Comparison · 2026

SAP on Azure vs AWS for SAP Workloads (2026)

Certified instance matrices, dated list prices for East US vs us-east-1, HANA storage rates, and SAP support realities — an honest 2026 comparison by two researchers who run Azure landscapes daily.

advanced 12 min read Updated Nov 8, 2026

30-second summary

  • Azure list price per instance-hour undercuts AWS in every matched pair up to 16 TB on 2026-11-08 data
  • AWS's U7inh 32 TB instance is ~12% cheaper on list than Azure's 30.4 TB VHM — and Azure's VHM needs a request to Microsoft
  • U-1 high-memory instances (9/12/18/24 TB) went end-of-sale 2025-06-20; new AWS large-HANA buys are U7i/U7inh only
  • Azure publishes reservation prices in the Retail Prices API (3-yr M832is_16_v3 $1,209,163); AWS RI pricing needs the console
  • Neither figure matters directly under RISE with SAP — SAP bills the subscription — but both anchor your negotiation

Our verdict, up front

Microsoft Azure

Default choice for SAP estates, especially RISE and HANA under 16 TB.

AWS for SAP

Strong when 32 TiB single nodes or deep AWS alignment win.

We compared these two clouds the way we do everything here: primary sources only, numbers pulled from both providers’ official price feeds on the same day (2026-11-08), and a clear statement of what we could and could not verify hands-on. We operate Azure SAP landscapes as part of our day work; our AWS evidence in this article is document- and price-list-level, not a live S/4HANA run on U7i. Treat the AWS side as well-sourced but less battle-tested — ours, not yours. If you want the step-by-step Azure deployment detail, our HANA deployment walkthrough and RISE pricing breakdown cover it; this article is the head-to-head. More comparisons live under /category/cloud/.

The short answer

For SAP-centric estates in 2026, Azure is the defensible default and we picked it as the winner above. Three reasons: per-GiB list pricing is at parity or better on Azure in every matched size class up to 16 TB; the Microsoft–SAP engineering relationship shows up in things you actually use (SAP-certified patterns, Azure Center for SAP solutions, RISE integration); and Azure’s Retail Prices API lets you audit every number in this article yourself, which mattered enough to shape how we wrote the cost section. AWS wins real scenarios too — the largest single node (32 TiB) is cheaper on AWS list price, the mid-size menu is broader, and if your entire estate is already AWS, SAP is one more workload, not a new cloud. We wrote the “Where AWS wins” section specifically so you can steelman taking AWS to your architecture board.

Certified instance matrix: what each cloud can actually sell you

Both clouds sell SAP-certified compute; they disagree on shape of the ladder.

Azure (large single-node focus). The M-series v3 line runs from memory-optimized M128 variants up through Standard_M832ds_12_v3 (832 vCPU, 11,400 GiB), Standard_M832is_16_v3 (832 vCPU, 15,200 GiB usable, with 260k IOPS / 8,000 MBps of local NVMe cache per our verified deployment table), and above that the Mdsv3 Very High Memory (VHM) 32 TB SKUs: Standard_M896ixds_32_v3 (896 vCPU, 30,400 GiB, SMT disabled, the transactional-S4 pattern) and Standard_M1792ixds_32_v3 (SMT enabled, analytics). VHM sizes are dedicated-to-one-customer machines: they are not enabled by default, you go through your Microsoft account team, they require Gen2 images (SLES 15 SP4+, RHEL 8.8+, Windows Server 2022), and they do not support Live Migration — plan maintenance windows around them (Mdsv3 VHM series doc, large-instance architecture overview). Sub-1 TB and non-production systems don’t need M at all: HANA-certified E/D-series sizes with Premium SSD v2 or Ultra are the documented pattern (storage guidance).

AWS (family breadth focus). The SAP-certified big-memory story is now U7i: 6, 8, 12, 16, 24 and (as U7inh) 32 TiB sizes, all certified by SAP for Business Suite on HANA, S/4HANA, Data Mart, BW and BW/4HANA in production (U7i instance page, AWS SAP HANA docs). The flagship U7inh 32 TiB instance — AWS says up to 1,920 vCPUs — is built on the HPE Compute Scale-up Server 3200 and, per AWS’s own positioning, is the first 32 TB virtualized instance with SAP certification for standard sizing for both OLTP and OLAP workloads. Below the U line you get x2idn (up to 2 TiB: x2idn.32xlarge is 128 vCPU / 2,048 GiB) for mid-size HANA and r6i/r7i for scale-out BW nodes (high-memory family, r6i). One landmine for anyone reading older AWS sizing blogs: the U-1 generation (u-3tb1 through u-24tb1) carried an end-of-sale notice — sales of the 9/12/18/24 TB U-1 instances ended 2025-06-20, with AWS explicitly recommending U7i for new customers. Existing instances keep running, but your refresh path is the new family.

The structural difference: Azure puts the 11–16 TB sweet spot in general-availability SKUs you can deploy through the portal today, gates the 30 TB class behind an account-team request, and gives the M832is a local NVMe cache that AWS’s EBS-only U7i machines don’t have. AWS gives you a public, orderable 32 TiB tier and a deeper certified menu under 2 TB.

The cost table, dated

Same discipline as our RISE article: numbers come from the providers’ own feeds, pulled on one day, for Linux, biggest-region each (Azure East US, AWS us-east-1), list price, no negotiated discounts. Azure rates are from the Azure Retail Prices API. AWS rates are the plain Linux/RunInstances/Shared/Used meters from the official EC2 Price List bulk offer (offer version 20261107002852, retrieved 2026-11-08) — the same feed the pricing pages sit on top of, minus the JavaScript. We deliberately excluded the SQL-license variants the feed also sells (they inflate r6i to $42.05/h and u-18tb1 to $331.80/h if you grab the wrong meter).

Size class Azure SKU — PAYG $/h AWS SKU — on-demand $/h Monthly (730 h) Azure vs AWS
~6 TB, single node M416s_6_v3 (5.7 TB) — $55.30 u7i-6tb.112xlarge (6,144 GiB) — $62.79 $40,370 vs $45,837 — Azure −12%
~12 TB, single node M832ds_12_v3 (11.4 TB) — $116.51 u7i-12tb.224xlarge (12,288 GiB) — $125.58 $85,049 vs $91,675 — Azure −7%, AWS has +10% more RAM
~16 TB, single node M832is_16_v3 (15.2 TB) — $163.86 u7in-16tb.224xlarge (16,384 GiB) — $180.48 $119,615 vs $131,750 — Azure −9%
24 TB class — (next Azure step is 30.4 TB VHM) u7in-24tb.224xlarge (24,576 GiB) — $270.73 Azure has no 24 TB SKU
32 TB class M896ixds_32_v3 (30.4 TB, VHM, request-gated) — $410.40 u7in-32tb.224xlarge (32,768 GiB) — $360.99 $299,592 vs $263,520 — AWS −12%
Mid/scale-out nodes E/D-series, Ultra-backed — varies x2idn.32xlarge (2 TB) — $13.34; r6i.24xlarge (768 GiB) — $6.05 AWS menu is more explicit here

Two honesty notes. First, the legacy AWS meters are still in the price list — u-6tb1.112xlarge at $54.60/h and u-18tb1.112xlarge at $163.80/h (amusingly within six cents of Azure’s $163.86) — but with U-1 sales ended, quoting them for a greenfield decision would be dishonest, so they are footnotes. Second, this table is list. Azure’s own reservation meters, also live in the API: M832is_16_v3 1-year $834,816 and 3-year $1,209,163 per VM — the same numbers we verified in the RISE article, roughly 42% and 72% off PAYG. AWS commitments exist (RI/Savings Plans) but the useful no-upfront rates are console-visible and bulk-file-complex; we quote none rather than guess. Under standard RISE with SAP you never pay any of these lines — SAP prices infrastructure into the subscription — which is exactly why both clouds’ list prices are your negotiation ground truth; see the landing-zone design guide for how that commitment gets spent.

Storage: Ultra and Premium SSD v2 vs io2 and gp3

HANA lives and dies on storage throughput. From the same dated feeds:

Meter Azure East US AWS us-east-1
Capacity Ultra: $0.12/GiB-mo io2: $0.125/GiB-mo; gp3: $0.08/GiB-mo
Provisioned IOPS Ultra: ~$0.05/IOPS-mo io2: $0.065/IOPS-mo (tiers drop above 1k/10k)
Throughput Ultra: ~$0.35/MBps-mo gp3: $0.04/MBps-mo above 125 MB/s baseline
Free baseline Premium SSD v2: 3,000 IOPS + 125 MBps per disk gp3: 3,000 IOPS + 125 MB/s included

The shape of the bill differs: Azure lets an M832is VM put /hana/data on local NVMe cache (260k IOPS before any disk spend), while U7i is EBS-only, so every IOPS on the AWS side is metered. At our published 15 TB design target (4,000 MBps / 60,000 IOPS for data), that’s roughly $3,000/mo of io2 IOPS charges on AWS before capacity even starts, versus Ultra capacity+IOPS+throughput meters that our RISE article priced disk-by-disk. Neither cloud’s storage pricing is “cheaper” in the abstract — it depends whether your DB size sits on a disk cap (Azure Premium SSD v2 caps at 1,200 MBps/80,000 IOPS per disk, so large systems stripe 4–8 disks) or on provisioned-IOPS curves. Model both with your HCMT peak numbers.

SAP support models and who answers the phone

Both clouds draw the same line — cloud provider owns infrastructure, SAP owns software — but the plumbing differs. On AWS, support for SAP workloads runs through AWS’s SAP support guidance and the AWS Business/Enterprise Support plans, whose fees are a percentage of your AWS spend (pricing) — which means the bigger your HANA footprint, the more support costs, a feedback loop nobody loves. AWS also routes SAP-via-partner work through its partner network and, for RISE customers, SAP remains the single contract. On Azure, SAP and Microsoft maintain a joint support escalation path for Azure-infrastructure-flagged incidents, and the platform-side tooling — Azure Center for SAP solutions, certified patterns, the deployment framework — is first-party and free. For RISE with SAP specifically: SAP offers the subscription on both clouds (our RISE walkthrough is Azure-centric), so the “who owns the ticket” answer converges on SAP — but the hyperscaler support fee structures still differ as described, and unmanaged/bring-your-own-contract estates feel that difference directly.

Where AWS wins

We’d be selling you a pamphlet, not a comparison, if this section were empty. What AWS genuinely does better:

  1. Largest single node, public price. The U7inh 32 TiB instance is $360.99/h on the same day you can buy it, versus Azure’s $410.40/h for 30,400 GiB — which is a ~25% lower price per GiB and 2.3 TiB more memory. Azure’s answer at that size is a 16 TB primary plus a second node; AWS’s answer is one box. If your sizing genuinely lands above ~15 TB and you want a single node without a Microsoft account-team conversation, AWS is the cleaner buy.
  2. The sub-2 TB certified menu. x2idn at $13.34/h (2 TB) and r6i at $6.05/h (768 GiB) are transparent, orderable, well-documented building blocks for BW scale-out and mid-size HANA. Azure’s equivalent zone (2–5 TB) means stepping up M-series generations with less obvious price breakpoints.
  3. Networking and platform direction. ENA Express and up to 200 Gbps on the U7i generation is real for distributed HANA replication and scale-out analytics; Nitro’s isolation design is widely copied for good reason.
  4. Estate gravity. If SAP moves into an AWS estate that already runs everything else, the operational tooling, IAM, and team skills amortize over one cloud. That is worth more than a 10% list-price delta, full stop.
  5. No forced NVMe-vs-EBS philosophical commitment. U7i is EBS-only: fewer knobs, but the failure domain and snapshot story is uniform with everything else on AWS.

Operational texture: maintenance, elasticity, non-production

Azure: VHM has no Live Migration, so patch windows are planned on the calendar before go-live, not discovered. Below VHM, Maintenance Configurations and Scheduled Events cover M-series the way they cover the rest of IaaS (see SAP on Azure overview). Non-production economics are where our hands-on data is strongest: the same Retail API shows M832is_16_v3 Linux spot at $30.28/h — 82% off — which is why we build DEV/QAS on spot-able node pools and keep only PRD+HSR on on-demand/reserved. AWS’s spot market exists for the r6i/r7i classes, but AWS’s own guidance (and our belief) is that you don’t put production HANA on reclaimable capacity, and the U-1 end-of-sale has already eaten the standby-pool assumptions in many older runbooks. Region reach: Azure’s SAP-specific control-plane tooling is not available in every region; AWS gives you the same EC2 primitives everywhere. Both are listed as “check with your account team” items in each cloud’s SAP docs — we flag them rather than guess.

Decision framework

  • You’re buying RISE with SAP and choosing a datacenter cloud: Azure first — per-GiB list parity-or-better through 16 TB, first-party deployment automation, and the SAP partnership shows in support plumbing. Stress-test against your SAP sales conversation, not against this table.
  • Your S/4 sizing lands above ~15 TB RAM and you want one node: price AWS U7inh seriously; the list-price gap is real and the account-team friction is lower.
  • Big BW/4HANA scale-out or a mostly-AWS estate: AWS — the r6i/x2idn menu and estate gravity dominate.
  • Non-production cost is your pain: Azure spot + 3-year reservations on PRD is the cheapest pattern we have measured, per the numbers above.
  • Neither, honestly: SAP Business Technology Platform, S/4 Cloud, and Joule live above all of this — whichever IaaS you pick, BTP and RISE subscriptions look the same. Our SAP AI coverage hub has the platform-side articles.

Verdict

Azure takes this on list price, certification ergonomics in the 11–16 TB sweet spot where most S/4 systems actually land, tooling that doesn’t cost extra, and a support model that matches how SAP is sold in 2026. AWS takes it on the top of the stack — one 32 TiB node you can order today at a lower price than Azure’s gated VHM — and on mid-size menu breadth. If you showed us your sizing report we could tell you in ten minutes which side of the crossover you’re on; the crossover, on 2026-11-08 numbers, is between 16 and 24 TB.

FAQ

Is SAP on AWS cheaper than SAP on Azure?

Not at the sizes most customers buy. Matched pair for pair through 16 TB, Azure’s list price was 7–12% lower on 2026-11-08 (see table). AWS flips ahead only at the 24–32 TB class, where its U7inh is $360.99/h against Azure’s $410.40/h VHM — and Azure at that size is a request-based purchase. Real cost depends on storage shape (U7i is EBS-only), support fees, and your negotiated paper more than either list.

Does the U-1 end-of-sale affect existing SAP landscapes on AWS?

Running instances are unaffected; sales ended 2025-06-20, not service. What changes is your refresh path: new capacity in 9–24 TB must go to U7i/U7inh, so any DR, growth, or hardware-replacement plan that assumed “more of the same u-12tb1” needs rebudgeting at U7i list rates ($125.58/h for 12 TB on the day we checked).

Can I move a RISE with SAP subscription between Azure and AWS?

The subscription is SAP’s contract, but the underlying datacenter commitment is not portable in any simple way. RISE consumption credits land on one chosen hyperscaler per contract line; migrating means a cloud migration project (system copy, DMO timing, cutover) plus renegotiating the cloud commitment. Treat “RISE on either cloud” as “pick early”, not “switch freely”.

Which cloud for SAP BW/4HANA scale-out?

AWS has the cleaner documented scale-out menu — r6i.24xlarge nodes at $6.05/h with x2idn up to 2 TB per node, all SAP-certified in the U7i/BW patterns. Azure runs BW/4HANA scale-out on M-series or E/D-series with Ultra Disk, which works well but prices per-node less transparently at the mid-size tier. If your workload is analytics-heavy scale-out rather than one giant transactional node, put AWS on the shortlist with an honest pilot.

References

  1. Azure Retail Prices API — VM and disk meters, East US, Linux, retrieved 2026-11-08: prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices
  2. AWS EC2 Price List API, bulk offer us-east-1 (version 20261107002852), Linux RunInstances meters, retrieved 2026-11-08: pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AmazonEC2/current/us-east-1/index.json
  3. Amazon EC2 instance-type pricing page (on-demand): aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/
  4. Amazon EC2 U7i instances: aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/u7i/
  5. Amazon EC2 High Memory instances (incl. U-1 end-of-sale notice): aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/high-memory/
  6. Amazon EC2 R6i instances: aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/r6i/
  7. AWS SAP HANA documentation: docs.aws.amazon.com/sap/latest/sap-hana/sap-hana-on-aws.html
  8. AWS SAP-certified HANA instances: docs.aws.amazon.com/sap/latest/sap-hana/hana-certified-ec2-instances.html
  9. AWS U7i instance specs: docs.aws.amazon.com/sap/latest/sap-hana/u7i-instances.html
  10. AWS SAP support guidance: docs.aws.amazon.com/sap/latest/general/sap-support-on-aws.html
  11. AWS SAP NetWeaver guide: docs.aws.amazon.com/sap/latest/sap-netweaver/welcome.html
  12. AWS support plans pricing: aws.amazon.com/premiumsupport/pricing/
  13. SAP on Azure documentation: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sap/
  14. SAP certifications on Azure: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sap/workloads/certifications
  15. Azure SAP large-instance architecture: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sap/large-instances/hana-overview-architecture
  16. Azure Mdsv3 Very High Memory series: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/memory-optimized/mdsv3-vhm-series
  17. Azure HANA Premium SSD v2 guidance: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sap/workloads/hana-vm-premium-ssd-v2
  18. Azure Center for SAP solutions: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sap/center-sap-solutions/overview
  19. Azure pricing calculator: azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/calculator/
  20. Azure support plans: azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/plans/
  21. AWS SAP landing page: aws.amazon.com/sap/
  22. SAP HANA on AWS via SAP Developer Center: developers.sap.com/topics/sap-hana.html

All prices in this article are list prices for one region on one date (2026-11-08), for planning only. AWS U-1 prices are shown as historical footnotes only. Confirm every figure in the Azure pricing calculator, the AWS Price List feeds above, and with your SAP/Microsoft/AWS deal desk before contracting.