About Author:

Hari Boda is working as a Senior Lead BW-HANA-Cloud consultant at TekLink Software Pvt  Ltd (www.teklink.com) – An HGS Company and has worked on multiple assignments in BW-HANA-Cloud analytics  domain.

With S/4 HANA is growing in SAP world there are many questions looming regarding the impact/changes and disruptions. This post mainly outlines the impact on traditional SAP tables after migration to ‘S/4 HANA Simple Finance’ as it contains fewer database tables.

Introduction to Datasphere

SAP Datasphere is a SaaS offering from SAP which uniquely harmonizes mission-critical data across the organization, unleashing business and technical experts to make the most impactful decisions. It combines previously discrete capabilities into a unified service for data integration, cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, and virtualizing workloads across SAP and non-SAP data.

SAP Datasphere is the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, enabling a business data fabric. It offers a unified experience for data integration, cataloging, semantic modeling, warehousing, federation, and virtualization.

Note: It was first introduced in 2019 and the name changed in March 2023.

1. A secure environment supporting diverse data application needs including real-time analytics, governed data access.
2. Graphical low-code/no-code tools to support self-service modeling needs for business users.
3. A wide range of connections to SAP and non-SAP cloud and on-premises sources, including data lakes.
4. Seamless integration with SAP Analytics Cloud, Microsoft Excel, and public OData APIs to support consumption by other clients, tools, and apps.

In simple terminology, SAP Datasphere is all your data at one source in cloud.

Note: SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics cloud are separate SaaS hosted on top of SAP BTP platform. Behind the scenes the data is stored inside the HANA cloud system, it is a Database as a service on top the BTP.

Implementation Strategy:

Clients can adopt a cloud-only approach, a hybrid approach where only parts of the data warehouse move to the cloud or use the SAP BW Bridge to leverage their existing investments in SAP BW/4HANA in the cloud.

Datasphere Architecture:

Technical/Developer’s View:  Connecting different systems using adopters while migrating/fetching data.

Benefits of Datasphere:

• A secure environment supporting diverse data application needs including real-time analytics, governed data access, a data catalog, and data science (machine learning).
• Spaces, which are created and provisioned centrally to provide secure modeling environments for different departments or use cases.
• A wide range of connections to SAP and non-SAP cloud and on-premise sources, including data lakes.
• Graphical low-code/no-code tools to support self-service modeling needs for business users.
• Powerful built-in SQL and data flow editors for sophisticated modeling and data transformation needs, along with support for 3rd party tools and other SAP IDEs.
• An embedded data marketplace to consume external data products and to create internal data products.
• A business user-friendly data matching environment to enrich existing datasets with external data, coming from Data Marketplace, csv uploads, and other 3rd party sources.
• A catalog to support self-service discovery of data and analytic assets, glossaries and terms, and key performance indicators.
• Multi-dimensional modeling with powerful analytical capabilities and built-in data preview.
• A graphical impact and lineage analysis to visualize data movements, transformations, and other dependencies.
• Cross-space collaboration and sharing of centrally governed sources for joining with local files and external sources with support for row-level security.
• Re-use and migration of trusted and governed meta and data models residing in on-premise SAP Business Warehouse and SAP SQL Data Warehouse implementations.
• Seamless integration with SAP Analytics Cloud, Microsoft Excel, and public OData APIs to support consumption by other clients, tools, and apps.

Hope this blogs gives basic understanding of SAP Datasphere, business strategy and its architecture.

Thank you for reading my blog. Comments and feedback are welcome!