What does the end of SAP BW 7.5 in 2027 mean for your organization?

For many SAP customers, BW has been the backbone of their data strategy for years. While it may have struggled to keep pace with modern data demands, it has proven to be a reliable foundation, one that most organizations have built upon over decades, often distributing data across a wide variety of downstream systems and processes. 

With the end-of-support deadline for BW 7.5 set for 2027, the clock is ticking. The good news: you have options. In this post, we outline three migration scenarios. Over the coming months, we'll dive deeper into each one, sharing real-world experiences, cost considerations, and practical guidance. 

In the blog below, we take a first step to further elaborate on the different scenarios.

How much time do you have left?

The timeline below puts the key dates in perspective. BW 7.5 mainstream support ends in 2027. An optional paid extension buys time until 2030, but that is a holding position, not a strategy. BW/4HANA offers a longer runway, maintained by SAP until at least 2040. And BW PCE on BDC bridges the gap for organizations not yet ready to commit to a full cloud rebuild. 

What choice are you making for your data platform? 

Before we walk through each scenario, it is worth pausing on what this decision is really about. The choice of migration path determines how much of your BW logic needs to be rebuilt. It also determines how much your organization can benefit from AI and cloud-native capabilities. And considerations like dependency on the SAP ecosystem and associated costs weigh heavily for many of our customers. These are strategic questions, not merely technical ones.  

Let's elaborate on the scenarios further.

Scenario 1: Migrating to BDC

SAP's strategic direction is clear. The Business Data Cloud (BDC) is the platform of the future. Datasphere, its central component, has already established itself as the data platform of choice for many SAP customers. With the addition of an object store-based data lake, SAP Databricks, and an AI operating system, BDC is becoming increasingly feature-complete. 

Datasphere still has ground to cover before it can fully replace BW, but innovation has moved quickly in recent years. At this point, 80–90% of BW functionality is supported. Within this scenario, there are two distinct paths. 

Scenario 1a: BW Private Cloud Edition on BDC (Lift, Shift, Innovate) 

For customers not yet ready to rebuild from scratch, SAP offers BW Private Cloud Edition (PCE), a managed migration of your existing BW system into the SAP cloud. The promise is continuity: your BW environment keeps running as-is (Lift), while you gradually share BW data with Datasphere and Databricks via the Data Product Generator, currently supporting ADSOs and Composites (Shift). In parallel, you can start leveraging new capabilities being rolled out across the BDC platform (Innovate). 

This approach extends your support window to 2030 without requiring an immediate move to BW/4. The trade-off is cost. BDC pricing is consumption-based, with factors like memory usage, HANA size, and landscape tiers all contributing to the total. SAP currently offers an evaluation of your existing setup to help size and optimize the transition. 

Scenario 1b: Greenfield BDC

For organizations willing to make a fresh start, a greenfield BDC implementation is becoming an increasingly realistic option. SAP is investing heavily in managed data products and intelligent applications to accelerate new implementations.

At McCoy, we see greenfield projects succeed, and we bring our own accelerators with us. Our Datasphere Data Foundation catalog includes the most commonly used master data objects (such as Customer and Cost Center) and transactional datasets like (Purchasing, Inventory, Finance), which give new Datasphere customers a flying start. These context-rich objects form the foundation from which company-specific logic can be rebuilt.

AI-supported development helps accelerate that rebuilding process, and a greenfield approach simultaneously offers an excellent opportunity to exclude outdated functionality in the new setup. You avoid the costs of moving your BW system to BDC, and thus a future second migration step (from BW PCE to Datasphere) is no longer necessary.

Scenario 2: Migration to BW/4HANA

Not ready to leave the BW world behind? You're not alone. For organizations where BW is deeply embedded in integration landscapes, where years of business-specific customization represent real value, or where a move to the cloud simply isn't on the agenda yet, a migration to BW/4HANA may still be the right call. BW/4HANA 2.0 mainstream maintenance runs until 2040. Either way, this path buys meaningful time well beyond the BW 7.5 deadline. 

Most organizations have already moved to BW 7.5 on HANA, which provides a solid foundation. Depending on prior investments, particularly around ODP extractions, ADSOs, and Composites, the upgrade path can be manageable. AI-assisted development can further reduce the effort of adapting code to BW/4HANA's naming conventions and object model. This way you modernize step by step, without putting the continuity of your data platform at risk.  

Scenario 3: Migrating to a non-SAP data platform

A forced platform migration is also a natural moment to step back and reassess your broader data strategy. Platforms like Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, and Databricks have made significant strides in recent years, and for some organizations the SAP ecosystem is no longer the only credible enterprise-grade option. 

The first challenge to solve is data integration. SAP has become increasingly restrictive when it comes to push-based and real-time connectivity from S/4HANA to non-SAP platforms. In practice, there are three viable approaches: 

• OData APIs 

• Datasphere (Premium Outbound / Open Mirroring) 

• Third-party ETL tooling 

Getting the data flowing is only part of the challenge. Rebuilding data models at the table level can be a significant undertaking. This is an area where AI-generated data models, informed by CDS view metadata, can serve as a powerful accelerator. At McCoy, we've developed exactly this capability with our Semantic Bridge offering, which we'll cover in more detail in a future post. 

The table below brings together the key variables, so you can see what the best option is for you at this moment.

The right choice starts with your context

Each scenario has its own logic. Which route fits best depends on your landscape, ambitions, and the role data plays within your organization.

Would you like to discuss what this concretely means for your organization? Or are you curious about our experiences with BDC, BW transformations, or non-SAP data platforms? Feel free to contact Freek van Hoof or Joury Jonkergouw. We are happy to think along with you.