Integrating SAP Business Data Cloud with Snowflake

SAP Snowflake introduces Snowflake as an SAP Solution Extension (SolEx). It provides customers the full power of Snowflake, delivered and supported directly by SAP as an extension of SAP Business Data Cloud. Customers provision SAP Snowflake directly in SAP for Me, just as they would any other SAP cloud service; the enrollment and connectivity of SAP Snowflake with SAP Business Data Cloud is fully automated and managed by SAP.

When to choose this option: The business does not already own Snowflake AI & Data Cloud and wants a fully integrated, SAP-managed Snowflake experience with simplified procurement, billing and support, plus zero-copy real-time access to governed SAP Data Products.

BDC Connect for Snowflake enables organizations with an existing Snowflake environment to integrate it with SAP Business Data Cloud. It provides secure, bi-directional, zero-copy sharing of data products between SAP Business Data Cloud and Snowflake AI Data Cloud. The exchange includes near real-time metadata changes so that consumers always see the most current information.

When to choose this option: The organization already owns Snowflake AI & Data Cloud, and needs zero-copy real-time access to governed, semantically rich SAP data products while avoiding data duplication.

As the most flexible "best of both worlds" option, both Snowflake environments can be integrated with SAP Business Data Cloud at the same time. SAP automatically handles the provisioning and integration of the Snowflake SolEx with SAP Business Data Cloud; once that landscape is in place, the customer brings in their native Snowflake environment via BDC Connect for Snowflake.

Advantages of option 3: Option 3 has the following advantages:

• Harmonizes SAP data via a zero-copy architecture with non-SAP data residing in native Snowflake.
• Ensures single source of truth—SAP data stays consistent and current, no matter from where it is accessed.
• Delivers maximum flexibility without compromising governance.
• SAP data product sharing follows the same consistent workflow for SAP Snowflake SolEx and native Snowflake.
• SAP data products shared to SAP Snowflake can be combined and enriched with data from native Snowflake (via Snowflake Secure Data Sharing) and the derived products can be shared back to SAP Business Data Cloud for broader enterprise use.

• Discoverability with SAP Business Data Cloud and Snowflake Horizon Catalog: The bi-directional data sharing integration allows trusted data products to be shared and discoverable via the SAP Business Data Cloud Catalog and the Snowflake Horizon, which is Snowflake's integrated governance solution that governs and protects all data and AI assets across any cloud and any region from a single control plane, ensuring the data is always secure, compliant, and discoverable.
• SAP Snowflake for SAP-centric Use Cases: Customers can utilize SAP Snowflake for enterprise data and AI workloads including SAP-centric use cases and workloads. They can then run their AI models closer to where their data resides for better performance and governance. Minimizing the volume of SAP data leaving allows their SAP teams to maintain the security, governance, and compliance of their most sensitive SAP data (even if the data is only being federated out of SAP environment).
• Agent Development at Scale with Snowflake's Cortex AI: Cortex AI is Snowflake's fully managed service that provides access to Large Language Models (LLMs) and generative AI capabilities through common interfaces like SQL and REST APIs. It democratizes AI by enabling any user to get insights from unstructured data, build custom chatbots, and create intelligent applications without complex AI expertise and with no-code development features. It enables accelerated AI decision making with semantically rich SAP business data.
• Secure, and Real-Time SAP Data Exchange via Open Data Exchange: The data exchange from SAP Business Data Cloud to Snowflake, that BDC Connect enables, is based on industry standard open data protocol (delta sharing), enabling interoperability across different computing platforms, cloud environments, and applications. The data-sharing exchange provides secure, fast, and federated real-time access to semantically enriched, consumption-ready SAP data—eliminating the need for data duplication and complex ETL processes.
• Flexible Infrastructure Choices: Helps customers leverage the power of seamless AI app and data agent development at scale with Snowflake, while utilizing SAP's mission critical business processes and semantically rich data. It opens up choices for running users' data and AI workloads on the optimal compute and storage for the job. With Joule and Snowflake Cortex AI, this integration helps choose the right AI agent for any task—from automating next best actions to building intelligent applications.

This lesson details the strategic partnership between SAP and Snowflake, highlighting how their integrated solution provides zero-copy, bi-directional data access to support real-time AI and analytics without the complexity of traditional ETL.

• SAP offers both a managed Solution Extension and BDC Connect to seamlessly integrate new or existing Snowflake environments.
• bi-directional data sharing eliminates ETL complexity and data duplication while maintaining a single source of truth.
• Integration with Snowflake Cortex AI and Joule democratizes generative AI and agent development using semantically rich SAP data.
• The combined power of SAP Business Data Cloud and Snowflake Horizon ensures secure, compliant, and discoverable data across hybrid cloud environments.
• Utilizing the Delta Sharing protocol provides secure, federated, and real-time access to governed data products without data movement.