SAP Tackles the Internet of Things with HANA Cloud, Partners

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German business software giant SAP has lined up some big supporters in its bid to become a leading provider of enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) technologies and services.

During the SAP’s Sapphire Now conference in Orlando this week, the company unveiled SAP HANA Cloud Platform for the Internet of Things. The ambitious offering, based on SAP’s in-memory platform-as-a-service (PaaS) for real-time big data analytics, is meant to help organizations get a jumpstart on their IoT initiatives.

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IoT is shaping up to be a big business opportunity. IT research firm Gartner predicts that by 2020, the IoT will encompass 25 billion devices and add nearly $2 trillion to the global economy.

To cope, businesses will need an IT upgrade. The technology analysts at IDC expect IoT workloads to skyrocket 750 percent between 2014 and 2017. “Equal, or even greater, investments in the IoT platform services residing in the datacenter will be instrumental in delivering the IoT promise of anytime, anywhere, anyhow connectivity and context,” remarked IDC vice president Rick Villars, in a statement.

SAP is offering a cloud-based alternative to on-premise IoT technology implementations.

“With the launch of SAP HANA Cloud Platform for the IoT, our customers and partners now have the ability to connect anything to any app or business process in their company and business network,” said Steve Lucas, president of SAP Platform Solutions, in a company announcement. “This will achieve operational excellence and deliver new customer experiences, products and services,” he predicted.

Backed by HANA Cloud, the platform will provide secure IoT device management, messaging and application services. SAP HANA Cloud Platform for the IoT is also available in private cloud deployment model.

SAP also announced partnerships with two major partners, industrial equipment maker Siemens and Intel.

SAP HANA Cloud Platform will power Siemens Cloud for Industry, an IoT service for manufacturers. Dr. Peter Weckesser, CEO of Customer Service, Digital Factory for Siemens, said the offering “aims to provide a significant contribution towards the digitalization of the production space,” in a statement. Powerful services for analyzing data from industry are an important part of our digital enterprise strategy.”

Intel and SAP, meanwhile, are teaming to help enterprises build secure, scalable and streamlined IoT environments. The companies are currently working on a proof of concept that involves integrating the SAP cloud with Intel’s IoT Gateway.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.