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Academy module

BW/4HANA to BDC Migration

BW/4HANA to BDC object triage: audit usage, then carry forward via BW Bridge, re-platform natively in Datasphere, or retire — architecture diagram for BW/4HANA to BDC Migration, Analytics Legends Academy module M070

As of 2026-10-10

Edited by , sole editor and publication director — 27 years in the SAP ecosystem. How these pages are produced, and where automation is used.

BW→BDC is an object-by-object carry-forward-vs-re-platform decision, not a data move. The BW Bridge protects ABAP-heavy, high-value, stable logic for continuity — but it is a transition home, not the destination ("Bridge for continuity, Datasphere for net-new"). Re-platform simple high-value logic as Datasphere data products/analytic models; retire the ~40% unused content (run a usage audit first). Replicate what's queried at scale, federate what's small/real-time. The migration is the moment to pay down clean-core debt. The triage judgement is the senior-rate value.

What you will learn

  • Apply a three-axis triage (business value, logic complexity, change frequency) to decide, object-by-object, whether a BW/4HANA object should carry forward via the BW Bridge, be re-platformed natively in Datasphere, or be retired
  • Treat the BW Bridge as a transition home rather than the destination — set a Bridge sunset target and route all net-new development to Datasphere
  • Run a usage audit from BW statistics to identify and retire the roughly 40% of unused BW content before migrating anything
  • Apply the remote-vs-replicated decision rule in Datasphere (replicate what's queried at scale or needs historical snapshots; federate what's small or real-time) and use the migration to pay down clean-core debt

Module overview

Migrating BW/4HANA to SAP Business Data Cloud is not a lift-and-shift of tables from one storage engine to another. It is a series of object-by-object judgement calls about what should continue running largely unchanged inside the BW Bridge and what should be deliberately rebuilt, in a genuinely different modelling paradigm, natively in SAP Datasphere. Getting that split right — object by object, not landscape by landscape — is the single highest-leverage technical decision in the entire migration programme, because it determines whether the organisation ends up with a cleaner estate or simply a re-hosted version of the same technical debt it started with.

Prerequisites

  • Intermediate hands-on experience on SAP analytics projects
  • Review core concepts first: C034, C036, C033

Outcomes

  • Work through a realistic scenario: Utility company, BW/4HANA with ~600 active + ~400 dormant InfoProviders, heavy ABAP transformation logic in finance, simple SQL-able logic in procurement.
  • Recognize and avoid the anti-pattern: Lift-and-shift everything into the BW Bridge — Rebuilds the legacy estate in a new wrapper; no architectural gain.
  • Apply the module's core decision: Carry forward vs re-platform — choose Bridge for high-value+complex+stable; Datasphere-native for high-value+simple.
  • Track mastery with the KPI: Objects retired at migration (target: All unused content killed (~40%); red flag: Object count unchanged after migration).

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.

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