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State budget from a private cloud

The State of Brandenburg is building on dynamic SAP operation


The challenge

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Following its decision in favor of SAP, the Ministry of Finance and Europe (MdFE) sought a reliable, experienced partner to run its SAP systems. This partner also needed to be capable of advising the persons responsible with regard to the development of the SAP systems – currently for the pending changeover to SAP S/4HANA. Another important requirement: the systems should be run in Germany, ideally nearby, securely and with absolute compliance. This also required the assignment of German staff.

The federal state’s SAP systems have to support the functional procedures reliably, with high, targeted performance. In this regard, T-Systems has more than satisfied the customer’s demands, with outstanding service for running applications for nearly 15 years.

Timo Czajka, Service Delivery Manager, T-Systems

The solution

T-Systems prevailed over other external applicants after a tender process and has since confirmed its status as a reliable partner in multiple follow-on tenders – the Ministry reviews the rendered services and issues a new call for tenders every four years. “In 2006, we started classic operation of the SAP systems on dedicated hardware,” remembers Timo Czajka, Service Delivery Manager at T-Systems. By the late 2010s, it had become clear that dedicated infrastructures would not be viable for the future – especially since the changeover to SAP HANA and SAP S/4HANA was already in the cards. In 2019, the T-Systems team convinced the customer to migrate its SAP systems to a private cloud.

The partners also discussed the consequences of using a private cloud in great detail, in terms of security and compliance. T-Systems scored points here, as well, thanks to the security mechanisms integrated in the platform. The migration path for the systems to the T-Systems private cloud, which was a perfect fit for the MdFE’s size and requirements, was now clear. “The platform gives us a new momentum and flexibility that the federal state never had before,” explains René Albert, Sales Manager at T-Systems. The load and number of the systems on the platform increased sharply in the first few months. It kept up with the additional requirements that resulted from new, additional technical and functional features.

With a use-based billing model, the Ministry only pays for the resources it actually uses. The platform also makes it possible to distribute the costs to the subordinate agencies according to use. The Ministry also has the option of returning resources not needed at any time, to lower its costs. The MdFE also linked the migration to a virtualized SAP environment with the implementation of the SAP HANA database technology, taking a decisive step toward the modern world of SAP.

Customer benefits

“With its move to a private cloud, the MdFE is a pioneer for using private clouds in German public administration,” summarizes René Albert, sales manager at T-Systems. The platform combines maximum reliability and security with much-improved flexibility – making it ideal for the public sector. It also gives the MdFE a solid footing for its changeover to SAP S/4HANA, which is planned by 2024.

In T-Systems, the Ministry has found a partner at eye level – including proximity to the customer, regular interchange, and local support by German staff. “The most important factor for the federal state is that the SAP systems support its functional procedures reliably at all times. T-Systems has absolutely met the customer’s needs in this regard, with outstanding service for more than 15 years,” sums up Timo Czajka.

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About the Federal State of Brandenburg

14.7 billion euros: that’s the amount of the budget available to the State of Brandenburg in 2022. This money goes toward the federal state’s many different activities – and it needs to be funded, too. The body primarily responsible for all financial flows of the federal state’s public administration, its income and expenditures, is the Ministry of Finance and Europe (MdFE). This Ministry must ensure that political decision-makers have transparency over the funds, their distribution, and their utilization at all times in order to coordinate the federal state’s development.

The Ministry also encompasses subordinate agencies, such as the state central treasury (Landeshauptkasse) with its sites in Potsdam, Frankfurt (Oder), and Brandenburg (Havel), the federal state’s 13 tax offices, the technical tax office, the University of Applied Sciences for Finance, the state school of finance (Landesfinanzschule), the state training center (Fortbildungszentrum), the central salary office (Zentrale Bezügestelle), and the state company for property and construction (Landesbetrieb für Liegenschaften und Bauen).

The Ministry is based in Potsdam and has around 4,800 employees: just under 390 in the Ministry itself, about 3,500 in the tax offices, and around 530 in the Brandenburg state company for property and construction.

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