SAP Business Technology Platform: End-to-End Data & Analytics Scenarios

+++ Updated: September 14th 2022 +++

Introduction

The ongoing digital transformation as well as the continuous rise of cloud computing resulted in an enormous growth in the amount and variety of data. This development has shown that data can be extremely valuable – but also complex. SAP’s Data & Analytics Solutions help companies to simplify their data journey and unlock the full value of their data. In this blog post I would like to introduce you to the capabilities of SAP’s Data and Analytics Solutions in the Cloud by offering a selection of insightful end-to-end demo scenarios that span across multiple SAP solutions.

But first, let me give you a short introduction to SAP’s Data and Analytics solutions and explain the relevance of an integrated and unified portfolio.

SAP Business Technology Platform

SAP’s Data & Analytics solutions are part of the SAP Business Technology Platform which serves as the underlying foundation for the Intelligent Enterprise. In addition to the Database, Data Management and Analytics components, SAP’s Business Technology Platform also offers tooling for Application Development and Integration as well as Intelligent Technologies such as Intelligent Robotic Process Automation, Conversational AI and more. Eventually, these capabilities support companies in achieving their goals with the flexibility to build, manage, and deploy their applications and connect data and business processes on one integrated platform.

Figure 1: SAP Business Technology Platform

The demo scenarios listed in this blog post are centered around the SAP Business Technology Platform and available BTP-Services as a starting point, showcasing on how to leverage and combine the different BTP services to fulfill the customer demand. The scenarios are also including the existing SAP HANA Database & Analytics products and capabilities as additional “services”, added and combined with the BTP-Services.  The guiding principle is to follow a service-oriented approach and (re)use functionalities of other “services”.

SAP Data and Analytics in the Cloud – Give Data Purpose

SAP’s Data and Analytics Solutions are built upon the Data Value Formula helping to turn raw data into business outcomes. In detail, the different solutions provide the opportunity to manage high volumes of data, ensure data quality and lastly visualize this data by deriving insights out of it. Thus, companies are enabled to give their data purpose.

Now let’s have a quick look at the individual solutions, which are providing different capabilities in terms of a service centric point of view:

• SAP HANA Cloud: SAP’s in-memory cloud database simplifies data management with multi-temperature storage tiers and combines the speed of in-memory computing with the simplicity and flexibility of the cloud.
• SAP Data Intelligence Cloud: SAP Data Intelligence Cloud is a comprehensive data management solution that connects, discovers, enriches, and orchestrates disjointed data to enable the creation of data warehouses.
• SAP Data Warehouse Cloud: SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is an enterprise-ready data warehouse that provides the opportunity to unite heterogenous data in one cloud solution designed for both business and IT users.
• SAP Analytics Cloud: SAP Analytics Cloud empowers business users to make confident decisions by combining business intelligence, planning and predictive technology in one Cloud Analytics Solution.

Figure 2: Data to Value Formula

Relevance of integrated Data and Analytics Solutions

A recurring problem in today’s Data & Analytics landscapes is that organizations too often settle on isolated applications that only address specific data needs. However, in order to gain meaningful insights out of data, it is important to utilize an integrated set of solutions along your data journey. This is why SAP focusses on an interconnected Data & Analytics portfolio to store, manage, process and visualize data end-to-end.

Moreover, SAP Data & Analytics solutions have unique, direct connectivity to SAP data sources. This is achieved with common semantics across SAP applications for optimized interoperability which makes it possible to retain the context of your SAP applications. Additionally, out-of-the-box connectors allow heterogenous data source and landscape management to combine SAP and non-SAP applications or data stores. This allows companies to move to the Cloud while leveraging existing On-Premise investments.

Although the different components can also be deployed individually, the following collection of demo scenarios shows how the different solutions play nicely together to achieve real business value.

Collection of End-to-End Demo Scenarios

Below you will find a collection of demo scenarios which feature multiple of SAP’s Data & Analytics solutions. These scenarios highlight the synergies between the different solutions and do also show how they integrate with other SAP or Non-SAP systems such as Hyperscalers. The linked blogs itself comprise out of multiple posts and the list will be updated continuously.

• SAP Business Technology Platform Showcase – Production Optimization: This demo scenario illustrates how an energy supplier can leverage its historical sales data to forecast future demand with the goal to optimize its production plans.
• SAP BTP Data & Analytics Showcase – Overall Integration Demo: This demo shows how to integrate data from multiple sources and how to improve as well as monitor data quality. Additionally, you can explore geographical data modelling and interactive analytical dashboards.
• SAP Retail POS Analysis : SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP Analytics Cloud Content “out of the box”: The linked demo scenario demonstrates how to deploy Business Content in SAP Data Warehouse Cloud in order to conduct a Point-of-Sales analysis in SAP Analytics Cloud.
• SAP Business Technology Platform – Software lifecycle with elements of continuous integration, delivery and transport management: This scenario aims to present several possibilities for handling software lifecycle management aspects of solutions built on the SAP Business Technology Platform.
• Collection of blog posts about SAP Data Intelligence Cloud: This link will lead you to multiple scenarios about how to integrate SAP Data Intelligence Cloud into the overall SAP BTP Data & Analytics context.
• NEW: SAP Data and Analytics Showcase – Develop a Machine Learning Application on SAP BTP: In this blog post, we’ll describe an end-to-end scenario, which demonstrates how to develop a SAP Cloud Programming Model (CAP) application in SAP Business Application Studio that leverages the machine learning capabilities (HANA PAL and APL library) from SAP HANA Cloud.
• NEW: SAP Ariba Analytics using SAP Analytics Cloud, Data Intelligence Cloud and HANA DocStore: Explore how to make use of SAP Data Intelligence Cloud to retrieve data from SAP Ariba before storing it in SAP HANA Cloud’s JSON Document Store. Further, a model on top of this data is build and consumed in SAP Analytics Cloud.

Conclusion

By studying the different demo scenarios you will learn how to manage you data end-to-end. Although the blogs highlight the synergies between multiple SAP solutions, you will also see features of our individual SAP Data and Analytics solution. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, make sure to check this out!

If you have new ideas for upcoming end-to-end demo scenarios or additional feedback, please feel free to reach out!