The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude towards the problem
Are you running a BW 7.3 or 7.4 version?
Did you know that December 2020 is the end of support maintenance deadline?
In effect SAP will end the support and request that customers upgrade to BW 7.5 (worth noting that end of support for BW 7.5 maintenance is December 2024 – time flies) or you can choose to migrate to BW/4HANA.
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”.
I’m seeing many SAP customers reviewing the migration challenge; but they struggle to develop a business case to justify the substantial migration budget.
Every SAP customer will have different elements (BW version, desire for BW/4HANA, budget, timeline etc) which determines their migration to BW/4HANA.
The following are three SAP Customers that SeaPark Consultancy is working with on their BW to BW/4HANA migration requirements:
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.
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.
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 is doing a Shell migration by carving out the dataflows that they want to re-use into the new BW/4HANA landscape.
As a famous pirate once said – “The problem is not the problem; the problem is your attitude towards the problem”. Ignoring the “problem” (i.e. BW migration to BW/4HANA) is not the most appropriate strategy – would you disagree?.
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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