SAP BW Customers – are you ready!
SAP BW Customers – are you ready for BW/4HANA!!
As of today, there is 16,000 SAP customers using the BW solution – are you one of these customers?!
If you are, you need to be aware of the following points:
BW/4HANA: The BW/4HANA is a NEW solution, it’s not an upgrade of BW 7.5.
BW 7.6: There is NO BW 7.6. The last version of BW is 7.5.
BW 7.3 and 7.4 Support: The support maintenance on BW 7.3 and 7.4 will END on 31.12.2020.
BW 7.5 Support: The support maintenance on BW 7.5 will END on 31.12.2024.
Future Innovations: All FUTURE SAP development innovations will take place on SAP BW/4HANA and not on BW 7.5.
So, if there is no more BW (after Dec 2024) – how do you get to BW/4HANA solution!
As mentioned above, it’s not an upgrade of BW 7.5, it’s an entirely new solution!!
If you want to migrate to BW/4HANA, there are 4 options available:
Greenfield solution: This is a new installation of BW/4HANA with all new data flows and BI reporting.
In-place conversion: Full system conversion of an existing BW system.
Remote conversion: Start with BW/4HANA as greenfield installation and transport data models and remote data transfer of flows from existing BW system to BW/4HANA solution.
Shell conversion: Like remote conversion but without data transfer.
Even if you’re not considering migrating to BW/4HANA in the short to medium term there are several elements that you need to be aware of.
Several object types are not support in BW/4HANA and are required to be either manual re-designed or manually converted using the conversion toolbox (RSB4HTRF).
The following is a high-level overview of these areas that are not supported on BW/4HANA:
Software components: As one of the goals of SAP BW/4HANA is to simplify processes, not all SAP NetWeaver based add-ons are supported by SAP BW/4HANA.
Conversion Tool: The following are some of the main BW object types that are not supported on BW/4HANA but can be converted using the conversion tool (RSB4HTRF):
Multiprovider
Infocube
DSO (Data storage object)
Process Chain
Process Chain variants (for example compression of infocube).
7.x Datasource
DTP (for example DTP with source and target as an ODS).
Infopackage
3.x object types: The migration from 3.x to 7.x data flows must be performed (via transaction RSMIGRATE) before the SAP BW/4HANA conversion Toolbox (RSB4HTRF) can be used to convert the data flows.
No Conversion Tool: The following are some of the main BW object types that are not supported on BW/4HANA and need to be manually redesigned:
Open Hubs
BPS Planning
Virtual Provider or Hybrid Provider
Broadcasting
Workbook
BW CMOD exits
BW Technical content: All delivered BW technical content - 0TCT* and 0BWTC* objects (for example Front-End and OLAP Statistics) will be deleted.
BEx Web Applications: To allow customers a parallel approach to complete the conversion project, SAP supports the temporary use of the existing BEx Web Applications through a dedicated pilot program for a limited time until end of 2022 (please refer to OSS note 2496706).
Source Systems: Source systems of type "SAP Data Services" or "External System (Partner ETL)" are not available in SAP BW/4HANA. There is no direct replacement for SAP Data Services Source Systems in SAP BW/4HANA. SAP recommend using SAP Data Services (or external systems) to write to a native SAP HANA database table and then use a SAP HANA Source System with connection type "Local SAP HANA Database Schema" to bring the data into SAP BW/4HANA.
The following is an example of what is required on a BW 7.5 system (6 TB) to be compatible to migrate to a BW/4HANA solution:
9,000 - 3.x objects to migrate first to 7.x and then to BW/4HANA compatible objects.
20,000 – objects to be converted to BW/4HANA compatible objects.
5,000 – objects to be manually re-designed.
1,500 – BPS planning objects to be manually re-designed.
Please note that the conversion of objects (20,000 in example above) must be manually executed in each system, so if there are 4 systems in your landscape this is 80,000 objects that need to be converted.
Even without considering going to BW/4HANA, there are many benefits on BW 7.5 system of converting the objects to BW/4HANA compatible objects. The following are some advantages:
Extraction Performance: ODP extraction performance benefits – for example the extraction reduction of a delta execution of the 0FI_GL_14 ODP is from 74% to 86% in PRD – (ODP—Performance-improvements-and-benefits)
BI Schedule Performance: Parallel data loads to and from an ADSO is possible without any locking restrictions which will reduce the overall execution time of the BI schedules.
Simplification: Two objects (ADSO & Composite provider) for all LSA++ layers. Number of Modelling object types reduced from 10 to 4 (60% less)
Reporting Flexibility: Report at any layer of the Data Warehouse with speed and flexibility including virtually combining data across layers. Also, composite providers allow Info Providers to be combined using the JOIN operation allowing us to create new scenarios not possible before or if possible in the past would have very poor performance with standard techniques via multiprovider or InfoSet
LSA++: Transition your LSA (Layered Scalable Architecture) to LSA++.
Reduce LSA/LSA++ Layer: Potentially remove the reporting layer and the existing transformation layer becomes the reporting Layer.
Reduction of objects and DB Size: By removing the reporting layer, the number of objects to support is reduced along with DB storage size.
Conclusion:
The maintenance of BW ends on December 2024 which is a few years away, but I believe you should start reviewing what is required to be converted manually using the SAP conversion tool (RSB4HTRF) and what needs to be manually re-designed. The effort required to perform these activities could be as long in duration as the actual BW/4HANA upgrade project!
Also, as highlighted there are benefits to a BW 7.5 system of converting these objects now.
Finally, if you don’t have BW/4HANA on your roadmap (like majority of SAP BW customers) you should be aware of the timeline of when the maintenance of BW ends, and the effort required to get the BW system in a BW/4HANA compatible state before the actual migration can start.
Additional Information:
The following are all the blogs/articles that I’ve written on BW/4HANA migration - I hope you find them useful.
BW/4HANA - Discover / Prepare Phase:
BW/4HANA – Explore / Realization Phase:
BW/4HANA Migration– Authorisation:
BW/4HANA compliance assessment For a BW/4HANA compliance assessment please contact us @ services@seaparkconsultancy.com.
