Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (10th)
SAP Business Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Bhadra - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides flexible data handling and integrates easily but requires less frequent patch releases
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse keeps giving updates and new features. In my first consultancy, I transitioned a mortgage company from Oracle OBIEE to Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse to greatly reduce the mortgage approval time. There's a feature that allows users to set alerts on triggers within reports, enabling timely actions on pending applications and effectively reducing waiting time. It extracts data from the ERP system, and we are doing extensive data analytics. The system handles target marketing for a company which does 85 to 90% of its business in wholesale. We have a variety of clients from mom-and-pop stores to big box stores, and we have intermediaries. We sell through approximately 13 retail channels including Etsy, our retail website, Faire, Wayfair, and Walmart. Each channel requires different types of inventory updates and packaging, which is managed automatically. A significant amount of development is done on Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse where all these processes are automatically fed out and updated. We also conduct inventory analysis and aging analysis. We identify seasonal buyers, track their purchasing habits, and auto-trigger campaigns for them, sometimes offering discounts on various items. We've found that combining top-selling items with non-selling items can lead to increased sales, as people often buy additional items when they find one on sale.
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution enables seamless connection, but it is expensive, and the information is one day old
Out-of-the-box reports are very useful. The product provides a seamless connection between the SAP operation system and the data warehouse. It also moves the data from the operating system to the data warehouse in a 3D format. The report generation is easy. It’s a drag-and-drop process. People who want to do a project need not reinvent the wheel. Everything is designed, built, and delivered out of the box. All we have to do is interact with the customers to understand the kind of reports they need and check whether they are already available in the out-of-the-box report. If they are available, we just have to enable them and give the URLs to the customers. The Integration between the SAP operating system and data warehouse is excellent. The UI is good.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is very strong, scalable, and has tons of features."
"The most valuable features are the performance and usability."
"The solution has been reliable."
"Collecting the data through SSIS packages from different sources and putting them all in one data repository is the most powerful thing. While others have this feature, they don't have the simplicity or ease of use when getting a resource and knowing everything about it."
"We can store the data in a data lake for a very low cost."
"Data collection and reporting are valuable features of the solution."
"​It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time.​"
"One of the most important features is the ease of using MS SQL."
"SAP Business Warehouse is a scalable solution."
"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."
"The product is very stable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the advanced structuring of data capabilities. You can get different structures of data to suit your needs."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"The solution has functionality that makes it easy for end-users to readily extract data directly from Business Warehouse into Excel and carry on their analysis on their own."
"The most useful feature has been he ability to feed data into multiple systems in various formats."
"Predominantly, our company uses SAP Business Warehouse for reporting purposes across various departments, especially for managers to gain a quick understanding of their current standing and make informed decisions."
 

Cons

"I think that the error messages need to be made more specific."
"The query is slow if we don't optimize it."
"The product scalability needs improvement."
"It needs more compatibility with common BI tools."
"​Concurrent queries are limited to 32, making it more of a data storage mechanism instead of an active DWH solution."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."
"If the database is large with a lot of columns then it is difficult to clean the data."
"It takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed when using SAP Business Warehouse."
"What I'd like improved in SAP Business Warehouse is its setup. It could be more flexible, and it could be a configuration-based setup."
"In the next release, my suggestion would be to have user-friendly interfaces and performance issues be addressed."
"I get all the information quickly, but it is one day old."
"A few things which are missing include the visualization of reports. That's where your costs and licensing become heavy. When it comes to this database compared Microsoft Warehouse, it's an expensive solution."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"SAP Business Warehouse could integrate better with other ETL tools."
"The problem with BW, and the factor that differentiated it from the original BW, is that you only get limited functionality with your runtime license. So, you have to pay extra for extracting data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cost-effective."
"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."
"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."
"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."
"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."
"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"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 solution is quite expensive."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"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."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Warehouse solutions are best for your needs.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
25%
Insurance Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Retailer
9%
Government
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time.
What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?
The patch releases are a concern. For a customer with tons of servers, frequent patches lead to required reboots, which interrupts business. It would be better to release patches less frequently, m...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the background job ODS. Eventually, we moved away from SAP Business Warehouse and bo...
 

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 Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: August 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.