Munich Re gains speed and performance with SAP on Azure to drive innovation

Moving at the speed of innovation

As an SAP customer since the mid-90s with a global footprint, Munich Re runs one of the largest SAP environments in Europe. The company deploys numerous SAP modules, some of which include: 

• SAP FS-RI, a 6-terabyte, business-critical, and reinsurance-focused enterprise resource planning system.
• SAP FPSL, a financial product subledger used for enterprise-level reporting.
• A 12-terabyte SAP Enterprise Data Warehouse.
• All of its HR systems.

The company historically managed its SAP environment on its own private cloud, but as Munich Re continued to grow, its on-premises hardware resources became increasingly scarce. Additionally, the company undertook a datacenter transformation initiative in 2021. Adds Gerhard Göppel, Head of Platform Operations at Munich Re, “We had aging hardware, but we were also trying to standardize the processes and technologies across our global environments and implement automation and infrastructure as a code.” Adds Matthias Spang, Technical Architect for SAP Solutions at Munich Re, “We needed to move away from the confines of on-premises resources to allow for more innovation. SAP on Azure gave us the speed to innovation we needed to be able to support new projects, try new solutions, and deliver greater value for our business users and customers.”

A simpler, smarter SAP environment

Munich Re runs all of its systems on SAP HANA, which along with some thoughtful architecture standardization and automation made the migration to Azure seamless and straightforward. The company kept its architecture as simple and standardized as possible rather than replicating its on-premises environment to the cloud, and it consulted with Microsoft to determine and execute SAP on Azure best practices. “We really talked and listened to the Microsoft architect to figure out how best to run SAP on Azure,” observes Spang. “We wanted to get Microsoft’s best recommendations and follow implementation best practices to keep it as simple and high-performing as possible.”

Munich Re deployed SAP systems to multiple Azure geographies such as West and North Europe and East and West US, and its major Azure datacenter—where its entire SAP environment is based—is located in West Europe. The company uses North Europe as its secondary region for European backup and disaster recovery. For the United States, it uses East US as its main region with backups and disaster recovery in West US. Munich Re uses the Datacenter extension to directly connect to its on-premises network, and it has architected its environment so that each of its SAP systems can communicate without restriction.

The company uses Premium SSD Azure Disk Storage for its storage requirements and Azure Files to run file-based applications on its Red Hat Enterprise Linux operating system. Munich Re took a keen interest in Azure Files after its preview release and has been using it in production since NFS support became generally available. With Azure Files, the company is able to operate business-critical SAP transport directories, and it also uses the service for general file shares between multiple Linux-based SAP servers. “We love how easy Azure Files is to use and manage and certainly appreciate its interoperability with other Azure services,” says Spang. “And having a fully managed service eliminates the burden and costs of managing NFS servers.”

Munich Re also employs a standard Red Hat Enterprise Linux for SAP Apps image from Microsoft that’s amended with a few small adjustments to fit its environment. The company uses the full range of Azure Virtual Machines, including the M-series for its HANA databases and the D-series for its Intel application servers. The company has approximately 340 servers in Azure with about 140 SAP systems altogether.

Flexible and futureproof

A key benefit that Munich Re realized through its SAP on Azure migration is increased flexibility. In the past, adding resources was expensive, slow, and often resulted in costly unused hardware due to project data overestimations. With the Azure platform, Munich Re has access to exactly the number of resources it needs according to projects demands, without limitations, and it can scale back as necessary. “Sizing for projects used to be a challenge that sometimes resulted in acquiring big machines in our datacenter that we didn’t use,” says Göppel. “With SAP on Azure, those days are gone—we have the flexibility to upscale and downscale as we need to.”

The added scale helps Munich Re flex to meet business demands on an ongoing basis. “If the business is doing year-end closing and needs more resources, we can easily add those with Azure,” says Spang. “Or if our users need a test system for a short time, we can build and decommission in Azure without having to worry about extra costs.” This kind of flexibility provides the freedom to take more chances, be more innovative, and play around with new solutions without huge hardware investments. Adds Göppel, “It used to take from four to six months to add resources, but with SAP on Azure and our infrastructure automation, we can now do it within an hour.”

Munich Re has also noticed performance enhancements in its SAP modules. “Moving from a seven-year-old, on-premises hardware platform to a brand-new platform on Azure, we’ve definitely observed improved performance,” remarks Spang. Rock-solid reliability underpins that boost, and by pursuing an infrastructure as a service approach, Munich Re gains the assurance it needs on the resilience of its environment. “We have total reliability regarding disaster recovery, and the standardized hardware we get from Azure is 100 percent certified by SAP,” states Göppel.

Insuring the future

Current benefits aside, Munich Re is most excited about how it has positioned itself to continue leading the insurance industry of tomorrow. Running SAP on Azure and being able to take advantage of the latest technology the cloud has to offer gives Munich Re more power and control to make strategic decisions. “More of our application owners are switching to hosted software solutions, and because of Azure, it’s no problem for us to support them and simply spin up new systems or decommission old ones.” Indeed, Munich Re is in the midst of a global HR initiative to consolidate and standardize its various systems with a single on-demand software solution. “We’re more future-proof with SAP on Azure,” says Göppel. “If we decide to move an SAP system to a software as a service model, we have the flexibility to do that and know that our cloud infrastructure will always be optimized from the get-go.”

Being future-proof means being able to move at the speed of business and support innovation where and when it occurs. “We can deliver ready-to-use SAP systems to the business so much faster now—within days rather than months,” concludes Spang. “SAP on Azure really gives us the freedom to try new things quickly that simply weren’t possible before.”

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