SAP on Azure at OGE

OGE, headquartered in Essen, is one of the largest transmission system operators for gas in Germany, with a pipeline network of around 12,000 kilometers. With 1,450 employees, the company ensures the marketing of gas transport capacities and the pipeline system's operation, maintenance, and repair. In addition, OGE controls and monitors the network and storage stations as well as the further development of the transmission networks based on national network development plans.

As a critical player in the energy transition, OGE Germany is working on the energy mix of the future: With its long-term strategy of 2030+, OGE is preparing the pipeline network and the numerous compressor stations for new molecular energy sources.

Project Overview

Initial situation

The SAP systems operated by OGE on-premises can no longer meet the growing security, flexibility, and scalability requirements and are not ready to move to the S/4 HANA world. 26 SAP hosts will be migrated to the Microsoft Azure Cloud during this transformation project. In the process, technological and security-enhancing changes and more than 30 interface adaptations have to be implemented. All communication channels must be adapted accordingly via a dedicated SAP Web Dispatcher solution (HA).

Vision

The primary project goal is to build a new, future-proof SAP infrastructure in the Microsoft Azure Cloud. In addition, OGE wants improved system performance through optimized Azure dimensioning on SAP on HANA. Furthermore, "Pay-per-Use" and "Reserved Instances" should enable maximum cost transparency.

Solution

As part of an iterative project approach, a new infrastructure was built on Azure. Within six months, the following systems were migrated step by step:

SAP ERP migration incl. database switch (SAP HANA)
SAP BW migration incl. changeover to single node instance
SAP BO migration via new installation and dissolution of the test environment
SAP IQ migration via new installation with data transfer
SAP Shared Services (SAP Cloud Connector, SAP Web dispatcher, SAP Router, HANA Cockpit) via new installation and configuration

With the help of dedicated, redundantly designed SAP Web Dispatcher systems, incoming and outgoing HTTP requests could be simplified, and additional security requirements implemented.