CenturyLink Unveils SAP Management Solution With Help From Cisco, NetApp

CenturyLink, in partnership with Cisco and NetApp, is making automation and ongoing management of SAP workloads easier for partners and enterprise customers.

CenturyLink on Monday revealed a fully managed solution to help businesses with their SAP deployments and ongoing management of all their critical SAP applications and infrastructure, including SAP HANA, SAP Business Warehouse, S4/HANA and SAP Suite on HANA CRM and ECC.

The solution, announced at SAP's Sapphire Now conference, will be available to business customers and through CenturyLink's Channel Alliance partners by early summer, according to the Monroe, La.-based telecom giant.

[Related: CenturyLink Steps Up Its SAP Game, Scoops Up SAP Solution Provider Seal Consulting]

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CenturyLink is one of five white-label cloud providers offering and supporting SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) services.

CenturyLink built its latest SAP managed solution on FlexPod technology, an integrated computing, networking, and storage solution developed by Cisco and NetApp. Cisco is a longtime partner of CenturyLink, which uses Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) to power its SAP-focused services.

"We are really targeting customers' urgent SAP challenges, [like] migrating legacy SAP applications to HANA, or adopting SAP applications for the first time, and addressing their need for rapid deployment or migration," David Roth, director of solutions and product marketing for CenturyLink, told CRN.

The new solution will also help with ongoing needs, like stronger governance around SAP applications and automated management of those applications, Roth said.

"The real appealing thing about CenturyLink's SAP solution with Cisco and NetApp is the automation, and the policy-driven governance around the applications," he said. "That automation piece helps lower the risk in terms of deploying an application incorrectly."

Channel partners have also recognized these SAP-specific needs within their customer base, Roth said. Solution providers acting as the trusted IT provider for businesses now have an easy way to address these challenges.

Once available, CenturyLink's latest offering can be added on as another recurring revenue opportunity for channel partners selling CenturyLink's SAP-focused solutions, Roth added.

CenturyLink today has an SAP-certified solution available on HPE hardware which is available within hybrid cloud environments.

In addition to the new offering, businesses and partners can take advantage of CenturyLink’s existing SAP practice, managed services, and secure network infrastructure that has been specifically designed and certified to SAP operational standards, Roth said.

In January, CenturyLink acquired SAP solution provider Seal Consulting to build out its integrated SAP portfolio and add broader SAP implementation services.