SAP Hana offers businesses the ability to turn vast volumes of data into insight extremely rapidly, thus allowing them to operate more smartly in realtime.
A real competitive advantage in today’s fast-moving markets. However, in today’s tough economic climate, justifying the investment of time and money can be difficult.
That’s why Barnstone has launched a “try before you buy” offering to give companies a risk-free opportunity to try out the new technology without any significant investment.
SAP Hana (High-Performance Analytic Appliance) uses in-memory technology to handle high transaction rates and complex query processing on the same platform. It allows large volumes of disparate data to be processed rapidly.
The technology can also be used to improve existing business processes dramatically – for example, using SAP Simple Finance, a typical month end can be reduced from five days to one or two.
“We believe that harnessing the power of in-memory technology has the potential to help businesses realise the power of data to outperform competitors,” says Conrad Steyn, Director at Barnstone. “This new offering is designed to give clients a way to experiment with the technology before committing to it, and so build a detailed understanding of what is entailed and what the benefits are likely to be.”
The trial offer makes use of Barnstone’s existing Hana offering , which is hosted on an infrastructure platform provided by iSphere Technologies, a supplier of enterprise-grade, secure hosting. iSphere’s hosting centres are located in Teraco data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, and it specialises in companies with niche requirements and that are located in remote areas where connectivity is an issue.
Barnstone client data is stored in a virtualised environment fully protected by encryption. Barnstone’s solution templates are stored in the same environment.
Companies taking advantage of the trial period will be able to use Barnstone’s SAP Hana-as-a-service offering for free, but will have to pay to get the necessary data transferred. Barnstone can help clients design and implement the data migration, either on a consulting or turnkey basis. The trial can be run using live data or as a simulation using a finite data set.
Steyn says that the trial offer provides a great opportunity for firms to test what the impact of SAP Hana would be on their processes and environments, and to experiment with the technology. It also offers developers or development teams within corporates the opportunity to play with the new technology.
“Nobody buys a Ferrari without test-driving it to see whether it really delivers as expected and suits one’s driving style,” says Steyn. “This is an opportunity to test drive this technology, to see what it can do for your business, before you commit to it. If you decide to go for it – and most companies will see huge benefits – then going the cloud route and buying it ‘as a service’ will greatly reduce costs while enhancing flexibility.”