Microsoft Azure (Microsoft) Case Studies Achmea's Digital Transformation: Boosting Performance with SAP HANA on Azure

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	Achmea's Digital Transformation: Boosting Performance with SAP HANA on Azure Microsoft Azure (Microsoft)

Achmea's Digital Transformation: Boosting Performance with SAP HANA on Azure

Microsoft Azure (Microsoft)

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud Wearables - Virtual Reality Glasses, Headsets & Controllers
Applicable Industries	Cement Construction & Infrastructure
Applicable Functions	Product Research & Development Warehouse & Inventory Management
Use Cases	Construction Management Infrastructure Inspection
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Achmea, a leading insurer based in the Netherlands, was on a mission to become an all-digital insurance provider. However, several of its business-critical workloads, including its data warehouse and fraud management applications, were hosted on an aging SAP HANA appliance on external on-premises infrastructure. This infrastructure was reaching its end-of-service date, and to continue operating on-premises, Achmea would have had to make a significant capital expenditure to replace the hardware. Additionally, to stay up-to-date, the company would have needed to refresh the entire platform and infrastructure every four years. The company's aim to become the digital insurer for the Netherlands by 2025 meant that continuing with physical hardware did not align with the company's overall strategy. Achmea's on-premises systems were running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, a successful operating system deployment that the team wanted to continue to use. Therefore, they needed a cloud solution and a provider that would work effectively with its existing infrastructure. Read More
About Customer	Achmea Holding N.V. is a leading insurer based in the Netherlands. The company is on a mission to become an all-digital insurance provider by 2025. Achmea is building a cloud strategy that aims to deliver flexibility, scalability, and speed across the business, with less intensive lifecycle management requirements for its IT team. The company prioritizes innovation and is always aiming for the latest technologies. Achmea's business-critical workloads were hosted on an aging SAP HANA appliance on external on-premises infrastructure. The company's Linux-based infrastructure was powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications. Read More
Solution	Achmea decided to migrate to Microsoft Azure and sought expertise from SUSE, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, for help with the migration. Using SAP HANA Certified Virtual Machines on Microsoft Azure, Achmea began its transformation by shifting three vital and data-hungry applications into virtual machine–based Linux Enterprise Server instances: its SAP Business Warehouse on HANA, fraud management, and contact center applications. The process began with a detailed testing and development phase. SUSE and Microsoft helped Achmea test likely failover scenarios, including running extra application servers to determine if the virtual machine–based Linux instances could cope with the volume. The team completed the initial migration in a single weekend, which included a multi-node SAP Business Warehouse on HANA scale-out deployment on Azure virtual machines using standard SAP tools and the team’s proof-of-concept architecture. The company’s SAP applications are deployed using SUSE Pacemaker Clusters and SAP HANA System Replication within Azure Availability Zones, which provide high availability and resilience to datacenter failures, with a recovery point objective of zero and near-zero recovery time. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Virtual Private Cloud

Wearables - Virtual Reality Glasses, Headsets & Controllers

Applicable Industries

Cement

Construction & Infrastructure

Applicable Functions

Product Research & Development

Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Construction Management

Infrastructure Inspection

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Achmea, a leading insurer based in the Netherlands, was on a mission to become an all-digital insurance provider. However, several of its business-critical workloads, including its data warehouse and fraud management applications, were hosted on an aging SAP HANA appliance on external on-premises infrastructure. This infrastructure was reaching its end-of-service date, and to continue operating on-premises, Achmea would have had to make a significant capital expenditure to replace the hardware. Additionally, to stay up-to-date, the company would have needed to refresh the entire platform and infrastructure every four years. The company's aim to become the digital insurer for the Netherlands by 2025 meant that continuing with physical hardware did not align with the company's overall strategy. Achmea's on-premises systems were running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, a successful operating system deployment that the team wanted to continue to use. Therefore, they needed a cloud solution and a provider that would work effectively with its existing infrastructure.

About Customer

Achmea Holding N.V. is a leading insurer based in the Netherlands. The company is on a mission to become an all-digital insurance provider by 2025. Achmea is building a cloud strategy that aims to deliver flexibility, scalability, and speed across the business, with less intensive lifecycle management requirements for its IT team. The company prioritizes innovation and is always aiming for the latest technologies. Achmea's business-critical workloads were hosted on an aging SAP HANA appliance on external on-premises infrastructure. The company's Linux-based infrastructure was powered by SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications.

Solution

Achmea decided to migrate to Microsoft Azure and sought expertise from SUSE, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, for help with the migration. Using SAP HANA Certified Virtual Machines on Microsoft Azure, Achmea began its transformation by shifting three vital and data-hungry applications into virtual machine–based Linux Enterprise Server instances: its SAP Business Warehouse on HANA, fraud management, and contact center applications. The process began with a detailed testing and development phase. SUSE and Microsoft helped Achmea test likely failover scenarios, including running extra application servers to determine if the virtual machine–based Linux instances could cope with the volume. The team completed the initial migration in a single weekend, which included a multi-node SAP Business Warehouse on HANA scale-out deployment on Azure virtual machines using standard SAP tools and the team’s proof-of-concept architecture. The company’s SAP applications are deployed using SUSE Pacemaker Clusters and SAP HANA System Replication within Azure Availability Zones, which provide high availability and resilience to datacenter failures, with a recovery point objective of zero and near-zero recovery time.

Impact #1	Achmea is already seeing stronger performance for its three business-critical workloads on Azure. The ability to quickly scale is a huge advantage for the team, which often had to spend months on making key infrastructure upgrades. The rapid scalability was effectively demonstrated when the team needed to scale up its fraud management application. The team now has the ideal foundation for its next project, a major migration of all its policies into a single cloud-based database. The testing and development environment that the team built with SUSE and Microsoft is crucial for the ongoing adoption of Azure at Achmea. Not only can developers quickly create a new test environment whenever they need one, but they can also shut it down when they’re done working with it. That means faster creation and iteration to meet new business requirements, lower development costs, and more informed, lower-risk decision making.

Impact #1

Achmea is already seeing stronger performance for its three business-critical workloads on Azure. The ability to quickly scale is a huge advantage for the team, which often had to spend months on making key infrastructure upgrades. The rapid scalability was effectively demonstrated when the team needed to scale up its fraud management application. The team now has the ideal foundation for its next project, a major migration of all its policies into a single cloud-based database. The testing and development environment that the team built with SUSE and Microsoft is crucial for the ongoing adoption of Azure at Achmea. Not only can developers quickly create a new test environment whenever they need one, but they can also shut it down when they’re done working with it. That means faster creation and iteration to meet new business requirements, lower development costs, and more informed, lower-risk decision making.

Benefit #1	Rapid scalability was demonstrated when the team needed to scale up its fraud management application. The upgrade from a 1-TB machine to a 2-TB machine was done in five minutes with Azure, compared to months on-premises.
Benefit #2	The team now has five Azure virtual machines running on SUSE Linux for production, plus another five fallback servers in a separate zone, with a majority-maker node in place to keep the production environment the primary system.
Benefit #3	Achmea is using Azure ExpressRoute to reduce network latency and Commvault to provide comprehensive data protection for its business-critical SAP applications.

Benefit #1

Rapid scalability was demonstrated when the team needed to scale up its fraud management application. The upgrade from a 1-TB machine to a 2-TB machine was done in five minutes with Azure, compared to months on-premises.

Benefit #2

The team now has five Azure virtual machines running on SUSE Linux for production, plus another five fallback servers in a separate zone, with a majority-maker node in place to keep the production environment the primary system.

Benefit #3

Achmea is using Azure ExpressRoute to reduce network latency and Commvault to provide comprehensive data protection for its business-critical SAP applications.

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Overview

Achmea's Digital Transformation: Boosting Performance with SAP HANA on Azure

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit