If you’re thinking that being “well architected” sounds great, but since SAP is special, would it apply there, AWS’ answer is: yes, with few tweaks.
SAP related recommendations collection is captured in SAP Lens of the AWS Well-Architected Framework.
To put it in context, let’s say you know how to drive and bought a new electric vehicle (EV), which not only looks different, but also has buttons and controls at different places (compared to your older car); you already know that maintenance requirements for EV is probably different from a gas (petrol) powered one and you need to learn all of these. The fact that you already know how to drive a car doesn’t change but you still need to know the nuances of EVs and particular make/model you bought. Similarly, you need to learn SAP architectural and operational specific recommendations in addition to general cloud and well architected principles to ensure that your SAP workload is well-architected; thus, SAP Lens for the AWS Well-Architected Framework was born!
SAP Lens: The SAP Lens does not replace the AWS Well-Architected Framework, but is supplemental content that clarifies how to interpret and adopt the general best practices of the AWS Well-Architected Framework into SAP workload designs.
Don’t think of this as something that needs to be done after the deployment or go-live, rather it should be in your radar right from the planning stage, as various teams collaborate to define the target architecture and migration pattern and in your operational procedures as a periodic review item at the following times:
The table below shows the topic areas that align with the pillars of the AWS Well-Architected Framework. Both the AWS Assessment tool (https://a2t.accelerate.amazonaws.com) or the AWS well architected tool in AWS Management Console (https://console.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected) are good places to start and provide best practice ratings.
Using the AWS Well-Architected Framework tool, not only can you import SAP Lens, but you can also create your own custom lens for your organization, according to your compliance and operational requirements.
To use this tool, you must first define the workload and import the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) file for SAP Lens. SAP is considered a custom lens in the tool, at the time of writing. Following are high level steps that you need to execute:
The figure below shows an example of how you can review the SAP Lens against recommendations.
At the end of the review, you can generate a PDF report and also examine an improvement plan, if any, in the tool itself, as shown here.
Editor’s note: This post has been adapted from a section of the book SAP on AWS: Architecture, Migration, and Operation by Ravi Kashyap, Rajendra Narikimelli, and Rozal Singh.