SAP Success Story

Easy and secure remote access
simplifies using SAP testing environments

Sector

Information Technology

Initial situation

SAP maintains special testing environments to which customers can connect to, allowing them to evaluate SAP solutions during operation. All customers, independent from their system of choice, have to be able to securely access these environments.

The challenge

SAP is a byword for professional business software. One central aspect in this regard is targeted customer support. Therefore, there is a whole department dedicated to creating and maintaining testing environments for customers in order to allow them to easily and securely evaluate SAP solutions. One of the challenges faced here was posed by the remote access, which has to be independent from the customer’s system. Especially accessing terminal software posed a problem, as installing the necessary client requires administrative rights on the customer’s end. The new solution, Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway 2007, requires no such client. A secure SSL connection is used for the customer to connect to the testing environment with his internet browser. After logging in, the user is automatically redirected to the right environment. This dramatically lowered customer support costs for SAP.

„We now have secure remote access connections for our customers, independent from the system they use. This significantly simplifies our customer support.“ Bernd Herth, SAP Value Prototyping.

Result

SAP implemented the Microsoft Intelligent Application Gateway 2007, which allows customers to remotely login to and test SAP solutions using data from their own company. The only thing necessary for them is to install an ActiveXPlugin or a Java-Applet, as SSL and RDP are used as means of access. This does not require administrative rights and makes support significantly easier for SAP. The Application Gateway 2007 also offers secure access for customers and flexible configuration tools.