Goodbye SAP BW, be welcome SAP BW/4HANA
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:
- Does SAP HANA Replace BW? (Hint: No, but…)
- 7 Reasons Why S/4HANA Does Not Replace SAP BW
- On my S/4 HANA journey, all Analytic requirements shall be delivered by S/4 HANA
- 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
Excellent Eduardo !!!!!. Hopefully a lot of people take the time to read this blog..
Thanks Eric! I hope so and I do appreciate if you help to distribute it on your social media 🙂 Liking and rating the blog also helps to increase visibility so more people can see it! Many thanks
congratulations Edu, always sharing the latest news :))
Thanks, Ronaldo 🙂
Let´s learn and teach again my friend!
Cheers!
Alex
That is the spirit!
Eduardo,
great information. I think we need to address the question: what product should a customer use? BWonHANA, BW/4HANA? How can they take this decision? what are the criteria to choose?. It will be a very interesting H2 for 2016!!!
I also want to share a link to a very interesting blog about BW's prior death....
BW is Dead – Long Live BW</title><meta name="news_keywords" content="SAP,BW,NetWeaver,Berg,SAP …
Hi Mauricio, great link, thanks for sharing! About your point on which tool to choose for, I FULLY AGREE with you! Maybe a good material for a second blog post 🙂
Check out this blog from Bernd Leuker.
Introducing the Next Generation Business Warehouse | Bernd Leukert | LinkedIn
there are scenarios from BW and BWonHANA to BW/4HANA
Hello Mauricio,
for new installations, customers go with SAP BW/4HANA. For converting existing SAP BW systems to SAP BW/4HANA it's a more complex decision which depends on many factors like age of the BW system, type of tools used (BEx, NLS, etc), amount of custom coding, and more. The two most important steps for customers are migrating the BW system to SAP HANA and moving to SAP HANA-optimized objects (Advanced DSO, Open ODS View, CompositeProvider).
Also see "The Road to SAP BW/4HANA" on http://tinyurl.com/bw4hana.
Best,
Marc
Product Management SAP HANA DW
Thanks Marc,
It is very clear that net new customer or other who want a fresh installation BW/4HANA is the way to go. Now, thanks to your post is clear that all the rest is migration to BWonHANA.
Thanks,
Mauricio Cubillos
What a pleasure and honor having Marc answering questions on my post! Thanks for supporting
My thought exactly Mauricio, when I wrote my blog on the 'new' BW4/HANA .
@Eduardo: great minds think alike, they say 😉
welcome back dear article, i just had a deja-vu...
Reading through the BW/4HANA roadmap, it seems like an early release now receiving a lot of attention in the coming Qs with lots of potential.
Will we see some attention on planning (better: simulation) features and potential assimilation of predictive feeding planning scenarious?
Cheers, Frank
Hello Frank,
I would not call it an "early release". It's based on the best of SAP BW 7.5 SP 4 so 18 years of development went into SAP BW/4HANA :-).
"Planning" will continue to play an important role. We are planning to make it available for SAP BW/4HANA as part of the SAP BusinessObjects BPC line next year. Predictive capabilities can be added already today using HANA platform capabilities. But I agree, there can be much better / tighter integration. Overall, a matter of priorities and number of customers asking for it...
Best,
Marc
Product Management SAP HANA DW
Hello Marc. trust you are doing well. Are we saying Sybase IQ NLS does not work with SAP BW/4HANA. Is there something in roadmap?
Thanks.
Vikash
Thanks for your information
We also wrote a post on BW/4HANA for French readers
Hi nice article and also helpful.
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