UMB AG, headquartered in Cham, is one of the leading IT service providers in Switzerland. Founded in 1978, the company specializes in innovative IT services and tailor-made solutions for digital transformation. Among other things, UMB offers comprehensive services in the areas of consulting, cloud, cyber security, modern work, AI and data, SAP and IT as a service. The company helps its customers to gain more time for innovation and growth with intelligent solutions — true to the company’s motto, "Creating Time®".
UMB supports large companies and SMEs from various sectors and has an extensive partner network with market-leading hardware and software providers. Numerous partner awards and more than 2,000 technical certifications attest to the company's high level of expertise and service quality. UMB currently employs over 900 people at 18 locations and has received multiple awards as a top employer in Switzerland. In 2022, the Great Place to Work® Institute named the company "Best Employer in Europe."
At-a-Glance
UMB AG delivers managed SAP services to a wide range of companies. These services run on a private cloud infrastructure built on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications and IBM® Power® Systems. This combination enables UMB to meet demanding customer requirements for performance, security and availability, while efficiently managing and scaling even the most complex SAP environments.
UMB’s journey to becoming a managed service provider for SAP customers
One focus of UMB's solution portfolio today is SAP as a Service. In recent years, the IT service provider has built up extensive expertise as a managed service provider for SAP customers. Today, the company operates more than 150 SAP instances for customers from a wide range of industries — from logistics and production to the pharmaceutical sector — in the data centers of the UMB Cloud. Well-known Swiss companies such as Spar, Confiserie Sprüngli, Vitra and Condair rely on UMB's SAP services.
"The demands on the performance, availability and security of SAP applications are higher today than ever before," explains Alfred Vockinger, Head of Linux/UNIX at UMB. "A failure of these critical systems would immediately have a major impact on business processes. This is why more and more companies are now choosing to work with UMB to operate their SAP systems."
Within the SAP as a Service model, UMB's experienced SAP specialists assume responsibility for all important operational tasks, including planning, installing and configuring the environment, as well as monitoring, analyzing errors, managing patches and releases, and handling backups and restores. UMB adheres to proven best practices and industry standards to provide stable, secure and efficient SAP systems.
Most customers' SAP applications operate in UMB's data centers in Switzerland. This means that customers benefit from a private cloud environment that meets strict security requirements and is subject to Swiss laws regarding data protection. If required, UMB also supports hybrid cloud architectures and manages SAP environments running on hyperscaler infrastructures such as Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure. UMB also has experience with RISE with SAP, SAP's private cloud solution, and can also take over the entire basic administration.
Spending less time on operational tasks means spending more time on the core business. According to UMB estimates, large companies can save up to 20,000 hours per year by outsourcing their SAP operations. For SMB customers, the figure is around 5,000 hours. UMB thus lives up to its "Creating Time" claim.
"SUSE has several years more experience with SAP than other platform providers. You notice that every day. The combination of a stable platform, mature tools, and SAP-certified support makes all the difference."
Why SUSE?
UMB has been using SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications for several years as a platform for securely and efficiently running SAP applications. The operating system is optimized specifically for SAP systems and provides additional features that enhance stability, availability and maintainability. UMB can therefore operate even critical applications reliably, minimize operational costs and eliminate potential risks to business continuity.
"SUSE has several years more experience with SAP than other platform providers. You notice that every day. The combination of a stable platform, mature tools and SAP-certified support makes all the difference," says Vockinger. Complex scenarios, such as ensuring the high availability of all critical components or automating cluster configurations, can be implemented with SUSE solutions.
The security features of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications are another advantage for UMB. The Linux distribution is based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, which has been validated according to Common Criteria EAL4+ and is delivered via a validated, secure software supply chain. This ensures compliance and prevents potential security vulnerabilities, guaranteeing the integrity of the operating system and patches.
This is especially important for UMB as a managed services provider because it enables the company to meet strict compliance requirements and provide full audit transparency. “SUSE enables us to operate successfully in highly regulated industries like finance and pharmaceuticals,” says Vockinger. “Its well-designed security architecture significantly eases our day-to-day work.”
UMB also values SUSE’s flexible licensing model for managed service providers. Instead of purchasing annual licenses upfront, UMB can bill customers monthly based on actual usage. “This gives us the flexibility to charge customers only for what they truly use — and avoid unnecessary over-licensing,” Vockinger adds.
The impact of SUSE solutions
Ensures high availability without compromise
SUSE enables UMB to ensure that core SAP applications, such as ERP, warehouse management and production control, remain available around the clock. Any downtime could immediately impact supply chains, production workflows and customer satisfaction.
To mitigate these risks, UMB relies on the SUSE Linux Enterprise High Availability Extension. This includes Pacemaker, which serves as the cluster manager, as well as other components that automate failover management and keep critical services running. SAP HANA system replication is also in place to synchronize data between two instances and ensure maximum resilience.
"If necessary, we can operate geo-redundant setups with active system replication across two data centers," explains Vockinger. "If the primary site fails completely, the secondary system takes over within seconds — with no noticeable impact for our customers."
Every high-availability setup is thoroughly tested under real-world conditions before going live, including simulated power outages, bare-metal restores and failover scenarios. These tests allow UMB to ensure a seamless experience, even in the event of major disruptions.
Provides optimized performance for SAP HANA on IBM Power
UMB runs all of its on-premises customers’ SAP environments on IBM® Power® systems with SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications. This setup is built to meet the highest demands in terms of performance, scalability and operational reliability. SAP HANA can be extremely memory- and compute-intensive — especially when handling large volumes of data and complex analytics. SUSE’s operating system is specifically optimized for these kinds of workloads, with certified support for SAP HANA, tuned kernel parameters and memory and network profiles designed for maximum throughput and stability.
The combination of IBM Power, SAP HANA and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications for UMB’s deployments creates a robust infrastructure tailored for enterprise-grade SAP workloads. UMB relies exclusively on IBM Power10, which allows for granular scaling of CPU and memory without requiring reboots. The platform also provides virtual persistent memory for ultra-fast SAP HANA restarts and delivers up to 2.5 times higher performance per core compared to x86 systems.
“When we look at the price-performance ratio for large SAP HANA instances, IBM Power in combination with SUSE is the most convincing option for us,” says Vockinger. “It gives us the scalability we need, fast provisioning of new systems and the rock-solid reliability our customers expect from us.”
Simplifies operations, even in hybrid-cloud scenarios
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications serves as a unified platform for SAP across diverse architectures and cloud environments. For UMB's heterogeneous setup, which spans IBM Power, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure running x86, this provides seamless operation of their multiple customers’ SAP environments, significantly reducing management complexity and costs.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP® applications also provides UMB with a set of tools that help make SAP operations as efficient and standardized as possible. Among them is saptune, a utility that automatically checks and sets all system settings recommended by SAP — for the kernel, network, memory management and more. This ensures optimal system configuration that is consistent, reproducible and fully aligned with SAP best practices that can be checked and easily maintained over time.
UMB also uses SUSE’s automated installation framework to roll out systems with customer-specific presets. This significantly reduces manual effort and helps streamline deployment processes.
Patches and updates are typically applied during operation through planned failovers between cluster nodes. “This allows us to deliver a near-zero downtime experience for our customers and minimize disruption to their business-critical applications,” says Vockinger.
For cloud-based scenarios, UMB also relies on SUSE Multi-Linux Manager, which enables centralized administration and patch management across heterogeneous Linux environments — even across different platforms and hyperscalers. This allows UMB to manage hybrid SAP landscapes just as efficiently as traditional on-premises environments.
What's next for UMB?
UMB now uses SUSE technologies not only to run business-critical SAP systems, but also to build and manage container environments. Using the SUSE Rancher Prime platform, cloud native workloads can be deployed securely and efficiently within the UMB Cloud.
“We’re seeing growing demand for managed Kubernetes services,” says Vockinger. “With SUSE Rancher Prime, we can deliver production-ready Kubernetes clusters quickly and easily, scale them on demand and manage them with minimal overhead. SUSE helps us reduce complexity here as well, allowing us to keep our promise of ‘Creating Time’ for our customers.”