Migration from Legacy to BDC
As of 2026-10-06
Migration from legacy to BDC is the estate-wide version of the discipline — where the BW path (M070) handles SAP's own warehouse, this addresses the WHOLE legacy estate: aging BW + standalone DWs + non-SAP BI + Access/Excel empires + bespoke platforms. Bring order to the sprawl, don't lift every piece. Inventory first (estate-wide M070 triage): catalogue, measure actual usage (evidence, not assumptions), score on value/complexity/change. Three fates: carry forward (high-value/complex/stable, Bridge M070), re-platform (cleaner rebuilt as governed products/Insight Apps M033/M036), retire (the unused tail + shadow spreadsheets — the migration is the licence to kill it). Default to "justify why this survives", not "migrate everything". Shadow IT is the hidden scope — surface it, capture the real logic, retire the spreadsheet, never let an undocumented dependency be a go-live surprise. Sequence via the wave plan (M068); history follows tiering (M071). Honest: it's a rationalisation — value is in what you retire too, but rigorous inventory not reckless deletion.
What you will learn
- Work through a realistic scenario: Conglomerate with aging BW + two standalone DWs + a non-SAP BI tool + dozens of departmental Access/Excel systems, moving analytics to BDC.
- Recognize and avoid the anti-pattern: Lifting every legacy piece into BDC — Carries the sprawl + cost forward; misses the rationalisation value.
- Apply the module's core decision: Scope of migration — choose Bring order to the sprawl; triage every asset, not Lifting every legacy piece into BDC.
- Track mastery with the KPI: Inventory completeness (target: Visible + shadow IT catalogued; red flag: Only visible BW reports inventoried).
Module overview
Migration from legacy to BDC is the broad-canvas version of the migration discipline — where the BW-specific path handles SAP's own legacy warehouse through the Bridge, this module addresses the whole legacy analytics estate a customer brings to the table: aging BW systems, but also standalone data warehouses, non-SAP BI tools, departmental Access and Excel empires, and bespoke reporting platforms accreted over a decade of local fixes. The consultant's job is to bring order to that sprawl and land it inside SAP Business Data Cloud, not to mechanically lift every piece of it across.
Prerequisites
- Intermediate hands-on experience on SAP analytics projects
- Review core concepts first: C015, C012, C008
Outcomes
- Work through a realistic scenario: Conglomerate with aging BW + two standalone DWs + a non-SAP BI tool + dozens of departmental Access/Excel systems, moving analytics to BDC.
- Recognize and avoid the anti-pattern: Lifting every legacy piece into BDC — Carries the sprawl + cost forward; misses the rationalisation value.
- Apply the module's core decision: Scope of migration — choose Bring order to the sprawl; triage every asset, not Lifting every legacy piece into BDC.
- Track mastery with the KPI: Inventory completeness (target: Visible + shadow IT catalogued; red flag: Only visible BW reports inventoried).
Full module available to members. The full module adds: the decision framework · the end-to-end scenario walkthrough · the KPI scorecard · the anti-patterns · the code blocks · the knowledge check · the diagrams.