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SAP Data Services pros and cons

Vendor: SAP
4.0 out of 5

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

SAP Data Services offers powerful data extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) capabilities, making it highly efficient for data processing tasks.
Integration capabilities with both SAP and non-SAP systems are robust, facilitating seamless data migration and interplay between various platforms.
The built-in SQL foundation allows for straightforward code writing and smooth database connectivity, enhancing the ease of use for developers.
SAP HANA’s rapid processing is a standout feature, particularly beneficial for in-memory computing requirements.
SAP Data Services is praised for its comprehensive logging and data validation capabilities, supporting enhanced data management protocols.

CONS

Scheduling of jobs in sequence is not available, making the process tedious without a suitable tool.
Error messages lack detailed descriptions and the debugger is ineffective compared to other solutions like Talend.
The initial setup is complex and newer feature integration is lagging behind company acquisitions.
Integration with various systems and connectivity with more source and target databases require improvement.
Pricing is on the higher side with confusing options, and the support team lacks adequate knowledge and timely assistance.
 

SAP Data Services Pros review quotes

it_user155007 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 20, 2014
It helps our organization and our clients achieve its goals and objectives by having the right information at the right time and at the right people.
it_user157611 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Leader with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 21, 2014
From my point of view, Dataservices is a good ETL choice if there are SAP systems in the sources or the targets (it can help to make BW transformations much easier).
it_user157620 - PeerSpot reviewer
Microstrategy Developer Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 21, 2014
The technical support from SAP was quick and technically very clear.
Learn what your peers think about SAP Data Services. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user154452 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 21, 2014
Doing De-Deduplication of data for Data Cleansing is much easier and has been revolutionised with Data Services, especially used in conjunction with SAP Information Stewards.
it_user157926 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Engineer at a religious institution with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 23, 2014
The graphical user interface and powerful SQL generation capabilities make the coding of ETL flows very easy and efficient.
it_user154632 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - Customer Intelligence at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 26, 2014
The product has fantastic data quality options and matching/consolidation features, and the ETL is very powerful and easy to use.
it_user158865 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business System Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 27, 2014
Scalability is good in extending the features in terms of data warehouse scalability.
it_user158871 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2014
It is a very great tool to be used for ETL process.
it_user157935 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Data and Analytics at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Oct 28, 2014
We now have a single ETL tool for all data integration.
it_user162117 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Nov 11, 2014
Customer Service: 100% as no manual intervention is required once the solution is implemented.
 

SAP Data Services Cons review quotes

it_user155007 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Oct 20, 2014
I think it has a little trouble handling more users running parallel batch jobs in one job server but minimal.
it_user157611 - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Leader with 5,001-10,000 employees
Oct 21, 2014
We used a different repository for every consultant and it created problems to maintain the final version of each dataflow in every user.
it_user157620 - PeerSpot reviewer
Microstrategy Developer Specialist at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 21, 2014
The implementation was good from a technical perspective, but there were few flaws in the business logic which the third party consulting team should have gained from the in-house business analysts.
Learn what your peers think about SAP Data Services. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user154452 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Oct 21, 2014
Sometimes when upgrading the product, the program corrupts and needs to be completely removed. It wastes a lot of time.
it_user157926 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Engineer at a religious institution with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 23, 2014
While Data Services performs very well when dealing with relational structures and to a lesser degree with delimited files, there is significant room from improvement with the integration with web services and related data formats (XML, JSON, etc.).
it_user154632 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director - Customer Intelligence at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 26, 2014
Error logging is very cryptic.
it_user158865 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business System Analyst at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 27, 2014
Sudden crashing of DS making unsaved changes lost, happens usually when logged in for a long amount of time.
it_user158871 - PeerSpot reviewer
Business Intelligence Consultant at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Oct 28, 2014
There are a lot of version improvements in the years and makes it hard to sync up with older versions of the same tool.
it_user157935 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Data and Analytics at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Oct 28, 2014
Technical Support: Not good enough.
it_user162117 - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Nov 11, 2014
When working with custom functions, many times it fails to execute (from 4.0 onwards) because of the data types mismatch errors.