Cyber ​​resilience in SAP Business One: Accelera recovers operations in 4 hours

Accelera is an enterprise technology consulting and integrator , acting as a Value Added Reseller (VAR) and specialized partner in the implementation, customization, and support of the SAP Business One ERP system . With a strong strategic position and consolidated operations in Latin America, particularly in the Chilean market, the company serves large corporations that demand high availability and stringent technical compliance.

Among the main clients in its portfolio is a multinational company in the large-scale mining, whose distributed operational architecture encompasses unified databases and critical subsidiaries spread across 14 countries.

Real problem

The challenging scenario for Accelera and its customer base was structured around two critical triggers in infrastructure, operation, and security:

• The SAP HANA technological transition: SAP's global decision to migrate the SAP Business One ecosystem from the traditional SQL Server manager to the SAP HANA in-memory platform imposed a disruption on the hardware layer. in-memory requires highly robust hardware specifications (certified servers with high RAM density and specific processors). For Accelera's clients, maintaining this environment under the in-house (on-premise) model increased the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) five to ten times compared to the previous local architecture, making local support financially unfeasible.
• Perimeter vulnerability and human error: at the mining client, the initial strategy centralized the SAP Business One databases of the subsidiaries on an in-house physical server located in Australia. This centralization without advanced security perimeters resulted in a massive cyberattack (ransomware/intrusion), paralyzing operations and corrupting information from 14 countries simultaneously.
• Financial and operational impact: In parallel, in another incident involving a holding company of 17 companies controlled by Accelera, human error corrupted the main ERP database. Under the traditional support model, diagnosis and correction would require sending the physical database directly to SAP's laboratories, resulting in a projected downtime of two weeks of total shutdown .

Solution architecture

To solve the financial bottleneck of SAP HANA and protect the application layer against incidents, Accelera implemented a modern architecture based on Skyone's ecosystem of solutions:

• Skyone Autosky: used as a Platform as a Service (PaaS) to perform "Zero-Change Migration" (without code changes or rewriting of the monolith) from SAP Business One to the public cloud (AWS, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure – OCI, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform – GCP). The system now runs encapsulated and centralized, distributing access to end users via web browser (Web Access) or through the Skyone Autosky Plugin.
• Advanced authentication and security layer: access via HTTPS protocol (port 443) and TCP 491, eliminating the need for complex VPN tunnels. Implementation of Zero Trust architecture, where the user's device is isolated from application and database servers. Mandatory authentication supporting Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) via QR Code, adaptive reCAPTCHA against brute-force attacks, and Single Sign-On (SSO) via SAML 2.0 integrated with Entra ID.
• Auto-scaling engine: proprietary algorithms that monitor the environment 24/7, adjusting vCPU and RAM allocation minute by minute based on actual usage by active users and the load of the SAP HANA ERP system.
• Skyone Studio: an orchestrator that integrates iPaaS (connecting over 400 systems and APIs), the Lakehouse layer for high-performance BI, and Generative AI agents (GenAI), enabling the consumption of the SAP B1 database to shift from passive reporting to real-time predictive alerts and forecasts.

Technical challenges

The transition required overcoming severe architectural complexities:

• Mitigating lock-in and latency in HANA: the main technical trade-off was balancing the extremely high IOPS and throughput consumption required by SAP HANA's in-memory technology with cost predictability. Skyone mitigated the financial risk by converting variable hyperscaler fees into transparent, local currency pricing per user.
• Ephemeral IP Management: The Auto-Scaling engine works with dynamically initialized and terminated ephemeral servers. This constantly changes the public IPs of the internal infrastructure, natively hindering targeted attacks and external scanning techniques.
• Multitenant vs. dedicated segregation: ensuring strict logical data isolation between mining subsidiaries and the holding company's 17 companies, guaranteeing that each client's private Virtual Networks prevented the lateral movement of threats at runtime.

Implementation

The implementation and rollout journey was conducted through structured phases to mitigate downtime risks:

1. Discovery and semantic audit phase: mapping all tables, customizations, partner add-ons, and reports in SAP Crystal Reports used by local companies.
2. Image design with server templates: creation of pre-configured and standardized images in Skyone Autosky Admin to provision SAP Business One instances. Tests were performed in an isolated and secure sandbox environment before the production rollout.
3. Pilot migration and resilience validation: as the mining client was resistant to fully migrating its core business in-house from Australia, Accelera used the flexibility of the public cloud managed by Skyone to migrate only the database of its Chilean subsidiary in isolation, establishing it as a contingency and performance validation environment.
4. Rollout and activation of perimeter policies: official publication of ERP images, activation of automated audit logs, configuration of IP whitelists, and definition of windows for automated and monitored daily backups.

Measurable results

The impacts generated by modernizing infrastructure and security with Skyone solutions have yielded undeniable performance indicators:

• 100% operational availability against ransomware: During the massive cyberattack that encrypted and paralyzed local servers in Australia (bringing down customer operations in 14 countries), the Chilean operation hosted on Skyone Autosky remained 100% active, secure, and functional. The Zero Trust layer prevented attackers from laterally moving or compromising the cloud-hosted database.
• 98.8% Reduction in Recoverable Time to Objective (RTO): In the data corruption incident that affected the holding company of 17 companies in Chile, SAP's traditional model would have required 14 days (336 hours) of total downtime. Through Skyone's advanced disaster management, the last automatic snapshot taken the previous night was successfully restored, reducing recovery time to just 4 hours.
• Optimizing hardware TCO: the need to invest in very expensive physical servers certified for SAP HANA has been eliminated, converting CAPEX into predictable OPEX.
• Guaranteed retention and integrity: establishment of automated backup routines with a standard retention of 7 consecutive days and 24/7 support for critical technical recovery requests.

Lessons learned

• Infrastructure as an insurance policy: the choice of managed cloud architectures with a focus on proactive security should not be measured solely by performance metrics (latency/IOPS), but by the ability to guarantee Business Continuityinreal-world disaster scenarios.
• The value lies in the data, not the hardware: modern IT management requires Value Assurance Representatives (VARs) to eliminate the time spent maintaining physical servers and focus on the value layer: data governance and the application of predictive algorithms (such as those in Skyone Studio) to generate business intelligence.

FAQ

1. How does Skyone Autosky protect SAP Business One against cyberattacks and ransomware?

Skyone Autosky adopts a cybersecurity framework based on Zero Trust architecture. Unlike the traditional model that exposes ERP servers to the internet or requires vulnerable VPN networks, the platform completely isolates application servers and databases (such as SAP HANA and SQL Server). The user authenticates directly to the portal URL via browser or plugin through encrypted SSL connections (HTTPS ports 443 and TCP 491). Only the IP of the authenticated device receives temporary connection authorization, and the auto-scaling servers use dynamically renewed ephemeral IPs, neutralizing intrusion attempts, brute force attacks, and lateral malware movements.

2. What is the recovery time to time (RTO) of Skyone Autosky in case of data corruption in the ERP system?

The Skyone Autosky platform features an automated, managed, and distributed backup strategy across highly durable public clouds (such as AWS S3 and OCI). The system performs continuous daily snapshots of services and databases with a default retention policy of 7 consecutive days. In critical cases of data loss or operational failures, the disaster recovery process has a parameterized RTO (Recovery Time Objective) of up to 4 hours, ensuring the immediate return to productive operation from the last healthy point collected.

3. How does Skyone Autosky solve the high cost of migrating from SAP Business One to SAP HANA?

The transition from SQL Server to SAP HANA requires local servers with extremely robust hardware specifications due to in-memory processing, which can increase on-premise infrastructure costs by 5 to 10 times. Skyone Autosky eliminates the need for high capital expenditure (CAPEX) through a proprietary no-code migration technology. The ERP is moved to a PaaS architecture with automated auto-scaling engines that resize vCPU and memory minute by minute based on actual demand. This optimizes resources and ensures stable and predictable pricing in local currency.

4. What is Skyone Studio and how does it apply Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to corporate data?

Skyone Studio is an integrated data management solution that combines iPaaS capabilities (an integration platform with native connectors for over 400 systems, including SAP B1), Lakehouse architecture for complex analytical queries, and Generative AI (GenAI) agent frameworks. Instead of companies relying solely on static reports from the past, Skyone Studio unifies fragmented databases and allows the creation of customized intelligent agents. These agents interpret structured and unstructured data to issue proactive alerts, predictive scenarios, and workflow automations through human-interactive interfaces.