True SCM Blog #2
SAP T/5 HANA —The Modernized “Yellowfield” Approach
Disclaimer: This article was prepared or accomplished by Trung Tran in
his personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of SAP SE or any of its affiliates.
08-25-2022
History of SAP
To see where SAP is at today, we must first understand the basics of its exciting 50-year history!
Let’s briefly examine SAP’s enterprise ERP products over the last five decades since their founding in 1972 by five former IBMers. Like my Yellowfield approach, they had a vision for this new venture that forever changed how global multinational organizations function
- 1972 — Founded SAP with a vision to integrate business processes in real-time where their first customer was a subsidiary of chemical company Imperial Chemical Industries almost 50 years ago!
- 1973 — R1
- Late 1970’s — R2
- 1992 — R3
- 2004 — ECC 5.0
- 2005 — ECC 6.0
- 2010 — S/4 HANA
- 202X — Code Named by me as T/5 HANA?
Introduction to the Yellowfield SAP approach.
So you’re familiar with what SAP Greenfield, Brownfield, and Bluefield projects are and the technicalities, semantics, strategies, and approaches for each? If you haven’t been on one of these different types of SAP projects and wish to learn more about the key, but important differences between Greenfield and Brownfield, please read more on my first article here on this topic.
The basic concept behind the common three approaches:
Greenfield — New SAP Implementation starting from scratch.
Brownfield — Conversion from an older SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) such as ECC 5/6, R3 (Enterprise Edition), R2-(Mainframe), and even R1 (One Server).
Bluefield — Hybrid of a Greenfield and Brownfield migration approach.
As I thoroughly assessed and scrutinized these three different approaches from a more technical and enterprise business applicability standpoint, I realized that these approaches wouldn’t be the perfect answer for the modern enterprise organization looking for a competitive advantage by leveraging world-class SAP technology. What’s more, enterprise organizations that want to stay on top have either realized that the three key approaches wouldn’t fundamentally fit this mold. Therefore I had to come up with the Yellowfield approach in 2022 during the Covid-19 pandemic when most SAP implementations and upgrades came to a screeching halt. Businesses went into shock and retreat mode as they have never imagined something of this magnitude would ever hit their shores which spanned the globe in a matter of weeks.
So curiosity brought you to read this far into this SAP T/5 HANA (High-performance ANalytic Appliance) Yellowfield approach which was a vision (and soon to be reality) in my SAP knowledge-filled journey. As with other previous releases of SAP such as SAP R3, and SAP S4, it only made logical sense to code name it SAP version T/5 HANA.
Read on…
What is an SAP Yellowfield SAP T/5 HANA approach?
The Yellowfield approach is an approach, vision, and strategy all rolled up into one with a focus on consolidating the abundant suite of enterprise SAP solutions that the firm offers (not including SAP Business One|Business by Design- which is catered to small to mid-market firms). The enterprise ERP which is now SAP T/5 HANA will be the core hub, centralizing all SAP applications that enable ERP centralization and less or minimal A2A (application-to-application) integration providing superb computing speeds in real-time.
Approach
The Yellowfield approach is first and foremost importantly advantageous for enterprise consumers through simplification and consolidation of SAP products. SAP customers will now have the ability to get whatever products and services they want on demand with a single click of a mouse on the SAP data distributed cloud (or from one of their hyperscaler partners). The best way to interpret this approach is as an Amazon consumer where one or a few clicks and the products are at your front door, the same day, or even in real-time on the cloud for enterprise SAP HANA T/5 software.
SAP implementations and upgrades whether Greenfield, Brownfield, Bluefield, or the new Yellowfield will now take up a fraction of the time they currently do today. Conversely, the approach is ideally suited and designed for SAP T/5 HANA. Still, the methodologies can be applied to any SAP ERP or any ERP in general through the centralization and consolidation of redundant applications and systems.
SI’s (Systems Integrators) will be a thing of the past like a crusty, old, dust-covered fax machine as SAP T/5 HANA will be packaged and delivered based on customer-specific needs. It will already know what the customers’ unique business processes are through SAP Signavio data mining and a strenuous customer assessment process and feedback down to a granular level even for customers in the same industry. This will be the blueprint for how a customer will receive their new SAP T/5 HANA package where it won’t matter if it’s a Greenfield, Bluefield, or Browfield.
By leveraging SAP Signavio, SAP SE will understand your complete business model and organizational processes better than you or anyone within your firm! As part of the customer blueprint and (unique) process assessment, SAP will be able to do the work of what is currently done by an army of personnel at the SI’s today, over months, and years with extensive cost savings in materials and labor. (More on SAP Signavio benefits of process mining in Phase II of this article). Lastly, integration testing stages such as FIT, FAT, SIT, and UAT will also be a thing of the past as firms look to cost-cutting and cost-savings measures by leveraging real data simulators that will cut testing stages and times in half while saving their customers a fortune!
Vision
This is where enterprise organizations will consolidate their many production ERPs into a single consolidated ERP or system (of record) if you will or a “Mega-SAP T/5 HANA Cloud instance. On top of this, SAP middleware solutions such as PI (Process Integration), PO (Process Orchestration), and now the latest SAP CPI (Cloud Platform Integration) begin migrating into this Mega-SAP T/5 HANA as a single platform or solution becoming the “Modern Mainframe of the 22nd century”.
Mega-SAP T/5 HANA now provides both ERP and integration technologies and communication protocols into one seamless solution for any enterprise business type or model. Middleware (spoke) eventually gets phased out and becomes a thing of the past as SAP S/5 HANA builds on direct integration capabilities in the ERP leveraging their standard of SAP IDOCs, XML, APIs, RFCs, and so on that enable a company to connect to any other disparate systems.
ERP computing will never be the same as complementary ERP technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), RPA (Robotic Process Administration), and Bots (Robots) to study and analyze an organization’s business processes from end-to-end, painting organizational inefficiencies and automating solutions to these common problems.
Strategy
As multinational enterprise organizations (including SAP SE) become bigger and bigger, they go through key M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity to improve upon their product and service portfolio to compete (e.g. Ariba, Signavio, Fieldglass, SuccessFactors, Sybase).
The concept of a Yellowfield is to run native SAP solutions rather than integrate them with third parties. For example, for those who deal with global or complex taxation, industry tax experts know that Vertex is the industry leader in this space. Therefore, it would only make sense to acquire Vertex to bring the best tax calculation tools to their current customers and future potential customers as part of their endless portfolio of products. Again, the Yellow approach was designed for SAP T/5 HANA, but its approaches, strategies, and vision can be applied to any ERP implementation whether it’s a new or existing upgrade.
From an SAP enterprise customer perspective, they also have the added advantage of going to SAP as a one-stop shop to help minimize costs while getting everything that they need all under one roof in this perfect “Yellowfield” world for cloud offerings including (IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service, PasS-Platform as a Service, and SaaS — Software as a Service).
Why add another X-field to the code-named SAP T/5 HANA approach?
First and foremost, the three main Xfield approaches (Blue, Green, Brown) didn’t fit the technical|business model under one umbrella. There was only one way to solve this problem or address these deficiencies which was to develop a new color in this colorful spectrum coined the Yellowfield approach. This is a modern approach or take on its predecessors that fell behind with modern times.
As advances in technology from both the hardware and software side explode to unfathomable speeds and size, companies like SAP SE (Societas Europaea) changed the way ERPs are traditionally run. The architecture of the SAP HANA databases is a game-changer by reading from memory rather than disks, improving system efficiencies through raw computing speeds like the old school mainframe that is still prevalent today. It creates new ways on how enterprise ERP technology drives business productivity by leveraging state-of-the-art technology.
What is an SAP Yellowfield SAP T/5 HANA approach?
The Yellowfield approach is an approach, vision, and strategy all rolled up into one with a focus on consolidating the abundant suite of enterprise SAP solutions that the firm offers (not including SAP Business One|Business by Design- which is catered to small to mid-market firms). The enterprise ERP which is now SAP T/5 HANA will be the core hub, centralizing all SAP applications that enable ERP centralization and less or minimal A2A (application-to-application) integration providing superb computing speeds in real-time.
Approach
The Yellowfield approach is first and foremost importantly advantageous for enterprise consumers through simplification and consolidation of SAP products. SAP customers will now have the ability to get whatever products and services they want on demand with a single click of a mouse on the SAP data distributed cloud (or from one of their hyperscaler partners). The best way to interpret this approach is as an Amazon consumer where one or a few clicks and the products are at your front door, the same day, or even in real-time on the cloud for enterprise SAP HANA T/5 software.
SAP implementations and upgrades whether Greenfield, Brownfield, Bluefield, or the new Yellowfield will now take up a fraction of the time they currently do today. Conversely, the approach is ideally suited and designed for SAP T/5 HANA. Still, the methodologies can be applied to any SAP ERP or any ERP in general through the centralization and consolidation of redundant applications and systems.
SI’s (Systems Integrators) will be a thing of the past like a crusty, old, dust-covered fax machine as SAP T/5 HANA will be packaged and delivered based on customer-specific needs. It will already know what the customers’ unique business processes are through SAP Signavio data mining and a strenuous customer assessment process and feedback down to a granular level even for customers in the same industry. This will be the blueprint for how a customer will receive their new SAP T/5 HANA package where it won’t matter if it’s a Greenfield, Bluefield, or Browfield.
By leveraging SAP Signavio, SAP SE will understand your complete business model and organizational processes better than you or anyone within your firm! As part of the customer blueprint and (unique) process assessment, SAP will be able to do the work of what is currently done by an army of personnel at the SI’s today, over months, and years with extensive cost savings in materials and labor. (More on SAP Signavio benefits of process mining in Phase II of this article). Lastly, integration testing stages such as FIT, FAT, SIT, and UAT will also be a thing of the past as firms look to cost-cutting and cost-savings measures by leveraging real data simulators that will cut testing stages and times in half while saving their customers a fortune!
Vision
This is where enterprise organizations will consolidate their many production ERPs into a single consolidated ERP or system (of record) if you will or a “Mega-SAP T/5 HANA Cloud instance. On top of this, SAP middleware solutions such as PI (Process Integration), PO (Process Orchestration), and now the latest SAP CPI (Cloud Platform Integration) begin migrating into this Mega-SAP T/5 HANA as a single platform or solution becoming the “Modern Mainframe of the 22nd century”.
Mega-SAP T/5 HANA now provides both ERP and integration technologies and communication protocols into one seamless solution for any enterprise business type or model. Middleware (spoke) eventually gets phased out and becomes a thing of the past as SAP S/5 HANA builds on direct integration capabilities in the ERP leveraging their standard of SAP IDOCs, XML, APIs, RFCs, and so on that enable a company to connect to any other disparate systems.
ERP computing will never be the same as complementary ERP technologies such as AI (Artificial Intelligence), RPA (Robotic Process Administration), and Bots (Robots) to study and analyze an organization’s business processes from end-to-end, painting organizational inefficiencies and automating solutions to these common problems.
Strategy
As multinational enterprise organizations (including SAP SE) become bigger and bigger, they go through key M&A (mergers and acquisitions) activity to improve upon their product and service portfolio to compete (e.g. Ariba, Signavio, Fieldglass, SuccessFactors, Sybase).
The concept of a Yellowfield is to run native SAP solutions rather than integrate them with third parties. For example, for those who deal with global or complex taxation, industry tax experts know that Vertex is the industry leader in this space. Therefore, it would only make sense to acquire Vertex to bring the best tax calculation tools to their current customers and future potential customers as part of their endless portfolio of products. Again, the Yellow approach was designed for SAP T/5 HANA, but its approaches, strategies, and vision can be applied to any ERP implementation whether it’s a new or existing upgrade.
From an SAP enterprise customer perspective, they also have the added advantage of going to SAP as a one-stop shop to help minimize costs while getting everything that they need all under one roof in this perfect “Yellowfield” world for cloud offerings including (IaaS-Infrastructure as a Service, PasS-Platform as a Service, and SaaS — Software as a Service).
Why add another X-field to the code-named SAP T/5 HANA approach?
First and foremost, the three main Xfield approaches (Blue, Green, Brown) didn’t fit the technical|business model under one umbrella. There was only one way to solve this problem or address these deficiencies which was to develop a new color in this colorful spectrum coined the Yellowfield approach. This is a modern approach or take on its predecessors that fell behind with modern times.
As advances in technology from both the hardware and software side explode to unfathomable speeds and size, companies like SAP SE (Societas Europaea) changed the way ERPs are traditionally run. The architecture of the SAP HANA databases is a game-changer by reading from memory rather than disks, improving system efficiencies through raw computing speeds like the old school mainframe that is still prevalent today. It creates new ways on how enterprise ERP technology drives business productivity by leveraging state-of-the-art technology.
Finalization of a Yellowfield approach:
Consolidation of ERPs from both SAP and non-SAP systems (M&A activities, legacy systems, and consolidation of ALL SAP ERPs creating a MEGASAP S/5 system. This is the crux of the Yellowfield approach whereas the others (Bluefield, Brownfield, and Greenfield) approaches are deficient in or aren’t applicable for a specific scenario. MDM (Master Data Management)|MDG (Master Data Governance) products including SAP MDG (Master Data Governance) will migrate and transition into the ERP but play an integral role in ERP consolidation of disparate systems in representing clean data. Furthermore, middleware consolidation and move to SAP S/5 or whatever the new SAP system name will be.
To the customer, it should be a seamless consolidation as SAP SE pushes hard for everything to reside on either their private or public cloud for all SAAS cloud product offerings or push it to a hyperscaler partner.
Enterprise consolidation of applications and integration of any internal or external application will all be supported under one centralized SAP ERP as SAP HANA S/5 where disparate systems will be a thing of the past and even the thought of disparate systems will be considered antiquated.
Finally, on-premise SAP solutions will be a thing of the past as SAP pushes their SAP S/4 HANA solution hard on the cloud solution versus the alternative on-premise solution. The only way forward is via the Cloud for SAP SE Enterprise SAAS if they want to continue to dominate in the ERP market as they have been doing for the latter of three decades.
