Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs SAP Business Warehouse comparison

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. SAP Business Warehouse

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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 Parallel Data War...

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Data Warehouse (12th)

SAP Business Warehouse

Average Rating

7.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)

Featured Reviews

HassanFatemi

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.

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VishnuReddy2

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.

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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 interface is very user-friendly."

"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."

"I am very satisfied with the customer service/technical support."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"It is a very stable database."

"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse provides good firewall processing in terms of response time."

"Tools like the BI and SAS are excellent."

"The biggest advantage of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is the possibility to stop or pause the service because it can be very expensive, and the ability to pause the service when I don't use it is probably the main feature, along with the possibility to handle huge amounts of data, which is quite an interesting capability of the service."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse pros

"The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us."

"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is that it's a seamless integration platform. A valuable feature in the tool is the monitoring alert that makes you aware of what process chain has failed. There's no manual monitoring required if you have configured an alert system, so the process chain can run in the background, and you can get alerts about it. The functionalities I find good in SAP Business Warehouse are alerting and monitoring. If you have configured the tool and have integrated it with SAP Solution Manager, then it's a good product to use."

"Out-of-the-box reports are very useful."

"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."

"The warehouse is the solution's most valuable feature."

"The best features of SAP Business Warehouse that I am fond of are how this technology handles navigational attributes and the hierarchy; these are two interesting features."

"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."

"SAP Business Warehouse is a scalable solution."

More SAP Business Warehouse pros

Cons

"They need to incorporate a machine learning engine."

"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."

"The query is slow if we don't optimize it."

"The product does not have all of the features that the native products have."

"The solution is expensive and has room for improvement."

"It could offer more development across the solution."

"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."

"The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency."

More Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse cons

"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."

"The solution should be more open to the cloud."

"The advanced structuring can be complicated and the interface is not very intuitive."

"There is room for improvement from a technical perspective."

"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."

"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."

"Integration with SAP Business Warehouse's ETL tools is not straightforward."

"The solution could offer better connectivity with other databases."

More SAP Business Warehouse cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool could be expensive if we need to manage a lot of data."

"The solution's pricing is fairly decent for organizations with huge data sizes."

"I think the program is well-priced compared to the other offerings that are out in the market."

"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 solution is cost-effective."

"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."

"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."

"All the features that we use do not require any additional subscription or yearly fees."

"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."

"Overall, the pricing is not fixed 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."

"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."

"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."

"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

Insurance Company

13%

University

Performing Arts

Manufacturing Company

13%

Retailer

10%

Energy/Utilities Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	22

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	8
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	15

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.

What needs improvement with Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse?

What do you like most about SAP Business Warehouse?

Out-of-the-box reports are very useful.

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?

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Product Reports

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse

Download Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse product report

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse report

SAP Business Warehouse

Download SAP Business Warehouse product report

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse

No data available

Overview

The traditional structured relational data warehouse was never designed to handle the volume of exponential data growth, the variety of semi-structured and unstructured data types, or the velocity of real time data processing. Microsoft's SQL Server data warehouse solution integrates your traditional data warehouse with non-relational data and it can handle data of all sizes and types, with real-time performance.

Microsoft

Reporting, analysis and interpretation of business data are crucial to preserve and enhance the competitive edge of companies by optimizing processes and enabling them to react quickly and in line with market needs. SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) provides tools and functions that enable companies to attain these goals. In SAP BW, you can integrate, transform, and consolidate relevant business information from productive SAP applications and external data sources. SAP BW provides you with a high-performance infrastructure that helps you evaluate and interpret data. Decision makers can make well-founded decisions and identify target-orientated activities on the basis of the analyzed data.

SAP

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

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. SAP Business Warehouse