Exploring SAP Business Data Cloud

Utilizing Cloud ERP comprising the core which serves as the foundation for operational excellence as well as additional line of Business applications such as SAP Customer Cloud and SAP Ariba, the full spectrum of the business value chain is covered by SAP Business Suite:

• Record to Report - Finance management for financial transparency
• Hire to retire - Human capital management for workforce management
• Procure to pay - Spend management for procurement and spend management
• Design to operate - Supply Chain management for E2E supply chain management
• Lead to cash - Customer Experience management for sales and service

One of the most valuable features that have been a part of SAP software over the years is its ability to be extended. SAP Business Suite continues this tradition. Using SAP BTP companies can continue to differentiate as needed to support specific use cases. SAP Build provides a low code / no code approach to developing extensions and SAP BTP has Cloud Foundry, ABAP and Kyma runtimes providing customers flexibility in choice of deployment.

In addition to extensibility SAP BTP supports the design and execution of integrations. Modern enterprises require connectivity between applications, processes, people and devices. SAP Integration Suite (a service available on SAP BTP) is an integration platform-as-a-service (iPaaS) that helps companies achieve this.

Some of the features of SAP Integration Suite are:

• Prebuilt integrations managed and updated by SAP
• Harmonized access to popular third-party cloud applications
• Tools for designing, publishing, and managing APIs
• AI-assisted development and integration optimization
• Tools-based, guided approach to define, document, and govern your integration strategy

SAP Integration Suite will be discussed in more detail in Unit 5: Exploring Integration

Industry-Specific Benefits

With over 40 years of experience over 25 different industries, SAP software has proven itself up to the challenge to meet the needs and goals of businesses. Industry specific solutions run the gamut from professional services and industrial manufacturing to consumer products and insurance.

By harmonizing data across SAP and non-SAP systems, SAP Business Data Cloud creates a semantically enriched asset that uncovers hidden patterns and enables smarter, faster decisions.

SAP integrates data seamlessly from every corner—applications, third-party sources, and hybrid clouds—providing leaders with a 360-degree view of operations. Robust governance, access to business content, cleanse and curated data, and a zero copy sharing mechanism are embedded in a fully SaaS managed experience.

With trusted, contextualized data, AI tools gain the foundation needed to deliver actionable and accurate results that align with real-world needs.

You may recall from Unit 4, Lesson 1: Exploring Data and Analytics that a data product is a curated data set consisting of data, metadata, and standardized APIs. The data sets contained within a data product are available for consumption via its APIs. SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation is as the saying goes "where the magic happens". It’s role is to provide the technical foundation to land data from feeding SAP / non-SAP source systems to organize and to transform data into data products for consumption. SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation includes (but is not limited to) provisioning, data acquisition, transformation, data product assembly, observability, infrastructure (such as landscape and CI/CD), and platform services (such as APIs and metering). There are three types of data products (1) SAP data products, (2) customer data products and (3) partner data products. For purposes of our discussion we will focus on SAP data products noting the same rules would apply to both customer and partner oriented ones. It is important to note that SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation isn’t purchased directly by customers per se (as it has no SKU); it’s and independent service utilized indirectly via higher level consumption based layers such as SAP Business Data Cloud Customer Runtime or other SAP / customer / partner applications.

SAP data products will be produced in, and served by, SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation by pushing data from SAP applications into the persistence layer of SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation which is based off of SAP HANA Data Lake. The API utilized by SAP data products will be based on the open source "Delta Sharing" API. Delta sharing in an open protocol for secure real-time exchange of large datasets between a "data provider" (i.e., SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation) and a "data recipient" (i.e., Power BI, tableau). This way regardless of the computing platforms used applications and organizations are able to share data.

This catchall term represents an intermediary consumption layer capable of consuming SAP data products located in SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation. Components at this layer can consume data products directly but also create artifacts (analytical models for example) that are capable of being consumed at higher layers (SAP Analytics Cloud for example).

Some of the components capable of being utilized at this layer are:

• SAP Datasphere
• SAP BW/4HANA Private Cloud Edition

• SAP Business Warehouse 7.5 Private Cloud Edition

• SAP Business Data Cloud Cockpit (To be explained in the next section)

The cockpit represents a new UI in SAP Business Data Cloud in which administrative tasks are performed.The integration of data and analytics is one of the foundation goals of SAP Business Data Cloud. This value of this integration can be realized by activating different types of artifacts via the cockpit. The two most relevant artifacts representing this data and analytics integration are:

• Data Packages
• Insight Apps (Low Code / No Code)
• Insight Apps (Pro Code)

A Data Package is a set of SAP data products provided in SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation that a customer is entitled to use and that can be installed and activated in the customer’s SAP Business Data Cloud instance via the SAP Business Data Cloud Cockpit. As data packages are conceptually located at a lower level of the stack (foundation layer) the installation / activation only needs to happen once thus guaranteeing reusability across different data packages (which might utilize similar data products) and also different consumption options (i.e., SAP Datasphere, SAP BW/4HANA Private Cloud Edition).

"Insight Apps" are how "data" is transformed into an "application" which in turn provides "value". An insight application will consist of a data product in SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation (Foundation Services) along with analytical model content in SAP Datasphere and finally visualization content in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Rather than using SAP Datasphere / SAP Analytics Cloud for the consumption of data products in the SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation a custom CAP application (running on SAP BTP) can be built. Since the application in this case is custom built there are no limits with this approach in regards to richness of functionality. For example a custom built application can consume data directly from SAP Business Data Cloud Foundation while also drawing in data from other sources not part of foundation services. Another example is that the UI is not required to be based on SAP Analytics Cloud but can be custom designed to fit use case specifics.

Whether low code / no code or pro code both types of insight apps have full SaaS features. So customers can expect periodic updates from SAP which are simultaneously pushed out to all customer tenants in parallel representing continuous innovation that they can utilize.

As SAP Business Data Cloud is an evolutionary product there are no changes to existing SAP Datasphere customers. SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP BW4/HANA will continue to be available as separate products. Existing customers can continue to use them. However if those customers wish to "switch" to SAP Business Data Cloud they are able to do so. The migration to SAP Business Data Cloud will be simple and seamless.

New customers will utilize SAP Business Data Cloud in regions and datacenters where it’s available and in regions and datacenters where SAP Business Data Cloud is unavailable they will continue to utilize SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP BW4/HANA.

With SAP’s persona-based AI, every interaction becomes smarter and more outcome-driven. Imagine AI guiding you through processes, answering questions, and delivering insights—all through natural, conversational experiences embedded directly into the tools you use every day. There are currently over 100 generative AI scenarios across SAP applications. In addition there is a totally reinvented user experience with Joule, our generative AI co-pilot, which is integrated into the majority of business applications in a unified fashion. Continuing with the next phase of AI evolution AI Agents as just mentioned above are embedded into SAP applications and fueled by context-rich business data. Accessible for end users through an intuitive and consistent user interface with Joule.

With tools like LeanIX, Signavio, and AI-powered assistants like Joule, SAP helps businesses move to the cloud faster and smarter. From analyzing processes to automating complex transitions, our AI-assisted toolchain ensures businesses can rise, grow, and innovate in the fast lane.

From advanced AI agents collaborating across the enterprise to cutting-edge innovation like SAP’s Foundation Model and Knowledge Graph, SAP’s AI understands the context of a company’s business. It doesn’t just provide insights—it drives action, enabling businesses to amplify their potential and lead with confidence.