What is SAP Datasphere?

SAP Datasphere is the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud (DWC). Datasphere retains the core capabilities of DWC while introducing advanced data integration, cataloging, and semantic modeling features. SAP’s commitment to innovation will continue with a roadmap for ongoing enhancements.

SAP Datasphere combines SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and SAP Data Intelligence Cloud as integral components of SAP BTP. This is exciting news for all our customers. Existing SAP Data Warehouse Cloud users gain immediate access to expanded features, while both user groups benefit from upcoming innovations and simplified landscape opportunities.

Why SAP Datasphere?

One of the challenges businesses face today is the need for agility and freedom to access data and address business needs.

With classic data warehouse solutions such as SAP BW (Business Warehouse), the IT department centralized and managed content. Traditional data warehouse solutions often require business users to build or customize their own data models, change business definitions of dimensions and measures, or define their reporting logic.

Unfortunately, the managed data models and reports don’t always offer the business what it needs, and change request processes are time-consuming. As a result, business users began to export data from the managed reports while combining their datasets with building reports and adding additional calculation logic into their spreadsheets.

These datasets and spreadsheets were shared through emails with no process (including metric definitions and business logic), effectively causing chaos and loss of the material. A data warehouse solution like Datasphere can balance freedom and governance to bring IT and business together.

Bringing IT and Business Together

Governance, Spaces, and Data Connections

Datasphere uses virtual team environments called “Spaces.” Spaces are designed for content organization and collaboration. Organizations can create Spaces for each line of business or different projects. Data connections can be managed by IT or admins at the Space level.

Datasphere connects to SAP sources, non-SAP sources, and cloud storage. Only users assigned to the individual Space can access the data in it. IT and admins can also create data access control to manage what users can see and access.

Data Modeling

Data Builder is the Datasphere area where users do most of their data modeling.

IT brings in data from different systems through data federation or replication, aggregating it into a common foundation for business users.

Business Modeling

IT can create a business entity using the Business Builder on top of the view defined in the data builder. The new entity can represent a product, vendor, sales order, etc., hiding the data layer’s complexity from the business user. Business users can choose from the list of available business entities to create consumption models and corresponding perspectives, business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), and even reporting logic to satisfy reporting needs. This allows end-users to customize and evolve their models to meet changing business demands and goals.

“We see Datasphere as a key ingredient in SAP’s data strategy. It eliminates data silos, allows for real-time data federation and aggregation, and reduces and simplifies the work for business analysts,” states Martin Stenzig, Chief Technology Officer at Rizing.

Consumption and Story Builder

SAP Analytics Cloud is embedded in Datasphere, allowing planners to use SAP Analytics Cloud’s self-service capabilities to build and share reports and dashboards. It comes with standard business content that is ready for consumption. Planners can also use non-SAP analytical tools to consume the data models within Datasphere.

Does Datasphere replace SAP Business Warehouse (BW) and SAP BW/4HANA?

Is Datasphere a successor of SAP BW and BW/4HANA? The short answer is “No.”

Datasphere can be used as a standalone warehouse solution or complement SAP’s existing data warehouse solutions. SAP BW/4HANA and HANA for SQL Data Warehousing will continue to be SAP’s strategic data warehouse solution on-premise and in the private cloud. Datasphere is SAP’s strategic data warehouse solution in the public cloud.

SAP BW/4HANA and Data Warehouse Cloud Address Different Needs

SAP BW/4HANA works best with SAP sources like SAP S/4HANA and comes with standard business content. Datasphere works better with various source systems and unstructured data (including SAP data) as it is more open and agile. SAP BW/4HANA is an IT-oriented solution, while Datasphere is business-oriented.

B4/4HANA and Datasphere Can Compliment Each Other

Yet, SAP BW/4HANA and Datasphere complement each other in hybrid scenarios. Integrators can connect SAP BW or BW/4HANA systems to Datasphere.

Virtual or replicated data access is available for InfoObjects, InfoProviders, Queries, and generated external SAP HANA views, and native connectivity to BW/4HANA is also available. Datasphere has access to the data and the semantics stored in your BW/4HANA applications.

Self-Service Cross-Functional Reporting

While using the BW and BW/4HANA content, planners can use semantic modeling in the business builder, provide more self-service data access capabilities to the business user, and enable cross-functional reporting by combining SAP and non-SAP data, structured and unstructured data. This enables organizations to empower end-users with the enterprise data they need to make informed business decisions.

Conclusion

Datasphere offers a complete data warehouse solution in the cloud. This next-generation offering provides flexibility and freedom for business users to access and build their reports while giving IT complete flexibility to manage and govern the data.

Datasphere is fundamentally changing the user experience of data management.

Instead of just collecting, transforming, and storing data, it connects business users to the data, enabling them to turn that data into business value quickly.