Section I · The Brief
The engine notification
The client, a continental utility group with regulated network operations in France, Spain, and Portugal, received an SAP audit notification flagging engine-licensing scope across HANA Enterprise CPU, BW LSA++ data-mart consumption, and PI message-throughput measurement. The audit team had run a measurement against the production estate and identified what it characterised as substantial over-consumption against the contracted engine entitlement.
The audit position carried an opening claim of eight point six million dollars covering all three engine categories, structured as a back-licence-plus-maintenance demand with a settlement-window incentive scheduled to expire within the SAP fiscal-quarter boundary. The audit team’s position was that the engine measurements were definitive and that the contractual interpretation of HANA CPU and BW LSA++ was not within the scope of the audit response.
The brief from the group CIO and general counsel was to defend the engine measurements against the contracted definitions, rebuild the measurement methodology under privilege, and close the audit on the corrected baseline without escalation to SAP legal. The internal technical and SAM teams were authorised to support the rebuild with full access to the operational telemetry.
Section II · The Opening Claim
The audit measurements
The audit team’s opening claim was structured as three engine-category sub-components against the contracted entitlement. Each sub-component carried its own measurement methodology, contractual reference, and proposed remediation.
The sub-components broke down as follows.
- HANA Enterprise CPU: 48 cores measured against a 32-core entitlement, contributing $4.6M of the opening claim.
- BW LSA++ data-mart consumption: 18 datamarts measured against a 12-datamart entitlement, contributing $2.4M.
- PI message throughput: 240M messages per year measured against a 180M entitlement, contributing $1.4M.
- Adjacent SolMan licensing: 2 productive SolMan instances claimed beyond the contracted single-instance entitlement, contributing $0.2M.
Section III · The Defence
The contract-definition rebuild
We took the engagement on an active-audit response footing with written notice to the SAP audit team that the engine measurements were being formally contested under the contracted measurement methodology. The technical rebuild was conducted under privilege with the client’s general counsel as the privileged communication anchor, supporting the rebuild under the legal-professional protection in the event of escalation.
On the HANA Enterprise CPU measurement, we pulled the contracted definition from the master agreement’s engine schedule. The contracted measurement was peak-consumed physical CPU averaged over the prior twelve months, not the licensed-capacity measurement the audit team had applied. The audit team had counted allocated VM cores; the contracted definition was peak-consumed physical CPU. The corrected measurement closed at 34 cores against the 32-core entitlement — a marginal over-consumption requiring a 2-core top-up, not a 16-core back-licence.
On the BW LSA++ data-mart measurement, the audit team had counted every data-mart instance regardless of its consumption status. The contracted definition referenced production-consumed data-marts only, excluding development, test, and reference-only data-marts that did not contribute to production reporting. The corrected measurement closed at 13 production-consumed data-marts against the 12-data-mart entitlement — a single-data-mart over-consumption rather than the six the audit team had claimed.
On the PI message-throughput measurement, the audit team had counted all messages routed through the PI platform including system-internal RFC traffic, EDI acknowledgement messages, and test-environment traffic. The contracted definition referenced production-to-production application messages excluding system-internal traffic. The corrected measurement closed at 195M messages against the 180M entitlement — a 15M over-consumption requiring a single-band top-up, not a 60M-message back-licence.
On the SolMan adjacency, the contract’s SolMan clause permitted a non-productive secondary instance for disaster recovery and pre-production patching. The second SolMan instance was a non-productive DR target and was outside the chargeable scope under the contractual definition.
- HANA Enterprise CPU rebuilt under contracted physical-CPU definition — 34 cores vs. claimed 48
- BW LSA++ data-mart rebuilt under production-consumed definition — 13 vs. claimed 18
- PI message throughput rebuilt under application-message definition — 195M vs. claimed 240M
- SolMan adjacency removed under the contractual DR-instance carve-out
- Engine-definition schedule entered into the audit-response file as the controlling measurement
Section IV · The Settlement
The signed position
The audit closed at two point seven million dollars against the opening eight point six million dollar claim — a sixty-nine percent reduction. The settlement was structured as three engine top-up commitments (2 HANA cores, 1 BW data-mart, 1 PI message-throughput band) plus a corrected SolMan adjacency clarification, with all four elements documented against the contracted engine-schedule definitions.
The contract language was updated to incorporate an engine-measurement annex that documented the contracted definitions as the controlling measurement methodology for future audits. The annex specifically covered HANA Enterprise CPU (peak-consumed physical), BW LSA++ (production-consumed data-marts), and PI message throughput (application-message count excluding system-internal traffic). The annex was signed by both parties as part of the audit closure.
Total elapsed time from audit notification to closure was nineteen weeks. The matter closed without escalation to SAP legal and within the contracted audit-response window. The client’s general counsel was kept under privilege throughout the engagement.
Section V · Lessons Applicable
What others can use
Five takeaways from the matter that apply to any organisation facing an SAP engine-licensing audit.
- Engine measurements are contract-defined, not auditor-defined. Pull the engine-schedule from the master agreement and put it in evidence as the controlling measurement methodology.
- HANA Enterprise CPU is a peak-consumed physical-core measurement under most contracts, not an allocated-VM-core measurement. The difference can be 30-50% of the chargeable measurement.
- BW LSA++ data-mart measurement covers production-consumed data-marts. Development, test, and reference-only data-marts fall outside the chargeable population under most engine schedules.
- PI message throughput excludes system-internal RFC traffic and EDI acknowledgements. The contracted definition is application-to-application productive messages.
- SolMan disaster-recovery instances are usually carved out. The contractual SolMan clause typically permits a single non-productive DR target outside the chargeable instance count.
