SAP Data Services Reviews

We use Data Services for data integration, MDM, quality assurance, etc.

I like how SAP Data Services links reporting and data integration. That's what's most interesting. You also have the opportunity to leverage the power of the Data Services server.

I want some more business intelligence applications. People need to know more and more about data, including the transformation rules, etc. Informatica is a better product for data cataloging. SAP should update the data catalog. 

We've used SAP Data Services for around 15 years.

SAP Data Services is stable. 

SAP support is extremely helpful, and SAP Data Services is widely used, so it's easy to find a third-party specialist. It's not the same with Talend. I rate SAP support eight out of 10. 

Positive

We also use Informatica PowerCenter, but it's harder to find an Informatica consultant. SAP is more widely used.

You need some specialized knowledge about SAP tools before the setup. 

Informatica and SAP Data Services are both pricey for a small business. We may have to find another solution that's on the cloud. The license itself isn't the most expensive part. We have to pay for servers, consultants, etc. 

I rate SAP Data Services nine out of 10. 

Our primary use for this solution is just, one-hundred percent, ERP purposes. We were typically Business Intelligence guys and we were not focusing on dealing with the data in-house. After the acquisition of this product, we were led to believe that it was a good business development opportunity for us as well and that we could become a candidate for data analysis projects. Because of the fact that we were based in Istanbul, we quickly became number one in the region for data analysis projects. We used this product in the telecom business. A few of these companies we worked with are still using the solution.

After discovering and deploying this product for our own use in data analysis, we were able to branch out and use it to increase our product line and deploy for other organizations.

The solution helps us to collect and analyze data, and this is the most valuable feature for us. When we first used data services right after  SAP acquisition (previously Acta), we knew that we could deal with DWH projects much more easier way using the tool. Moreover, we were also sure that strong integration with BusinessObjects BI platform was also going to help us for impack analysis, automatic business layer creation etc. 

An area that seems to need to be improved in this product is that it isn't completely ready to compete as it should in the market. Because of some more recent acquisitions to enhance functionality, the product parts are not one-hundred percent integrated. Because some of the integration is still missing, it seems incomplete. People with the product should be able to use most features, generally. The main differentiation in the past product from where it is now is that the product feels like it was integrated. After the acquisitions, things became more complicated. In SAP, the added products and features lack better integration and that impacts things like the metadata. So that is why I believe it can be improved. It's a GUI issue, mostly.

I'm sure this next suggestion is already done to some extent in SAP because SAP is already HANA but it seems SAP — as one of the software giants — is not making the most of their advantage to position data services as a stand-alone product. This is a problem in the market for greater acceptance, but maybe it's the strategy that SAP has chosen. But I believe that it could do better that way and increase the speed of performance. For example, some of the functionality might sit in memory. It would be using the HANA advantage, for example, but without the service to HANA. So maybe we limit certain functionality to HANA. I believe that some of the jobs with higher priority can be done in the memory of the data services which could be differentiating the product from the rest of the market more clearly.

The product is quite stable and quite scalable. Because of our market, some companies are not convinced that these features can possibly be so good, and the cost is not helping to market the product. They want to see an example of how it is scalable. We had telecom data in our last project, and we know it works fine and we haven't had any problem. But somehow this kind of negative impression is common in our market. I believe this is just because of a lack of knowledge and not based on reality.

In the past, we have had about twenty to twenty-five users in the company. We had five to seven developers who were doing our development. On the customer side, we didn't have more than three or four for the development of external projects.

I think it may be that SAP can improve in the area of customer support because SAP is historically a data solution company. Unfortunately, they can open themselves up to better or broader product support and that this is not up to a desirable level in the marketplace. I believe the product as a whole should be improved much more to support a wider range of devices and clients.

Before using SAP, we were using SSIS — the Microsoft product. Of course, the Microsoft product is a simple product. At some point, we realized that it was not powerful enough, and, feeling discouraged, we evolved to using a better product.

Just last week we installed data services to impact data sharing in one of the bigger companies we work for and from an implementation point of view, the ease of setup is okay, I believe.

To be honest, because of the economic situation we are in we always install on-premises. This is because of the Turkish market and some telecom companies aren't quite ready to elect to deploy on the cloud. So the business environment here is not ready yet.

We do our own installations and install for other companies.

I'm not up to date about the pricing for the past three years as it is not my concern in the business, but I can advise users on some things. Since data services are not usually positioned as a stand-alone product in the telecom sector, I believe that it should be. The price should be segmented with attention to the market with some variety in enterprise packages to offer more marketing opportunities. In the past, they had some kind of pricing packaging coming from the distribution center which was definitely an advantage in the market and that's why we were able to get more than twenty projects in the past, including staying within the enterprise market. Then after that time, the pricing changed. Unfortunately, of course, SAP tried to increase revenue and the prices went up. But again, they are losing the market against products like Microsoft SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services). It is integration services, and it's also a good product for a lot of people, but in my opinion, it's not as good as SAP data services. Because of the price, the game now has changed and there is more competition.

On a scale from one to ten, when one is the worst and ten is the best, I think I would rate SAP Data Services BI a nine out of ten. For me, a product needs to be perfect to rate as a ten. I couldn't even give a ten to any product because I haven't seen any product that is perfect. My true feeling is that it is between eight and nine, but if I have to say eight or nine, I choose nine.

I can recommend SAP as a product because the negative side of the product usually comes from different approaches to development. In a way, this is a kind of marketing because some developers prefer to use one type of development where they feel comfortable and think data services can be implemented properly. I believe there are better data services approaches which are much more of an advantage in the long run for projects, but of course, people don't always project the best long-term data approach because they expect short term results.

I primarily use Data Services as a data service and ETL tool.

Data Services' best features are its robustness and plug-and-play integration with other SAP applications. It's also very user- and developer-friendly and has a huge, experienced, and well-informed user community.

In the future, Data Services should offer a cloud version.

I've been using Data Services for between six and seven years.

Data Services' stability is top-notch.

Data Services' scalability is good and can be done vertically and horizontally.

SAP's tech support is okay.

I previously used Informatica, but there were performance issues with it.

The initial setup is not straightforward. You need experience with data services, and if you're upgrading or migrating, you'll need a consultant to help. A brand-new installation takes a day or two, but migration will take longer. However, one good thing is that SAP provides the white papers for their products on their website, so you can find the installation guides there.

We've seen a good ROI from Data Services.

If you're using any SAP application, you shouldn't skip using Data Services. I would give Data Services a rating of eight out of ten.

We use it in at least two ways. One area is data migration from several legacy systems, and the second scenario is data quality. We use it, together with another tool that is in the same package, for cleansing.

It's easy to understand and deploy. It's easy to create new applications, and depending on the complexity of the application, it is easy to deploy the new requirements.

Some of the jobs that are built within Data Services require local files, and during initial deployment, those local files cannot be transported between machines simply because of security issues.

There are no issues from a technical point of view, and the issues are from a security point of view. In this scenario, we need to be sure that we have all of the files in the same centralized environment in order to get one big server to fulfill several or many developers.

I've been working with SAP Data Services since 2008.

It is a stable solution.

You can add a lot of different job servers in order to get a network. It is called grid computing. We can deploy pieces of the work in several servers in order to improve the performance.

I would give an overall rating of nine to technical support.

Positive

The initial deployment is usually easy if you have one machine/one box deployed. However, if you have a network in which there are several job servers, then it is a little bit complex.

The maintenance is not complex. One morning session is enough to upgrade the tool itself.

At the entry level, if you're using it only for data integration, it is a little bit cheap. However, for large organizations it can be expensive. There are additional costs apart from the license.

I have experience with SSIS from Microsoft and DataStage from IBM. I've grown with SAP Data Services, and even though there are other features that I can use in other tools, I am able to build workarounds within SAP Data Services and get the same results.

It's easy to learn, and you can start with the training courses provided within the tool and follow them. Because I've used this tool for a long time, I would give it a rating of ten out of ten.

The maintenance of data services is the solution's most valuable feature.

The solution should allow for better integration with other analysis tools. It needs to integrate better specifically with big data and other management solutions.

The pricing of the solution should be improved.

I've been using the solution for seven years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support could be a bit better. We haven't been completely satisfied with them.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We load data from databases into our data warehouse.

The most valuable feature is the ETL functionality.

Dealing with the REST API is not easy with Data Services.

It is mandatory to have a WADL file and it is difficult to find this file and set it up.

I would like to see a better connection with the API and the use of XML files.

It's an ETL that is very good with relational databases but not as good with files and semi-structured files. 

Also, the support could be better.

I have been working with SAP Data Services for 15 years.

We have a SaaS company doing level one support.

I have not had an exchange with SAP support. I deal with my local support, and when there is a problem, they escalate the issue to SAP technical support. 

I don't deal with SAP support directly.

Previously, I had used another ETL solution.

The initial setup was straightforward and easy to complete.

The price is very reasonable.

I would rate SAP Data Services an eight out of ten.

It is a very widely used tool. We mostly use it for integration purposes between various systems and for data migration. One of the recent use cases is about the AWS database that we are trying to establish. We need the data from various on-premise systems, and SAP is one of them, which is majorly used. We want to put that data into our data lake.

We are not using the cataloging and metadata features much. We have a separate data cataloging tool.

Its integration capabilities and the data migration capabilities are the most valuable. It is very good for SAP and non-SAP tools. It has very good integration with SAP, but it also has the capabilities to connect to other systems. We find it very helpful and stable.

The skillset of data engineers matters a bit to use all the functionality of this solution. Otherwise, the delivery speed won't be faster. 

I have been using this solution for eight to ten years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is scalable.

We are getting responses from them. There were one or two issues that were very critical, and we got the needed attention from them. 

We also have other ETL tools, such as Informatica, that are being used in other teams, but SAP Data Services is the main solution that we are using. I have not heard any complaints about it.

We, fortunately, have a very good team in our organization, which makes it easy for us to implement.

It is a part of an enterprise agreement. There is another department that handles its maintenance.

Its pricing is as per the enterprise agreement and not a concern for us.

Overall, we have good experience and feedback. We have very skilled engineers in our team, and I haven't heard any kind of negative feedback about this solution.

I would rate SAP Data Services an eight out of ten.

The easy integration with SAP Systems and the possibility to create a dataflow which is executed directly in the SAP system source.

With the dataflows created in Dataservices, the customer could load and consolidate data from three different offices (USA, Europe and Argentina) using the same dataflows for every company.

We used a different repository for every consultant and it created problems to maintain the final version of each dataflow in every user. I think there should exist a common repository (as well as in BO reporting suite tools) and give the different accesses via authorization roles.

I used it for 10 months.

The biggest problem was the maintenance of difference repositories.

The stability problems were caused by hardware configuration. My doubt is if Dataservice is difficult to configure or there was a lack of knowledge in the Basis team.

No, we didn't. Actually the dataflows constructed were completely scalable.

No, in that project we only used BO Dataservices.

I think it is easy to use. When we started to use it we had never worked with Dataservices and we could adapt to it easily because the main functions are similar to other tools.

The implementation was with a vendor team. Actually I was the project manager of the vendor and the level of expertise in ETL projects was high but it was our first experience with DataServices.

We only had the net margin of the project construction and it was about 15%.

As the person in charge of the consultancy, we didn’t have costs.

Before working with Dataservices I had worked with other solutions, but in this project we had no choice of another tool. Anyway, I think that Dataservices was a good choice because every source was SAP.

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). In general I would say that it is very important to have a good source and destination definition before implementing anything, as well as in any other ETL tool.