What's new in SAP BW/4HANA
SAP has announced next generation Data Warehouse application SAP BW/4HANA, running a real-time digital enterprise on September 7th 2016. SAP have already released its 4th generation SAP S/4HANA, apparent that an update for the data strategy was required. Also the Customers want to know: where they can store historic information, should they use either SAP BW or SAP HANA. So what will be the next SAP Data Warehouse Strategy?.
Why SAP BW/4HANA other than any Data-warehouse ?
SAP BW/4HANA is an integrated data warehousing solution that has been optimized to fully leverage the SAP HANA in-memory database. This optimization empowers business’ to deliver on the demand for simple, open, flexible and highly scalable solutions that will meet the data warehouse needs of the business today and beyond.
Simplify your data warehouse architecture and free up more time for line-of-business requirements
Ø Integrate SAP and non-SAP applications and data into one logical data warehouse for a single version of the truth
Ø Future ready for new business opportunities and growing volumes of data
Ø Built for on-premise and the cloud
What is SAP BW/4HANA?
1. SAP BW/4HANA only runs on HANA database and takes full advantage of the platform’s capabilities to optimize performance across data warehousing processes including data loading, querying and analysis.
2. SAP BW/4HANA, also known as BW4 or B4, is The next generation logical data warehouse (LDW) system.
3. It is designed to be a simplified, high-performance, open platform for historic and legacy enterprise data.
4. It is a logical successor both for SAP BW customers, and for traditional EDW customers running Teradata, Netezza, Oracle and IBM DB2.
How SAP BW/4HANA customers will benefit..?
SAP BW4HANA can provide end-to-end data management which can run live digital business through the automatic generation of views (Attribute View, Analytical View & Calculation view) in SAP HANA that combine SQL data logic and application data taken directly from SAP S/4HANA.
Ø High performance through advanced technology which is in-memory Analytics and the Algorithm pushdown.
Ø Faster designing of application development with a fully redesigned user interface for enhanced data flow modeling.
Ø It will reduced data management and storage costs through automatic distribution of multi-temperature data.
Ø We can Easy transition existing customers with SAP Business Warehouse application to SAP BW/4HANA through utility features.
What are the main features of SAP BW/4HANA?
One thing to bear in mind is that SAP took a deliberate strategy with SAP BW/4HANA: announce the product and the vision, and deliver product immediately.
Ø Code simplification, so the product is leaner and meaner.
Ø The new modeling tools are in the initial release.
Ø The Simplified Object Model is delivered, so BW and HANA native schemas are interchangeable.
Ø The Advanced Multi-Temperature Management delivered is complete, so older data can be aged out to less expensive storage and still be updated.
Ø Pushdown of complex EDW algorithms into the HANA database, instead of running in an application tier
The benefits of this approach are the customers have a clear view of strategy and roadmap. They can immediately start the work to prepare for BW/4HANA and get on the initial release.
Do you need SAP BW/4HANA if you have SAP S/4HANA?
SAP BW was originally designed due to deficiencies in the Oracle database that meant it was not well suited to reporting on transactional data. SAP customers implemented BW so they could take load off the transactional system and harmonize data.
It later grew into an EDW, where data from many other systems was consolidated into one place.
SAP S/4HANA pushes operational reporting back into the transactional system where it belongs and integrates it with the Fiori User Experience so customers have aggregated data available on demand.
However, SAP S/4HANA is not designed to be a Logical Data Warehouse for data from many systems, or as the location to store long-term historic data.