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IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (16th)
SAP BW4HANA
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
45
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

FM
Database Engineer at Meezan Bank
Enhancing analytics with seamless data dumping and reliable support
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics The organization has decided to purchase a full stack solution from IBM due to positive responses, which helped them upgrade from the previous version. The data dumping into the raw zone and the feature of BigQuery is quite attractive. There…
Ritesh Durvasha - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior consultant at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Has supported efficient data processing and streamlined reporting for large-scale sales operations
The capability to handle a large amount of data and perform ETL operations is most valuable. Additionally, sending data out of SAP BW4HANA through Open Hub, which is a free service, is another valuable feature. In contrast, many other products charge for sending data out of their systems, such as Data Sphere or BDC, which charge premium service fees. Regarding advanced analytic tools in SAP BW4HANA, users can directly connect to Analysis for Office without additional charges. It's convenient as users don't have to download data into Excel since it's already connected to the system. From an integration capabilities perspective, it's easy to connect to SAP systems, though integration with non-SAP systems presents more challenges.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"DashDB is a good product to work with and the extra cost you spend on performance, technical support and tools to work with is worth it."
"The performance is okay as long as the volume of queries is not too high."
"Since my company is an IBM partner, it has enabled us to offer cloud data warehouse solutions on a 100% IBM stack."
"It will be MPP, so performance should improve."
"One of the most amazing features of dashDB is how it uses compression to get results in lighting speed."
"The way that it scales will help a lot of customers that are stuck with Netezza boxes that can't grow any larger.​"
"It is stable when there is support from IBM."
"I like that the dashDB solution is built on DB2 technology, which means that you can use all the features of a DB2 database while outsourcing all the hardware and software maintenance."
"The ability to instantly pull data is the most valuable feature."
"We like that it is an SAP product, so we can easily connect with the SAP ERP system."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very powerful tool. The solution also has the best stability, robustness, and customizability features."
"I rate this solution a 10."
"The features I find most valuable in SAP BW4HANA include the minimal modeling optics, where earlier in the BW System we had a lot of modeling objects for things like virtualization and data staging, but in SAP BW4HANA they have simplified everything, allowing us to design data by using minimal objects combined into a single object."
"I like the tool's robustness and security."
"We benefited from BW/4HANA's ability to utilize predefined content inside, and we didn't need to start from scratch."
"The solution seamlessly integrates with SAP products."
 

Cons

"Db2 is not a solution that I recommend. We have a lot of experience and we are not satisfied with the product or the support that we received."
"Ultimately, the product itself has challenges and we are not currently satisfied with the support, either."
"I would rate the level of dashDB support 3.5/5. While they are very knowledgeable in many areas, you can still struggle to get the correct resolution."
"Containers get corrupted very easily. Restoring them using GPFS can result in a lot of issues."
"Right now, we are implementing on ESX VMware 6.0. Support for this platform is poor. Also, one of the backup/recovery options is broken and IBM is not addressing the issue."
"I would like to see improvements in backup and authentication. It needs the ability to increase the number of retained backups to more than 2 days."
"Tech support for dashDB is awful. We usually have tickets open for three to four weeks."
"With dashDB, scalability and uptime need more improvement."
"There's one area where the other vendors have an upper edge, which is the data lake. I think SAP is trying to figure out whether to stick with IQ, their own data lake solution, or push customers toward customer-preferred vendors, like Azure Data Lake, AWS, or any other provider."
"Stability is something that needs to be improved."
"SAP BW/4HANA can generally be less flexible than other tools, depending on how it is set up."
"BW/4HANA could improve query optimization. For example, there could be an error message that pops up when you hover over it if any query fails. That would make it easier to find out what went gone wrong. Guided SAP help tools would make it easier for us to go forward."
"I would like to be able to design new reports in a future release."
"We cannot integrate with third-party tools like Python or advanced integration options. You can't fine-tune tables within BW or generate specific views or reports."
"They have taken out a few BW functionalities when they redesigned this. The way of multi-dimensional thinking and star schema got a little bit lost. It may be because of the cost, but certain functionalities that were previously implemented from the BW side should come back again in the whole product. It is a young product. It is version 2.0. In time, I'm pretty sure they will come back again because otherwise, it limits the potential of the product, and I have to do a lot of modeling towards that direction. For me, the analytics focus is too much. It is not cube-oriented in that way, so its functionality is limited. It is not really technically limited in the back end; it is more limited in the front end. It has a data-mining mindset for SQL developers. The navigational attributes should be easy. It needs to be built in models. I see the data mark cube or understanding that the composite provider needs to be models in a cube coming back. The multi-dimensional star schema approach and the reporting need to be done as well as possible to leverage the star scheme below. This is definitely not understood by many consultants and even composite providers for star schema. They always think in terms of flat tables, which is limiting. You need to build the right dimensions, objects, and so on. If you can build this in BW4HANA, then you have this understanding that BW4HANA is not forcing you in this direction, but it should force you a bit better in this direction. Maybe a few elements which were in use in BW should come back again. It would help the community to determine the direction to build on the cube. You can have maybe 50 elements, and then you can expand it to what you need by leveraging navigation. So far, this functionality is a little bit limited in the tool, and it is not thought through, but I think it will come. They should also be adding more capabilities for the transformation between different objects. In BW, this is currently limited, especially towards composite providers. It is a bit complex basically in the building. You have to have a lot of knowledge as well as know how to do it better because it is a bit different from BW. There is not too much expertise currently in the consulting markets. Many are trying to build something, but it may be based on their knowledge of what they have from the BW and HANA side. You have to find the right mix from both of them at this time. We also have HANA Native. These are our two different sync sources basically, and we have approaches to connect nicely, but it is hard to manage your team because a lot of coaching is required."
"The HCM needs improvement, but as a company, they have stopped any development on this."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If your going to go with warehouse DB/dashDB, use the cloud or Sailfish version."
"As an investment, the solution is very expensive."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
"SAP BW/4HANA is expensive."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price is high and currently only affordable for large organizations."
"For the on-premises version of the product, the solution offers a perpetual-based licensing model to its users. In general, SAP offers a monthly subscription-based licensing model to its users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise30
 

Questions from the Community

What advice do you have for others considering IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Organizations of all sizes, especially those who are in need of powerful and elastic cloud data warehouse solutions that can help administrators maximize the efficiency of their data-based operatio...
What needs improvement with IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
There are some limitations in adding data files to table spaces, and improvements are needed for regional support.
What is your primary use case for IBM Db2 Warehouse on Cloud?
Our primary use case is data storage and analytics.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
For improvement, I think AWS for HANA could be better, but it is an on-premise solution. SAP is asking us to move to one client approach and suggested moving to data warehouse cloud, which should h...
What is your primary use case for SAP BW4HANA?
My use cases involve the client I am working with, who already has a BW ON HANA system, and we are currently migrating and redeveloping things in SAP BW4HANA; they are decommissioning the BW On HAN...
 

Also Known As

IBM dashDB
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Copenhagen Business School, BPM Northwest, GameStop
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