Here are the factors to be considered:

Factor #1: Legacy Application –  Legacy applications could be on primitive hardware/software (OS/DB) and migrating them to cloud could require an upgrade or re-platforming exercise which could be complex and time consuming.

Factor #2: Scale & Security – SAP landscapes are usually large and complex. A lot of planning is required to migrate SAP applications to cloud. SAP customers should carefully architect cloud security per application that is intended to be migrated to cloud-based on their respective level of data sensitivity.

Factor #3: Cost-benefit – SAP customers must have to do a lot of analysis before selecting the kind of cloud(Private/Public/Hybrid)

Factor #4: SAP Skills & In-flight Projects – Both SAP and Cloud skillsets are required to migrate and operate SAP applications on the cloud and could be hard to get. Customers may have other ongoing in-house competing projects which may impact migration timelines for SAP landscape.

 

Reasons for migration:

1. Move: 

  1. True “Lift & Shift”
  2. No changes to the application
  3. No changes to underlying OS/DB

2. Migrate: At least one of the following is changed

  1. OS and/or DB
  2. Addition testing effort is required

3. Transform: 

  1. OS and/or DB is changed
  2. Transformation complexity – consolidate, harmonize, merge, or split as part of the scope
  3. Additional testing effort is required

4. Reimplement:

  1. Application will be re-implemented from scratch.
  2. Business Re-engineering.