Azure Synapse Analytics is described as the former Azure SQL Data Warehouse, evolved, and as a limitless analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. It gives users the freedom to query data using either serverless or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs.
$4,700
per month 5000 Synapse Commit Units (SCUs)
SAP HANA Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
SAP HANA is an application that uses in-memory database technology to process very large amounts of real-time data from relational databases, both SAP and non-SAP, in a very short time. The in-memory computing engine allows HANA to process data stored in RAM as opposed to reading it from a disk which means that the data can be accessed in real time by the applications using HANA. The product is sold both as an appliance and as a cloud-based software solution.
It's well suited for large, fastly growing, and frequently changing data warehouses (e.g., in startups). It's also suited for companies that want a single, relatively easy-to-use, centralized cloud service for all their data needs. Larger, more structured organizations could still benefit from this service by using Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools, knowing that costs will be much higher than other solutions. I think this product is not suited for smaller, simpler workloads (where an Azure SQL Database and a Data Factory could be enough) or very large scenarios, where it may be better to build custom infrastructure.
It is well organized. One can use it for the company's portfolio management. Various tasks can be done for managerial purposes. One can track the material from start to end product: for example, raw material, packing material & consumable material to formulated bulk and formulated drug product. This can help to manage spending as well as finding costing of the product.
Quick to return data. Queries in a SQL data warehouse architecture tend to return data much more quickly than a OLTP setup. Especially with columnar indexes.
Ability to manage extremely large SQL tables. Our databases contain billions of records. This would be unwieldy without a proper SQL datawarehouse
Backup and replication. Because we're already using SQL, moving the data to a datawarehouse makes it easier to manage as our users are already familiar with SQL.
Real-time reporting and analytics on data: because of its in-memory architecture, it is perfect for businesses that need to make quick decisions based on current information.
Managing workload with complex data: it can handle a vast range of data types, including relational, documental, geospatial, graph, vector, and time series data.
Developing and deploying intelligent data applications: it provides various tools for such applications and can be used for machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate tasks, gain insights from data, and make predictions.
With Azure, it's always the same issue, too many moving parts doing similar things with no specialisation. ADF, Fabric Data Factory and Synapse pipeline serve the same purpose. Same goes for Fabric Warehouse and Synapse SQL pools.
Could do better with serverless workloads considering the competition from databricks and its own fabric warehouse
Synapse pipelines is a replica of Azure Data Factory with no tight integration with Synapse and to a surprise, with missing features from ADF. Integration of warehouse can be improved with in environment ETl tools
Requires higher processing power, otherwise it won't fly. How ever computing costs are lower. Incase you are migrating to cloud please do not select the highest config available in that series . Upgrading it later against a reserved instance can cost you dearly with a series change
Lack of clarity on licensing is one major challenge
Unless S/4 with additional features are enabled mere migration HANA DB is not a rewarding journey. Power is in S/4
We would rate our likelihood of renewing at 9/10. SAP HANA Cloud has proven to be a highly reliable and scalable data platform that consistently delivers strong performance. Its seamless integration with our overall SAP landscape, combined with improved analytics and real-time data capabilities, makes it a core part of our long-term technology strategy.
The data warehouse portion is very much like old style on-prem SQL server, so most SQL skills one has mastered carry over easily. Azure Data Factory has an easy drag and drop system which allows quick building of pipelines with minimal coding. The Spark portion is the only really complex portion, but if there's an in-house python expert, then the Spark portion is also quiet useable.
It is a very useful cloud database platform which provides you faster data processing, scalability , global availability and advanced analytical capabilities. It offers integrated environment for enterprise applications which helps you to manage multiple systems easily. For end user, it provides a simplified user experience with direct navigation and personalization
Microsoft does its best to support Synapse. More and more articles are being added to the documentation, providing more useful information on best utilizing its features. The examples provided work well for basic knowledge, but more complex examples should be added to further assist in discovering the vast abilities that the system has.
One specific example of how the support for SAP HANA Cloud impacted us is in our efforts to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues. Whenever we encountered an issue or had a question, the support team was quick to respond and provided us with clear and actionable guidance. This helped us avoid downtime and keep our analytics operations running smoothly.
Professional GIS people are some of the most risk-averse there are, and it's difficult to get them to move to HANA in one step. Start with small projects building to 80% use of HANA spatial over time.
In comparing Azure Synapse to the Google BigQuery - the biggest highlight that I'd like to bring forward is Azure Synapse SQL leverages a scale-out architecture in order to distribute computational processing of data across multiple nodes whereas Google BigQuery only takes into account computation and storage.
I have deep knowledge of other disk based DBMSs. They are venerable technology, but the attempts to extend them to current architectures belie the fact they are built on 40 year old technology. There are some good columnar in-memory databases but they lack the completeness of capability present in the HANA platform.
Licensing fees is replaced with Azure subscription fee. No big saving there
More visibility into the Azure usage and cost
It can be used a hot storage and old data can be archived to data lake. Real time data integration is possible via external tables and Microsoft Power BI
