End of SAP ECC maintenance: what options does your company have?
Mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC ends at the end of 2027. We review the alternatives and why it makes sense to plan your move to SAP S/4HANA now.
If your company still runs SAP ECC 6.0, there is one date you should keep on your radar: mainstream maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7 ends on 31 December 2027. Staying on ECC after that is still possible, but every year becomes more expensive and offers fewer guarantees.
Your options from 2028
- Extended maintenance (2028–2030). Optional, at a premium on top of your maintenance fee. It buys three more years of support, but no innovation.
- Customer-specific maintenance (from 2031). Applies to customers who neither migrate nor choose another option. Coverage is very limited: no new legal changes and no guaranteed security updates.
- Transition option in SAP’s private cloud (until 2033). SAP offers certain customers, typically large ones with complex landscapes, extra time within its private cloud offering. It has specific requirements and is not a general extension for everyone.
None of these options avoids the migration; they only postpone it. The question is not whether to migrate, but when and how to do it with the least risk.
Why you should not wait
- Scarce resources. As the deadlines approach, demand for consultants with migration experience grows and timelines get longer.
- A business project, not just a technical one. Moving to S/4HANA is a good opportunity to simplify processes, clean up data and review custom developments.
- Innovation. SAP’s new capabilities (embedded analytics, AI, cloud) are built on S/4HANA, not on ECC.
How to approach the move to S/4HANA
- Greenfield: a new implementation, redesigning processes from scratch.
- Brownfield: a conversion of your current system, keeping configuration and history.
- Selective: a middle-ground approach that lets you choose which data and processes to bring across.
The right choice depends on how customised your system is, the quality of your data and your business goals. A good preliminary analysis (inventory of custom developments, actual transaction usage, data volumes) greatly reduces the risk and cost of the project.
At Responsive we help you assess your starting point and define the most suitable roadmap.
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- #maintenance
This article is for information purposes only. SAP dates and conditions may change; always check official SAP information or contact us to review your specific case.