upgrade and migrate SAP systems to SAP HANA

Scenario:

• You want to migrate your existing SAP BW system to the SAP HANA database
• Your SAP BW release needs to be upgraded prior to migration

Use the database migration option (DMO) of the Software Update Manager (SUM):

it combines SAP BW upgrade and database migration to SAP HANA in one tool!

Benefits:

• Migration steps are simplified
• System update and database migration are combined in one tool
• Business downtime is reduced
• The source database remains consistent, so a fast fallback is possible

Introduction

If you want to migrate an existing SAP BW system to SAP HANA, several steps may be necessary. The inplace-migration (instead of a new installation) upgrades the existing system with the advantage that you keep the system-ID, host name, and connectivity. Assuming that your run a SAP BW 7.0 system on anyDB, required steps may be a dual-stack split, a unicode conversion, a database update of anyDB, upgrade to SAP BW 7.31, and database migration to SAP HANA. The Software Update Manager (SUM) - the tool for update or upgrade of SAP NetWeaver based systems - includes an option that combines the upgrade with the database migration. This option is called DMO: database migration option for SUM. It even makes the database update of anyDB unnecessary, because DMO requirements for the anyDB version are reduced compared to the standard update.

DMO status and outlook

DMO is currently in a pilot phase. Interested customers are welcome to participate: SAP Note 1799545 (Logon to SAP Service Marketplace required) explains the procedure and conditions to take part. We expect the option to be general available mid of 2013. Future direction is to include unicode conversion in the tool as well, and to support further products.

DMO processing overview

The processing sequence is based on the shadow system functionality of SUM: the SUM creates the shadow repository on the traditional database until downtime phase, while in parallel the SAP HANA database is setup (client, schema, ...). Then the shadow repository is copied to SAP HANA,  the database connection of the SAP BW system is switched to SAP HANA database, and then the downtime starts. After migration of the application data (including data conversion), the upgrade is finalized and SAP BW runs on SAP HANA. The traditional database continues to run and it is not modified at all, so it remains a fallback throughout the complete process.

Remarks

• if your SAP BW release is already sufficient for a direct migration, then you use the heterogenous system copy instead of DMO
• using DMO for migrating SAP ERP to SAP HANA is part of the roadmap
• when using DMO, SUM offers a new, SAPUI5 based user interface