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The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude towards the problem.

 

Are you running a BW version 7.3 or 7.4?

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Did you know that December 2020 is the end of support maintenance deadline?

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In effect SAP will end the support and request that customers upgrade to BW 7.5 (worth noting that end of support maintenance is December 2024 – time flies) or you can choose to migrate to BW/4HANA.

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BW/4HANA 2.0, is the new enterprise data warehouse (EDW) solution for SAP customers. A migration to BW/4HANA has a significant impact on your BI budget and requires a redesign of everything that was developed in the past few years.

 

As SAP have stated – “Converting an SAP BW system to SAP BW/4HANA is not a simple task…. there is simply no ‘wizard’ that magically converts everything”.

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We're seeing many SAP customers reviewing the migration challenge; but they struggle to develop a business case to justify the substantial migration budget.

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Every SAP customer will have different elements (BW version, desire for BW/4HANA, budget, timeline etc) which determines their migration to BW/4HANA.

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The following are three SAP Customers that SeaPark Consultancy is working with on their BW to BW/4HANA migration requirements:

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SAP Customer A is on BW 7.5 on a HANA database. SAP Customer A does not want to migrate to BW/4HANA until 2023/2024 but wants to be pro-active. As SAP Customer A is on BW 7.5 (HANA DB), they started migrating all their data flows to BW/4HANA compatibly data flows along with decommission unused dataflows. This will reduce the effort once the BW/4HANA migration project commences in 2023/2024.

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SAP Customer B is on BW 7.4 version on a HANA database. SAP Customer B can’t provide a business justification to migrate to BW/4HANA by 2020 so they first move to BW 7.5 which gives them time until December 2024 to plan a move to BW/4HANA in a second phase. Once the upgrade to BW 7.5 is completed, this SAP Customer will start migrating their data flows to BW/4HANA compatibly data flows and decommissioning any unused data flows.

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SAP Customer C is on BW 7.0 version on a non-HANA database. This customer wants to reuse some of the dataflows. As remote and in-place migrations are not possible for BW 7.0 version, this SAP customer does a Shell migration by carving out the dataflows that they want to re-use into the new BW/4HANA landscape.

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As movie here Captain Jack Sparrow says

 

“The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude towards the problem”.

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Ignoring the “problem” (i.e. BW migration to BW/4HANA) is not the most appropriate strategy – would you disagree?

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Progressives who are stealing a march in this area are

• developing a clear SAP BI roadmap for the next 5 years and

• engaging and educating decision-makers and key stakeholders of the “problem” so that there is clarity and a response rather than a reaction

 

At SeaPark Consultancy, we are educating companies about the “problem” and guide them by focusing on their individual and specific requirements.

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We’ve also developed a product called VAL4 which has been specifically designed in analysis for office (SAP AO) to automate the testing for any in-place conversion of a BW dataflow using SAP’s conversion toolbox (RSB4HTRF).

 

VAL4 reduces in-place conversion testing by 40% to 60%.

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Would it be difficult for us to have a conversation soon?