Lesson 1 of 5
RISE with SAP and the private edition operating model
10 min
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RISE with SAP is SAP's subscription offering for moving an ERP customer to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud. For a customer like Contoso, coming from ECC with years of custom code and configuration, the ERP inside RISE is SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, which SAP also markets as SAP Cloud ERP Private. It is single-tenant: Contoso gets its own CMD, CMQ and CMP systems, with its own code and configuration, but it no longer runs the infrastructure, operating system, database or most technical administration itself. SAP Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) does, on a hyperscaler or in an SAP data center chosen in the contract.
The roles and responsibilities document
The single most useful document for a platform team under RISE is SAP's Roles and Responsibilities (R&R) for RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition. It lists hundreds of tasks, each with an identifier and a responsibility. SAP states that the PDF version published on its agreements site is the documentation of record, and that the tasks are a catalog: their relevance differs per customer and should be reviewed with SAP's Cloud Architect Advisor or Client Delivery Manager. This course uses version v.3-2025 (March 2025) for task details. That version calls the paid application-operations category SAP Cloud Application Services (CAS); the newer v7-2025 renames it Packaged Services, the name used here. Check your RISE Roles & Responsibilities document for the version your contract references and the category names it uses.
| Category | Who performs it | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Services | SAP | Covered by the service fee |
| Optional Services | Only SAP; must be contracted and itemized | Additional fees |
| Additional Services | Only SAP; one-off tasks | Additional fees |
| Packaged Services | SAP if bought; otherwise the customer must do it | Additional fees if bought from SAP |
| Excluded Tasks | Only the customer | Customer's own effort |
The five task categories in SAP's RISE R&R (v.3-2025, using the v7-2025 name Packaged Services). Check your RISE Roles & Responsibilities document.
The R&R also describes how a brownfield customer arrives. Integrating installed systems into SAP's cloud operations is a standard service performed once per new system; when the initial set-up is a conversion to SAP S/4HANA, the v.3-2025 document includes two additional test runs, one for a non-production system and one for production, with further runs billable. For Contoso, that line explains why the mock conversions and the dress rehearsal had to be booked with SAP ECS early: each one consumes onboarding effort on SAP's side, not just Sam's.
One sentence in the document deserves a highlighter: all tasks not purchased by the customer, or not provided by SAP as part of the standard service, but applicable to the customer's environment, are the customer's responsibility. In other words, the default owner of anything nobody bought is the customer. A platform team's first job under RISE is to find those gaps before an auditor or an outage does.
- Is the task a Standard Service?Yes → SAP performs it; Contoso requests or monitors · No → next question
- Is it an Optional or Additional Service?Yes → only SAP can do it; is it in the contract? If not, order it or accept the gap · No → next question
- Is it a Packaged Services task?Yes → bought from SAP, or Contoso must staff it · No → next question
- Is it an Excluded Task?Yes → Contoso owns it, always · Not listed → Contoso owns it by default
What would you do?
Six weeks after go-live, Contoso's auditors ask who reviews the security audit log of CMP. Sam searches the R&R and finds no task for it in SAP's standard services. What follows?
- RISE gives Contoso a single-tenant SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition (SAP Cloud ERP Private) operated by SAP ECS.
- SAP's R&R is the reference: Standard, Optional, Additional, Packaged Services and Excluded tasks.
- Anything applicable that nobody bought defaults to the customer.
- RISE includes SAP Cloud ALM, not Solution Manager usage rights.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. Which R&R category covers tasks only the customer can perform?
2. What happens to a Packaged Services task if the customer does not buy the service?
3. Which document version does SAP name as the documentation of record for the R&R?
4. What does SAP's ALM FAQ say RISE includes?