Goodbye SAP BW, be welcome SAP BW/4HANA

[eduardorodrigue]

Yes, you read it right. After 20 years SAP BW (SAP NetWeaver BW or SAP Business Intelligence Warehouse if you are old experienced enough) has a successor. Welcome to the age of SAP BW/4 HANA. I know, a lot of people simply tough a Data Warehouse was not needed anymore after S/4 HANA. Several of us have been trying to make it clear, that was not the case. Here are a few examples:

1. Does SAP HANA Replace BW? (Hint: No, but…)
2. 7 Reasons Why S/4HANA Does Not Replace SAP BW
3. On my S/4 HANA journey, all Analytic requirements shall be delivered by S/4 HANA
4. Is it time for Business Intelligence to retire? - Part I / Is it time for Business Intelligence to retire? - Part II / Is it time for Business Intelligence to retire? - Part III

In general, the argumentation was simple: S/4 HANA is great, SAP HANA is wonderful and we still need a Data Warehouse to deal with several different source systems, data integration/cleansing/harmonization/transformation and a common architecture. Basically, we need a Data Warehouse for the same reasons Inmon and Kimball had already pointed out. If you are interested in the topic, you could start here.

Once we have established that a Data Warehouse is needed, we can agree that besides all it was required from a DW in the past, we need more. We need that this DW be also a cornerstone of our Big Data strategy (as we have discussed in Enterprise Data Warehouse + SAP Vora = High Value) and that it allow us to deal with Digital Business needs. To answer that demand, a new product has been developed: SAP BW/4 HANA under the same concept of its cousin SAP S/4HANA: new code lines, built on top of SAP HANA platform, to address the Digital Business needs on cloud and on premise.

Important to say: SAP BW/4HANA is a new product. Other versions of SAP BW: SAP NetWeaver BW powered by SAP HANA and SAP NetWeaver BW edition for SAP HANA are still in existence and have their maintenance period described in their respective Product Availability Matrix (PAM).

So, what is SAP BW/4HANA? In short:

• A new Data Warehouse solution
• Highly optimized for HANA like S/4HANA
• Leverages HANA differentiators
• Integrates with new data sources and engines
• Creates the Logical Data Warehouse foundation
• Accelerates open data warehouse development
• Advanced multi-temperature management option
• Modern interface
• Built for cloud

How does it fit into overall architecture?

Besides, it is important to note that:

• There will be more detailed and technical information shortly
• Simplified data modeling with SAP BW/4 HANA looks somehow similar to what we already know about SAP BW edition for SAP HANA:

   

• There will be a migration path from BW on HANA to BW/4HANA

In case you want more info, please, take a look at: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-74554

All the best,

Eduardo