November 2023

Executive Summary

This document provides guidance to our customers of SAP Data Management portfolio, with respect to SAP Data Services (DS) and SAP Information Steward (IS) solutions, on the product directions. This document is an extension of our blog posting made on September 8, 2022. There three areas that we are primarily touching upon in this blog with the first one pointing to no change in product direction since last Statement of Direction. Secondly, complimenting the SAP cloud based data integration efforts in a mutually exclusive mode. Finally, potential discontinuation of certain data systems interfacing.

Introduction

As our matured products continues to have consistent traction in the market with emerging technologies and data platforms, it is essential for us to focus on extending its versions to meet the evolving needs of our customers. This Statement of Direction outlines our strategic approach to extending product versions, ensuring that we maintain our competitive edge in the on-premises data integration space as well as on-cloud and deliver value to our customers. Our primary objective is to understand and address the specific requirements of our customers, for the matured products as well as new and emerging technologies in the cloud. We will actively engage with our user base through feedback sessions, support channels, and market research to identify their pain points, challenges, and emerging needs.

Strategic Direction

SAP Data Management portfolio expanded further in the cloud with the introduction of SAP Datasphere in March 2023. SAP Datasphere is a comprehensive data service built only on SAP® Business Technology platform (SAP BTP) that enables every data professional to deliver seamless and scalable access to mission critical business data. It is the next generation of SAP® Data Warehouse Cloud, with new capabilities that enhance data discovery, modeling, and distribution. With a unified experience for data integration, data cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, data federation, and data virtualization.  SAP Datasphere enables data professionals to easily distribute authoritative business data with business context and logic preserved across the data landscape.

As we define the future of SAP Data Management portfolio, with our stated data management strategy, current on-premise SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customers can in fact leverage all their existing investments and efforts, repurposing those time-tested and trusted artifacts and configurations that are being used today in SAP Data Services (DS) and SAP Information Steward (IS), while also extending the reach of their data management to the cloud, with SAP Datasphere, a native cloud solution. Yes, we are committed to our existing SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customer base too. In the current release of SAP Data Services, we do have the connector to SAP Datasphere to consume the raw, semi-processed as well as fully processed data from SAP Data Services connections. This capability enables to reduce the gap of heterogeneous sources and targets between SAP Data Services and SAP Datasphere.

“In 2022 we did a minor version upgrade of SAP Data Services and Information Steward to 4.3, allowing the compatibility with Business Intelligence BusinessObjects 4.3. As a result, our support policy extended the end of mainstream maintenance timeline to end of 2025 and priority 1 support to end of 2027 for both SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward. However, with the mainstream maintenance of version 4.3 of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward suite ending in 2025, we do not want to leave our large customer base behind, and therefore we have decided to release an updated version, code named SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024 to provide more time to our on-premises customers to adopt our rapidly evolving, state-of-the-art cloud data integration scenarios. As more of our customers shift their on-premises workloads to the cloud, we also offer SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward, private cloud edition (PCE), which runs the ETL and Data Quality solutions in a managed cloud environment operated by SAP. Many of our largest SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward customers already run both solutions side- by-side, during their transition to the managed cloud deployment.”

–The above paragraph in quotes have been inherited from the blog post of September 8^th, 2022 and has no change in plan for the message there in.

–SAP Data Services 2024 and SAP Information Steward 2024 from the previous blog post of September 8^th, 2022 has been assigned current code name as SAP Data Services 2025 and SAP Information Steward 2025. The current code names may have a potential to change.

We are committed to support you

Many of our SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward suite customers have now upgraded to the version 4.3. This version enables the compatibility with BI 4.3 as well as allows a smooth transition as there are no architectural changes, and code migration and upgrade are without any additional configuration. The enhancements around the major functionalities gives the users a better user experience for secured data access

We recognize the importance of continuously innovating our product and yet manage a balance between our on-premises and cloud-based solutions. We will invest in research and development to explore new technologies, industry trends, and market demands yet support our existing customer base for the mature products. By fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration, we will ensure that our product versions remain cutting-edge and relevant in the ever-changing business landscape. We are committed to help and support our customers.

Please refer to this <blog: Blog1 for the feature list will be linked here> that highlights the enhancements and innovations applied on SAP Data Services and Information Steward within the scope of on-premises data integration deployment.

Many customers rely on SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions for critical use cases and will need to do so beyond 2025. Our support plan for SAP Data Services and Information Steward is as follows and our message is consistent as it was in the ‘Statement of Direction’ last year. Please refer to the respective GA versions Product Availability Matrix for the support timelines.

Product support timeline

Your choice of deployment

With SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward, private cloud edition, we offer a predefined package operated by SAP on the main cloud platform providers, including software, support, technical managed services, and infrastructure. This is a great opportunity to shift from a maintenance contract to a subscription model while leveraging your existing investments in SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions.

Here are some of the key benefits:

• The latest version of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward is always available, thanks to the periodical upgrades
• 3-tier landscape: development/test, quality assurance and production by default, with optional additional tiers,
• Pre-configured hardware landscapes optimized for performance,
• Choice of cloud platform providers infrastructure includes AWS, Google Cloud Platform, Microsoft Azure,
• End-to-end SLA 99.7%, backup and restore included within standard service scope,

In the future, customers will continue to have the choice for their infrastructure for SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward solutions, either on-premises or in a managed cloud operated by SAP. Additionally, our directions for the on-premises data integration and data governance scope with respect to SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward remains mutually exclusive and unchanged due to the data integration and data governance scope within SAP’s cloud solutions.

We have plans to stop or reduce the scope of few functionalities as listed below

1. PeopleTools for PeopleSoft Applications
2. JD Edwards Application connectivity
3. SAP Sybase Replication Server
4. Siebel
5. Attunity aka Qlik Data Integration Platform

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU

SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward remains a key component of our Data Management portfolio and we are committed to our customers. Please help us fine tune our roadmaps of SAP Data Services and SAP Information Steward by providing your input through the dedicated inboxes respectively:

SAP Data Services:               [email protected]

SAP Information Steward:   [email protected]   

We appreciate your feedback and will answer your questions via our official communication channels.