For organisations in highly regulated industries in Australia and New Zealand
By introducing new sovereign cloud capabilities, SAP helps Australian and New Zealand government and highly regulated industry organisations adhere to security regulations requiring certainty of data residency and physical and personnel supply chain within the sovereign borders of Australia.
Organisations in highly regulated industries and in the public sector, including energy, utilities, and transportation companies are increasingly subject to regulation that seeks to uplift security for the collective benefit of a nation.
For example, reforms to the Australian Security of Critical Infrastructure Act dramatically expanded the scope of critical infrastructure for the delivery of essential services to society and across the economy, including where delivered through cloud computing capabilities.
Organisations owning this infrastructure are subject to cyber security incident reporting and the regulated management of security risks to the delivery of essential services. Some of these organisations, based on additional legislation, government classified data workloads, or risk profile are subject to data sovereignty needs and demands, including Australian Government security cleared facilities and personnel.
To help customers meet these complex regulations, SAP announced a new investment of SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities into its Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) operations, offering a security-enhanced platform and establishing hardened solutions, secure facilities and a local security-cleared workforce in Australia. These capabilities also provide government and highly regulated industry organisations, for who sovereignty is not mandatory, an option to help mitigate supply chain risk in support of regulated risk management obligations.
SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities address the growing need of organisations in Australia – and globally – for hardened platforms that strengthen their cyber security protection while leveraging cloud. They enable customers to store and process sensitive, classified (PROTECTED) and business critical data, ensuring they are not transferred outside Australia without explicit customer consent. To date, SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities are available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Analytics Cloud solutions as well as the SAP Business Technology Platform.
Building a secure foundation for innovation with sovereign cloud capabilities
Sovereignty demands and regulation of cloud more generally present unique challenges for organisations in highly regulated industries and government jurisdictions. Specific and complex compliance requirements impose stringent data protection and privacy standards. Nevertheless, these organisations need the same level of flexibility, scalability, and efficiencies that companies in less regulated industries expect from a cloud ERP environment.
To overcome this challenge, the SAP team in Australia and New Zealand developed a secure and resilient foundation that organisations can use to drive continuous innovation with the cloud, while maintaining data sovereignty within Australia, mitigating risk and meeting compliance requirements.
Pairing strong local capabilities with global technology excellence
SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities combine security-hardened local capabilities and knowledge of the Australian regulatory environment with global SAP best practices to deliver secure and reliable cloud services across SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Business Technology platform and SAP Analytics Cloud solutions.
The new service leverages the portfolio of hyperscalers that have been certified as Strategic through the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Hosting Certification Framework (HCF) and are assessed for up to and including PROTECTED workloads.
Already, organisations from the public sector and highly regulated industry in Australia have and are starting to use SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities.
While every customer has unique requirements, here are three elements that customers value the most based on their initial feedback on SAP’s new sovereign cloud capabilities:
- Access to talent with country-specific expertise and SAP expertise
The skills that the team brings to the table is a key differentiator in onboarding and operating customers environments. Running sovereign cloud capabilities requires country-specific expertise and capabilities to manage and maintain cloud infrastructure with a thorough understanding of technology, security, and compliance requirements. The SAP team is specialised in both SAP infrastructure and SAP application operations to drive innovation, with expertise spanning across supporting infrastructure, SAP solutions, customer engagement, and application life cycle operations. - Security and compliance frameworks and controls are mission-critical
Ensuring the security and compliance of sovereign cloud capabilities is mission-critical for our customers. This entails offering robust security controls to protect sensitive, business critical and classified data from unauthorised access and cyber threats, leveraging tools with strict access controls, encryption mechanisms, and intrusion detection systems. Adhering to regular security audits to ensure compliance with relevant regulations are part of the operational framework. - Compatibility, compliance, and seamless integration
Equally important for sovereign cloud capabilities are interoperability and adherence to standards. Ensuring compatibility, compliance, and seamless integration with existing systems and applications is essential but often brings complexity. In close collaboration with our customers and partners, SAP fosters a cloud-centric mindset and best practices for a seamless cloud experience in a complex regulatory environment.
Scaling sovereign cloud capabilities
With a laser sharp focus on improving the customer experience, the next step is to scale SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities to empower more government and highly regulated industry organisations to leverage the benefits of the cloud – while meeting sovereignty demands and mitigating supply chain risk to support regulatory compliance.
More information about SAP’s sovereign cloud capabilities for the Australia and New Zealand market can be found here
