The benefits and challenges of migrating to SAP HANA are well established – less clear is how to go about picking the right tool once you’re set on migration. So, what should you be looking for when assessing tools for migrating your ABAP code to SAP HANA

There are a few vital features any custom code migration tool worth its salt should include, ranging from the ability to automatically fix code through to sprint planning functionality. The tool you use should be fast, secure and, most importantly, save you time. To help you pick wisely, here’s a checklist of factors to keep in mind when considering a ABAP code migration system.

1.ROI

Starting with an obvious one: any migration tool you use needs to deliver return on investment. The way in which a good system will help you do this is by saving consultancy time, as well as time your developers spend identifying and fixing problematic code.

It’s not unheard of for the best SAP HANA tools to deliver an ROI ratio of as much as 10:1 on purchase price – which means picking the right one can be the difference between a migration that delivers huge savings and one that just about comes in under budget.

2.Time Savings

The most time-consuming aspect of any HANA-readiness project is fixing any incompatible ABAP code. Most instances of incompatible code take under an hour to fix,but multiply this by the thousands of issues generated by the typical migration, and fixing them manually quickly becomes implausible.

So, top of your list of requirements for any tool should be the ability to fix most instances of problematic code automatically. This will not only save your developers hours of work, it’ll also save your business time and money on consultancy.

What’s more, fixing code automactically reduces the scope for human error in the project, meaning your developers are less likely to spend long hours repairing code which was fixed wrongly the first time around.

But it isn’t just about fixing incompatible code, a good migration tool will also tell you the code you need – and the code you don’t. Many businesses waste time, money, and effort by making their migration project much larger than it needs to be. Approximately 60% of all code isn’t used in the productive environment and serves little practical function, so why migrate it to SAP HANA? Excluding superfluous code instantly reduces both the size of the project and the effort required from your staff to ensure smooth completion.

3.Accurate Sprint Planning

Even with most of the problematic code fixed and unnecessary code stripped out, any HANA-readiness project will still require some manual work from your developers. Managing this can be a labour-intensive task, and it can be hard to know which of the remaining issues to prioritize, how long it will take to complete each task, and who’s fixing each issue.

This is where using a migration tool that has an inbuilt project management function is imperative. The best tools will allow you to generate a project plan with recommended sprints, based on the priority, complexity and likely impact of any remaining instances of unfixed mandatory code.

Additionally, a good project management tool should give you the ability to assign tasks and automatically update project progress as issues are fixed.

4.Test Planning 

To ensure your code is as robust as possible, you’ll also need to test any mandatory instances you’ve fixed manually. But what should you test and how exhaustive should those tests be? The very best tools will answer those questions for you, by automatically proposing test plans for any manually fixed code­—meaning that you’ll avoid fixing code incorrectly the first time around, and eliminate the risk of migrating incompatible code.

Picking the right tool is crucial to a successful HANA migration project. The quality of tool you employ can be the difference between a readiness project that takes a week and one that takes two months, or delivery on ROI vs a budgetary black hole. At Gekkobrain, we’ve developed a tool that not only fixes up to 90% your incompatible code automatically, it’ll also help you plan your project and deliver on ROI.