SAP S/4HANA Implementation in AWS
___For the Pharmaceutical Industry
_____About the Customer…
Mezzan Holding is a diversified enterprise operating across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Germany. One of its key subsidiaries, Kuwait Saudi Pharmaceutical Industries Company (KSPICO), is a leading manufacturer and distributor of pharmaceutical products in the Middle East.
- To drive growth, ensure compliance with country-specific tax and health-sector regulations, and modernize its pharmaceutical operations, Mezzan—through KSPICO—embarked on a strategic transformation by deploying a Greenfield SAP S/4HANA 2022 FPS 02 landscape on AWS.
This initiative replaces fragmented legacy systems with a unified, cloud-native, high-availability setup purpose-built for pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, positioning KSPICO for scalable, future-ready operations and faster rollout of SAP best practices for regulated industries.
The Customer__ Challenge.
Kuwait Saudi Pharmaceutical Industries Company (KSPICO), a key subsidiary of Mezzan Holding, wanted to modernize its ERP landscape and deploy a brand-new SAP S/4HANA system directly on public cloud rather than continue its aging on-premises Infrastructure.
Key drivers for this decision included:
On premise Limitations
Existing data-center capacity constraints could not support future growth or regulated workloads.
Built-in high availability & disaster recovery
Multi-AZ and cross-region architecture to protect critical pharmaceutical operations.
Automated backups & retention
Requirement for policy-driven, auditable backups to meet pharmaceutical compliance.
Compliance & security
Consistent encryption, audit logging, and access controls aligned to pharmaceutical regulatory standards.
Flexibility for peak demand
Dynamic scaling for seasonal production spikes and new product rollouts.
On-demand scalability
The ability to resize compute and memory instantly across DEV, QAS, and PRD systems.
By opting for a fresh SAP S/4HANA deployment on AWS, KSPICO ensured a scalable, flexible, and cost-effective cloud platform ready to support its pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution business today and in the future.
The Partner__Solution.
Cloudwrxs, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, designed and implemented a greenfield SAP S/4HANA 2022 FPS 02 deployment following AWS and SAP best practices for KSPICO.
The solution deployed Development (DEV), Quality Assurance (QAS), and Production (PRD) systems on separate AWS sub-accounts, with a shared infrastructure account hosting central services such as SAPRouter, Solution Manager, Web Dispatcher, and monitoring. All environments were deployed in a distributed architecture with dedicated database servers and application servers separated for performance and security.
This approach delivered a compliant, high-performing, and cost-optimized SAP S/4HANA landscape purpose-built for KSPICO’s pharmaceutical business.
Key highlights of the deployment:
Operating System
Selected the latest release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP 15 for extended vendor supportability.
Storage
Provisioned AWS-recommended high-performance storage layouts (data, log, shared) for HANA workloads.
Backups
Implemented native AWS Backint for SAP HANA to back up directly to dedicated Amazon S3 buckets per environment.
SAP Best Practice Content
Activated pre-built SAP Best Practice configurations for Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Germany to accelerate country-specific compliance and rollouts.
Fiori & Web Dispatcher
Deployed SAP Web Dispatcher and configured Fiori Launchpad for centralized access.
Production HA/DR
Implemented multi-AZ High Availability and Disaster Recovery in Production using SUSE Pacemaker Cluster and cross-region replication.
Cost Optimization
Leveraged 1-year EC2 Savings Plans across DEV, QAS, and PRD to meet cost-efficiency goals.
Compliance & Retention
Created AWS Backup policies with retention schedules approved by the customer’s Compliance/Quality team.
Audit & Validation
All deployments were recorded on video to meet KSPICO’s regulated-environment documentation and validation requirements.
How AWS Services ___were used.
Amazon EC2
Deployed dedicated SAP HANA database servers and separate application servers for DEV, QAS, and PRD environments.
(r6i / m6i instances)
AWS Backint for SAP HANA + AWS Backup Plan
Native HANA backups to Amazon S3 with lifecycle policies and retention schedules approved by the Compliance/Quality team, replacing manual tape/disk backups.
Amazon S3
Used as the central backup target for full, differential, and log backups per environment with lifecycle management.
Amazon VPC & Security Groups
Segregated DEV, QAS, and PRD environments with tightly controlled ingress/egress rules.
Elastic IP & Public IPs
Assigned for Fiori and Web Dispatcher configurations as required by business users.
Application Load Balancer (ALB)
Placed in front of SAPRouter and Web Dispatcher to remove direct public exposure and filter traffic to essential ports.
SUSE Pacemaker Cluster
Implemented High Availability (HA) for SAP HANA and central services within multi-AZ Production and QAS environments.
AWS IAM & AWS KMS
Enforced least-privilege access controls and encryption for data at rest and in transit.
AWS CloudTrail, AWS Config & Amazon GuardDuty
Enabled for continuous compliance, change tracking, and threat detection across the SAP landscape.
How Services Were Delivered
Cloudwrxs, in collaboration with AWS, managed the entire lifecycle of the SAP S/4HANA deployment for KSPICO, ensuring a compliant, validated, and optimized rollout for a regulated pharmaceutical environment.
Pre-Deployment Activities
- Conducted detailed discovery workshops with AWS to gather business and technical requirements, perform TCO analysis, and develop a business plan and migration roadmap.
- Performed requirement gathering, mapping, and sizing to ensure SAP S/4HANA on AWS met KSPICO’s performance, compliance, and country-specific needs.
- Designed the target architecture and prepared cost modeling, aligning with AWS and SAP best practices.
Deployment Activities
- Deployed infrastructure using Terraform for repeatable, auditable builds.
- Implemented AWS Organizations and Control Tower to create a multi-account structure with DEV, QAS, and PRD as separate sub-accounts and a shared services account for SAPRouter, SolMan, and monitoring.
- Handled all infrastructure provisioning and SAP Basis activities, including HA/DR configuration, Fiori/Web Dispatcher setup, and SAP Best Practice content activation.
Post-Deployment Managed Services
-
Cloudwrxs continues to provide 24×7 managed services for the SAP S/4HANA environment, including:
- Patching & Updates – Database, and SAP component updates.
- Backup Monitoring – HANA Backint to S3 and AWS Backup Plan compliance.
- HA/DR Drills – Regular testing of Pacemaker cluster failover and recovery procedures.
- Security Audits – Continuous IAM/KMS/CloudTrail/GuardDuty checks for regulatory compliance.
- SAP Basis Support – Ongoing performance tuning, user management, and system health monitoring.
This structured approach gave KSPICO a validated, well-documented, and auditable SAP S/4HANA environment on AWS, optimized for its pharmaceutical operations.
Business__Outcomes.
The greenfield SAP S/4HANA 2022 FPS 02 deployment on AWS for KSPICO delivered measurable improvements across performance, availability, compliance, and cost-efficiency:
This deployment significantly reduced manual administrative effort, ensured regulatory compliance, and provided a future-ready, scalable SAP S/4HANA landscape tailored to KSPICO’s pharmaceutical business.
Business Continuity
Multi-AZ High Availability + cross-region DR using SUSE Pacemaker cluster; downtime reduced from hours/days to minutes.
SAP Performance
Dedicated SAP-certified hardware on EC2 (r6i/m6i) with EBS Provisioned IOPS, separate DB and App servers; fast transaction response and high throughput for production workloads.
Backups
Automated SAP HANA Backint backups to S3 + AWS Backup Plan with lifecycle and retention policies; fully auditable for pharmaceutical compliance.
Disaster Recovery
Annual DR tests with cross-region standby systems and Pacemaker cluster failover; rapid recovery for critical operations.
Security
Layered security with ALB, IAM, KMS, VPC isolation, Security Groups, and audit logging via CloudTrail and GuardDuty; compliant with regulatory requirements in Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Germany.
Cost Efficiency
Optimized with 1-year EC2 Savings Plans across DEV, QAS, and PRD; predictable TCO and right-sized infrastructure.
Greenfield Advantages
Pre-built SAP Best Practice content activated for multiple countries; Fiori and Web Dispatcher deployed; fully scalable and flexible platform ready for future SAP innovations and multi-country rollouts.
No testimonials available.