As S/4 HANA uses a different data-model you can’t simply export our complete ECC database and import as is into S/4 HANA. The migration process differs from a ECC upgrade. You need make yourself familiar with available migration strategies and choose the right strategy. The migration strategy has a significant impact on the project’s timeline, budget, and risk profile.
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Brownfield
The brownfield approach is a database migration and application conversion. It is ideal for organizations, who are satisfied with existing data management and business processes in their ECC environment.
This approach enables migration from ECC to S/4HANA by converting an existing SAP environment without reimplementing or disrupting current business processes. It’s the fastest and approach with the lowest risk, but process inefficiencies, technical dept and legacy data is migrated to S/4 HANA. Due to this reason, it can be hard to used the full potential of S/4 HANA.
A significant lack of institutional knowledge or heavy technical debt can also push a project toward a brownfield migration as comes with the lowest risk of breaking required functionality.
Greenfield
The business processes and configurations are setup from scratch with this approach. Only the necessary customizing settings, master (business partners, materials, bill of materials etc.) and open transaction data (open finanical items, account balances, open contracts, material inventory etc.) is transferred from ECC to S/4 HANA. This approach is ideal for organizations, who want to get rid of the legacy stuff in their ECC environment.
It’s a very time-consuming, expensive and high risk approach. It’s easy to miss some of the necessary settings, master and open transaction data during the migration especially if your team hasn’t full institutional knowledge about the business processes. Furthermore you need to spend more effort in testing.
Bluefield
The bluefield approach combines the brownfield and the greenfield approach. Only selected processes are redesigned from scratch in S/4 HANA and the other processes are migrated from ECC to S/4 HANA. Where necessary master or transactional data is transferred from ECC to S/4 HANA. With this approach you can get rid of legacy stuff but continue to use the proven business processes from your ECC environment.
It requires specialized tools, technical and institutional expertise. Like the greenfield approach it can be time-consuming and expensive.
Conclusion
The following table summarizes the different approaches.
| Strategy | Effort | Risk | Benefit |
| Brownfield | Low | Low | Fastest and easiest option with minimal disruption |
| Greenfield | High | High | New clean system setup without legacy stuff |
| Bluefield | High | High | Selective approach to combine the best of the brownfield and the greenfield approach |
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Project roadmap from ECC to S/4 HANA