17.12 BW Modernization Playbook & Architect Checklist
Discovery
- BW/4HANA landscape inventoried.
- Objects classified by type and criticality.
- Consumers mapped.
- Dependencies mapped.
- Custom routines identified.
- Source extraction paths identified.
Platform decision
- Retain versus migrate versus redesign assessed.
- BW bridge fit assessed.
- Native Datasphere fit assessed.
- Redundant persistence identified.
- Regulatory workloads isolated.
Migration
- Supported conversion path verified.
- Metadata and data migration separated.
- Migration waves defined.
- Parallel-run criteria defined.
- Reconciliation defined.
- Cutover and rollback defined.
Engineering
- Transformations validated.
- DTPs validated.
- Delta behavior validated.
- Error handling validated.
- Runtime performance measured.
- Monitoring implemented.
Enterprise architecture
- BW bridge boundaries documented.
- Datasphere semantic ownership documented.
- Data products defined.
- Security ownership defined.
- Governance ownership defined.
- Retirement criteria defined.
Architect interview framework
When asked:
"How would you modernize BW/4HANA into Datasphere?"
Answer:
- Inventory the existing landscape.
- Classify workloads by business value and technical fit.
- Separate preserve, migrate, redesign and retire.
- Evaluate BW bridge where BW capabilities provide leverage.
- Evaluate native Datasphere for new cloud-native workloads.
- Separate metadata migration from data migration.
- Design coexistence and parallel validation.
- Define reconciliation and cutover criteria.
- Design rollback before cutover.
- Remove redundant persistence.
- Establish domain ownership and governance.
- Retire legacy workloads only after consumer migration is proven.
Common traps
"BW bridge is just BW/4HANA hosted in the cloud."
Too simplistic. It provides selected BW capabilities as part of the Datasphere ecosystem with its own boundaries and integration model.
"Shell conversion moves all data."
No. Current SAP documentation describes shell conversion as transferring supported metadata; data must be loaded separately.
"Every BW object should be migrated."
No. Modernization is an opportunity to retire and redesign.
"Datasphere replaces every BW capability one-for-one."
No. Compare capabilities and operating requirements rather than object names.
"A successful technical migration means the project is complete."
No. Consumers, semantics, security, performance, reconciliation and operations must be validated.
Final architect test
You should be able to defend:
- why BW/4HANA remains or is retired,
- where BW bridge adds value,
- which workloads become native Datasphere,
- how BW metadata is migrated,
- how data is reloaded,
- how coexistence works,
- how cutover is controlled,
- how data products replace implementation-centric consumption.
The goal is not merely to migrate BW.
The goal is to build a simpler, governed, supportable enterprise data architecture.