BW/4HANA version 1.0 is functionally equivalent with SAP BW Edition for HANA (7.5 Service Pack 4), all core functionality has been re-developed on or moved into the HANA platform, several million lines of redundant code, the SAP NetWeaver stack, SAP GUI support and support for various other outdated components have been removed. Among many other improvements, BW/4HANA offers SAP Fiori based user interfaces, simplified data modeling and data flows, open interfaces, deep integration into the HANA platform, and integrated HANA data life cycle management. Support for several add-ons, such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation, will be made available in future releases.

            While BW/4HANA will be the basis for all significant future development of the BW data warehouse platform, it is not a successor product of SAP BW and therefore needs to be re-licensed. It is largely expected that BW/4HANA will assume a strategic role within the framework of the SAP strategy for digitalization and the Internet of Things (IoT).

                The transition to the new solution does, however, take more consideration and planning – there is no direct upgrade path for classic, LSA-based (Layered Scalable Architecture) BW environments. Earlier modeling options such as InfoCubes, MultiProviders or traditional Data Store Objects are no longer available, old developments (based upon a 3.x version of BW) are no longer executable. Consequently, the move to BW/4HANA requires an upgrade to a recent release of SAP BW (7.5 SP4), the migration of existing application objects to the new object types and a subsequent system conversion. While upgrades and system conversion are fully automated processes, some of the migration steps need manual intervention.

            To fully reap the benefits of the new platform, CorpAsia provides end-to-end support through advisory services, business case and roadmap development, implementation services, as well as basis and technical support for both, on premise and Cloud based installations.