SAP BW Modernisation with Business Data Cloud
Your SAP Business Warehouse has a future – in the cloud.
Migration of SAP BW systems to Business Data Cloud
SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) enables BW customers to modernise their system landscape whilst protecting existing investments.
Many enterprises face the same questions: How do I safeguard my BW investments? How do I modernise without risking operations?
Lift – Shift – Innovate
SAP offers Business Warehouse, private cloud edition, as part of SAP Business Data Cloud, a three-stage modernisation pathway that protects your existing investments and progressively transforms them into a cloud-native architecture.
Schritt 1: Lift: SAP BW, private cloud edition
- Migration to SAP Business Warehouse, Private Cloud Edition: Existing SAP BW NetWeaver and SAP BW/4HANA systems are transferred to the private cloud.
- Technical preparation of source systems: Depending on your source system, migration to the HANA database and upgrades to current support packages or SAP BW/4HANA 2023 may be required.
- Assisted modernisation: The BW Migration Assistant translates data flows into SAP Datasphere artefacts using AI. The Query Template Generator transforms BW queries into analytical models.
Schritt 2: Shift: SAP BW Data Products
- Automate BW data provisioning as Data Products: The Data Product Generator transfers data from SAP BW 7.5 and SAP BW/4HANA, including semantics and relationships, into SAP Datasphere.
- Scalable data transfer: Multiple InfoProviders, several target spaces, bulk processing, and scheduled delta loads are supported for consistent updates.
- Organisations decide on a use-case basis which BW objects are actually transformed into Data Products (example: if a more current use case already exists in SAP Datasphere and the organisation can/wants to replace its legacy version, then the associated BW objects do not need to be transferred to SAP Datasphere).
Schritt 3: Innovate: Data Products & Intelligent Applications
- Connect data platforms and applications: Data Products enable seamless integration of SAP data, business applications, and Intelligent Applications for informed analytics and decision-making.
- Implement AI and ML scenarios: SAP BW and LoB Data Products can be analysed in SAP Databricks and combined with additional data sources.
- Exchange data without copies: Bidirectional zero-copy sharing enables efficient data exchange between SAP Datasphere, SAP Databricks, and your existing Databricks platform.
- Flexibly provision Data Products: The SAP Business Data Cloud SDK allows Data Products to be created, updated, published, and made available to additional applications automatically.
Benefits of SAP BW modernisation
Modernisation with SAP BDC and SAP BW PCE has a positive impact across four key cost areas.
Transformation effort
No migration costs for upgrading to SAP BW/4HANA. SAP-managed Data Products with business semantics reduce data integration and maintenance costs.
Analytics & technical support
Reduction of annual monitoring, patching, and upgrade costs. Mitigation of losses from unforeseen data risks.
SAP software & maintenance
Minimisation or elimination of SAP Datasphere Premium Outbound costs through the zero-copy approach. Elimination of BW PCE costs after decommissioning.
Infrastructure & stack
Optimisation of hardware investments and reduction of hardware footprint by offloading SAP BW data volume to the object store.
What becomes possible with modernisation?
Modernise reporting
Queries and CompositeProviders will be progressively replaced by Analytic Models and Views. Standard data sources will be replaced by SAP-managed Data Products for consistent, future-proof reporting.
AI/ML scenarios
Leverage SAP Databricks to apply advanced AI/ML models directly to proven BW data. Results flow back via Catalog to SAP Datasphere for further harmonisation.
Unified data platform
Consolidation of SAP and non-SAP data sources via Replication Flows in SAP Datasphere for comprehensive, enterprise-wide analytics and insights.
SAP BDC is the future for on-premises SAP BW systems. Safeguard your investments and open your organisation to AI, real-time analytics, and scalable data architectures.
