Comparing SAP BW/4HANA with SAP BW

SAP BW/4HANA was released in 2016 as the successor of SAP BW, with a strong focus on the integration of existing SAP ABAP application components into the new SAP HANA platform, so that more of the powerful capabilities of SAP HANA could be exploited to provide more speed and flexibility. A key aspect of SAP BW/4HANA is that it follows a more simplified data warehouse approach than SAP BW, to provide agile and flexible data modeling, SAP HANA-optimized processes, and user-friendly interfaces.

The core functionality of former SAP BW releases is preserved in SAP BW/4HANA. However, objects for data modeling, as well as processes and user interfaces, have been optimized to take advantage of the features of the SAP HANA database. Data modeling is restricted to the small number of objects that are well-suited for modeling the layered architecture of a data warehouse on SAP HANA (known as LSA++). In SAP BW/4HANA, data warehouse models can be flexibly combined with SAP HANA calculation views. An intuitive Eclipse-based modeling environment and additional Fiori-based UI5 cockpits are the main user interfaces to develop and run SAP BW/4HANA.

SAP BW/4HANA was not developed from scratch and evolved from a journey that included three key phases:

1. SAP BW on any database - this was the classic SAP BW that was launched in 1998 and runs on any database (prior to SAP HANA).
2. SAP BW powered by SAP HANA - this was still classic SAP BW launched in 2012, but was powered by the SAP HANA database to provide performance improvements for data loading and reporting.
3. SAP BW/4HANA - this is the re-developed solution launched in 2016, that was re-written and optimized to run only on SAP HANA.

For the SAP BW/4HANA redevelopment, SAP NetWeaver-based BW version 7.5 was taken as a starting point and it was streamlined by removing many obsolete, core components. But SAP BW/4HANA still retains many features and objects of the last 20+ years. For instance, user management and authorizations, transport system, system logs or traces, and many more important functions are still available.

To reduce the complexity of the solution, millions of lines of unnecessary ABAP code have been removed. A lot of the processing of SAP BW/4HANA has been shifted to SAP HANA database. SAP BW/4HANA is deeply integrated into SAP HANA and utilizes the SAP HANA engines. The main components that have been removed include:

• All BW development objects which have been replaced by HANA-optimized development objects (for example, InfoCube, MultiProvider, DataStore Object (classic), 3.x Data Flows).

• SAP NetWeaver components that are not related to BW (for example, Enterprise Portal, Process Integration, Business Process Management).

• All interfaces to external databases other than SAP HANA.

SAP BW/4HANA is a separate ABAP application. It is no longer part of SAP NetWeaver. This ABAP stack has been streamlined. The core SAP BW data warehousing functions remain, but where there is a HANA-optimized process or data model as an alternative, the previous code lines have also been removed. For example, SAP BW/4HANA does not support InfoCubes. This object type is unknown and modelers now work with the new, more powerful, DataStore Objects (advanced).

SAP has published a detailed document describing the future of each SAP BW object type or function. Following the naming principles of SAP S/4HANA, this document is called the Simplification List and can be found on the SAP help portal for SAP BW/4HANA. There is a clear statement for each object or function as to whether it is still available and supported in SAP BW/4HANA. If it is not compatible with SAP BW/4HANA, the document refers to conversion options and successor objects or functions. It also contains references to SAP notes which provide more details for each object or process.

These SAP notes can also be found via the so-called SAP BW/4HANA Simplification Item Catalog. Accessible next to the Simplification List in the official SAP BW/4HANA help portal, you can leverage a free search to find the relevant SAP note starting with BW4SL (equals SAP BW/4HANA Simplification List) in the title.

SAP BW/4HANA has been designed according to four central principles:

Simplicity

• Reduced number of modeling object types and source system interfaces
• Less administration efforts to maintain data objects and error-prone data flows
• Sophisticated data lifecycle management based on multi-temperature data concept

Openness

• Expose SAP BW/4HANA models as native HANA calculation views to be consumed in visualization tools such as SAP Analytics Cloud or in customer-specific apps
• Smart integration of external data virtually, or in batch mode and near real-time
• New integration approaches for cloud sources

Modern User Interfaces

• End users: SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP BusinessObjects replacing BEx
• Modelers: SAP BW Modeling Tools in Eclipse and web-based SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit
• Administrators: Web-based SAP BW/4HANA Cockpit instead of SAP GUI

High Performance

• Operations and calculations pushed down to SAP HANA
• Access to SAP HANA-specific libraries

Since the start of SAP BW/4HANA product family, planning capabilities have not been a part of the SAP BW/4HANA software component and a corresponding SAP BPC Planning add-on was provided for each SAP BW/4HANA version. The current add-on is called SAP BPC 2021 for SAP BW/4HANA, for example.

This changed with release SAP BW/4HANA 2021: Now you can technically use planning models based on SAP BW Integrated Planning (IP) with the Planning Application Kit (PAK) without an SAP BPC add-on installation. However, there has not been a change in the commercial conditions. All SAP BW/4HANA planning models (SAP BW-IP/PAK, SAP BPC Embedded Model and SAP BPC Standard Model) still need an SAP BPC license separately.

In general, SAP BPC and IP planning models are suitable for customers who prefer an on-premise planning solution. However, please consider that SAP´s strategic direction is planning in SAP Analytics Cloud and future innovation will be provided in this area mainly.