

Alation Data Catalog and SAP Business Data Cloud compete in data management and analytics. Alation has an edge in data governance and discovery, while SAP excels in analytics and planning features.
Features: Alation Data Catalog is known for data onboarding, security, and user communication. Its cloud integration enhances data discovery and collaboration, with strengths in governance and a comprehensive business glossary. SAP Business Data Cloud stands out for visualization, integration, and predictive analysis, with excellent third-party application linkage and advanced analytics capabilities.
Room for Improvement: Alation lacks end-to-end data lineage and has inconsistent search results, needing improvements in governance and query capabilities. SAP faces integration and real-time reporting issues, and its custom visualization features require enhancement to compete with platforms like Power BI or Tableau.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Alation supports varied deployment options, and its responsive technical support is praised though complex issues may delay resolution. SAP also offers broad deployment, primarily in public cloud setups, with reliable customer support but follows a predefined roadmap for enhancements. Alation is noted for responding well to customer feedback, contrasting SAP's more structured approach.
Pricing and ROI: Alation is moderately expensive but provides ROI by reducing search time and enhancing data management, with potential discounts for comprehensive cost breakdowns. SAP Business Data Cloud is costly, especially for planning functionalities, with a subscription-based model demanding careful feature evaluation. Despite higher costs, SAP's robust integration features support its pricing, though clearer models are needed for effective cost management.
We have seen a return on investment, having saved close to 10.5% of our costs, with expected ROI growing yearly by about 17%.
Instead of going into Google or consulting a colleague, I can just go to Alation Data Catalog, search there, and understand everything by myself.
We have saved a lot on the number of employees, and implementation time for the projects has reduced significantly since we started using the standard features of SAP Business Data Cloud.
Once the content is available, then it is a faster go-live with lesser cost in implementation, and that would give an ROI.
It will definitely reduce the need for more staff to handle this technology.
Some of them have dragged on for six months, which is much longer than we would ever want some support issues to go on.
we have defined several SLAs that have resolved critical issues and incidents with excellent support.
we have been able to contact them, and they have been able to help us whenever we have had issues
I would give the technical support for SAP Business Data Cloud a 10 out of 10.
On a scale from 0 to 10, I would rate their support 10 out of 10.
The technical support is a very well-organized service, with a lot of tools for me as a consultant and for the end user on how to contact SAP support and get issues solved.
As data sizes grow, we can also scale categorizations, calibrations, and the types of data we ingest and catalog through this tool.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability is really good since everything is cloud and everything gets pulled into the system via Snowflake and DBT automatically.
Alation Data Catalog's scalability has met our needs as our data and user base has grown.
The scalability of SAP Business Data Cloud has been strong, as it has handled growth in data volume, user demand, and reporting requirements without significant performance issues.
It meets the needs of organizations requiring cloud-native architecture, support for large-scale SAP and non-SAP integrations, elastic compute and storage capabilities, and enterprise-grade governance.
SAP Analytics Cloud can be used by a small company, and it can be used by a large corporate.
It has never gone down when we wanted to access it.
Alation Data Catalog has been stable for me, as I haven't seen much downtime.
From my experience, Alation Data Catalog is stable.
You have a chance to test it on your test tenant in small increments, so it should not break your productive reports and productive environment.
It has been reliable for reporting, analytics, and data integration activities.
This really allowed virtual access to data, which means there was no heavy replication of data involved, greatly improving performance.
The platform needs improvement in integrating with BI tools, reducing manual efforts, and facilitating a smooth connection.
Additionally, bringing in AI capabilities to automate tracking and labeling can optimize how we handle data information levels.
Alation Data Catalog can be improved by enhancing their lineage capabilities to make it easier for us as users to search the lineage without having to use the Alation Data Catalog user interface.
On the other hand, it is perfectly fitting to the SAP environment, with seamless integration to all SAP modules, not only ERP but also SuccessFactors and other tools from the SAP family.
If SAP can come up with innovative options to reduce licensing costs, many customers would incline toward SAP Business Data Cloud.
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
Collibra is a little bit expensive than Alation, but I presented the benefits of having that platform, so that little bit of money was not a big deal.
Discussions with the vendor partners provided a detailed breakdown of costs and how they can be reduced over time.
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
From a planning license perspective, SAC on that side is very expensive if you need developer features.
SAP Business Data Cloud is at a disadvantage when compared to tools like Talend or Informatica, which are cheaper and more capable.
It was the only data catalog tool where I could save and even create SQL queries.
Importantly, we establish a single source of truth, centralizing metadata and standardizing definitions, which minimizes confusion and helps with consistent data use across the organization.
My stakeholders can find relevant data assets quickly using a Google search without needing technical jargon, reducing the time spent searching for data.
For SuccessFactors and S/4HANA Cloud, there are pre-built reports available which are commonly used by customers.
SAP Business Data Cloud has positively impacted my organization by federating SAP data, which is now available for all to use.
The main standout feature is BDC Connect, as it is very useful for sharing data without replicating to third-party tools such as Enterprise Databricks, Snowflake or even in the near future, Google BigQuery as well as Microsoft Fabric.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| SAP Business Data Cloud | 0.6% |
| Alation Data Catalog | 3.1% |
| Other | 96.3% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 4 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 15 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 47 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 21 |
| Large Enterprise | 77 |
Alation Data Catalog offers dynamic cloud integration and robust data stewardship, aiding organizations in managing metadata and ensuring efficient data governance. Its active governance model enhances collaboration and productivity through seamless API integration.
Alation Data Catalog empowers organizations by providing tools like seamless cloud integration, automatic data crawling, and a business glossary to strengthen data management. It supports enhanced data discoverability, decision-making, and regulatory compliance. The catalog caters to diverse data sources, providing clear data lineage, aiding non-technical users, and supporting BI tools like Power BI. Its SQL query publication tool and API integration enhance productivity, while features like metadata management boost data quality and governance.
What are the main features of Alation Data Catalog?In industries like finance and healthcare, Alation Data Catalog is a key resource for data governance and metadata management. Organizations utilize it to integrate diverse data sources, establish data lineage, and manage business domains, proving invaluable in platforms such as Power BI and Snowflake.
SAP Business Data Cloud (SAP BDC) is a unified, intelligent data platform — part of the SAP Business AI Platform — that governs SAP and third-party data through a business data fabric. As an evolution of our industry-leading data, analytics and planning solutions, Business Data Cloud brings together Datasphere, Analytics Cloud, and Business Warehouse with a unified experience that delivers transformational insights across all lines of business. By harmonizing mission-critical data with the business processes and logic that give it meaning, SAP BDC delivers a trusted foundation for analytics and AI, empowering data teams and business leaders to make faster, more confident decisions.
What are the most important features of SAP Business Data Cloud?
What benefits or ROI should users look for in SAP Business Data Cloud?
SAP Business Data Cloud is a key component of SAP's vision for the autonomous enterprise. By unifying data connectivity, governance, semantic modeling, and analytics in a single cloud-native platform, SAP BDC eliminates fragmentation and complexity — serving as the connective tissue that ties your entire enterprise together and positioning organizations for long-term success in an AI-driven world.
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