Update as of November 2023 - Please refer to the latest Statement of Direction that overwrites this blog post that was published in September 2022
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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 2024o We are planning to release a new version of the SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward in 2025
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.
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.
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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