP Solutions¶

Azure Center for SAP Solutions (ACSS) is a first-party Azure service --- not a marketplace offering, not a partner tool --- built by Microsoft specifically for SAP workloads. No equivalent exists on AWS or GCP.

What ACSS provides¶

ACSS deployment example¶

# Register SAP system with Azure Center for SAP Solutions
az workloads sap-virtual-instance create \
  --resource-group rg-sap-prod \
  --name S4H-PRD \
  --environment Production \
  --sap-product S4HANA \
  --configuration '{
    "configurationType": "DeploymentWithOSConfig",
    "appLocation": "eastus2",
    "infrastructureConfiguration": {
      "appResourceGroup": "rg-sap-prod-app",
      "deploymentType": "ThreeTier",
      "centralServer": {
        "subnetId": "/subscriptions/.../subnets/sap-app",
        "virtualMachineConfiguration": {
          "vmSize": "Standard_E32ds_v5",
          "imageReference": {
            "publisher": "SUSE",
            "offer": "sles-sap-15-sp5",
            "sku": "gen2",
            "version": "latest"
          }
        }
      },
      "databaseServer": {
        "subnetId": "/subscriptions/.../subnets/sap-db",
        "databaseType": "HANA",
        "virtualMachineConfiguration": {
          "vmSize": "Standard_M128s",
          "imageReference": {
            "publisher": "SUSE",
            "offer": "sles-sap-15-sp5",
            "sku": "gen2",
            "version": "latest"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }'

4. RISE with SAP on Azure¶

RISE with SAP is SAP's subscription-based offering that bundles S/4HANA Cloud (Private Edition), SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP Business Network, and managed infrastructure. Azure is the preferred infrastructure provider for RISE deployments.

What RISE on Azure means¶

• SAP manages the infrastructure --- VMs, HANA database, OS patching, Basis operations, backup, and HA/DR
• Customer focuses on business --- Configuration, extensions, integrations, and business process optimization
• Azure infrastructure underneath --- RISE VMs run on Azure, in Azure regions, with Azure networking
• CSA-in-a-Box integrates alongside --- Deploy CSA-in-a-Box in an adjacent subscription for analytics, governance, and AI on SAP data

RISE vs self-managed comparison¶

5. Copilot for SAP¶

The Microsoft-SAP AI integration is a differentiator that no other hyperscaler offers. Copilot and SAP Joule provide bi-directional AI assistance across Microsoft 365 and SAP applications.

Integration scenarios¶

6. Fabric Mirroring for SAP¶

Fabric Mirroring is the integration pattern that makes CSA-in-a-Box transformative for SAP customers. It provides near-real-time replication of SAP HANA data into Microsoft Fabric OneLake without ETL development.

How Fabric Mirroring works¶

1. Connect --- Configure a mirrored database in Microsoft Fabric pointing to SAP HANA
2. Replicate --- Initial full snapshot of selected SAP HANA tables to OneLake as Delta tables
3. Sync --- Change data capture (CDC) continuously replicates inserts, updates, and deletes from SAP HANA to OneLake
4. Consume --- SAP data is immediately available in Fabric for Power BI, Spark notebooks, SQL analytics, and AI workloads

What this enables¶

7. Honest assessment --- where to be careful¶

This document is a case for Azure, but it would be dishonest not to acknowledge areas where organizations should plan carefully:

8. Decision framework¶

Choose RISE with SAP on Azure when¶

• You want SAP to manage infrastructure, Basis, and upgrades
• You are deploying a new S/4HANA instance (greenfield)
• Your customization footprint is moderate and compatible with clean core
• You want subscription-based pricing aligned with cloud economics
• You are willing to accept SAP's upgrade schedule and release cadence

Choose SAP on Azure VMs (self-managed) when¶

• You need full control over infrastructure, HANA, and kernel
• You have heavy custom ABAP or third-party add-ons
• You are performing a brownfield system conversion from ECC
• You need Azure Government deployment for federal workloads
• You want to optimize costs with Reserved Instances and Hybrid Benefit

Choose HANA Large Instances when¶

• Your HANA database exceeds 12 TB in production
• You require bare-metal performance for extreme-scale BW/4HANA
• Your workload demands memory bandwidth that VM-based solutions cannot deliver

In all cases, deploy CSA-in-a-Box alongside¶

• Fabric Mirroring for near-real-time SAP data in OneLake
• Purview for unified governance across SAP and non-SAP data
• Power BI for SAP analytics replacing SAP Analytics Cloud
• Azure AI for process intelligence on SAP operational data
• dbt for SAP data transformation through the medallion architecture

9. Next steps¶

1. Run SAP Readiness Check on your current ECC system
2. Estimate TCO using the Total Cost of Ownership Analysis
3. Deploy a proof-of-concept using Tutorial: Deploy SAP S/4HANA on Azure
4. Configure Fabric Mirroring using Tutorial: SAP Data to Fabric
5. Engage Microsoft FastTrack for SAP for a migration assessment
6. Review the full Migration Center at SAP to Azure Migration Center

10. Microsoft-SAP ecosystem: partners, certifications, and resources¶

Certified SAP on Azure partners¶

Microsoft maintains a curated ecosystem of partners with deep SAP on Azure expertise. These partners hold the SAP on Microsoft Azure Advanced Specialization and have demonstrated successful SAP migrations.

Certification and training paths¶

Key Microsoft resources¶

SAP and Microsoft joint innovation roadmap¶

Last updated: 2026-04-30 Maintainers: CSA-in-a-Box core team Related: SAP to Azure Migration Center | Migration Playbook | TCO Analysis