Your ERP cloud project is about to start. The consultant asks: “Do you have a cloud preference?” And you answer “we’ll see” or “whatever is cheapest.” That reflex will cost you — not on your monthly compute bill, but on your negotiating leverage, exit costs, and regulatory compliance five years from now.
This guide does not tell you which hyperscaler is “the best.” It tells you which one fits your ERP, your industry, and your sovereignty posture. And it closes with a simple heuristic that 90% of CIOs would benefit from applying.
The Cloud-Agnostic Myth: Why It Breaks Down for ERP
You often hear that modern cloud applications are “hyperscaler-agnostic.” For a WordPress blog or a REST API, that is true. For an enterprise ERP, it is false — or at least very incomplete.
Major ERP vendors have built deep commercial and technical partnerships with one or two hyperscalers. These partnerships translate into infrastructure certifications, jointly developed reference architectures, cross-vendor commercial discounts, and shared engineering teams. Ignoring these partnerships at selection time is negotiating blind.
Three dimensions shape the decision before you even look at compute pricing:
- Your ERP’s certification on that hyperscaler — some ERPs run in a certified, supported mode on only one cloud. Deploy on a different one and the vendor’s support team may decline responsibility for performance incidents.
- Sector and country regulatory compliance — data residency requirements, industry certifications (HDS for French healthcare, BSI C5 for Germany, IRAP for Australia), sovereignty frameworks, and GDPR data-processing agreements.
- Total cost over 5 years — not just compute, but managed services, data egress, bandwidth, and the internal cost of building new skills on an unfamiliar platform.
AWS, Azure, GCP: What Each Hyperscaler Actually Offers for ERP
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS is the global IaaS leader by market share and service breadth. For ERP projects, its strengths are:
- SAP HANA on r-series instances: AWS offers SAP-certified instances (type
r6i.metal,x2idn) that cover SAP HANA’s high-memory requirements. The “SAP on AWS” reference architecture is documented and maintained jointly by AWS and SAP. - Infor and Epicor partnerships: Infor CloudSuite and Epicor Kinetic have chosen AWS as their preferred hyperscaler. If your ERP is one of these, AWS simplifies your architecture and pricing negotiation.
- Security certifications: ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, PCI-DSS available in European regions (Frankfurt, Paris, Dublin, Stockholm). No standard sovereign cloud qualification — see the sovereignty section below.
- EU regional presence: Paris (
eu-west-3), Frankfurt (eu-central-1), Ireland (eu-west-1), Stockholm (eu-north-1), Spain (eu-south-2), Zurich (eu-central-2), Milan (eu-south-1).
Watch out: AWS is less natively integrated with the Microsoft ecosystem (Entra ID, Teams, Power BI). If your organisation is heavily anchored in Microsoft 365, integration costs increase.
Microsoft Azure
Azure is the natural choice for companies already running on Microsoft. Its advantages for ERP are structural:
- Dynamics 365 runs exclusively on Azure: The SaaS version of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (Business Central, Finance, Supply Chain, HR) is hosted on Azure and only on Azure. This is not a commercial preference — it is the product architecture. If you choose Dynamics 365 SaaS, you choose Azure by definition.
- RISE with SAP defaults to Azure: SAP has structured its RISE with SAP offering with Azure as the default in most regions. According to SAP Licensing Experts, companies with existing AWS or GCP commitments must negotiate explicitly to maintain their preferred hyperscaler. The hyperscaler choice in the RISE Order Form affects BTP credit allocation, data residency terms, and exit costs.
- IFS Cloud on Azure: IFS Cloud is deployable on Azure with a supported reference architecture.
- Native Teams / Power BI integration: For organisations that manage their ERP through Power BI dashboards or Teams workflows, Azure eliminates integration layers.
- HDS and sector certifications: HDS (Hébergement de Données de Santé, the French healthcare data hosting certification) is available in Azure French regions. BSI C5 is available in German regions.
- EU regional presence: France Central, France South, North Europe, West Europe, Germany West Central, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland North.
Watch out: Large Azure instances (M-series for HANA, Lv2 for storage-intensive workloads) carry premium pricing. On enterprise configurations above 500 users, compute bills can run 15–25% higher than AWS equivalents, according to independent cloud architect benchmarks. Negotiate Azure Credits upfront when signing a RISE contract.
Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
GCP was long the default third choice for ERP projects. The Oracle partnership launched in 2024 changes the picture for part of the market:
- Oracle Database@Google Cloud: Since September 2024, Oracle and Google Cloud have made Oracle Database@Google Cloud generally available, enabling Oracle databases to run directly inside GCP datacenters. In April 2026, Oracle extended this partnership with new AI capabilities (oracle.com). If your ERP runs on an Oracle database (Oracle Cloud ERP, JD Edwards), GCP becomes a serious option.
- BigQuery for ERP analytics: GCP offers a natively integrated analytics layer (BigQuery), attractive for projects where ERP data feeds predictive models or real-time reporting.
- Native machine learning: GCP’s AI services (Vertex AI, Gemini) are used by some vendors for predictive ERP functions: demand forecasting, accounting anomaly detection.
- Lower ERP vendor adoption: GCP remains less referenced than AWS and Azure in European ERP vendor reference architectures. Unless there is an Oracle partnership involved, verify vendor support coverage carefully before committing.
Vendor-to-Cloud Mapping: Your ERP Determines Your Cloud
| ERP | Recommended hyperscaler | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| SAP S/4HANA (RISE) | Azure (SAP default) or AWS (certified) | Deep partnerships, HANA certification |
| SAP S/4HANA on-premise on IaaS | AWS or Azure | r-series certification (AWS) or M-series (Azure) |
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 (SaaS) | Azure exclusively | Native Microsoft architecture |
| Oracle Cloud ERP | GCP or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure | Oracle@Google Cloud partnership |
| IFS Cloud | Azure | Certified reference architecture |
| Infor CloudSuite | AWS | Preferred partnership |
| Epicor Kinetic | AWS | Preferred partnership |
| Odoo (hosted) | Agnostic | Odoo.sh (Odoo’s own cloud) or any IaaS |
| Sage X3, Access Group, or regional vendors | Azure or vendor-certified hosting | Verify vendor documentation |
Note on Dynamics 365: It is technically possible to run Dynamics 365 CE (CRM) or Business Central on-premise on AWS, but the SaaS version — the one resellers sell in 2026 — is hosted by Microsoft on Azure. If an implementation partner proposes “Dynamics 365 on AWS,” ask precisely which deployment model they mean.
5-Year TCO Analysis: What You Must Include
An ERP cloud TCO is not just compute instances. These are the cost categories to model:
Compute and storage
- Instances (1- or 3-year reservations cut costs 30–40% vs on-demand)
- Block storage (SSD) for transactional database
- Object storage (S3, Azure Blob, GCS) for archiving and backups
- Outbound bandwidth (egress) — frequently underestimated, especially for exports and integrations
Managed services
- High availability (load balancer, multi-zone replication)
- Disaster recovery (RPO < 1h costs significantly more than RPO of 4h)
- Monitoring, logging, WAF
- Encryption key management (HSM)
Human and organisational costs
- Team training on the new hyperscaler
- Integration premium if the hyperscaler does not match your existing ecosystem (e.g. choosing AWS for a Microsoft-first organisation without AWS-certified architects)
Exit costs
- Egress fees to migrate data to another cloud
- Application rearchitecting if you change hyperscaler after 3 years
Based on 2025–2026 cloud architecture benchmarks from independent advisory firms, indicative ranges for a properly-sized ERP are approximately €30–80K per year for a configuration of around 100 active users, and €150–400K per year for 500-user configurations with active high availability and disaster recovery. These ranges vary considerably depending on the vendor, customisation level, and managed services selected. See our complete 5-year ERP TCO methodology for the full framework.
GDPR, Data Sovereignty, and Sector Certifications: What CIOs Often Miss
Contractual data residency commitment
Whatever hyperscaler you choose, require an explicit Data Processing Agreement (DPA) that specifies:
- The residency region of primary data and backups
- No transfer outside the EU without your explicit consent
- The portability mechanism in the event of a foreign-authority requisition order
Sovereign cloud qualifications: none of the three qualify by default
This is the point the US hyperscalers’ sales teams do not emphasise: AWS, Azure, and GCP do not hold sovereign cloud qualifications in their standard offerings in most European countries. European sovereign cloud frameworks — France’s SecNumCloud, Germany’s BSI C5, Spain’s ENS Alto — typically require the provider to be shielded from extraterritorial laws, which structurally excludes subsidiaries of US groups subject to US federal statutes.
Where sovereign cloud paths are developing for major hyperscalers:
- S3NS (Google Cloud + Thales) — targeting French SecNumCloud qualification for GCP
- Bleu (Microsoft + Capgemini + Orange) — targeting SecNumCloud for Azure
- Azure Germany (operated by T-Systems) — BSI C5-certified, with data-trustee model
These are distinct legal entities operating under local law, separate from their American parent companies. Timelines vary — consult current certification status before committing.
Practically for a CIO:
- If your sector (defence, sensitive healthcare, government, critical energy) requires a national sovereign cloud qualification, check which local qualified providers exist — standard US hyperscaler offerings will not suffice.
- If you have no sovereign cloud requirement but need EU data residency, AWS, Azure, and GCP EU regions satisfy standard GDPR compliance.
- If you are targeting future sovereign cloud qualification (public-sector tenders post-2027), start now with a provider that has a qualification roadmap.
Sector certifications available
| Certification | AWS | Azure | GCP |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISO 27001 | Yes (EU regions) | Yes (EU regions) | Yes (EU regions) |
| HDS (French healthcare) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PCI-DSS | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| BSI C5 (Germany) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SecNumCloud (France) | No (standard) | No (standard — Bleu in progress) | No (standard — S3NS in progress) |
6-Criteria Decision Framework — An Answer in 30 Minutes
Answer these 6 questions. For each “yes,” the corresponding answer is clear:
| # | Question | If yes → |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Does your target ERP have a certification or exclusive partnership with one hyperscaler? | Follow the vendor’s hyperscaler |
| 2 | Do your IT teams already hold certifications on one hyperscaler? | Favour that hyperscaler (saves training cost) |
| 3 | Is your data subject to a sector regulation requiring sovereign cloud qualification? | Choose a locally-qualified provider — not the standard US three |
| 4 | Does your organisation run intensively on Teams, Power BI, and Entra ID? | Azure simplifies integration |
| 5 | Do you already have a cloud commitment (credits or annual spend agreements) with one hyperscaler? | Use those credits for ERP compute |
| 6 | Is your ERP Oracle Cloud or Oracle DB-based? | GCP (Oracle@Google Cloud) or Oracle Cloud Infrastructure |
If you answer “no” to all six, you have a hyperscaler-agnostic ERP (typically Odoo, Dolibarr, or a vertical ERP without strong cloud partnerships). In that case, decide on internal skills and raw compute TCO — AWS is often the lowest cost for equivalent compute at standard configurations.
There Is No Universal Hyperscaler — But There Is a Heuristic
The rule that simplifies 90% of decisions: follow your ERP, not the cloud.
If SAP recommends Azure for RISE, go to Azure. If you buy Infor CloudSuite, go to AWS. If you deploy Oracle Cloud ERP, look at GCP or OCI. The vendor’s choice is not arbitrary — it reflects years of performance testing, joint certifications, and cross-vendor discounts that will benefit your project.
The only case where you override this rule: a sovereignty or internal-skills constraint strong enough to justify the integration premium.
If your ERP does not constrain you, internal skills trump instance pricing. A certified AWS architect who must learn Azure loses 3–6 months of productivity and makes architectural mistakes. That human cost far exceeds a 5% compute discount.
To structure your full analysis, read our guide on cloud-native vs on-premise ERP for mid-market and our ERP pricing models comparison — SaaS vs perpetual licence.
