thyssenKrupp Steel Europe moves to Microsoft Azure for more independence and flexibility
In 2018, thyssenKrupp Steel Europe broke away from its parent company and formed a joint venture with Tata Steel Europe. Due to time constraints and the complexity of the merger, thyssenKrupp needed to quickly separate its infrastructure and SAP systems from its parent company.
Ritchie Fomm, Head of ERP Template, is responsible for providing IT at thyssenKrupp Steel. Prior to the move away from the parent company, any interface modifications, changes to server structure, or updates to the systems, all had to go through an external partner. This was a process that took a significant amount of time.
Speaking about the move, “The situation demanded greater flexibility from IT”, Fomm said, “but we weren’t in a position to offer it.”
Due to a delay with the merger, thyssenKrupp made the move to the cloud in just nine months. This move to Microsoft Azure meant that thyssenKrupp could manage its own systems without relying on a third party. This means that its services are more readily available and can now be deployed in one to two weeks, rather than the three months which deployment previously took.
“When we were planning all this, COVID-19 wasn’t even on our radar”, Fomm said. “By the time things got going, all the teams were working remotely thanks to the coronavirus. Our movers, so to speak, were all sat at home. But we were well prepared.”
The team managed to migrate six or seven systems each week, meaning that the SAP landscape at thyssenKrupp Steel Europe was running entirely on the cloud within the required time frame.
Fomm commented: “We can now plan service capacity better. Services that are used more will receive more capacity, and vice versa. This wouldn’t have been possible before—we simply lacked insight into our own systems.”
“It’s well worth the extra responsibility. Yes, we may now have to spend more time looking after our SAP landscape than in the past. However, we’ve gained knowledge sovereignty; we can scale our SAP landscape as needed and provide services more precisely and quickly thanks to the switch in service model.”
With the new model, systems are updated at least once a year, yet it costs just 70 per cent of the amount the company used to pay for hosting in a partner's data centre.
