Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP BW4HANA

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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

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)

SAP BW4HANA

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (8th)

Featured Reviews

Renee Hoon

Data Platform Specialist at Sasol

Scalable performance tuning and optimization for finance and supply chain jobs

We run our finance and supply chain jobs using SQL BW, and we visualize our data loads on Power BI. We are using SQL Data Warehouse for data warehousing In terms of cost savings, we don't need specialization in skills as advanced as Teradata. We used to pay extensive licensing fees for Teradata,…

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Csaba Grünblatt

Senior Data, Data warehouse and BI/Analytics Architect at Techwave.

Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities

SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the incremental load because we do not need to refresh the entire data on a daily basis."

"The product is very user friendly."

"Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."

"Fills the gap between big data and classic data warehouses."

"I like its performance. It is well-structured and offers a lot of practical options. Because of the visual design of the product, it is very easy to find icons and other visual elements. It took me more than two weeks to understand how it works. I had an intensive training session to understand it, which was enough. It was not hard to understand how it works."

"The solution's scalability is very, very good. It's one of the most important aspects for us."

"The biggest benefits are scalability and ease of use when looking at performance tuning and optimization."

"I think the most valuable component is that pipelines are built into it and then the feature that you can mirror a cosmos BB for analytics."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pros

"The solution is easier to maintain than traditional SAP products."

"We benefited from BW/4HANA's ability to utilize predefined content inside. We didn't need to start from scratch."

"It's quite scalable."

"The product has efficient performance."

"It provides the functions in a way that even a less technical person can do the modeling."

"It is a stable solution."

"The solution saves time and cost."

More SAP BW4HANA pros

Cons

"I'm not entirely happy with the billing model. I'm not entirely happy with how the enterprise services are pretty expensive, but that's about it."

"The product could be more feature-rich."

"From an infrastructure standpoint, I believe it can be more secure in terms of availability."

"If I'm looking for something good in the cloud, I would want it to have better standard connectors."

"It's pay as you go, so you never know what your bill is going to be beforehand, and that's scary for customers. If you have someone who makes a mistake and the program's a loop that is running all night, you could receive a very expensive bill."

"The macro functions, though useful, are not totally user-friendly. Some people have difficulties in learning them."

"It needs strong support for social media, internet data, and native support for NoSQL."

"More integration is needed to improve the product for the future."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics cons

"The monitoring for the remodeling feature is very difficult to understand."

"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."

"I don't see SAP actively supporting the solution now...a better support from SAP would be appreciated."

"The licensing cost could be made better."

"Real-time processing isn't BW/4HANA's strongest point."

"From a technical perspective, it could be even more related to legacy systems. The connectivity requirement is quite high and requires systems that are up-to-date."

"There's the complexity in migration from BW to BW/4HANA, especially with data migration."

"SAP BW/4HANA can generally be less flexible than other tools, depending on how it is set up."

More SAP BW4HANA cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The computer and storage costs are totally separate which allows you to work independently or manage costs."

"The pricing is quite reasonable in comparison to other products."

"Pay for what you use"

"We chose the serverless option for the database which has saved us a lot of money. Our costs are approximately £600 per month."

"This solution starts at €1000.00 a month for just the basics and can go up to €300,000.00 per month for the fastest version."

"We only have to pay for what we use in the solution. It's easy for the customers. It's not more than some companies, not more than 300 to 400 users. They do not need to buy other license products, such as SAP B1, or analytics tools in the market, such as Tableau."

"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."

"Price is dependent of the use case of the customer. Customers are not likely to only use this as an individual platform/database, they are likely to bundle it with the Azure stack."

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics pricing and cost advice

"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."

"The solution is expensive."

"For some, the rates offered by SAP can be costly while for others it may seem cheap. The price ultimately depends on how you have negotiated your contract with SAP."

"The product is free if we have the ECC license."

"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."

"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."

"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."

"As an investment, the solution is very expensive."

More SAP BW4HANA pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

51%

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Computer Software Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...

What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?

We use an enterprise-level subscription for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. I would rate our satisfaction with the price around five, as I have not focused much on cost aspects presently.

What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?

One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?

We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses.

What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?

The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done.

Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Comparisons

Compared 16% of the time

Snowflake vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 13% of the time

Teradata vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Data Factory vs Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Compared 7% of the time

More Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Competitors

Snowflake vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 35% of the time

SQL Server vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 9% of the time

Amazon Redshift vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 9% of the time

SAP HANA vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 8% of the time

Teradata vs SAP BW4HANA

Compared 5% of the time

More SAP BW4HANA Competitors

Product Reports

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Download Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics product report

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics report

SAP BW4HANA

Download SAP BW4HANA product report

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics

SAP BW/4HANA

Overview

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an end-to-end analytics solution that successfully combines analytical services to merge big data analytics and enterprise data warehouses into a single unified platform. The solution can run intelligent distributed queries among nodes, and provides the ability to query both relational and non-relational data.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is built with these 4 components:

Synapse SQL
Spark
Synapse Pipeline
Studio

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Features

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics has many valuable key features, including:

Cloud Data Service: WIth Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can operate services (data analytics, machine learning, data warehousing, dashboarding, etc.) in a single workspace via the cloud.
Structured and unstructured data: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports both structured and unstructured data and allows you to manage relational and non-relational data - unlike data warehouses and lakes that tend to store them respectively.
Effective data storage: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers next-level data storage with high availability and different tiers.
Responsive data engine: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics uses Massive Parallel Processing (MPP) and is designed to handle large volumes of data and analytical workloads efficiently without any problems.
Several scripting languages: The solution provides language compatibility and supports different programming languages, such as Python, Java, Spark SQL, and Scala.
Query optimization: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics works well to facilitate limitless concurrency and performance optimization. It also simplifies workload management.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics Benefits

Some of the benefits of using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics include:

Database templates: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics offers industry-specific database templates that make it easy to combine and shape data.
Better business insights: With Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics you can expand discovery of insights from all your data and apply machine learning models to all your intelligent apps.
Reduce project development time: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics makes it possible to have a unified experience for developing end-to-end analytics, which reduces project development time significantly.
Eliminate data barriers: By using Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, you can perform analytics on operational and business apps data without data movement.
Advanced security: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics provides both advanced security and privacy features to ensure data protection.
Machine Learning: Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics integrates Azure Machine Learning, Azure Cognitive Services, and Power BI.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics users who are currently using the solution.

PeerSpot user Jael S., who is an Information Architect at Systems Analysis & Design Engineering, comments on her experience using the product, saying that it is “Scalable, intuitive, facilitates compliance and keeps your data secure”. She also says "We also like governance. It looks at what the requirements are for the company to identify the best way to ensure compliance is met when you move to the cloud."

Michel T., CHTO at Timp-iT, mentions that "the features most valuable are the simplicity, how easy it is to create a dashboard from different information systems."

A Senior Teradata Consultant at a tech services company says, "Microsoft provides both the platform and the data center, so you don't have to look for a cloud vendor. It saves you from having to deal with two vendors for the same task."

Microsoft

SAP BW4HANA is a data warehouse solution developed by SAP for businesses looking to analyze big data in real time. It is designed to run on the SAP HANA database, offering improved performance and optimized processing of large data sets. SAP BW/4HANA provides an array of advanced analytics capabilities, including predictive analytics, text analytics, and spatial data processing. It also offers a modern, intuitive user interface and streamlined data modeling and administration tools, making it easier for businesses to access, manage, and utilize their data.

SAP BW4HANA Features

SAP BW4HANA has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

In-memory data processing: The solution runs on the SAP HANA database, providing fast and efficient data processing.

Advanced analytics: SAP BW4HANA includes capabilities for predictive analytics, text analytics, and spatial data processing.

Data modeling and administration: The solution provides streamlined data modeling and administration tools for efficient data management.

Modern user interface: SAP BW4HAN is designed with a modern, intuitive user interface for easier data access and analysis.

Data warehousing optimization: The solution is optimized for big data warehousing, offering improved performance and scalability.

Integration with SAP ecosystem: SAP BW4HAN integrates with the SAP ecosystem, including SAP S/4HANA and SAP Cloud Platform, for seamless data exchange.

Real-time data processing: It supports real-time data processing and analysis, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions.

Data governance and security: With its robust data governance and security features, SAP BW4HAN can be used for secure data management and compliance.

Automated data loading: SAP BW4HAN supports automated data loading from various sources, including SAP and non-SAP systems.

Advanced data visualization: With its advanced data visualization capabilities, users can generate better data insights and make more informed business decisions.

SAP BW4HANA Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing SAP BW4HANA. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Improved data processing speed: Running on the SAP HANA database, SAP BW/4HANA provides fast and efficient data processing, resulting in improved performance and reduced downtime.

Streamlined data management: The solution's streamlined data modeling and administration tools make it easier for organizations to manage their data, improving overall efficiency and reducing the risk of errors.

Improved data governance: SAP BW/4HANA includes robust data governance and security features, helping organizations meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive data.

Cost savings: By optimizing data warehousing processes, SAP BW/4HANA helps organizations reduce costs and improve their bottom line.

Reviews from Real Users

SAP BW4HANA is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are its hierarchical alert slicing, real-time insights, and its ability to transform large amounts of data.

PeerSpot reviewer, Srivatsav A., SAP BW/4HANA Specialist at a government, is very happy with the solution. He explains, "You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."

“It has got wonderful features in terms of analyzing your production data, and it gives you real-time insight into productive maintenance. You can plan your budget, and you can map them against actuals. It gives you good insights on overall performance and processes,” says Amrit J., ERP Application Manager at an energy/utilities company.

In addition, a Technology Analyst at a tech services company mentions, "The most valuable feature is that we can transform a huge amount of data and apply business logic as per the requirements."

SAP

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe,

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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP BW4HANA