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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs SAP Business Warehouse 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

Microsoft Parallel Data War...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
SAP Business Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (15th)
 

Featured Reviews

HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Smart Data-Driven Solutions
Has handled large volumes of data effectively but still needs cost flexibility
There could be improvements on the cost side of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse because it is still considered to be quite expensive by a lot of users, and many companies are not interested in solutions with parallel data warehousing due to this expense. Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement. Additionally, I have not worked recently with it, so I don't know if this feature already exists, but if it doesn't, having an elastic feature that adjusts the service's power dynamically based on the workload would be beneficial instead of fixing the power at a specific level.
VishnuReddy2 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consulting Enterprise Architect at R2V2.ai
Have encountered complexity with programming language while working on large-scale data integration and have experienced improved governance and reporting
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehouse, I would to see added features that simplify the product very well now. They are coming up with a terminology called SAP BDC where they are consolidating their tools, SAP Data Sphere for integration and SAP BW for the ETL and warehousing parts, and SAP Analytics Cloud. They are packaging these three features and calling it Business Data Cloud; they are fully coming on the cloud. We have to wait and watch; they have been speaking about BW/4HANA for quite some time now, but the customers or clients I work with are not finding great interest and it was seen as a candidate for evaluation. I have seen people looking at the latest technologies who are already on cloud who started building from scratch on cloud, such as Snowflake or Databricks, which can process very huge amounts of data and also address unstructured data, where SAP lags behind in cases where there is a need to bring in unstructured data. I have worked with SAP Data Intelligence, which earlier used to be called SAP Data Hub. The unstructured data is not greatly handled in SAP at this point in time.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The biggest lessons I've learned through the years are that Microsoft is probably the largest research company there is, so people should stick to people that know what they're doing, and Microsoft definitely has some very, very capable people designing these products, and that's probably why I've stayed with Microsoft so long."
"We can store the data in a data lake for a very low cost."
"It is a very stable database."
"Data collection and reporting are valuable features of the solution."
"It performs very well overall."
"The data transmissions between the data models is the most valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is performance."
"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."
"The most valuable feature of SAP Business Warehouse is transformation, where I extract data from different sources, particularly the raw data. Then I do some transformations and store that in a format that allows me to do reporting easily."
"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
"BW is our bread and butter."
"Technical support is very good, and we were very satisfied with their level of support when we needed it."
"Having the integration with the reporting tool which is provided by SAP is great."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"The features that I have found most valuable are its capabilities to connect to Excel and to slice and dice."
"I think BW is one of the best products at the moment."
 

Cons

"It needs more compatibility with common BI tools."
"If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data."
"Sometimes, the product requires rolling back to its previous version during a software update. This particular area could be enhanced."
"Some compatibility issues occur during deployment, so we need to build the product from scratch for some features."
"It could offer more development across the solution."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"We find the cost of the solution to be a little high."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"I would for sure like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"From a support perspective, SAP Business Warehouse is quite a complex module."
"Areas for improvement in SAP Business Warehouse include enhancing scheduling and monitoring tools, as well as improving communication about hidden features to make them more accessible to users."
"The way the data is stored is kind of rigid in SAP BW as a product."
"So far, the initial setup process in our company has not been easy enough for us to understand."
"You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy."
"They should reduce the product’s installation package size for easier downloading."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"The solution is cost-effective."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"Microsoft has an agreement with the government in our country, so our customers get their licensing costs from the Ministry. Whenever we work with any government, company, or government institute, which is mainly what we are doing, that license comes directly from the Ministry of Technology and Information."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."
"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"The solution is quite expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
24%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
11%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The pricing could be better; I think it actually just went up.
What is your primary use case for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The basic use case for us is virtual machines. In real estate, we use it for our operations. They handle large data sets well, and the performance is good during those times.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The pricing for SAP Business Warehouse is on the expensive side. I am not sure about the current costing model as such. In my experience on cloud, I did not use BW HANA Cloud. I used the cloud prod...
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
The only complexity I find with the product is the programming language; people find it harder, but once you know the language, it's not that difficult. Regarding the future of SAP Business Warehou...
What is your primary use case for SAP Business Warehouse?
I am using SAP Business Warehouse in my organization for data warehousing as well as an ETL tool. Integration with SAP Business Warehouse's ETL tools is not straightforward. Integration with SAP ER...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Snowflake Computing, Teradata, Oracle and others in Data Warehouse. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.