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AWS and SAP: How and Why Companies
Run Regulated Workloads in the Cloud
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"It took us five months to implement and it was
a non-event for the company," Damiani said. "It
proved that the holdup on running SAP in the AWS
cloud was more due to outdated perceptions than
anything else."
Moderna's positive experience was underpinned by
the work AWS and SAP have done to simplify the
process of getting started with regulated workloads
in cloud environments. Amgen has also benefited
from those efforts but, as a more established business
with existing on-premise infrastructure, it has taken
a different journey.
Amgen is part way through a phased-migration
of SAP to the AWS cloud. In this intermediate
state, Amgen runs SAP applications on both its
on-premise infrastructure and the AWS cloud.
Certain technologies must be used to make this
hybrid model work but, supported by AWS and SAP,
Amgen has found the migration to be manageable
and worthwhile.
"There are not really major challenges," Amgen's
Mundre s aid. "Since I worke d in on-premis e
infrastructure for quite a while, the cloud is different
... but there is always a workaround."
THE FUTURE OF SAP IN THE CLOUD
Amgen and Moderna's use of SAP in the AWS cloud
is breaking new ground and delivering benefits to
both businesses. Yet, they, AWS, SAP and the industry
as a whole are still uncovering the full extent of the
improvements made possible by running regulated
workloads in the cloud.
At Moderna, the next step is to translate leading-
edge uses of the cloud to GxP environments. One
pilot project is using IoT buttons — like Amazon's
consumer-fo cused Dash buttons — instead of
Kanban cards to manage materials at a production
plant. Instead of using cards to indicate when more
materials are needed, production-line workers press
the button to automatically place an order in SAP.
"This pilot ... represents the fusion of AWS innovation
and traditional, validated-SAP interfaces," Roland
Smith, Senior Director of Digital GxP Systems at
Moderna, said.
The same can be said of Moderna's other initiatives.
Having seen the benefit of applying traditional
analytics and machine learning to data generated
in its preclinical operation, Moderna now wants
to turn the same techniques on new repositories
accrued by its clinical and production teams to drive
improvements in both environments.
In doing so, Moderna will write another chapter about
the benefits of running SAP in the AWS cloud, adding
to the lessons about agility, compliance, reliability
and security already learnt by it and other early
adopters. l
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