Forge — SAP BW Decommission Accelerator

Replace SAP BW with Snowflake.
30–50% Faster. Lower Risk.

SAP BW reaches end-of-mainstream maintenance in 2030. Every organisation running BW as its primary analytics layer faces the same decision — and the differences in cost, risk, and long-term capability are significant. Forge is Jarvis's structured migration accelerator that makes Snowflake the fastest, lowest-risk path.

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Used by SAP programme managers across EMEA, ANZ & North America
Forge Programme Overview
Entry Assessment £50K–£150K
Full Programme £500K–£5M
TCO Reduction 40–60%
Timeline Saving 30–50%
Typical Go-live 12–16 weeks
First workload in Snowflake production within 12–16 weeks of assessment completion
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2027
SAP BW mainstream maintenance end date
60%+
Of SAP ECC customers still running legacy BW today
40–50%
Timeline reduction possible with the right accelerator
The Decision Every SAP BW Customer Faces

Three Options. One Deadline.
The Differences Are Significant.

With SAP BW end-of-mainstream maintenance arriving in 2030, every organisation running BW as its primary analytics layer faces the same choice. In our experience, it comes down to three credible paths — and the cost, risk, and long-term capability differences are material.

01
Higher Cost Path

Upgrade to SAP BW/4HANA or Datasphere

SAP's preferred route. Partially re-uses existing BW objects but requires new investment in SAP HANA infrastructure or SAP BTP licensing. Does not eliminate SAP dependency — it deepens it.

  • BW/4HANA requires significant HANA infrastructure investment
  • Datasphere creates ongoing SAP BTP licensing dependency
  • Complex custom ABAP logic must still be addressed
  • AI and real-time analytics remain structurally limited
  • Five-year TCO consistently 40–60% higher than Snowflake
Suits: organisations with strategic commitment to the full SAP ecosystem
02
Deferred Risk

Extend Maintenance and Defer

Purchase SAP Extended Maintenance beyond 2030. Buys time but worsens the underlying problem every year it is deferred.

  • Extended maintenance premium: 20–30% above current rates
  • SAP's commitment to extended timelines has historically changed
  • No new features, no AI capability, no cloud-native integration
  • ABAP developer pool continues to shrink; eventual migration grows harder
  • Board and audit scrutiny of unsupported enterprise software increasing
Suits: organisations that cannot resource migration now and have a concrete plan for when they will. Not a permanent strategy.
03
Recommended Path

Migrate to Snowflake with Forge

Decommission SAP BW entirely and replace with a modern, cloud-native analytics platform built on Snowflake. Severs the SAP licensing dependency completely. Full platform independence.

  • 40–60% TCO reduction over five years — consistently achieved
  • Query performance: workloads that take minutes in BW run in seconds
  • Native AI, ML, and real-time analytics — not add-ons
  • Snowpipe enables near-real-time ingestion from any source system
  • Eliminates ABAP specialist dependency post-migration
Forge makes this path 30–50% faster and materially lower-risk than a bespoke build.
Your Report

What You Receive After Completing the Assessment

A Jarvis SAP specialist reviews your responses and prepares a personalised migration complexity report — delivered within one business day.

Complexity Tier Rating

Your environment categorised as Foundational, Intermediate, or Enterprise-Complex — with realistic timeline and resourcing implications for each tier.

Top Migration Risk Factors

The specific risks most likely to affect your programme — semantic model exposure, reconciliation requirements, talent gaps, or process chain volume.

Indicative Timeline Range

A realistic delivery window for your complexity tier — so your business case has credible numbers from the outset, not industry averages.

Recommended Next Step

Whether that's a technical discovery workshop, a proof-of-concept, or a phased roadmap session — a clear recommendation based on your actual situation.

Why Forge Makes Snowflake the Right Path Now

The Barriers to BW Migration Have Been Solved.
Forge Removes Them.

Migrating from SAP BW to Snowflake has historically been perceived as high-risk — undocumented ABAP logic, hundreds of BEx queries, and the challenge of validating that Snowflake output matches BW to the CFO's satisfaction. Forge removes those barriers.

01

Discovery & Landscape Assessment

Automated BW object inventory identifying active, redundant, and obsolete InfoProviders, DSOs, and InfoCubes. Usage analysis, data volume profiling, and complexity scoring. Output: a migration roadmap with phased sequencing and risk-adjusted timeline.

Output: Migration roadmap · 2 weeks · Fixed fee
02

Migration Design

Snowflake data model design mapping InfoCube and BEx Query logic to native Snowflake equivalents. ABAP-to-SQL conversion for custom transformation logic. ETL re-platforming from BW process chains to Snowflake native pipelines.

Pre-built templates for Finance, Sales & Supply Chain
03

Data Migration & Validation

Historical data migration with full reconciliation. Automated validation framework comparing BW report outputs against Snowflake equivalents at row and aggregate level. Parallel run period with side-by-side sign-off for finance and audit teams.

Automated reconciliation · CFO sign-off evidence
04

BI Layer Migration & Go-Live

Migration of SAP BusinessObjects or Lumira reporting to Power BI or Tableau. Business user training and change management. Post-go-live support and Snowflake platform handover. Managed service options available.

BAU reporting live throughout · No big-bang cutover

The Snowflake Advantage — Why Not SAP Datasphere or BW/4HANA

💰

Cost

Snowflake separates storage and compute — pay only for what you use. No HANA infrastructure, no BTP fees, no SAP per-user licensing on the analytics layer. 40–60% TCO reduction over five years, on real numbers.

⚡

Performance

Multi-cluster shared data architecture delivers query performance BW cannot match. Workloads that take minutes in BW run in seconds on Snowflake.

🤖

AI & Analytics

Snowpark allows Python, Java, and Scala to run directly inside the platform — next to the data. ML, forecasting, and AI-driven analytics are native. BW has no equivalent.

🔄

Real-Time Data

Snowpipe enables event-driven, near-real-time data ingestion from any source. BW's batch-oriented architecture is structurally unsuited to real-time use cases.

🔗

Data Sharing

Native data sharing allows governed, zero-copy data access across business units, partners, and regulators — without creating copies. BW cannot replicate this.

👥

Talent

SQL-proficient data engineers can work directly with Snowflake. The dependency on scarce, expensive ABAP specialists is eliminated post-migration. Forge handles the ABAP complexity during migration.

Step 1 of 2 — Quick Qualifier

Two Questions to Get You Started

Answer two quick questions so we can personalise your report, then enter your details to unlock the full assessment.

Stage 1 of 2
0 / 2
Q1 OF 2

What best describes your relationship with SAP BW at your organisation?

Why we ask: This helps us tailor the depth and focus of your assessment report.

Q2 OF 2

How urgently is your organisation thinking about the SAP BW migration?

Why we ask: This tells us how to prioritise your report and what kind of next step to recommend.

Unlock Your Full Assessment Report
Enter your details below to receive your personalised report and access the full 8-question assessment.

Your details are captured here — answering both questions above unlocks the Submit button. After submission, the full 8-question assessment opens immediately so we can prepare your detailed complexity report.

Client Perspectives

What Organisations Say About Working With Jarvis

"

What we thought would take 18 months, Jarvis helped us scope to 11. The readiness work up front saved us significant rework mid-project. They understood our BW complexity before we did.

Programme Director
Global Manufacturing Organisation, EMEA
"

The 2027 deadline felt abstract until we saw our actual object inventory. That was the wake-up call our leadership needed to approve the budget and timeline we were asking for.

Head of Data Architecture
Financial Services Group, ANZ
"

Jarvis had the rare combination of deep SAP BW knowledge and Snowflake delivery capability. They've been a reliable and dependable partner throughout our programme.

CTO
Retail Enterprise, North America

Prefer to Talk First?

If you'd rather speak with a migration specialist before completing the assessment, we're happy to do that.

Get in Touch →

Available across EMEA, ANZ, and North America  ·  [email protected]