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Oracle Database Appliance vs SAP BW4HANA comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 18, 2024

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

Oracle Database Appliance
Ranking in Data Warehouse
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SAP BW4HANA
Ranking in Data Warehouse
9th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Data Warehouse category, the mindshare of Oracle Database Appliance is 5.5%, down from 6.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SAP BW4HANA is 4.2%, down from 4.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Data Warehouse
 

Featured Reviews

Charu Mazumdar - PeerSpot reviewer
Simplifies database management tasks and provides high availability and disaster recovery
Oracle Database Appliance has simplified our database management tasks. Our clients are using the solution for high availability and disaster recovery. Our overall experience with the solution was good, especially the DR. Oracle Database Appliance's integrated storage solutions have enhanced our data management. Oracle Database Appliance's integration with other solutions was straightforward. We faced compatibility issues while moving from another device to this one, and the integration was not seamless. I would recommend the solution to other users. Overall, I rate the solution an 8 out of 10.
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

"The initial setup was straightforward and quick - I was able to configure everything within an hour."
"The product is excellent. It is simple and reliable in terms of installation and maintenance."
"The solution is pretty automated, which takes out the possibility of human error."
"We primarily use it for OLTP, which has improved our costs."
"The product’s valuable feature is its capability to pre-configure and pre-install the settings."
"Easy management (it saves a lot of installation and patching time)."
"The most valuable feature of Oracle Database Appliance is the ease of management."
"The product is good value for money. It is a secure solution."
"The processes are the most valuable aspect of this solution."
"The product is stable."
"You can do hierarchical alert slicing and dicing out-of-box, which is not available in other solutions. I haven't come across that in Oracle or any other software provider."
"I like how it blends no-code and ABAP code for complex transformations during data loading."
"The most valuable features are the speed of reporting and the HANA database."
"It provides the functions in a way that even a less technical person can do the modeling."
"It's quite scalable."
"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."
 

Cons

"The main thing would be to make ODA more affordable, to make it a more economical machine. Also, I would like to see virtualization, so you could implement all of your functions on one machine. Finally, improvement in the speed and performance would be good."
"Virtualization features could also be improved. A web-based GUI would be a good start."
"The product is quite complex to set up, initially. It would be ideal if it was simpler."
"It would be beneficial to have dedicated RAM included in the Oracle Database Appliance."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
"I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten. It has some problems. Databases are huge. This leads to needing more and more RAM and capacity resources, making it hard to scale. Because of this, we use Exadata. That's definitely a point for improvement."
"Virtualization needs improvement. It's not easy to back up the virtual machines in the Oracle VM architecture. I would also like to see native support for Veeam Backup Software."
"The tool's setup can be easier."
"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."
"There should be a direct pipeline from Azure to SAP."
"If I want to have good reporting, then I have to buy a separate license."
"The solution is not scalable. It does not have a data streaming feature as well."
"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."
"The licensing cost could be made better."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"The monitoring for the remodeling feature is very difficult to understand."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I would rate the pricing a four on a scale of one (high price) to ten (low cost)."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing seven and a half or eight out of ten."
"The solution may be expensive, but when we consider the problems it solves, the stability it provides, and the fact that we don't have to buy separate parts and assemble them into a system, it becomes more affordable."
"Oracle’s pricing is ridiculously high."
"Oracle Database Application's support and maintenance are included in the contract."
"I don’t know ODA and alternative system prices. But Oracle the database license is quite expensive and a lot of my customers plan to migrate to open source databases like PostgreSQL."
"The price should be lower."
"In regards to licensing, it is cheaper to maintain for Oracle applications, and it's an all-in-one solution."
"We started as early birds from the SAP side. We got this entire suite for free. I cannot really talk about the price because we didn't have to pay anything."
"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."
"The price is high and currently only affordable for large organizations."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The tool is affordable."
"For the on-premises version of the product, the solution offers a perpetual-based licensing model to its users. In general, SAP offers a monthly subscription-based licensing model to its users."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
"It's a little expensive compared to Microsoft Azure."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
29%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
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

What do you like most about Oracle Database Appliance?
Oracle Database Appliance provides high stability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Database Appliance?
I have heard from colleagues that Oracle is very costly compared to open databases like PostgreSQL. I cannot personally comment on it.
What needs improvement with Oracle Database Appliance?
The scalability part is missing. It isn't as popular as AWS, GCP, or Azure as it lacks scalability and cloud-native services like containerization. The Oracle cloud hasn't reached the level of offe...
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

X5-2
SAP BW/4HANA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

LifeLock, Incarlopsa, Al Yusur Industrial Contracting
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Database Appliance vs. SAP BW4HANA and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
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