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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs SAP BW4HANA vs Teradata 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Most are satisfied with ROI, acknowledging its benefits, though improvements are possible, as it efficiently enhances backend operations.
Sentiment score
7.7
SAP BW4HANA centralizes data, enhances productivity and insights, with ROI expected in three to five years.
Sentiment score
8.1
Teradata boosts analytics speed over 100%, enhancing customer service and satisfaction, with high ROI and user approval.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.7
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse support is responsive and expert, though users sometimes need online resources for faster solutions.
Sentiment score
5.6
SAP BW4HANA support receives mixed reviews, praised for technical assistance but criticized for variable response times and delays.
Sentiment score
7.1
Teradata's customer service is praised for expertise but criticized for delays, with ratings ranging from 6 to 10 out of 10.
I would rate my experience with technical support around six on a scale of 1 to 10 because I have not had a particular experience with technical support.
In the meantime, I found solutions independently and provided two solutions to my client.
The technical support from Teradata is quite advanced.
Customer support is very good, rated eight out of ten under our essential agreement.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.2
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse excels in scalability, integration, and expandability, though improvements are needed for large data sets.
Sentiment score
7.1
SAP BW4HANA provides strong scalability through horizontal and vertical scaling, with positive user feedback despite budgeting challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
Teradata is praised for its scalability, speed, and flexibility, despite some complexity and cost challenges in cloud environments.
I give the scalability an eight out of ten, indicating it scales well for our needs.
As a consultant, we hire additional programmers when we need to scale up certain major projects.
This expansion can occur without incurring downtime or taking systems offline.
Scalability is complex as you need to purchase a license and coordinate with Teradata for additional disk space and CPU.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is praised for its stability, reliability, and quick issue resolution, despite time-consuming extensive dataset processing.
Sentiment score
7.6
SAP BW4HANA is stable and reliable but faces scalability challenges with large datasets and needs more cloud-orientation.
Sentiment score
8.4
Teradata excels in stability with minimal downtime, robust architecture, 99.9% uptime, and reliable performance, despite minor large dataset issues.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is stable for us because it is built on SQL Server.
The workload management and software maturity provide a reliable system.
I find the stability to be almost a ten out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse presents complexity, compatibility challenges, performance issues, high costs, and requires improved in-memory analysis and updates.
SAP BW4HANA struggles with complexity, integration issues, high costs, a steep learning curve, and limited customization and support.
Teradata users seek better transaction processing, enhanced scalability, modern interface, cloud focus, advanced analytics, and improved support and documentation.
Addressing the cost would be the number one area for improvement.
It would be better to release patches less frequently, maybe once a month or once every two months.
The ETL designing process could be optimized for better efficiency.
Integration needs improvement.
Unlike SQL and Oracle, which have in-built replication capabilities, we don't have similar functionality with Teradata.
 

Setup Cost

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse's pricing varies by needs; Azure integration can be cost-effective, but technical support costs extra.
SAP BW4HANA is costly, with high migration and certification fees, affordable for large enterprises but expensive for smaller ones.
Teradata's high cost is justified by its superior performance, competitive total ownership costs, and flexible pricing models.
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is very expensive.
The certification cost for SAP BW4HANA in 2025 is expected to be one lakh forty thousand.
Teradata is much more expensive than SQL, which is well-performed and cheaper.
Initially, it may seem expensive compared to similar cloud databases, however, it offers significant value in performance, stability, and overall output once in use.
 

Valuable Features

Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse offers performance, integration, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness for large data management and business intelligence.
SAP BW4HANA offers flexible, efficient data management and real-time analytics, featuring user-friendly interfaces and strong integration with SAP ERP.
Teradata offers efficient, scalable data management with fast query performance, robust security, automation, and cloud flexibility for businesses.
The columnstore index enhances data query performance by using less space and achieving faster performance than general indexing.
The biggest advantage of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is the possibility to stop or pause the service because it can be very expensive.
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.
The best features include the ability to create data sources directly on tables, and perform mapping without creating info objects.
The data mover is valuable over the last two years as it allows us to achieve data replication to our disaster recovery systems.
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 3.9%, down from 4.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Teradata is 13.2%, down from 16.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Teradata13.2%
SAP BW4HANA3.9%
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse1.4%
Other81.5%
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

HassanFatemi - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Csaba Grünblatt - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
RajeshKumar25 - PeerSpot reviewer
Harnessing advanced parallelism for top performance while embracing cloud trends
Teradata is primarily used for data warehousing across all customers. My clients have built-in applications that use Teradata, and their use varies from customer to customer, depending on the industry and database size. The primary function is as an OLAP analytical ecosystem Scalability is…
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Comparison Review

it_user232068 - PeerSpot reviewer
Aug 5, 2015
Netezza vs. Teradata
Original published at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/should-i-choose-net Two leading Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) architectures for Data Warehousing (DW) are IBM PureData System for Analytics (formerly Netezza) and Teradata. I thought talking about the similarities and differences…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Insurance Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Performing Arts
6%
Manufacturing Company
16%
Retailer
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise27
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business25
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise49
 

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, whi...
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 ac...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?
The certification cost is extremely high. I completed certification for $40,000. The certification cost for SAP BW4HA...
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
Integration needs improvement. In reporting, I am not comfortable with the creation of variables, and some calculatio...
Comparing Teradata and Oracle Database, which product do you think is better and why?
I have spoken to my colleagues about this comparison and in our collective opinion, the reason why some people may d...
Which companies use Teradata and who is it most suitable for?
Before my organization implemented this solution, we researched which big brands were using Teradata, so we knew if ...
Is Teradata a difficult solution to work with?
Teradata is not a difficult product to work with, especially since they offer you technical support at all levels if ...
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
SAP BW/4HANA
IntelliFlex, Aster Data Map Reduce, , QueryGrid, Customer Interaction Manager, Digital Marketing Center, Data Mover, Data Stream Architecture
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
Information Not Available
Netflix
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