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SAP BW4HANA vs SQL Server 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

SAP BW4HANA
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (9th)
SQL Server
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
267
Ranking in other categories
Relational Databases Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

SAP BW4HANA and SQL Server aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. SAP BW4HANA is designed for Data Warehouse and holds a mindshare of 4.2%, down 4.5% compared to last year.
SQL Server, on the other hand, focuses on Relational Databases Tools, holds 20.1% mindshare, down 23.1% since last year.
Data Warehouse
Relational Databases Tools
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Azizul Haque - PeerSpot reviewer
It has eliminated all kinds of inconsistencies, and it is reliable, secure, and fast
I don't know whether SQL Server can support large organizations where the database size is more than 100 GB. It might be because of SQL Server, or it might be because of the programming of the software vendor, but a lot of people think that it is a problem with SQL Server. It can't handle a large amount of data or large data size. In terms of its usage, about 90% of our applications are running on the SQL Server database. We have around 1,600 users for our software, and all the applications are connected to the SQL Server database.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The product is stable."
"It is a stable solution...The initial setup was easy."
"The most valuable features are the speed of reporting and the HANA database."
"The solution's most valuable feature is that it is a very powerful tool. The solution also has the best stability, robustness, and customizability features."
"The solution is based on SAP ERP, so there's some business content already included. For customers who use SAP ERP, SAP BW4HANA is a good choice for their DW implementation."
"I like that it's quite quick."
"Provides a great analytics engine with all the capabilities."
"We can get good visualization and less redundant data."
"can extract data from the server and store it in a local data source for BI purposes."
"Comparing with other database management systems that I tried in other companies, SQL Server is quite easy to install, configure, and maintain."
"We found it to be quite scalable."
"SQL Server is similar to other Microsoft products, such as BI, they are easy to use. You do not need to have an expensive BD to maintain them. All the useful intuitive features you find in Microsoft solutions you will find in SQL Server."
"I value the ability it gives me to test on small machines and easily scale up to larger devices for live applications."
"The stability is fine, especially if you're hosting it on AWS or Azure. You can get up to 99.99% stability on AWS."
"Stability and usability, which is quite simple, are two of the solution's most valuable features."
"It is integrated with Microsoft tools."
 

Cons

"I cannot integrate it with my other tools. It's not possible to do something in the predictive analysis. Mobile reporting is also not available."
"The product's initial setup phase is a bit complex."
"I don't see SAP actively supporting the solution now...a better support from SAP would be appreciated."
"The tool is not easy to use for an end user."
"Price wise, this solution is on the higher side."
"The solution is not scalable. It does not have a data streaming feature as well."
"Not a ten because it's expensive and its ecosystem is not very open."
"If I want to have good reporting, then I have to buy a separate license."
"It would definitely be better if SQL Server were free."
"The agility of the non-SQL-based features is relevant on the market."
"The price could be better. In the next release, it would be better if the database was more easily extendable."
"For a big amount of data, when we are speaking about IoT Segments, and Big Data projects, there are performance issues."
"It could be more stable."
"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."
"I would like to see the performance improved. Migrating should be easier and the scalability needs improvement."
"The performance could improve."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In general, it's quite expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
"The cost of ownership is higher. It's resource-intensive, and naturally, that increases costs."
"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 SAP HANA application still hasn't been leveraged to the fullest extent, but it's a five-year enterprise license."
"SAP BW/4HANA is expensive."
"This is an expensive solution and there are costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"We have a broad licensing arrangement, which is expensive but worth it for sizeable businesses."
"The product's price is reasonable."
"SQL Server is an expensive solution."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten."
"Currently, almost all of my machines are in Azure and I think it is the best way of licensing now (VM+software)."
"SQL Server is an expensive solution."
"The price of the solution is very expensive. If I went with the cloud version of SQL a license would cost me approximately 11,000 Riyals per month."
"It is expensive, but you get what you pay for."
"There is a license required for this solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Educational Organization
52%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
Would you say the price of SQL Server is high compared to that of similar products?
SQL Server is fairly priced because it has various editions, depending on the number of users, servers, or core packs you are using. If you compare the product to others in this category, the price...
Has using SQL Server helped your organization in any way?
SQL Server has helped my organization through partitioning to distribute the workload, as it splits them up into smaller pieces so the machines can easily deal with it. However, this comes with a h...
Which authentication mode is best for SQL Server?
My company connects through SQL Server authentication. We have company Windows accounts, but we do not want to connect the two, out of security concerns and to keep things separated for our own pur...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

SAP BW/4HANA
Microsoft SQL Server, MSSQL, MS SQL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Microsoft SQL Server is used by businesses in every industry, including Great Western Bank, Aviva, the Volvo Car Corporation, BMW, Samsung, Principality Building Society, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and the Catholic District School Board of Eastern Ontario.
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