CenturyLink becomes premium supplier of SAP Enterprise Cloud

CenturyLink and SAP have taken their partnership to the next level after the two companies signed an agreement to offer premium supplier service for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud across Asia Pacific.

The services will be delivered through data centers in Singapore and India, which will spread the SAP HANA platform across the region. The Enterprise Cloud suite is a fully-managed solution by SAP and supported by global partners.

The two companies have already established a global premium supplier partnership agreement, which was established earlier this year. The agreement capitalises on SAP's services CenturyLink's network, private cloud and managed hosting infrastructure.

"CenturyLink's expansive IT services and network capabilities provide businesses with extensive geographic coverage and essential components of enterprise-grade IT services. These are key attributes for businesses that rely on the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service for their mission-critical applications," says Kevin Ichhpurani, SAP ‎executive vice president, head of Business Development and Strategic Ecosystem.

The two companies have also demonstrated their commitment to Enterprise Cloud, after CenturyLink infrastructure passed a 'rigorous' audit and approval process in order to gain premium supplier status for Enterprise Cloud. The status reflects CenturyLink's reputation as a trusted SAP technology partner with experience dealing in SAP solutions.

"SAP HANA enables companies to make real-time, informed decisions about their business," comments Gary Gauba, chief enterprise relationship officer and president, Advanced Solutions Group in CenturyLink's Global IT - Managed Services business unit.

"By expanding our SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service offering in Asia Pacific, we continue to help businesses move their enterprise applications to the cloud and innovate using the latest-generation applications based on SAP HANA.

According to CenturyLink, its Global IT and Managed Services group services areas such as cloud enablement, big data-as-a-service, advanced decision sciences, digital commerce, managed security application and disaster recovery services.

Peter Harkin, head of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud - Managed Services Sales for SAP APJ, says that the global premium supplier partnership further expands SAP's reach into managed cloud services across APJ.

" The success of and demand for the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud offering is driving these partnerships, which we anticipate will benefit our customers. Now more than ever, we believe that SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud is a 'must consider' choice as our customers look to run their mission-critical SAP applications in the cloud while digitally transforming their businesses," he says.

CenturyLink says it will also be able to support large-scale production workloads and metro-specific disaster recovery services.