What’s the point of cloud computing? Anybody who thinks it’s purely about consumption-based pricing for the information technology department to save money is behind the curve. Cloud is really about get-up-and-go agility that enables businesses to innovate on the fly. Microsoft Corp. and SAP SE have struck up a partnership that aims to enable such gymnastics for customers.

“I was speaking with a customer earlier — he says, ‘You have an accountability to help me be innovative,'” said Brad Berkey (pictured, right), worldwide general manager of SAP sales at Microsoft. “That’s a very important responsibility.”

To fulfill it, Microsoft has teamed up with partners like NetApp Inc. and the closely affiliated SAP. The latter is signaling its cloud-readiness with a partnership with Microsoft Azure Cloud. Customers can put their SAP landscape inside of Azure and reap some of its efficiencies and security features.

Berkey and Kevin Zhang (pictured, left), cloud architect, SAP on Azure, Intelligent Cloud Global Black Belt team at Microsoft, spoke with Keith Townsend (@CTOAdvisor), guest host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the SAP Sapphire Now event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed SAP on Azure Cloud and why agility is the key to innovation. (* Disclosure below.)

The true value of cloud

“When people think of cloud, they think about cost reduction — I’m going to save money, because I’m going to be renting equipment,” Berkey said. “The true value is in your ability to be nimble, to innovate.”

The companies have made putting the SAP landscape inside of Azure a snap, according to Zhang. “In 30 minutes, you have the entire SAP landscape deployed, including the large [Azure] virtual machine M-Series for your HANA cluster,” he said. This is accomplished in 30 minutes instead of the three months it would have taken in the past.

Customers can tweak arrangements on a dime, Berkey added. “At any point along that journey, they can call us up and say, ‘I want the infrastructure for HANA.’ They can innovate at will,” he said.

Nimble innovation largely revolves around enterprise-class security, according to Berkey. SAP-on-Azure customers benefit from Azure Cloud’s security features, he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the SAP Sapphire Now event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for SAP Sapphire Now. Neither NetApp Inc., the event sponsor, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE