SAP Cloud Migration
Migrating to the cloud is a complex process, that must be customized to address the technical, functional and operational needs of the organization. A successful migration strategy should address short-term aims, like decreasing hosting
costs, as well as longer-term goals like better alignment between IT and business objectives. Here are few main cloud migration strategies businesses use to meet those goals.
Homogeneous “Lift-and-Shift” Migration
Lift and Shift migrations move SAP Systems from on-premise to the cloud.
A lift-and-shift migration is exactly what it sounds like: lifting an application or landscape out of its current hosting environment and shifting it to another environment — for example, from on-premise hosting to a public cloud.
Lift-and-shift migrations transport an exact copy of the top three layers: application, database and OS layer.
SAP Version, database and OS will remain same in A lift-and-shift migration
Technical Migration – Lift and Migration to Cloud
A lift-and Migrate to cloud is like: lifting an application or landscape out of its current hosting environment and shifting it to another environment and change the OS or DB — for example, from on-premise hosting to a public cloud.
During Lift-and-Migrate Database or Operating System will be changed.
Technical Migration: Source and Target can be on-premise, private or public cloud.
Technical Migration – Lift and Shift/Migration to Cloud
Technical migration maintains existing applications, but upgrades the OS and DB to meet certain transformational goals. As a cloud migration strategy, this is often done in part to harness cloud native features such as scalability or
automation, but it also has other benefits. For example, migrating from on-premise SAP ECC to Suite on HANA in the public cloud gives organizations the benefit from HANA’s real-time visibility and dramatically increased performance,
in addition to the benefits of the public cloud.
A technical migration can also prepare organizations for a future application migration. In the case of SAP, ECC users often migrate to Suite on HANA as a first step on the road to S/4HANA. This enables the organization to minimize
disruption and gain experience in the cloud, which they can use to plan the next stage of their transformation.
Technical (SAP HANA) Migration: Source and Target can be on-premise, private or public cloud
System Conversion - Transformation to S/4 HANA and Cloud
Application (S/4HANA) Migration: Source & Target can be on-premise, private or public cloud
In an application migration, the application layer is transformed, along with the OS and DB. There are three basic strategies for application migration: new system implementation, system conversion and landscape transformation.
A system conversion transforms your application layer, along with the DB and OS layers. The process may involve extensive changes to the way your landscape is run and managed as well as the landscape itself.
Application Conversion is a complex process, however, which requires a reliable technical team.
The system conversion should be planned carefully, with downtime scheduled to minimize disruption. Look for a partner who can accomplish the process with a single downtime — the shorter, the better.
Brownfield migration is the most common path for an SAP cloud migration from ECC to S/4HANA. It may be done as a second project following a technical migration to Suite on HANA, or as a single, multi-stage process.