Road Map: SAP BW/4HANA [ANA828] Q&A #SAPTechEd

[TammyPowlas]

Kudos to the SAP BW/4HANA team for answering 25+ questions during this morning's road map session

Q: Does SAP Data Warehouse Cloud have all the capabilities of BW/4HANA?

A: SAP Data Warehouse Cloud is a complementary offering, not a replacement for BW/4HANA.

 

Q: We are currently on SAP BI 7.0, Currently planning for new/upgrade current solution. What would be a right solution BW/4HANA or SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC)?

A: Answer is dependent on your overall implementation strategy in other words are you planning for a cloud implementation or will you continue on premises res. private cloud. Big advantage is that BW/4 and DWC provide hybrid scenarios.

 

Q: We have just learned that SAC Planning will be part of DW Cloud....will you build a migration path for embedded BPC modeling to DW Cloud?

A: DWC will integrate with the planning capabilities offered by SAC. No migration for embedded BPC modeling to DWC

 

Q: Is SAC only the one reporting tool going forward, will it replace bex , BO and other reporting tools?

A: SAC is supported and is the native BI tool for the solution , SAP BusinessObjects is an option. We also support 3rd party BI tools via DWC.

 

Q: What are the strengths and weaknesses of BW/4HANA compared to DWC?

A: BW/4 is SAPs strategic on-premise offering with a long history (20+) years in data warehousing. It is well integrated with the central SAP applications, but since its a on-premise solution you have to take care of the maintenance yourself. DWC on the other hand is a public cloud solution (SaaS), so you only deal with the application but no maintenance. Its a native cloud solution and offers great connectivity to many different sources plus it integrates into your existing SAP landscape. It focuses rather on SQL DW modeling.

 

Q: Are there plans to force customers to use XSA based Calculation Views within BW/4? We are currently using classical Calculation Views within BW/4 …

A: No current plans. There are notes regarding co-existence with XSA applications and SAP BW/4HANA generated views.

 

Q: When is the ABAP CDS delta CDC available at BW4? Not as consumption but as source.

A: ABAP CDS views can be annotated for delta capabilities, ODP-enabled and then used as an extraction source. This has been available since BW/4 1.0

 

Q: what are advantages of cloud over on-premise.

A: The idea is that we offer the ability to extend BW/4HANA capabilities in the cloud. This provides a Hybrid deployment model with the best of both worlds: on-premises and cloud.

 

Q: For a customer with a complex BW installation, does SAP recommends to upgrade to BW4HANA as a default option?

A: You should take a look at the Readiness Check available to customers in maintenance to run on your system and get details on the general level of effort and steps to get to SAP BW/4HANA based on an automated analysis of your current system. The readiness check is available via the documentation site:

https://help.sap.com/viewer/product/SAP_BW4HANA/2.0.7/en-US

 

Q: Is Sybase NLS still a supported product of SAP when using SAP BW/4HANA? We are on BW 7.5 on HANA (not S/4) and use NLS for archiving

A: Yes, the older tiering solution, SAP Nearline Storage is supported on SAP BW/4HANA (in addition to SAP Data Tiering Optimization). DTO offers additional flexibility as described by Lothar in the session.

 

Q: any improvements in Cockpit?

A: yes, further automation for Data Protec

 

Q: What about BW/4HANA running in private cloud? Are there differences in functionality between running in Public Cloud?

A: Whether you run BW/4HANA in public or private cloud is your own choice. There's no difference in features.

 

Q: How is data updated in Cold Store in the other database system ? 2 Phase Commit ?

A: In SAP BW/4HANA Data Tiering Optimization is available. TData Tiering Optimization helps SAP BW/4HANA customers to classify the data in the DataStore object (advanced) as hot, warm or cold, depending on the cost and performance requirements for the data. More information here: https://blogs.sap.com/2018/01/03/sap-bw4hana-data-tiering-optimization/?preview_id=586084

 

Q: Any significant features expected for a supposed BW/4HANA 3.0 release? When?

A: Stay tuned to the Roadmaps link below and customers can always check support.sap.com/PAM (Product Availability Matrix) for current descriptions of SAP solutions.

 

Q: Where can I find information about the new features for composite providers ?

A: Documentation is the most current information available. Always check help.sap.com/viewer/p/SAP_BW4HANA in both the application area and the "What's New" section.

 

Q: Will the customers for new Data warehousing solution will be recommended with DWC in future ?

A: there was already a similar question. the answer depends on our customer's overall strategy for implementations in the cloud

 

Q: What would be the difference in capabilities between BW on HANA to DWC connection and BW4HANA to DWC connection ?

A: BW is virtualized access and data loads. In addition BW/4 provides a much tighter integration on the metadata level in other words automatic generation of DWC metadata based on BW metadata

 

Q: can we have both BW4HANA and DWC and work at the same time ?

A: Yes, you can run both at the same time to leverage the benefits of both solutions and interconnect them as well.

 

Q: Why it is highlighting here BW/4 Hana ,If DWC is a standalone . Is there any dependency on BW/4HANA ?

A: No, there is no dependency to BW/4HANA. Both solutions can be used independently of each other.

 

Q: What is the tool to access DWC? is it eclipse or web based.

A: SAP Data Warehouse Cloud comes with an own developed Modeling toolset. Do you mean BW4?

 

Q: BW4HANA is it possible to extract the real time data with ODP extractors? without SLT?

A: For extractors it is possible to use streaming process chains to replicate the data in near real time. SLT is not a prerequisite but an option for trigger based replication from ABAP Sources to SAP BW.

 

Also see https://blogs.sap.com/2020/12/09/teched-2020-sap-analytics-q-a-summary-sap-dwc-sac-bw4hana/ by bhavin.vyas

It's also good to remember there's a readiness check for BW/4HANA