dbt vs. NetWeaver Process Integration

If you can load your data first into your warehouse, dbt is excellent. It does the T(ransformation) part of ELT brilliantly but does not do the E(xtract) or L(oad) part. If you know SQL or your development team knows SQL, it's a framework and extension around that. So, it's easy to learn and easy to hire people with that technical skill (as opposed to specific Informatica, SnapLogic, etc. experience). dbt uses plain text files and integrates with GitHub. You can easily see the changes made between versions. In GUI-based UIs it was always hard to tell what someone had changed. Each "model" is essentially a "SELECT" statement. You never need to do a "CREATE TABLE" or "CREATE VIEW" - it's all done for you, leaving you to work on the business logic. Instead of saying "FROM specific_db.schema.table" you indicate "FROM ref('my_other_model')". It creates an internal dependency diagram you can view in a DAG. When you deploy, the dependencies work like magic in your various environments. They also have great documentation, an active slack community, training, and support. I like the enhancements they have been making and I believe they are headed in a good direction.

Incentivized

I would recommend using NetWeaver Process Integration with an SAP application only. SAP ISU/ECC can integrate with the PO very well to interact with non-SAP systems. It's best suited for extracting data from SAP systems into flat files, encrypt it, and sFTP to any 3rd party vendor.

Incentivized

• user experience makes it easy to work with SQL and version control
• customer success team and the dbt (data build tool) community help establish best practices
• thorough and clear documentation

• Combined advantages of advanced business application programming (ABAP) and Java
• SAP with [other] SAP products and SAP with other solutions
• Real-time customer service
• Cascade data model

Incentivized

• Slow load times of the dbt cloud environment (they're working on it via a new UI though)
• More out-of-the-box solutions for managing procedures, functions, etc would be nice to have, but honestly, it's pretty easy to figure out how to adapt dbt macros

Incentivized

• Complicated UI. Could be more simple.
• Need more clear instructions on development environment.
• Hard to debug errors.
• Have many dependencies like Basis support.

Incentivized

It works great for integrating SAP applications. Without the box connectors and integration flows, the speed of development is fast. However, It has challenges in connecting other non-sap applications.

Incentivized

Most ETL pipeline products have a T layer, but dbt just does it better. The transformation is on steroids compared to the others. Also, just allows much more Adhoc solutions for very specific projects. Those ETL tools are probably better on the T part if you don't need too many transforms - also dbt is pretty much free dependent on how you work it, also extremely scalable.

Incentivized

I was not included in selecting product process

Incentivized

• Simplified our BI layer for faster load times
• Increased the quality of data reaching our end users
• Makes complex transformations manageable

Incentivized

• It reduces integration costs.

Incentivized