SAP BW/4HANA vs. SAP Data Intelligence

Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is well suited are retail industry, supply chain, finance, warehouse, stocking processes, BI, [and] some finance analytics reporting. Some scenarios where SAP BW/4HANA is less appropriate [is when] relational queries are needed [and] in some small business with infrastructure limitations. Another scenario that is less appropriate is for ABAP processes requirements.

Incentivized

It helps our BUs analyze data and create dashboards they can understand. While slowing down with a large database, it becomes less helpful. In my experience, it is excellent in consolidating information from several sources for analysis, decision-making, and knowledge gaps. Excellent at managing information access.

Incentivized

• High speed data warehouse regardless of data volumes.
• Excellent integration with SAP systems and Data sets.
• Simplified data modelling due to columnar data base.

Incentivized

• It integrates well with our current ecosystem of SAP products, like HANA.
• It provides end-to-end machine learning operations, with tools for the complete model life cycle.
• It has a simple user interface for novice users, with complex tools also available for power users.
• It builds on SAP Data Hub, providing all the ETL functions of that tool with additional machine learning functionality.
• It can run in the cloud, no on-premise software management needed.
• Many programming languages are supported, it provides a sandbox environment for the user to develop in whichever style they prefer.
• SAP is very actively developing and improving it.

Incentivized

• Enterprise license pricing is very expensive and run-time license limits the usefulness of the tool.
• Integration with SAP Analytics cloud for write-back to BW/4HANA. Live connection is only read from SAC.
• Make run-time licenses more useful.

Incentivized

• Data transfer speed tends to be slow when there is poor internet connection since SAP Data Intelligence don’t synchronize data while offline. However, this is not vendor fault, that’s why we have implemented robust wireless technology internet connection in our organization.

Incentivized

Allow collaborations among various personas
with insights as ratings and comments on the
datasets Reuse knowledges on the datasets for new users Next-Gen Data Management and Artificial Intelligence

Incentivized

SAP BW/4HANA requires specialized skillsets around data warehouse modeling and the access to data, however the modeling capabilities are intuitive and have now become accessible to both SAP and non-SAP data warehouse specialists. This new model allows for Interchangeable skillsets and access to a broader pool of experts throughout the industry, as well as easier access to data.

Incentivized

Good tool with lots of potential, but I still see a lot of room for improvement, e.g. when it comes to debugging functionality to understand exactly where pipelines fail and what the data at that point looks like (similar to BW debugging). Also, I am missing SAPs standard machine learning libraries (Python) to be pre-installed, among some other general usability improvements.

Incentivized

SAP Max Attention and general support for SAP BW/4HANA is broadly available. Truth to be told, MaxAttention has a premium cost but brings great engineers. So this being an enterprise capability and extremely critical, we did not consider cost as the main factor since support works well. Just keep that in mind when making your selection.

Incentivized

Initially we struggle to get help from SAP but then dedicated Dev angel was assigned to us and that simplify the overall support scenario. There is still room of improvement in documentation around SAP Data intelligence. We struggle a lot to initially understand the feature and required help around performance improvement area,

Incentivized

SAP Analytics Cloud is complemented by SAP BW/4 HANA through connectors that work in real-time and allow the display of indicator information in interactive and user-friendly visualizations. SAP Data Services integrates with BW/4 HANA allowing to automate the loading of information in the system taking as a data source a wide variety of platforms.

Incentivized

One of the reasons to pick SAP Data Intelligence is the speed and security it provides, in addition to the excellent support it provides. It is also compatible with all popular databases, which is another reason to choose it.

Incentivized

• Faster turn-around to enhancements
• End users can query structures that are not limited to multi-dimensional models.
• Performance improvements means that business user can do more in the same time compared to traditional BW

Incentivized

• Automation of data management slashed tasks by over 60% in most departments for the first 8 months.
• Metadata catalogs have enabled us to categorize data from disjointed sources in one place.
• It runs multiple ML models which enhances flexibility when managing data.

Incentivized