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Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Microsoft Azure Synapse Ana...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (2nd)
SAP BW4HANA
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

Matthew Spieth - PeerSpot reviewer
Beneficial real-time analytics, simple setup, and useful tutorials
Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics could improve its compatibility with Visual Studio. One of the challenges for people moving from an on-premise to a cloud solution, such as Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics, is that you're constantly working in a browser. There are people that have been working for decades on desktop applications. For them to start working in a browser, it's quite a change. Allowing people to work and do their work inside Visual Studio than in the browser, would be a large advantage.
Csaba Grünblatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities
SAP BW4HANA improved data reporting processes significantly. Performance on HANA database is good. Well-built data models ensure consistent and fast reporting. Reusable models enhance efficiency, even for SaaS services. In-memory computing, especially since HANA, has greatly improved performance in data analysis tasks. It eliminates the need for complex optimizations like creating indexes or aggregates. Queries that once took minutes now run in seconds, enabling real-time reporting, especially for SAP ECC on HANA. SAP BW4HANA's integration capabilities are streamlined with a simplified architecture and more virtual layers. You can directly load data into optimized layers, reducing the need for extra storage. The introduction of Open ODS Views allows for additional logic and master data inclusion, making integration faster and simpler. The learning curve for SAP BW4HANA is much faster now compared to ten years ago, thanks to abundant free resources like documentation, videos, blogs, and learning journeys provided by SAP. It is simpler to learn with these resources available compared to the past when you had to attend courses and rely on books. I would recommend SAP BW4HANA to users looking to implement it, especially if they want to keep their systems on-premise and already have SAP systems. Those with BW on HANA have two choices: BW4HANA or DataSphere, depending on their cloud strategy. If they are advanced in their cloud strategy and want to migrate off-premise, DataSphere is a good choice. However, for a robust solution on-premise or in a private cloud, BW4HANA is an excellent option. Overall, I would rate BW4HANA as a nine out of ten. It performs all necessary data warehouse tasks and offers additional functionalities. We use it traditionally, with complex transformations and models but with less emphasis on real-time processing and third-party sources.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"I have been working with Microsoft, and they have been very helpful."
"I think the most valuable component is that pipelines are built into it and then the feature that you can mirror a cosmos BB for analytics."
"Technical support is okay in terms of the help they provide."
"Can capture all the transactional data throughout a company."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability."
"The product works well with other Azure products."
"The fact that we can ingest from different types of sources, whether they are internal systems or external sources."
"The whole solution is interesting for us."
"Some of the main features of this solution are that it uses HANA and it has good performance."
"The solution saves time and cost."
"It provides the functions in a way that even a less technical person can do the modeling."
"The product has efficient performance."
"We like that it is an SAP product, so we can easily connect with the SAP ERP system."
"It can calculate data in detail. Before we could not calculate financial documents and accountant documents in detail, we could not do it at a document level but now we can. This is the most important feature. It also has predictive analysis memory."
"The processes are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"We can get good visualization and less redundant data."
 

Cons

"The need to improve a little bit in terms of user-friendliness."
"More integration is needed to improve the product for the future."
"One potential area for improvement could be the availability of an on-premises data lake implementation, as the product is currently only implemented in a cloud environment."
"Its stability is an issue. They have been releasing a version every six months to one year, which means that there are many versions available, and clients are not up to speed on the latest one that they're offering. From a stability point of view, they could do better. They're still upgrading their Synapse Analytics workspace, and it is not that stable. Its scalability can also be better."
"I would like to see them provide the ingestion of images."
"This is a young product in transition to the cloud and it needs more work before it is both settled as a product and competitive in the market."
"The filing can be improved."
"Real-time integration is hard to do in Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics."
"There's one area where the other vendors have an upper edge, which is the data lake. I think SAP is trying to figure out whether to stick with IQ, their own data lake solution, or push customers toward customer-preferred vendors, like Azure Data Lake, AWS, or any other provider."
"The product needs to improve with more performance and fewer data layers."
"It's complicated to use. You need to spend a lot of time learning about it. The interface could be improved. It's not intuitive to build a data model and use their ETL tools."
"They have taken out a few BW functionalities when they redesigned this. The way of multi-dimensional thinking and star schema got a little bit lost. It may be because of the cost, but certain functionalities that were previously implemented from the BW side should come back again in the whole product. It is a young product. It is version 2.0. In time, I'm pretty sure they will come back again because otherwise, it limits the potential of the product, and I have to do a lot of modeling towards that direction. For me, the analytics focus is too much. It is not cube-oriented in that way, so its functionality is limited. It is not really technically limited in the back end; it is more limited in the front end. It has a data-mining mindset for SQL developers. The navigational attributes should be easy. It needs to be built in models. I see the data mark cube or understanding that the composite provider needs to be models in a cube coming back. The multi-dimensional star schema approach and the reporting need to be done as well as possible to leverage the star scheme below. This is definitely not understood by many consultants and even composite providers for star schema. They always think in terms of flat tables, which is limiting. You need to build the right dimensions, objects, and so on. If you can build this in BW4HANA, then you have this understanding that BW4HANA is not forcing you in this direction, but it should force you a bit better in this direction. Maybe a few elements which were in use in BW should come back again. It would help the community to determine the direction to build on the cube. You can have maybe 50 elements, and then you can expand it to what you need by leveraging navigation. So far, this functionality is a little bit limited in the tool, and it is not thought through, but I think it will come. They should also be adding more capabilities for the transformation between different objects. In BW, this is currently limited, especially towards composite providers. It is a bit complex basically in the building. You have to have a lot of knowledge as well as know how to do it better because it is a bit different from BW. There is not too much expertise currently in the consulting markets. Many are trying to build something, but it may be based on their knowledge of what they have from the BW and HANA side. You have to find the right mix from both of them at this time. We also have HANA Native. These are our two different sync sources basically, and we have approaches to connect nicely, but it is hard to manage your team because a lot of coaching is required."
"From a technical perspective, it could be even more related to legacy systems. The connectivity requirement is quite high and requires systems that are up-to-date."
"Challenges arise with real-time client requirements when clients are accustomed to Microsoft Excel's extensive features for data analysis. They expect similar flexibility and customization in the solution, particularly regarding headers displaying keys and descriptions or just keys. Achieving this level of customization can be challenging, and it's an area that may need improvement."
"Connecting multiple sources is a challenge because you have to go through a lot of different setups."
"BW/4HANA could improve query optimization. For example, there could be an error message that pops up when you hover over it if any query fails. That would make it easier to find out what went gone wrong. Guided SAP help tools would make it easier for us to go forward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Microsoft's pricing is relatively high, and it varies according to the extent of our usage. The pricing is directly tied to our consumption. This decision is ultimately a business choice."
"Price varies by use-case. You pay for the database itself in addition to any consumed data within Serverless plus other fees if you use the Data Factory that is inside."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics is an expensive solution and there is a license needed to use it. My company has an enterprise license."
"The cost of the solution depends on the type of license we choose, such as pay-as-you-go, one-year reserve, or three-year reserve."
"Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics can be costly, however, a cost-effective approach would be to purchase it in advance through reservation for either one or three years. This will significantly reduce the overall expenses incurred."
"We only have to pay for what we use in the solution. It's easy for the customers. It's not more than some companies, not more than 300 to 400 users. They do not need to buy other license products, such as SAP B1, or analytics tools in the market, such as Tableau."
"We are on a monthly payment plan for the use of Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics."
"Because it's cloud the cost is a different convention and the licensing costs are not the same."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
"It is an expensive product."
"The product is free if we have the ECC license."
"The SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"As an investment, the solution is very expensive."
"The cost and licensing depends on how the customer is going to use the solution."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
51%
Computer Software Company
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Amazon Redshift compare with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
Amazon Redshift is very fast, has a very good response time, and is very user-friendly. The initial setup is very straightforward. This solution can merge and integrate well with many different dat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The product is easy to use, and anybody can easily migrate to advanced DB.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics?
The financial aspect, including pricing and cost reduction, is not something I focus on.
What do you like most about SAP BW4HANA?
One significant advantage of SAP BW/4HANA is the direct integration with the SAP HANA database, providing seamless access to real-time analytics. Additionally, it enables real-time data integrati...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP BW4HANA?
We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses.
What needs improvement with SAP BW4HANA?
The interface could be more user-friendly, as we often need to do low-level coding to get things done.
 

Also Known As

Azure Synapse Analytics, Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse, Microsoft Azure SQL DW, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, MS Azure Synapse Analytics
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Toshiba, Carnival, LG Electronics, Jet.com, Adobe, 
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics vs. SAP BW4HANA and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.