Ravi Kashyap - SAP on Microsoft Azure: Architecture and Administration

How is this book different from the myriad information available online (often free)? Why read a book when, given the velocity of the cloud, the content may be out of date?

These questions had a profound effect in shaping this book, and we often thought about these issues from a readers point of view. How many times have you read an article online on a specific topic that doesnt explain how it fits in the bigger picture, or, even worse, there is a confusing diagram in the content that the article doesnt refer to or explain? A picture is worth a thousand words only if its simple enough to understand and ties together with the article.

Another common problem we run into when reading something in bits and pieces is that there isnt enough foundational information to build on. For example, it may assume that you know certain things rather than explaining or providing context.

These issues, combined with the overwhelming amount of information out there, make the case for reading a book when youre trying to grasp not only new technology but also how it applies to the work you currently do or intend to perform.

This book builds your base knowledge first and then add the other different and flexible pieces as you understand how they work. The objective here is to start from the introductory level content and showcase how to use frameworks and design principles to successfully architect, deploy, and manage the SAP landscape in Microsoft Azure. It acts as a decision guide and shows what questions to ask rather than providing all the answers. For example, weve seen a lot of conversations about high availability (HA) without first asking what the uptime requirements are and disaster recovery (DR) conversations without knowing the recovery time objective (RTO) and recovery point objective (RPO). This book enables you to ask the right questions and make informed decisions.

If after reading a chapter, you feel that youve understood the concepts and decide to explore further by doing things yourself in Microsoft Azure portal or in some other form, that chapter has served its purpose. This book also highlights the importance of working together as a team because SAP on Microsoft Azure isnt just SAP, isnt just Microsoft Azure, nor just infrastructure as a service (IaaS); rather, its a combination that works together.

The book is primarily geared toward folks who want to learn how SAP on Microsoft Azure is architected and managed, but its also helpful for those trying to learn Microsoft Azure and decision makers who want to understand how pieces fit together and use optimizations for cost and architecture. In terms of roles, this book will be helpful for SAP Basis administrators, SAP technical architects, Microsoft Azure administrators, and Microsoft Azure architects who are currently working or expect to work on SAP on Microsoft Azure deployments/migrations. Folks with operating system, storage, and network backgrounds will also learn how the work they do fits into the overall deployment.

Because things in Microsoft Azure change quickly, the book focuses more on concepts and working knowledge rather than all the specific restrictions and limitations that a service has primarily because the limitations change over time. Even if youre familiar with certain areas, we recommend for the first time, to read the whole book, rather than skipping contents, and from there use it as a reference. There is a good chance that something you were looking for exists in some other chapter under that context.