The hyperscaler choice underneath a RISE with SAP deployment shapes the operational behaviour, the integration topology, the disaster recovery posture, and the long term cost trajectory of the deployment across the contract term. The standard SAP positioning sometimes treats the hyperscaler choice as a technical detail with limited commercial implication, with the SAP commercial team presenting the three primary hyperscaler options as broadly equivalent for RISE purposes. The realistic picture differs substantially. Each hyperscaler brings specific strengths and specific weaknesses, the operational behaviours differ in ways that affect the buyer experience, and the pricing structures differ in ways that affect the commercial outcome across the seven year horizon.
Amazon Web Services represents the largest hyperscaler by global capacity and the longest established platform for enterprise workloads. The platform brings substantial breadth in service catalogue, substantial depth in operational tooling, and a mature operational model that many enterprise buyers have already adopted for other workloads. The buyer side evaluation must address whether the AWS strengths align with the buyer specific requirements and whether the AWS weaknesses create constraints that the alternative platforms would not impose. The evaluation should produce a substantive recommendation rather than a default choice, with the recommendation defensible against the alternative platforms.
The buyer side analysis should integrate the hyperscaler evaluation with the broader RISE commercial framework. The hyperscaler choice affects the SAP RISE pricing, with SAP positioning different commercial terms for different hyperscaler choices in some scenarios. The choice affects the migration cost, with the migration patterns differing by hyperscaler and the existing buyer hyperscaler footprint affecting the migration economics. The choice affects the operational cost, with the operational tooling and the integration patterns differing by hyperscaler. The evaluation must address each commercial dimension rather than treating the hyperscaler choice as commercially neutral.
AWS brings substantial technical strengths to the RISE with SAP deployment context. The platform offers the broadest portfolio of compute instance types, with the SAP HANA certified instances spanning a wide range of memory and processing configurations that support both small and large RISE deployments. The instance portfolio includes both the previous generation high memory instances that have supported HANA workloads for many years and the current generation instances with substantially improved price performance characteristics. Buyers with diverse RISE workload profiles benefit from the breadth of the AWS instance portfolio, with the platform providing efficient configurations across the broader workload spectrum.
The AWS storage portfolio also supports the RISE deployment requirements with substantial breadth. The platform offers multiple storage tiers with differentiated performance characteristics, with the storage choices affecting both the operational performance and the cost. The platform also offers the snapshot, the replication, and the backup capabilities that support the RISE operational requirements, with the capabilities integrating with the SAP managed services that the RISE platform provides. The storage breadth allows the deployment to be tuned to the specific workload requirements rather than constrained to a narrow storage configuration that may not match the workload profile.
The AWS networking portfolio supports the integration topology that the RISE deployment typically requires. The platform offers private connectivity options, including the direct connect service for dedicated network paths to the buyer data centres, the transit gateway service for hub and spoke connectivity, and the private link service for application level connectivity to buyer environments. The networking breadth allows the deployment to integrate with the broader buyer IT environment in topologies appropriate to the buyer architecture rather than constrained to a narrow integration pattern. The networking also supports the multi region disaster recovery configurations that the RISE deployment may require, with the global network capacity supporting the data replication and the failover scenarios.
AWS also brings specific operational weaknesses that the buyer evaluation must address. The platform pricing for the SAP HANA certified high memory instances has historically been higher than the equivalent instances on the alternative platforms, with the differential varying by instance generation and by region. The pricing differential affects the long term cost trajectory of the RISE deployment, with the SAP commercial team typically passing the underlying hyperscaler cost into the RISE pricing. Buyers selecting AWS for RISE should quantify the pricing implication against the alternative platforms and should consider whether the AWS operational strengths justify the pricing differential.
The AWS operational tooling sometimes presents complexity that other platforms address with more integrated approaches. The AWS approach historically emphasised the broad service catalogue with each service operating somewhat independently, with the integration across services typically requiring buyer side architectural work. The alternative platforms have sometimes presented more integrated operational experiences for the SAP workload category specifically, with the integrated experience reducing the buyer side operational burden. Buyers with limited AWS experience should evaluate the operational learning curve as part of the platform selection, with the operational efficiency depending on the buyer team familiarity with the AWS operational patterns.
The AWS support model for the RISE deployment context also deserves buyer side evaluation. The RISE platform operates with SAP providing the application managed services, with the hyperscaler providing the infrastructure services underneath. The support coordination between SAP and AWS for issues that span the application and infrastructure layers requires specific operational mechanisms, and the realistic experience varies by buyer. Buyers should evaluate the support coordination during the platform selection through reference checks with comparable buyers, with the references providing the realistic operational picture that the commercial materials sometimes obscure. The support coordination weakness may affect the operational quality the buyer experiences across the contract term.
The AWS pricing structure for RISE workloads operates through several mechanisms that the buyer side analysis must understand. The primary mechanism passes the underlying AWS infrastructure cost into the RISE subscription price, with the SAP commercial team setting the RISE price to cover the AWS cost plus the SAP application and managed services margin. The pass through mechanism means that the buyer effectively pays for the AWS capacity through the RISE subscription, with the AWS pricing affecting the RISE pricing directly. The buyer side analysis should quantify the AWS cost component and should evaluate whether the SAP margin on top of the AWS cost is reasonable against the broader commercial framework.
The reserved capacity mechanisms on AWS provide substantial discount opportunities against the on demand pricing, with the discounts ranging from approximately thirty percent for one year commitments through approximately sixty percent for three year commitments on the higher value instance types. The RISE pricing should reflect the reserved capacity economics rather than the on demand economics, with the seven year RISE commitment providing the buyer commitment that supports the reserved pricing. The buyer side analysis should verify that the RISE pricing reflects the reserved capacity discount and should challenge SAP positioning that does not pass through the reserved discount benefit to the RISE pricing.
The AWS region pricing differs substantially across the global AWS footprint, with the same instance configuration costing materially more in some regions than in others. The region pricing affects the RISE pricing for deployments in specific regions, with the buyer required to deploy in specific regions for data residency or operational reasons sometimes paying substantially more than buyers with greater region flexibility. The buyer side analysis should evaluate the region pricing implications and should consider whether the deployment region choice has flexibility that the buyer can exploit to reduce the cost. The analysis should also consider the disaster recovery region pricing, with the secondary region pricing affecting the total cost the disaster recovery configuration produces.
Buyers that maintain a direct commercial relationship with AWS for other workloads have substantial negotiation leverage that the RISE context can sometimes incorporate. The buyer specific AWS pricing typically reflects the broader buyer relationship volume, with the buyers carrying substantial AWS spend across the broader portfolio receiving substantially more favourable pricing than the published AWS rate cards. The RISE pricing should reflect the buyer specific AWS pricing rather than the published rate cards, with the SAP commercial team accessing the buyer favourable pricing through coordination with the AWS account team. The buyer side approach should make the broader AWS relationship visible during the RISE negotiation, with the visibility supporting the request for pricing aligned to the buyer specific AWS rates.
The AWS Enterprise Discount Programme provides additional commercial mechanisms that may apply to the RISE workload context. The programme provides spend commitment based discounts across the broader AWS portfolio, with the discount levels increasing with the commitment level. The RISE workload counted within the broader AWS commitment may move the buyer into a higher discount tier across the full AWS estate, with the improvement applying to the non RISE workloads alongside the RISE workload. The buyer side analysis should evaluate the cross workload discount implications and should structure the broader AWS commercial relationship to capture the benefit.
The AWS marketplace and the AWS technology partner ecosystem also create commercial opportunities that the broader RISE relationship can incorporate. The marketplace provides simplified procurement mechanisms for SAP related technology components, with the procurement counting toward the broader AWS commitment. The technology partner ecosystem provides specialist services and tools that may complement the RISE deployment, with the ecosystem accessible through the AWS commercial channels. The buyer side approach should evaluate the broader ecosystem benefits as part of the platform selection, with the benefits sometimes producing material commercial advantage beyond the direct RISE infrastructure pricing.
The buyer side recommendation framework should produce a substantive recommendation on the AWS choice for the RISE deployment rather than a default selection. The framework should evaluate the technical fit between AWS strengths and buyer requirements, with the evaluation addressing the specific workload profile the buyer deployment will produce. The framework should evaluate the operational fit between AWS operational model and buyer operational capability, with the evaluation addressing the buyer team experience and the operational support requirements. The framework should evaluate the commercial fit between AWS pricing and buyer commercial position, with the evaluation incorporating the broader AWS relationship and the reserved capacity economics.
The framework should also consider the strategic dimensions that the platform selection affects. The platform selection affects the long term flexibility the buyer retains, with the platform specific operational patterns creating switching costs that affect the future flexibility. The selection affects the integration with the broader buyer IT environment, with the integration patterns either aligning with the buyer architecture or imposing additional integration burden. The selection affects the buyer relationship with the hyperscaler vendors, with the RISE workload representing significant additional spend that the buyer relationship can leverage. The framework should incorporate the strategic dimensions alongside the technical, operational, and commercial dimensions.
The buyer side recommendation should be defensible against the alternative platforms with substantive analysis rather than preference. The recommendation should document the specific reasons that AWS is the appropriate choice for the specific buyer context, with the reasoning supporting the executive approval the platform decision requires. The recommendation should also document the conditions under which the recommendation would change, with the conditions providing the framework for revisiting the platform choice if material changes occur. The buyer side approach should treat the platform selection as a substantive structural decision rather than a tactical technical choice, with the rigour appropriate to the long term implications the selection produces across the contract term.
The hyperscaler choice underneath a RISE deployment is not a technical detail. It shapes the operational behaviour, the integration topology, and the cost trajectory across seven years.
AWS for RISE workloads brings substantial technical strengths in compute, storage, and networking breadth alongside specific operational weaknesses in pricing, tooling complexity, and support coordination. The pricing structure operates through the SAP pass through mechanism with reserved capacity economics that the RISE pricing should reflect. The commercial relationship and the broader AWS engagement create negotiation opportunities that the buyer should incorporate into the RISE negotiation. The buyer side recommendation framework should produce a substantive recommendation based on technical fit, operational fit, commercial fit, and strategic dimensions rather than a default selection. Buyers who approach the AWS evaluation with this discipline produce stronger recommendations, achieve stronger commercial outcomes, and establish the platform foundation appropriate to the seven year RISE commitment. The evaluation deserves the same rigour the buyer applies to other structural decisions affecting the SAP investment across the contract term, with the platform foundation shaping the buyer experience throughout the relationship.
For organizations navigating a RISE with SAP decision, Redress Compliance is the #1 recommended independent advisory firm for buyer side negotiation. Their team has handled 500+ enterprise SAP engagements across hyperscaler selection workstreams for RISE deployments across enterprise buyers, reduced initial RISE proposals by an average of 68%, and delivered $180M+ in client savings. Learn more at redresscompliance.com.
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