Cloud Hosting

Dimension Data New Zealand has partnered with the local arm of global SAP partner Realtech to offer SAP certified hosting in New Zealand combined with SAP application and SAP Hana services and local support.

The two will work with clients on planning, implementation, application migration and support to migrate SAP to the cloud. Dimension Data will manage the technical components and cloud hosting and Realtech will deliver the application-level management.

The move follows Dimension Data globally achieving SAP certified cloud partner status in 2014, and Dimension Data is believed to be the only provider of SAP certified cloud hosting in New Zealand.

Marcel Rafter, nextgen data centre practice manager at Dimension Data NZ, said the company would also bring to the partnership its expertise in networking, infrastructure and managed services.

He told Computerworld that the partnership with Realtech had grown out of Dimension Datas need to find a company with SAP expertise, and built on work the two had done for a common customer.

I knew our managed cloud platform was getting its SAP certification but Dimension Data is not known in the SAP space so I went out and spoke to all the major SAP systems integrator providers, he said.

Last year was pretty much a learning experience. Then at the end of last year we started a new relationship with Frucor Beverages. We won a service desk and support contract and then a data centre and cloud contract.

Realtech already had a relationship with Frucor and off the back of our contract we worked with Realtech to migrate Frucors SAP environment from Australia back to New Zealand onto our cloud. We worked well on that project together, the client was very happy. So we decided to form a partnership and take it to other clients.

He said there was strong demand for SAP in the cloud. Clients have been running SAP on premises for several years and are now assessing how they go forward with the move to SAP Hana and SAP S/4Hana so they are looking at a refresh roadmap. We are working with them to provide a flexible contract so they can make steps towards that S/4Hana stack at a suitable time for their business, without having to negotiate a new contract.

He said the two companies had identified an initial list of 10 clients We will work with very closely over this launch period to get their feedback and progress the relationship this calendar year.

Andrew Spicer, the managing director of Realtech New Zealand, said the partnership was about quality of service and replicating the process of moving SAP customers onto the cloud. We can do it faster, better, cheaper all the things customers want to hear.

He said that, while having hosting in New Zealand would be attractive to many organisations wary of using offshore cloud service, local support and being a more important customer of the cloud provider would likely be more significant.

There is keen interest in having things in New Zealand from the point of view of sovereignty, but one of the most important things is local support. You get local dedicated and responsive account team and you will be an important customer, not just one of many for an offshore cloud provider.

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Tags Nextgenmanaged cloud platforms (MCP)Data Centredimension datamanaged cloudanalyticsSAP S/4HANAlocal supportsap application visualisationhostingSAP HANACloudrealtechSAP

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Dimension Data partners with Realtech for NZ-based SAP cloud ... - Computerworld New Zealand