<p>SAP's HANA Cloud Platform, consisting of the core in-memory database plus application development tools, analytics and integration services, will eventually underpin all of its cloud-based applications, the company said at its Sapphire conference.</p><p>The announcement Tuesday came shortly after SAP unveiled the HANA Enterprise Cloud, a new service that gives customers the ability to run their SAP Business Suite, CRM (customer relationship management) and Business Warehouse software, which are typically deployed on-premises, in a cloud environment. SAP is planning to give hosting partners the ability to run the service as well in their own data centers.</p><p>Meanwhile, the HANA Cloud Platform announcement gives SAP customers yet another signal of the vendor's long-term commitment to HANA. The product became generally available in 2011, primarily targeted at analytic workloads, but since has gained the ability to run transactional applications.</p><p>SAP built up a portfolio of cloud-based software through the acquisition of SuccessFactors and Ariba, and has also developed some such applications on its own. A number of the latter have been renamed, with the former Financials OnDemand becoming Cloud for Financials and Travel OnDemand now titled Cloud for Travel, according to the announcement on Tuesday.</p><p><a href="http://www.cio.com.au/article/461788/sap_says_hana_will_power_all_cloud_applications/?fp=16&fpid=1">Keep reading...</a></p>