Challenge.
Körber is an international technology group that is home to many companies, and the fields of digital, pharma, supply chain, tissue and tobacco are their focus. About 10,000 employees live and breathe Körber’s entrepreneurial mindset at more than 100 locations on a daily basis. One of these companies is Körber Supply Chain. Under this umbrella brand, Körber delivers digitalised solutions for the smart factory (production logistics), the warehouse, distribution centres, e-commerce and controlling the entire supply chain. The Körber Group also contains the Hauni Group, a global leader in technology and technical services for the international tobacco industry. Hauni Maschinenbau GmbH, on the other hand, is the lead company of the Hauni Group and has its headquarters in Hamburg. It’s also the service provider for all SAP systems throughout the group.
A lot of companies in the Körber Group use SAP systems, be it for accounting, controlling, human resources, or, like for Körber Supply Chain, as an ERP system. Accounting, controlling, material management, controlling the storage—in the case of Körber Supply Chain, all of this is handled by an SAP S/4HANA landscape working on-premise. In the course of a group-wide data centre consolidation and a new cloud strategy, the on-premise network at Körber Supply Chain was to be migrated into an AWS cloud. The biggest challenge was that Körber IT solutions had already made the plans for the technical implementation. This meant that Körber IT had to adhere to certain security requirements. It became a complicated project with many participants, in a system environment that was just as complicated and had to be implemented quickly and affordably.
We were facing a challenging task, not only due to the pandemic. But thanks to our good business relationship and extensive work on the subject, we were able to jump the most difficult hurdles with Bechtle’s help. Our open and transparent communication really helped, as there were several people involved in the project and its structure was complex. We were very happy with the end result.
Thomas Knötzsch, SAP Lead, Hauni Maschinenbau GmbH
Solution.
Hauni opted for a provider for their test environment at Körber Supply Chain that offers an SAP-certified HANA environment based on a AWS cloud platform. The perfect solution? AWS Amazon Web Services (AWS). The aim was create an SAP environment that is future-proof and offers a high degree of security. The corresponding AWS Landing Zone was provided by Körber IT Solutions. Hauni was missing the right Cloud framework and tools as a technical operator for migration of the on-premise environment into the AWS Cloud.
Bechtle possessed these things and hence was the perfect IT partner, sharing its knowledge with Hauni. AWS specialists and Bechtle’s experts collaborated with Hauni and others affiliated with the Körber Group to find the right framework on the basis of the AWS architecture “Well Architected Framework“ and the SAP certification. In this process, the existing network was extended into the cloud and paired with it. Monitoring and system monitoring however are still running with the suitable network configuration Nagios on-premise. Hence, Bechtle securely set up the systems in the cloud and made them only accessible from the Körber network. Bechtle also designed a disaster recovery scenario in a second availability zone and a concept for training administrators. Bechtle laid the basis for Hauni migrating the systems themselves. and transferred its basic knowledge on AWS to Hauni employees, enabling their administrators to manage the SAP S/4HANA environment that had been migrated to AWS themselves and build up more of these systems if required.
Business benefits.
Together with Bechtle, Hauni and Körber ported, in close collaboration and very swiftly in a complex system environment, the existing SAP S/4HANA systems of the Körber Supply Chain from on-premise into the AWS Cloud. Thanks to Bechtle’s knowledge and their flexible commitment, the financial goals were met and the project was finished in time. The new system helped Körber gather new experiences, and thought them how to reassess the functionality and integrate frameworks into system management. The technical and financial transparency this brings shows Hauni the real costs of such an SAP landscape and its functionality—an important step for the SAP system in the framework of a cloud strategy for the Körber Group.