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Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas

How does SAP Data Warehouse Cloud Work Webcast Recap

Beta planned for summer, GA is planned for SAP TechEd

The legal disclaimer applies, that things in the future are subject to change.

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Source: SAP

Cloud service, cloud native service, managed by SAP

Uses HANA database in the cloud

Existing customers, this is meant to extend on premise use cases to the cloud

connect and extend with cloud data warehouse

Or new use case such as new data marts

Cloud native datawarehouse from scratch

New solution, independent of cloud

For IT and business users

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Source: SAP

Designed to be easy to access and use

It is a managed service

It is an “agile solution”

“fast time to value”

Open SQL interface, SQL scripting

scale up and down

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Figure 4: Source: SAP

Architecture level; at bottom it is an open solution, connect to SAP and non-SAP data sources, either on premise or cloud

3rd Data ingestion tools

Connectivity to data lakes

Virtual or federated access

It is based on the HANA cloud offering – 4 services – repository services, modeling services, data warehousing services, governance services

Consumption layer for analytics tools, such as SAP Analytics Cloud

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Source: SAP

Lower left, data layer with components to generate tables, views, data flows, connection management to on premise or cloud systems, and enhancement to the data store object

Separating semantic layer from data layer

Semantic layer is a virtual layer to create models, entities, facts, dimensions, hierarchies

The business can create objects – e.g. invoice, order, deliver – map from semantic layer to data layer or reverse

Goal is to generate semantic layer, virtual, based on nature of the objects, for line of business users to find way to integrate data

Business catalog will have predefined objects; open to be enhanced, include documentation objects such as data lineage, versioning

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Source: SAP

Attributes related to layers

Data layer – how access, how provisioned, could be virtual, no need to load data to data warehouse cloud

Could also persist data in data warehouse cloud

Top – semantic layer, describe the virtual business entities and related KPI’s

Provide business model

Focus semantic layer on stable, connected layer, closely to SAP Analytics Cloud, strong connection to semantic model

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Source: SAP

Concept of spaces

Data layer integrated with spaces

Integration with data lake spaces (IQ in the cloud)

Data layer is based on different spaces

On the left, IT managed operational systems, such as S/4HANA, C4/HANA – golden color. Move to the right – marketing, finance, sales, blue part – managed by business to create model, generate virtual tables

Spaces help you manage data, locate the data

On the right, blue only, business maintained

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Source: SAP

Watch the replay for demos; it is here

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Source: SAP

This was part of the demo

Q&A

Q: Migration tools/BW/4HANA

A: conversion path from BW/4HANA

Q: would you put CDW next to BW/4HANA?

A: hybrid scenario, if put it on top

Could have BW/4 provide data or virtual access

Q: advanced engines from HANA from modeling process

A: will be made available, can’t tell you now

Q: virtual connection

A: done by virtual table, federated access by source system, not by BICS

Q: based on neo or cf

A: based on Cloud Foundry

Part 1 of this blog is here  – what is SAP Data Warehouse Cloud

 

What do you think?  Will business users use it?

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      9 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Paul Hardy
      Paul Hardy

      The obvious question is - does this replace BW/4HANA? It seems to solve the exact same business problem.

      If so, what would an organisation that had just gone through a huge migration to BW/4HANA think about being told to migrate again?

      Is this like HR where people are told to move to Web Dynpro Java, and as soon as they are finished they are told to move to Web Dynpro ABAP and as soon as they have done that are told to move to Fiori? Just to stand still, functionality wise?

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      good question, Paul

      Typically BW/4HANA is on premise, and in the webinar(s) SAP discussed hybrid possibilities but these were "data bite" webinars which are short in nature.  On the surface it does not appear to replace BW/4HANA - my take only

      Author's profile photo Paul Hardy
      Paul Hardy

      Having two (or more) products which do the same thing really muddies the waters though. I imagine most BW/4HANA installations are on-premise but it was pushed as a cloud product i.e. when it came out SAP marketing kept on about how the cloud version was so much better than the on-premise version etc...

      The irony is that on one hand SAP are pushing "simplification" i.e. in S/4HANA where there were four solutions to a problem three of them were removed, and at the same time adding a new product in the analytics space every so often, some of which appear to be duplicates i.e. the slogan could be "Run Complex"

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      SAP says it is "leaving no customer behind"

      Author's profile photo Mel Calucin
      Mel Calucin

      So is the acronym for Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC)?

      I don't mind DWC existing if all the features in DWC are down ported to BW/4HANA.  But will SAP do this?  If not, then SAP's intent is to promote DWC as a replacement for BW/4HANA.  We'll see less number of enhancements going to BW/4HANA once DWC becomes GA.   BW/4HANA will die from neglect.

      I like the automatic update concept that comes with a SaaS EDW especially since SAC is constantly fixing/upgrading its ANI/BICS interface to BW.  There are a hundred notes just for ANI/BICS fixes and upgrades to apply in each new BW SP.  Maybe it'll become more manageable someday.

      What I don't like about a SaaS EDW is the cost of having the same network bandwidth to on-premise enterprise systems as does an on-premise EDW.   I assume this won't be a problem if we use DWC with S/4HANA cloud.  But will S/4HANA cloud along with SCP be in state such that large companies are willing to go to it?   I have to check on how Shell's implementation on S/4HANA cloud is going.

      Thanks again for the excellent write-up on this, Tammy.

      Is there recording for this?

      Mel Calucin

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Mel - reply link is here (I think)

      Author's profile photo Cal Loudon
      Cal Loudon

      A question I've heard from many and have been wondering myself, is does SAP DW Cloud use the same code-line as BW/4HANA? Prior to Sapphire we had heard that the upcoming cloud product, then under the guise of a fruit project, was to do so - but since then I haven't seen any material confirming this one way or another.

      I guess I'm wondering because when it comes to enhancements or developments, will BW/4HANA consultants be already up to speed and good to hit the ground running or will there be yet another skill / toolset to become familiar and adept with?

      Author's profile photo Tammy Powlas
      Tammy Powlas
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Cal -Thank you for reading/commenting

      I don't know; you may want to ask this at answers.sap.com

      Author's profile photo James Xie
      James Xie

      Hey Cal, DWC does not use the same code line as BW/4HANA. I reckon what you referred to was Project Blueberry, which doesn't exist any more. Going forward, DWC will be SAP's SaaS DW.

      Not sure about the details from the skillset's perspective, in SAP's latest roadmap, it is planned to migrate BW4/HANA's dataflow to DWC in 2020. Stay tuned...