Migrating SAP Business Warehouse (BW) to HANA is no small feat. More complex than other migrations, migrating to SAP HANA should be carefully planned to ensure that costs are reduced, downtime is minimised and data compliance regulations are met. Preparation—which includes any necessary BW upgrades to the version required by SAP HANA—is key before migration. RightSizing BW data is another key element in the preparation process ahead of SAP HANA migration: one that can reduce migration costs and TCO, and enhance SAP HANA functionality.
RightSizing identifies BW data that can be archived, deleted or migrated to SAP HANA
RightSizing is the process of taking stock of all the data contained in your SAP BW system ahead of SAP HANA migration. It identifies which data can be deleted, which is a candidate for SAP data archiving and which needs to be migrated to SAP HANA. The upshot of RightSizing is a reduction in the amount of data you have to carry over to SAP HANA.
Minimise downtime and enhance system functionality by reducing the amount of data you need to migrate to SAP HANA
RightSizing is an important pre-migration exercise that helps you determine your SAP HANA appliance size requirements. Migrate over to an SAP HANA appliance that’s too large, and you pay for unused gigabytes; migrate to a system that’s too small, and you reduce functionality. Moving less data over to SAP HANA also reduces migration time, thereby reducing downtime and disruption to business processes.
Controlled data growth following RightSizing reduces SAP HANA TCO
RightSizing is also the first step in the data management strategy designed to control the ongoing growth of data within your SAP HANA appliance. Control data growth and your ongoing system storage costs and TCO are reduced. What’s more, by streamlining data, it becomes easier to access data and comply with data regulations.
Rightsizing case study: $5.9 million saved
To illustrate the potential cost savings RightSizing can yield, let’s examine a case study. The client had 27 TB of ECC6 data and, after a pre-migration exercise, appliance size requirements stood at 6 x 12 TB, valued at $7.54 million (at time of project). Our challenge was to migrate the data to a 2 TB appliance in eight weeks with no reduction to data access. After initial analysis of ECC6 data, we calculated that 27 TB had to be reduced to 6.7 TB to fit on a 2 TB appliance. After deleting 4.1 TB of data that was over 10 years old, archiving 15.5 TB to SAP information lifecycle management (ILM), total cost savings were $5.9 million and migration could be carried out over 18 hours.
Proceed’s SAP consultants can help you identify data that can be moved to Nearline Storage
Proceed’s experienced SAP data management consultants can streamline your BW data for SAP HANA by analysing your current data and formulating a data management strategy to guide you through the migration process. We’ll ask you to complete a quick assessment to help us identify data growth in InfoCube, DSO and PSA. From there, we identify any data that can be moved to Nearline Storage and heavily compressed, and still be available for reporting or auditing.
For a more detailed breakdown of RightSizing and how it can make an SAP HANA migration more efficient, download our guide here