SAP Business Data Cloud

A single environment for data analysis and processing facilitates data management and eliminates the need to copy data between the data warehouse and analytical environments. At the same time, flexible licensing and broad potential for leveraging AI in data analysis make SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) an attractive solution that can be fully tailored to the analytical needs of a specific organization.

The components included in SAP Business Data Cloud enable, in particular:

• reporting and planning (SAP Analytics Cloud),
• data processing and storage (SAP Datasphere),
• switching of the existing SAP BW data warehouse environment to a private cloud (BW Modernization),
• unstructured data analysis using AI (SAP Databricks),
• accelerating the solution implementation process (embedded applications).

It is worth noting that for existing clients of SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud nothing changes – neither in terms of functionality nor subscription. SAP is currently working on a solution that will, in the future, enable a smooth transfer of existing environments to the BDC platform.

Let’s take a closer look at the components that make up SAP Business Data Cloud.

SAP Analytics Cloud enables:

• data reporting and visualization through interactive dashboards,
• support for planning and budgeting processes in an enterprise,
• forecasts and simulations.

When it comes to data analysis, the following capabilities of the environment are worth highlighting:

• use of not only predefined reporting objects but also the ability to define custom ones, e.g. specialized chart types,
• integration with the Microsoft Excel environment,
• live data reporting from systems such as: S/4HANA, SAP Datasphere, SAP BW or SAP BW/4HANA, which ensures up-to-date information and integration of data permissions with the source system,
• defining visualizations using R scripts, CSS styles, and JavaScript,
• intelligent information search.

Currently, SAP Analytics Cloud is the only dedicated SAP tool for revenue and cost planning. The planning model – which defines the dimensions and key figures on which the budgeting process is based – is fully flexible and can be entirely tailored to the needs of the enterprise. SAC includes a range of components that support the entire budgeting process, such as validation rules, versioning, a built-in calendar, and the ability to define custom workflows.

The planning process can be fully or partially automated using data actions that enable, among other things, data distribution, copying of plans between versions or models, recalculations, currency conversions, allocations, and value distributions. Additionally, the planning process can be enhanced with simulations and forecasts based on classification models, time series, and regression functions.

If an organization reports data from more than one source system, it may be necessary to implement a data warehouse to integrate, process, and standardize that data. The data warehouse currently under development by SAP is the cloud-embedded SAP Datasphere. Its highlights include:

• the ability to connect multiple source systems – both cloud-based and on-premise,
• not only storing data, but also referencing parts of source data remotely, which eliminates the need to update data within SAP Datasphere and ensures it is always up to date,
• a graphically-friendly interface that enables both business users and IT teams to model data, i.e. combine, transform, and aggregate it.

SAP Datasphere is also worth considering if an organization wants to easily export data from S/4HANA systems to external reporting tools such as Microsoft Power BI.

The BDC environment also enables a smooth transition from existing on-premise SAP BW systems to the cloud environment. Embedding an SAP BW data warehouse that is already operating in an organization into SAP Business Data Cloud allows for its full integration with available tools, particularly for reporting, planning, and leveraging AI capabilities in data analysis. This option is available only to organizations running at least SAP BW version 7.5 on HANA or SAP BW/4HANA. Older SAP BW systems must first be upgraded to a compatible version.

A key question arises: should organizations with SAP BW in their environment always choose the BW Modernization option? There is no definitive answer to that question. For smaller systems, it may be more beneficial to reimplement the solution in SAP Datasphere, where data modeling is easier, the interface is tailored to business users, and system maintenance costs are lower. BW Modernization is primarily intended for large and complex SAP BW systems, where the workload required to migrate the solution to SAP Datasphere would be excessive. To help customers make informed decisions, SAP has made a free tool available on sap.com that allows users to assess the costs and effort involved in migrating their existing on-premise SAP data warehouse to BW Modernization within BDC.

For organizations that require not only a classic data warehouse but also a data lake capable of analyzing text and unstructured data, another component of the Business Data Cloud – SAP Databricks – is dedicated.

Recognized as a market leader in unified data platforms and artificial intelligence, Databricks has been fully optimized to work with SAP system data in live mode. It can now be conveniently combined and efficiently processed with data from external sources: structured and unstructured. SAP Databricks embedded in BDC offers, among other capabilities:

• searching for information in natural language,
• automated tagging of tables and comments,
• using AI mechanisms for data analysis,
• automatic optimization of SQL queries.

SAP Business Data Cloud also provides preconfigured applications and data management products designed for all business areas. From the end user’s perspective, these are predefined, ready-to-use dashboards that enable the analysis of data from individual systems.  Currently, six applications are worth highlighting:

• Core Enterprise Analytics – data from the SAP S/4HANA system (RISE),
• Spend Analytics – expenses (SAP Ariba),
• Supply Chain Analytics – supply chains (SAP SCM),
• People Analytics – human resources (SAP SuccessFactors),
• Finance Analytics – finance,
• Customer Analytics – for customers who do not use SAP as their source system.

Each of these applications is licensed separately. In the client’s BDC environment, at least one of the listed applications must be launched. It is worth noting that all applications are fully managed by SAP, which means that they are continuously adjusted to changes in the source systems, and any reported errors and issues with their operation are resolved directly by SAP.

Licensing

According to the adopted SAP policy, in Business Data Cloud you pay only for what you use. The subscription consists in purchasing an appropriate number of so-called capacity units (CUs). Within the available Capacity Units (CUs), the organization independently decides how to allocate them – to reporting, planning, data warehouses, or AI mechanisms used to analyze collected information. During the subscription period, the organization can freely allocate the resources owned by changing their assignment depending on current needs. The cost of the selected built-in application mentioned earlier must be added to the purchased subscription.

The flexible licensing model, full integration with SAP and non-SAP systems, the ability to analyze both structured and unstructured data, as well as the built-in AI mechanisms make SAP Business Data Cloud a major step forward in the field of data analysis and processing. It is also worth noting that there is no need to copy data between the data warehouse environment and reporting tools, and that information from SAP systems can be processed in live mode, which ensures that data is always current and consistent.