The world of business data is evolving continuously, and SAP is at the forefront of these changes with the introduction of SAP Datasphere, the successor to SAP BW and SAP BW/4HANA. This groundbreaking product is not merely a data warehouse, but a comprehensive platform enabling data integration, cataloguing, semantic modelling, and virtualisation. The purpose of SAP Datasphere is to create a unified, semantically rich data layer that provides easy access to business data without the need for duplication - a core element of the business data fabric architecture.
SAP Datasphere moves beyond the limitations of previous private-cloud and on-premises solutions, offering an open data ecosystem that supports a coherent, scalable data architecture. This gives users self-service access to trusted business data through intuitive SAP Datasphere Spaces.
For clients currently using SAP BW and SAP BW/4HANA, SAP is not withdrawing support for these solutions. The upcoming end of mainstream support for SAP BW NetWeaver 7.5 in 2027 (or 2030 with extended support and the private cloud edition) does not mark the end of the road. These investments remain protected through SAP BW/4HANA, as well as through SAP-managed cloud options such as SAP BW NetWeaver 7.5 Cloud private edition and SAP BW/4HANA Cloud private edition.
SAP Datasphere enables existing SAP BW users to easily transfer their current data models via a tool called SAP BW Bridge. This tool allows integration of data from SAP Business Suite systems directly at the point of use, while retaining familiar connectivity methods and the depth of data semantics.
SAP Datasphere
SAP Datasphere, as the evolution of the SAP Data Warehouse Cloud platform, plays a central role in SAP’s strategy for public cloud data storage. The platform delivers a broad range of services, enabling data specialists to provide easy, scalable access to key business information. It includes capabilities such as data integration, cataloguing, data modelling, data warehouse management, data federation, and data virtualisation. These capabilities allow professionals to manage and distribute data effectively across the organisation while preserving its comprehensible context and logic, using an architecture based on the so-called business data fabric. This architecture provides an integrated, data-rich information layer that enables efficient use of data without duplication. The development of SAP Datasphere includes, among other things, enhancements to data modelling aimed at better connecting data and business elements, expanded data integration functionality, broader data catalogue capabilities, improved governance, and deeper integration with SAP Analytics Cloud, as well as collaboration with partners such as Collibra, Confluent, and Google Cloud. This strategy reinforces SAP Datasphere’s position as a key public cloud solution.
SAP BW/4HANA
SAP BW/4HANA is a modern data warehouse built on the SAP HANA platform, serving as an on-premises data layer within SAP Business Technology Platform. It allows organisations to consolidate data from across the enterprise to obtain a consistent, universally accepted view of that data.
The key benefits of SAP BW/4HANA compared with SAP BW NetWeaver include the simplification of delivering up-to-date business information. The system transforms data-related practices, increasing efficiency and flexibility, which enables faster delivery of business insights at scale, both on-premises and in a private cloud. In addition, SAP BW/4HANA leverages the full potential of an organisation’s data, supporting digitalisation across all business areas through the use of Big Data.
Innovations in SAP BW/4HANA are focused on providing a single source for all analytics, which maximises business adoption of advanced analytics, enables application customisation to individual needs, and opens new possibilities through integration with machine learning.
The product will be supported until at least 2040, with major updates planned every two years designed to extend the support period in line with SAP policy. Additionally, annual feature updates focus on improving hybrid capabilities in conjunction with SAP Datasphere.
Customer evolution and hybrid deployment
In response to dynamically changing business needs, SAP offers its customers flexible deployment options in both public and private cloud, within the RISE with SAP programme. This approach enables customers to make the optimal technology choice tailored to the specific requirements of their business. SAP Datasphere, as a ready-to-run public cloud application, delivers the latest best practices and continuous innovation, ensuring ongoing improvements aligned with current market trends. SAP BW/4HANA Cloud private edition, in turn, is aimed at customers who require a gradual transformation to the cloud, tailored to their unique transformation requirements. This solution enables a more controlled and considered approach to data migration, which is crucial for organisations with complex or specifically defined operational needs.
Customers using SAP systems can benefit from a range of scenarios that give them flexibility in tailoring their own cloud infrastructure in a private cloud, while simultaneously running subsidiaries or shared service centres with reduced complexity in a public cloud - both of these solutions being deeply integrated with each other.
Customers using SAP ERP who are planning a move to SAP S/4HANA cloud as part of the “RISE with SAP” strategy should consider the future of their on-premises SAP BW systems. While it is possible to move some operational reporting and analytics tasks to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which offers built-in analytics tools, there remains a need to maintain extensive functionality related to data analysis and data warehouse management.
To help customers adapt to the modern SAP Datasphere platform, particularly given the approaching end of technical support for SAP BW, SAP offers several innovative development options. One is to recommend that customers who have already begun migrating from SAP BW to SAP BW/4HANA continue that transformation. This allows them to reach a stable, currently supported product version that provides further development options. They can then move directly to SAP Datasphere, or simply add SAP Datasphere to extend their data warehouse deployment with innovation, openness, and self-service capabilities in a hybrid scenario. A hybrid scenario means that customers simultaneously use SAP Business Warehouse (BW 7.x or BW/4HANA) and SAP Datasphere. There are numerous combinations of BW, BW/4HANA, and Datasphere that offer specific capabilities, including synchronisation between SAP BW/4HANA as the source and SAP BW bridge as the target. Over time, customers can increasingly shift workloads to SAP Datasphere. They may use the SAP BW bridge component to reuse and integrate SAP BW objects with the help of tools, or use BW-based data for data preparation and pre-processing, including SAP BW/4HANA business content as an accelerator.
In some cases, customers can already move their SAP BW systems directly to SAP Datasphere. This is the recommended solution for SAP Business Suite customers who do not have SAP BW deployments. Regardless of the chosen initial path, customers can always move to SAP Datasphere - both from a technical and a commercial standpoint.
SAP Datasphere, SAP BW Bridge
The SAP BW Bridge feature in SAP Datasphere gives SAP BW NetWeaver and SAP BW/4HANA customers a transition path to the public cloud, offering data warehouse capabilities directly within SAP Datasphere. The main advantages of this feature include:
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Connectivity and business content - SAP BW Bridge enables proven SAP BW-based data integrations, leveraging extractors from SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA, which simplifies business data management.
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Enterprise-ready staging layers - SAP BW bridge offers advanced data-loading management functions such as partitioning, monitoring, and error handling, which increases the efficiency of data operations.
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Tooling support for migration - enables straightforward transfer of SAP BW-based integration and staging.
These capabilities significantly ease data management and integration, which is crucial for organisations moving to cloud solutions.
SAP BW bridge is a strategic ABAP integration layer, developed on the same code line as SAP BW/4HANA, but adapted for SAP Datasphere in order to implement a modern data warehouse architecture. It includes standard SAP BW extractors, delta technology, and ABAP functions. SAP BW bridge is not merely a temporary solution intended for migrating existing data models to SAP Datasphere. Instead, it offers customers the ability to safeguard their existing investments and skills, allowing them to continue using them within SAP Datasphere.
The functionality of SAP BW bridge allows for:
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Reuse for business continuity - leveraging existing SAP BW data structures, transformations, customisations, and skills, which facilitates extending SAP BW investments to the public cloud.
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Connecting with confidence - integrating SAP Business Suite data from on-premises locations while preserving familiar connections and semantic richness, allowing immediate access while deepening analytics.
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Innovation with cloud agility - enabling the business to innovate quickly on BW data through an open, unified cloud data and analytics service, scaling innovation and efficiency.
SAP Datasphere creates a layer that connects data from various sources, equipped with advanced modelling capabilities that are currently being intensively developed. Because customers prefer to focus on a single modelling environment, SAP BW bridge does not include an OLAP engine. SAP enables customers to transition to the new system in two ways: native modelling capabilities in SAP Datasphere will be extended with BW-specific functions, and through model conversion.
SNOK’s role in the context of modern SAP solutions
As a gold SAP partner, SNOK plays a key role in adapting and implementing modern SAP solutions, such as SAP Datasphere and SAP BW/4HANA, for its clients. Thanks to in-depth knowledge and experience in SAP technologies, SNOK supports enterprises in making full use of the capabilities offered by these platforms. We help clients not only transition to new systems, but also optimise their business processes by integrating advanced analytics and data management functions. Our advisory services and technical support enable organisations to manage change effectively and optimise the benefits arising from their investment in modern SAP technologies.
Summary
SAP Datasphere and SAP BW/4HANA open new possibilities for organisations in the efficient and innovative use of data. At SNOK, we are proud to support our clients at every stage of their digital transformation, providing tools that not only streamline day-to-day operations but also enable the strategic insight necessary to accelerate growth and increase competitiveness in the market. We welcome further collaboration and the opportunity to share the successes brought about by the implementation of modern SAP systems, which sit at the very heart of digital transformation.