In today’s technology agnostic and competitive world, SAP has launched BW4HANA, a new
generation product to address the needs of explosion of data and to manage the data effectively which can transform your business in a simple and
modern fashion. Below is the evolution of SAP's data Warehouse over
the years:
The newly launched SAP's data warehousing platform is designed
for the HANA in-memory database. The new version is a big differentiator from the old version platform, that brings data warehousing directly into the business digital transformation.
What is SAP BW/4HANA?
SAP BW/4HANA – an integrated DW
solution which is fully optimized to leverage the SAP HANA in-memory platform with new functionalities.
SAP BW/4HANA effectively lowers the development and administration effort using enriched
user interface resulting in enhanced business
agility.
In summary SAP provides following advantages of BW/4hana:
We want to throw some light into new features of BW/4HANA and will try to explain you as to why we think that this is the best way forward. Here are the fundamental reasons:
Depending on the situation how one counts, BW offers 10 to 12 different object types (like infocubes, multiproviders) to build a DW. In BW/4HANA, there will be only 4 building blocks which are at least as expressive and powerful as the previous 12. BW/4HANA's objects are more versatile. Data models can now be built with less buildings blocks w/o conceding on expressiveness
In summary SAP provides following advantages of BW/4hana:
- An end-2-end platform for data management in order to control a digital business
- High performance using advanced in-memory data analysis and algorithms push down
- Superior application development with a completely redesigned user interface for data flow modeling
- Lowering costs for data management and storage, through automatic distribution of cold, warm and hot data
- An adequate data warehouse migration and implementation of Unified Data Management Load and full scale-out support
- Easy migration for customers with SAP Business Warehouse on SAP BW/ 4hana by supporting features
Why SAP BW/4HANA ?
We want to throw some light into new features of BW/4HANA and will try to explain you as to why we think that this is the best way forward. Here are the fundamental reasons:
1. Classic Database's Vs. HANA Platform
As of today, HANA has become much more efficient than classic RDBMS which
offers standard SQL processing on a new in-memory architecture. There are a number of specialized engines and libraries that will allow customers to bring all
types of processing capabilities near to where the data sits rather
than the data to a processing layer. Predictive, geo-spatial, planning, time-series, statistical and
other engines and libraries are all combined with SQL.
2. Legacy Objects / Backward Compatibility
BW was initially architected around the properties and the cost models enforced by the classic RDBMS. Over the past years, discreet re-architecting has allowed to continuously establish BW and to safeguard the investments of BW customers. There has been a strong insistence on keeping new versions of BW as compatible with past versions as possible. Similar to sticking to "standard-ish SQL" which disrupts innovation in some areas. BW/4HANA breaks the boundaries of this strict conception of backward compatibility and compensates it with tooling for conversions that might require user interaction here and there, thus some effort. Nonetheless, this allows for removing some tradition not only inside a software product but also in existing data warehouse instances that move from BW to BW/4HANA.
3. Guidance
Lastly, and that is essentially the result of 1. and 2., many of our customers and partners have asked us for guidance about which of the many alternatives BW provides they should use for their implementation. Some of those alternatives are there simply because they were introduced some time ago but would eventually become obsolete within a new product. So, SAP has decided to minimize the complexity of alternatives and launched a product, namely BW/4HANA, that offers only those building blocks that partners and customers would use it now and in coming days. The product has become simple and that will turn into simplified DW architectures.
What are the designing principles which are followed in SAP BW/4 HANA ?
The HANA optimization empowers customers to deliver
on demand for simple, open, flexible and highly scalable solutions
that will meet the DW needs of the business today and
beyond. So, which are BW/4HANA's major selling points? What are the "designs" or "themes" that will drive BW/4HANA? Below they are:
1. Simplicity
Depending on the situation how one counts, BW offers 10 to 12 different object types (like infocubes, multiproviders) to build a DW. In BW/4HANA, there will be only 4 building blocks which are at least as expressive and powerful as the previous 12. BW/4HANA's objects are more versatile. Data models can now be built with less buildings blocks w/o conceding on expressiveness
2. Openness
BW/4HANA - as BW - offers a managed access to data warehousing. This means that prebuilt templates are offered for constructing a data warehouse in a standard way. The latter provides big opportunities to optimize the resulting models for HANA regarding footprint, performance, data life cycle. In comparison to classic BW, it is possible to diverge from this standard path wherever needed and appropriate. BW/4HANA models and data can be defined as HANA views that can be accessed via standard SQL.
3. Modern UI
BW/4HANA will offer enriched user interfaces for admin, data modeling, monitoring that run in HANA Studio or a browser. In the midterm, SAP GUI will become outmoded in that respect. In the same way, SAP's Digital Boardroom, Lumira, Business Objects Cloud, Design Studio and Analysis for Office will be the perfect match as analytic clients on top of BW/4HANA.
4. High Performance
As HANA being the driver for product strategy, High Performance in BW4/HANA is always given importance with united data load management and supporting high frequent data loads in real-time. BW/4HANA will be free of any strain and will influence any optimal access to HANA which will be interesting in the context of big data scenarios as HANA VORA offering a highly optimized "link" between the worlds of HANA (RDBMS) and Hadoop/SPARK (distributed processing on a file system).
SAP released SAP S/4HANA and it became obvious that an update for the data strategy was needed. The questions that has remained since the release.... Do you need BW that you now have HANA? Do you switch to HANA from BW?"SAP is betting that the business wins of going all-in on HANA will be so irresistible that customers won't give a second thought about ditching other vendor solutions they might have already invested in." - cited from www.cmswire.com
We recommend customers to take a close look at the system they've got and make a comparison of their SAP BW environment as it exists today, what Logical Data Warehouse needs are going forward, and what the right approach is for their organization.
If you're interested in a 3rd party assessment, we have developed a methodology and BW/4HANA analysis to help make the decision. Get in touch with us for more details!
