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Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP NetWeaver Business Ware...
Ranking in Data Warehouse
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is 3.2%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse is 2.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse3.2%
SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse2.2%
Other94.6%
Data Warehouse
 

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.
AK
Project Manager - Analytics at Mindsprint
Can transform data per clients' needs and can easily distribute reports to end users
I would recommend looking at all of the solutions currently available and then decide. I would not immediately suggest going for SAP NetWeaver. Being able to transform the data according to my requirements is a crucial feature; the phasing layers are helpful to distinguish data with respect to a specific project; analytics and reporting are very feasible; and the distribution of reports to the end users is also very easy. However, connectors need to be simplified, and technical support needs to be improved. Thus, on a scale from one to ten, I would rate SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse at eight.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This is a great product for big data analytics as it can challenge other MPPs quite well."
"This is a solution that has good performance and I recommend it."
"The most valuable feature is that we can deploy directly to the production environment, rather than having to go through a development environment first."
"It performs very well overall."
"​It has allowed fast daily loads and analysis of millions of rows of data, which eventually moved to near real-time.​"
"MPP processing gives us the ability to distribute large data sets across nodes."
"Most features on the SQL Server are quite useful to us."
"With PDW’s Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) design, queries run in minutes instead of hours, and in seconds instead of minutes in comparison to Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) databases."
"Transformation is a valuable feature of SAP NetWeaver. I can transform the data as per my needs or my client's needs. For example, flat tables can be transformed with respect to our requirements to combine multiple modules into one single table, and we can derive analytics."
"Prior to implementing SAP, I used some local ERPs but finally, I found this to be the most powerful platform."
"This is a very robust and efficient product, and it's very powerful, in particular when it comes to data management in the SAP system."
"Data cleansed and harmonization. It provides us with proof of data, we can centralize all of the information, check it, and then provide the information to our users."
"It's an excellent over-all tool for managers to analyze their business."
"Data modeling is a valuable feature."
"Queries based on the Data warehouse have enabled the Service department of the organization analyze data deeply and get insights into daily inflow and revenue as well as analyze data over time periods, various models, model years, by customer segment, etc."
"We are an airline and use the system for data modeling and data warehousing, and we implement it for time performance and feedback analysis."
 

Cons

"Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse is excellent but very expensive. Working on the pricing could make it a better solution."
"SQL installation is pretty tricky. The scalability and customer support also should be improved."
"The only issue with the product is that the process is very slow when we have a huge amount of data."
"This solution would be improved with an option for in-memory data analysis."
"A major issue is with table statistics. Sometimes the statistics are not refreshed correctly, which causes issues for us."
"In the future I would love to see a slightly better automation engine, just for the data integration layer, to make it slightly easier for end-users or junior developers to get involved in incremental updating."
"We'd like to see it be a bit more compatible with other solutions."
"The patch releases are a concern. For a customer with tons of servers, frequent patches lead to required reboots, which interrupts business."
"Connectors are complex, and it is difficult to understand or know which connector should be used. For instance, if I want to connect APIs, I will not be able to do it directly. I would have to go to the portal integration to get the data. Therefore, having simplified connectors will make things much easier."
"The setup needs skilled resources in SAP BW. A lack of trained resources can create serious problems."
"Design and modeling could be simplified."
"The program is difficult to learn to use"
"The solution could be improved by simplifying the modeling and the design. We're faced with too many options and too many object types."
"The complexity of this data warehouse application is huge and makes it tough to manage and deploy it. In general, it requires a lot of know-how and time which makes it expensive to deliver fast answers."
"People using SAP BW have to undergo some training to be able to use the product. Complexity can be reduced and could be made a bit more user-friendly."
"It is difficult when your native language is not English. It is difficult for us to explain our issue and also difficult for the technical team to explain a resolution to us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cost-effective."
"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'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."
"They offer an annual subscription. The pricing depends on the size of the environments."
"Technical support is an additional fee and is expensive."
"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."
"Pricing is based on the number of user IDs and tyhe user ID works across a suite of products."
"The licensing cost is high for SAP NetWeaver compared to that for other products."
"All SAP products are expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
No data available
 

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 Business3
Large Enterprise7
 

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.
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Microsoft PDW, SQL Server Data Warehouse, Microsoft SQL Server Parallel Data Warehouse, MS Parallel Data Warehouse
NetWeaver Business Warehouse, NetWeaver BusinessObjects Warehouse
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Auckland Transport, Erste Bank Group, Urban Software Institute, NJVC, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe
EMC Corporation, Takisada-Osaka Co. Ltd., Eldorado, Mozzart, The VELUX Group, AOK Bundesverband, Hilti Group, Nissha Printing Company Ltd., Asian Paints, Aareal Bank Group, Magazine zum Globus (Migros Group)
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Parallel Data Warehouse vs. SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,645 professionals have used our research since 2012.