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Author's profile photo Shibajee Dutta Gupta

Statement of Direction – SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward

 

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This document provides guidance to our customers of SAP Data Management portfolio, with respect to SAP Data Services (DS) and SAP Information Steward (IS) solutions, on the product directions. This document is an extension of our blog posting made on August 3rd, 2021

SAP Data Management portfolio is the strategic Data Integration offering from SAP, and it is changing the way our customers run their business needs around Data Integration. SAP launched SAP Data Intelligence as a comprehensive data management solution, conceived and built since day one on a cloud-native containerized architecture. As the data orchestration layer of SAP’s Business Technology Platform (BTP), it transforms distributed data sprawls into vital data insights, delivering innovation at scale. It can be consumed both as-a-Service in SAP’s BTP, or BYOL on several cloud platforms and on-premise Kubernetes distributions, enabling complete flexibility of deployment.

As we define the future of SAP Data Management portfolio, with our stated data management strategy, current on-premise SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customers can in fact leverage all their existing investments and efforts, reusing those time-tested and trusted artifacts and configurations that are being used today in SAP Data Services (DS) and SAP Information Steward (IS), while also extending the reach of their data management to the cloud, with SAP Data Intelligence, a native cloud solution. Yes, we are committed to our existing SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customer base too.

In 2021 we added the hybrid data management capabilities that enables, existing SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward setups for all native sources and workloads that are still relevant, for all the time they will still be in use, without requiring any rip and replace nor migration. Additionally, implement all new cloud hybrid, or big data-oriented workloads, including data streaming and data pipelining on SAP Data Intelligence, and seamlessly extending, and reusing existing DS and IS workloads.

In 2022 we did a minor version upgrade of SAP Data Services and Information Steward to 4.3, allowing the compatibility with Business Intelligence BusinessObjects 4.3. As a result, our support policy extended the end of mainstream maintenance timeline to end of 2025 and priority 1 support to end of 2027 for both SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward. However, with the mainstream maintenance of version 4.3 of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward suite ending in 2025, we do not want to leave our large customer base behind, and therefore we have decided to release an updated version, code named SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024 to provide more time to our on-premises customers to adopt our rapidly evolving, state-of-the-art cloud data integration scenarios.

SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024 

 o   We are planning to release a new version of the SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward in 2025

  • code named SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024, respectively
  •  available on-premises and through managed cloud,
  • focused on the most widely adopted on-premise scenarios: SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward for native ETL, Data Quality and Data Governance,

o   Existing architecture and component map will be followed including Designer, repository, Job Server, supported web applications and BI module

o   Compatible with proposed SAP  BusinessObjects  BI  2024  suite

o   We will provide clear use case migration paths for the components for which we plan the end of support beyond 2027

o   Our intention is to only support Windows and Linux platforms

o   No change is anticipated in the Hybrid Data Management capabilities with Data Intelligence cloud

As more of our customers shift their on-premises workloads to the cloud, we also offer SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward, private cloud edition (PCE), which runs the ETL and Data Quality solutions in a managed cloud environment operated by SAP. Many of our largest SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customers already run both solutions side- by-side, during their transition to the managed cloud deployment.

 

Many of our SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward suite customers have now upgraded to the version 4.3. This version enables the compatibility with BI 4.3 as well as allows a smooth transition as there are no architectural changes, and code migration and upgrade is without any additional configuration. The enhancement around the major RDBMS connectivity with x.509 support gives the users a better user experience for secured data access.

 

We know that many customers rely on SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions for critical use cases and will need to do so beyond 2025. Therefore, we are planning to release a new version in the first half of 2025, code named SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024, respectively, that will extend the maintenance timeline for on-premise use cases. Although it is a long time from now, but we have plans to extend the mainstream support through 2030 and priority 1 through 2032

As we did for the upgrade to version 4.3, we will make sure that the upgrade to the new release is as smooth as possible and will provide enough overlap so that each customer can upgrade at their own pace.  This new release will be an opportunity for us to continue the modernization started in version 4.3 (user experience, latest 3rd party components versions, system library updates) and streamline the ETL, Data Quality and Data Governance to the core requirements of our active user base

In the meantime, and as version 4.2 reaches end of mainstream maintenance at the end of May 2023  –  followed by priority one support until end of December 2024 – we strongly recommend all customers to upgrade to  version 4.3 to benefit from the latest features, up-to-date platforms, connectivity, and security standards.

 

With SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward, private cloud edition, we offer a predefined package operated by SAP on the main cloud platform providers, including software, support, technical managed services, and infrastructure. This is a great opportunity to shift from a maintenance contract to a subscription model while leveraging your existing investments in SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions.

Here are some of the key benefits:

  • The latest version of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward is always available, thanks to yearly upgrades,
  • 3-tier landscape: development/test, quality assurance and production by default, with optional additional tiers,
  • Pre-configured hardware landscapes optimized for performance,
  • Choice of cloud platform providers infrastructure includes AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure,
  • End-to-end SLA 99.7%, backup and restore included within standard service scope,

In the future, customers will continue to have the choice for their infrastructure for SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions, either on-premises or in a managed cloud operated by SAP. Additionally, our directions for the on-premise data integration and data governance scope with respect to SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward remains mutually exclusive and unchanged due to the data integration and data governance scope within SAP’s cloud solutions.

 

The following are planned to be removed from SAP Data Services 2024:

  • AIX and Solaris operating systems
  • Application layer connectivity of reduced market share applications
  • Java based adapters for which we have already provided native connectivity

 

SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward remains a key component of our Data Management portfolio and we are committed to our customers. Please help us fine tune our roadmaps of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward by providing your input through the dedicated inboxes respectively:

SAP Data Services:               sap.dataservices@sap.com

SAP Information Steward:   sap.informationsteward.enhance@sap.com   

We appreciate your feedback and will answer your questions via our official communication channels

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      11 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Balaji Rajasekaran
      Balaji Rajasekaran

      Welcoming this proposal ...

      Author's profile photo Frederik Michael Hopt
      Frederik Michael Hopt

      This is so useful Shiba! Thanks a lot for a clear information for everybody! Very appreciated!

      Author's profile photo Julian Riegel
      Julian Riegel

      Great Blogpost - thanks for the update Shiba!

      Author's profile photo Ismail Vurel
      Ismail Vurel

      very much appriciated Shiba! how this is related to MDG Data Management (concolidation-central governance-data quality) solutions? thx br, vurel

      Author's profile photo Homiar Kalwachwala
      Homiar Kalwachwala

      Thank you Shiba for providing clarity with this blog ... much appreciated.

       

      Author's profile photo Christian Raditsch
      Christian Raditsch

      Thank you for this information, but I have to ask this: If we still have DS 4.2 on AIX - it it possible to upgrade to 4.3 or is there already no AIX version for this?

      Author's profile photo Joseph Muiruri
      Joseph Muiruri

      Greetings Christian Raditsch,

      SAP Data Services 4.3 is not supported on AIX and Solaris operating systems, it's only supported on Linux and Windows operating systems.

      Product%20Availability%20Matrix

      Product Availability Matrix

      Please see Page 8 of the product availability matrix below.

      Best Regards,

      Joseph

      Author's profile photo Christian Raditsch
      Christian Raditsch

      Hello Joseph,

       

      thank you for clarification!

      As 4.2 support ends by march 2023 - does this mean we have to switch to Windows Server until then?

       

      Regards,

      Christian

      Author's profile photo Joseph Muiruri
      Joseph Muiruri

      Greetings Christian Raditsch

      As version 4.2 reaches end of mainstream maintenance at the end of May 2023  –  followed by priority one support until end of December 2024 – we strongly recommend all customers to upgrade to  version 4.3 to benefit from the latest features, up-to-date platforms, connectivity, and security standards.

      We therefore recommend you switch to a supported  version before then.

      Best Regards,

      Joseph

      Author's profile photo Christian Raditsch
      Christian Raditsch

      Hey Joseph,

      thanks again!

      Regards

      Chris

      Author's profile photo Brian Ray
      Brian Ray

      Thank you.

       

      I really wish this information was visible on the PAM.