SAP Datasphere is the latest innovation in the data warehousing portfolio of SAP. It is based on the SAP HANA Cloud and follows a clear DWaaS (Data Warehouse as a Service) approach in the public cloud with very fast release cycles.
SAP is committed to innovate and provide industry leading data warehousing technologies to enable the Intelligent Enterprise. SAP Data Warehousing provides continuous innovations in SAP Datasphere, and SAP BW/4HANA.
Typical SAP Datasphere use cases are extending existing on-premise Data Warehouses by enhancing existing on-premise data with cloud sources to define new data models for broader insights. Another flavor is providing flexible data marts in control of business users to create new and agile models based on different sources and take the burden from the IT departments. In addition, there are tools available to connect data without duplication across business applications to provide a new and consistent view of the data.
SAP BW/4HANA is the strategic solution of SAP for on-premises or private cloud deployment. Customers with SAP Business Warehouse (BW) as strategic asset benefit from future improvements and investment protection until 2040 at least. SAP BW has been available since 1998 and is in use by a large customer base. It represents an integrated data warehouse application which provides pre-defined content (LoB and industry-specific), tools and processes to design and operate an enterprise data warehouse end-to-end. This approach simplifies development, administration, and user interface of your data warehouse, resulting in enhanced business agility for building a data warehouse in a standardized way. SAP BW/4HANA was published in 2016 as the logical successor of SAP NetWeaver-based BW with a strong focus on integration existing SAP ABAP application components into the SAP HANA platform. It follows a simplified data warehouse approach, with agile and flexible data modeling, SAP HANA-optimized processes, and user-friendly interfaces.
Data Warehousing Strategy of SAP
A - SAP BW/4HANA & SAP Datasphere.
Combine the strengths of SAP BW/4HANA with the innovation, openness, and self-service abilities of SAP Datasphere in a hybrid scenario. BW/4HANA is supported until 2040.
B - For SAP BW 7.X and SAP BW/4HANA to SAP BW Bridge, conversion to the latest release and object migration is necessary. Leverage the SAP BW Bridge to re-use and integrate SAP BW-based data ingestion and staging (incl. ABAP code) to reduce SAP BW footprint over time.
C - Greenfield approach with SAP Datasphere (Combination with SAP BW Bridge is possible).
SAP follows a clear strategy towards Data Warehousing in the Cloud. However, customers are not forced to follow this paradigm in a short period of time. Instead, SAP ensures full flexibility to gradually extend current investments and move at each customer's own pace. This path includes the following steps:
- In the first, customers can safe-guard investments by lifting existing 7.X landscape to an SAP BW/4HANA private cloud environment.
- In a second step, SAP offers approaches to combine the strengths of SAP BW/4HANA with the innovation, openness, and self-service abilities of SAP Datasphere in a hybrid scenario.
- The next step is based on the SAP BW Bridge, a new SAP Datasphere component which was released at the end of 2021. The SAP BW Bridge enables organization to re-use standard extractors for SAP's on-premise sources and leverage SAP's business content to stage the data, including ABAP logic to share it with SAP Datasphere.
- Finally, SAP provides a tool support to migrate SAP BW 7.x and SAP BW/4HANA applications one by one to the SAP BW Bridge.
SAP DWH Combinations - Benefits
SAP's Data Warehouse approaches are not isolated concepts. In fact, SAP puts a special focus on providing options to integrate them with each other. The interoperability of the application driven approaches of SAP BW powered by SAP HANA and later SAP BW/4HANA with SAP HANA data models started already in 2014 and is based on external SAP HANA Views generated from InfoProviders on the one hand, and Integration options for SAP HANA artifacts in SAP BW or SAP BW/4HANA on the other hand.
SAP Datasphere provides multiple integration options and thus hybrid use cases as well.
Customers do not have to convert SAP BW/4HANA to the next DWH solution SAP Datasphere like in the past. There are different approaches available and customers could choose their most suitable way.
Some customers also come to the conclusion that they want to start completely new with SAP Datasphere, because their current BW data models are outdated and not worth bringing into the new architecture. That means building up a business data fabric without any of the constraints of a legacy deployment/approach. Complete focus on modernization and a simplified data landscape.
Other customers decide, for example, starting on a greenfield with the development of a common data layer on legacy data in proven SAP BW technology with all unique functions such as transforming data, managing data loading with partitioning, monitoring or error handling.
When it comes to securing investments and skills, there is no getting around of SAP BW bridge in SAP Datasphere. You can move your SAP BW models and queries to the SAP BW bridge with a tool-supported conversion.
The last option shown here is aimed specifically at customers who want to release data models from SAP BW/4HANA and take them over in the direction of Datasphere.
Note
For more details, refer to following sources:- SAP note 2741041: Maintenance for SAP NetWeaver 7.x Business Warehouse and SAP BW/4HANA
- Blog: How to use SAP Datasphere as a source for SAP BW/4HANA https://blogs.sap.com/2022/12/02/bestpractice-how-to-use-sap-data-warehouse-cloud-as-source-for-bw-4hana/
- Blog: SAP Datasphere & SAP BW/4HANA Model Transfer – Step by Step Guidance https://blogs.sap.com/2020/11/30/sap-data-warehouse-cloud-sap-bw-4hana-model-transfer-step-by-step-guidance/
- SAP note 2932647: Supported and unsupported features with SAP BW/4HANA/SAP BW Bridge Model Transfer in SAP Datasphere
- SAP note 3141688: Conversion from SAP BW or SAP BW/4HANA to SAP Datasphere, SAP BW Bridge
- Blog: BW Query Transfer https://blogs.sap.com/2023/01/25/entity-import-model-transfer-for-single-query-sap-bw-bridge/