s4hana and data warehousing

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SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA: S/4HANAand Data Warehousing

Posted by Thomas Zurek 13 Apr, 2015One of the promisses of S/4HANA is that analytics is integrated into the [S/4HANA] applications to bringanalyses (insights) and the potentially resulting actions closely together. The HANA technology provides theprerequisites as it allows to easily handle "OLTP and OLAP workloads". The latter is sometimes translatedinto a statement that data warehouses would become obsolete in the light of S/4HANA. However, the actualtranslation should read "I don't have to offload data anymore from my application into a data warehouse inorder to analyse that data in an operational (isolated) context.". The fundamental thing here is that analytics isnot restricted to pure operational analytics. This blog elaborates that difference.To put it simple: a business application manages a business process. Just take the Amazon website: it's anapplication that handles Amazon's order process. It allows to create, change, read orders. Those orders arestored in a database. A complex business (i.e. an enterprise) has many such business processes, thus manyapps that support those processes. Even though some apps share a database - like in SAP's Business Suite orS/4HANA - there is usually multiple databases involved to run a modern enterprise:

Simply take a company's email server which is part of a communications process. The emails, theaddress book, the traffic logs etc sit in a database and consitute valuable data for analysis.

Take a company's webserver: it's a simple app that manages access to information of products,services and other company assets. The clickstream tracked in log files constitutes a form of (non-transactional) database.

Cash points (till, check-outs) in a retail or grocery store form part of the billing process and write tothe billing database.

Some business processes incorporate data from 3rd parties like partners, suppliers or marketresearch companies meaning that their databases get incorporated too.

The list can be easily extended when considering traditional processes (order, shipping, billing, logistics, ...)and all the big data scenarios that arise on a daily base; see here for a sample. The latter add to the list of new,additional databases and, thus, potential data sources to be analysed. From all of that, it becomes obviousthat not all of those applications will be hosted within S/4HANA. It is even unlikely that all the underlying datais physically stored within one single database. It is quite probable that it needs to be brought either physicallyor, at least, logically to one single place in order to be analysed. That single place hosts the analytic processingenvironment, i.e. some engines that apply semantics to the data.Now, whatever the processing environment is (HANA, Hadoop, Exadata, BLU, Watson, ...) and whatevertechnical power it provides, there is one fundamental fact: if the data to be processed is not consistent,meaning harmonised and clean, then the results of the analyses will be poor. "Garbage in - garbage out"applies here. Even if all originating data sources are consistent and clean, then the union of their data isunlikely to be consistent. It starts with non-matching material codes, country IDs or customer numbers,stretches to noisy sensor data and goes up to DB clocks (whose values are materialised in timestamps) thatare not in sync - simply look at Google's efforts to tackle that problem.

In summary: while analytics in S/4HANA is operational, there is 2 facts that make non-operational (i.e. beyond a single, isolated business process) and strategical analyseschallenging:

1. It is likely that enterprise data sits in more than 1 system.

SAP BW Powered by SAP HANA: S/4HANA and Data Warehousing


2. Data that originates from various systems is probably not clean and consistent when beingcombined.

A popular choice to tackle that challenge is a data warehouse. It has the fundamental task to expose theenterprise data in a harmonised and consistent way ("single version of the truth"). This can be done byphysically copying data into a single DB to then transform, cleanse, harmonise the data there. It can also bedone by exposing data in a logical way via views that comprise code to transform, cleanse, harmonise thedata (federation). Both approaches do the same thing, simply at different moments in time: before or duringquery execution. But, both approaches do cleanse and harmonise. There is no way around. So, either physicalor logical data warehousing is a task that does not go away. Operational analytics in S/4HANA cannot anddoes not intend to replace the strategical, multi-systems analytics of a physical or logical data warehouse. Thisshould not be confused by the fact that they can leverage the same technical assets, e.g. HANA.On purpose, this blog has been neutral to the underlying product or approach used for data warehousing. Thisavoids that technical product features are mixed up with general tasks. In a subsequent blog, I will tackle therelationship between S/4HANA and BW-on-HANA.

You can follow me on Twitter via @tfxz.5020 Views Tags: enterprise_data_warehousing/business_warehouse, bw, data_warehouse,data_warehousing, business_suite

Thomas Zurek in response to David Shoemaker on page 228 Apr, 2015 9:57 AMDavid,this blog is not about BW - as explicitely mentioned. Let me ask you the following question: there is manycustomers that have a hand-crafted DW built on some RDBMS and they load data from SAP ERP, CRM,SCM, ... into that DW. They use ETL tools like Data Services, Informatica, MS Integration Services. Now,with the advent of S/4HANA and operational reporting being available inside S/4HANA in real-time: willthose customers continue to load data from the SAP systems into their DW? Or will those data flows becomeobsolete? Or will those DWs even become obsolete?Regarding the usage of BW: it is difficult to say how much it is used for operational reporting and how much asa DW. I see both cases and mostly the case of a DW with many sources connected. Also, there is a grey zonebetween operational and cross-system analytics. Therefore it's sometimes not easy to categorise. Anyway. IsBW dying? Well, for an allegedly dying product the adoption is pretty flourishing. To me, this is not surprising.Thomas

David Shoemaker27 Apr, 2015 10:04 PMThomas,It would be enlightening to know what percentage of BW installed bandwidth is actually used for operationalreporting vs. true analytics. I have only experiential data from many projects, and it indicates that customersare very focused on operational reporting. BW, like any IT product, is ultimately funded by the business,not IT, and the business is still using the BW for operations. If this usage drops out via S4HANA, it is not acertainty that BW will survive. Your point that BW can survive due to its' ability to absorb multiple sources isnot supported by the fact that HANA can do this also. BW is almost never used for data cleansing, as stated by



other posts above. I thank you for the post, but, I have some reservations about your argument. I truly do hopeI am wrong.

Joao Sousa25 Apr, 2015 11:43 AMThe point is that we won't be forced to to operational reporting in a datawarehouse which is most of the useBW gets these days.

Sure there are situations were ETL will still be required especially in a company with a complex businesslandscape where S4/HANA is just another system, but for many companies that do mostly operationalreporting over ERP data, BW won't be needed anymore.

Johnny Muoz in response to Philipp Nell on page 320 Apr, 2015 11:14 PMHi Philips,The main tools are SAP HANA Live and SAP HANA PAL. SAP has not developed new cubes or SAP BWreports. All efforts are aimed at generating analytical views from SAP HANA. Additionally, all this can becombined with external data sources, and all this in real time.

Regards,Johnny

Philipp Nell in response to Johnny Muoz on page 420 Apr, 2015 10:05 PMHi Johnny,

What are the alternatives and why are they better ? Could you briefly describe the base of your thoughts ? Thatwould be very interesting, especially your thoughts re HANA only analysis.

Cheers, Philipp

Rajiv Bahl10 Apr, 2015 1:48 AMGreat blog Thomas. Keep it coming :-)

Regards,Rajiv Bahl

Michael Thuma9 Apr, 2015 9:50 AM

SAP BW is not a data warehouse. That's BW/BI's biggest advantage.

It's no good idea to cleanse data on the BW/BI server. Wrong data is simply wrong.



You can expand BW/BI's horizon if you give up the idea of master data. Once we built a HR BWI which doesaway with the need of having to cope with time dependencies.Master data is simply deleted reloaded withinthe scope required and master data is added to transactional data while the Infobjects master data simplydoes present 'logistics' like master data in order to navigate the cube. Time of BW3/3.5. Today all that can beprovided in a more flexible fashion and this practice is common sense and should be fully understood.

The only thing you cannot do an a BW is a PSA that receives pushed information and decides that data sentis correct. In practice you need to replicate 'all' the master data and finally will come to the same conclusion.You can of course use data retrieved from other systems to improve the quality. I personally decided in the rarecases left (production line data for example) to cleanse the messages received and after having prepared thebulk to load simply notify the BW that the data is here.

Being in the position to store incorrect data is good. Legal restriction for example. Data provided as of 1st of themonth in HR.

You don't loose the advantage of simply being in the position to provide meta information that allows to simplyclick together data loads/staging and just take the information while moving data forward without reading fromtables that are not visible to those who have to follow the data-loads.

HANA is amazing indeed. From what I have seen, never enjoyed the pleasure to work with it, it's a dreamcome true. There are several things in the past we had to work around using analysis server but agreed not inthe 97% of data origin from SAP sources. Count dimensions and such things. I personally move such 'ODS' (inthe traditional sense) data via push to all reporting structures. If there is no change no impact. That's whatdatabases are about. Every load should be possible at any time. That requires to eliminate procedures thatread or spoof other parts of the staging anyway. The staging should not be dependent on business semantics.I know such loads. You cannot load because the data from that part of the staging does not represent the staterequired or lookup if a certain ID is in place and then ... that's nuts. Implicit knowledge is never a good idea.That knowledge is easier to express in the PSA/ODS in a relational DB doing the cleansing. A thin layer thathelps.

Example you have planning data and get 2 versions via flatfile. People implemented amazing logic. The

solution was then a file diff and a fistfull of records was left instead of 200k. The PSA is should be a flexibleanimal.

Johnny Muoz8 Apr, 2015 5:25 PMHi Thomas,

In the medium-term maybe short-term, the SAP BW will disappear, because actually in HANA is possible tomake ETL extraction from any datasource and the analytical report will be made by the HANA own analyticaltools or any other software reporting, much friendlier than the framework of SAP BW.

SAP S4 HANA now is Multi-Tenancy and allow work with third-party applications on HANA DB.



Regards,Johnny

Carlos Eduardo Espaa Orellana8 Apr, 2015 4:50 PMDear ThomasAnd also for dear sap friends!

In early 70's and 80's the systems were mainly operational, that results in RDBMS and ERPs that focused on"write" and store operational information (sales, purchases, payments, inventory, and so on).

Nearly 2000, arrive the new "analytical" systems , that include as an innovation a "datawarehouse" with cubes,star models and a new approach to store and analyze information , in order to consolidate, measure by KPIsand make more flexible historical and predictive analysis.

Now with HANA, we have a new path and possibilities, to extend all those systems in order to harmonize the"operational" (tactical) and "srategic" (long term) analysis.

Hana enables to enhance time, effort and make possible some analysis of the operational information thatwere to difficult to do in the past. But I also believe, that this "operational" information that can be analyzedthrogh Hana, can make a new database of facts in order to join different processes and make possible a"strategy" and long term analysis through the building of real time applications that feed "desicion making"processes.What I am trying to say, is that all the operational and analytical processes (OLTP and OLAP) are usefulto build new models of analysis and also new processes to enhance and understand in a more fast way"what has happened, and what will happen" in an enterprise today. All this tools and systems are intended to"innovate" the way we think and make things, in order to be better. Regards! Carlos Espaa.

Dinesh Anblazahan18 Mar, 2015 6:13 AMVery Good Blog Thomas, You have articulated very well,as you pointed out very precisely the Term Analytics has been mis understoodtotally in the recent past and people are replacing the term warehouse with Analytics. Since users are used todo analysis only in Warehouse system earlier they think warehouse means Analytics.Now wih HANA in place you can do analysis even in the transcational system so they think if you can doanalysis in transcational system then we dont need Warehouse,but they are forgetting the fact that the warehosue system not only used only for data analysis but also for dataconsolidation and cleansing...

Hope your blog reaches many people and clears their confusion and sends right message.

Thanks & Regards A.Dinesh



Johannes Lombard17 Mar, 2015 5:45 PMGreat blog Thomas.

It puts operational reporting back where it belongs, embedded with the processes. and Fiori will be a great skillto acquire. Modeling and / or the process of relating data still needs to occur for Advanced Analytics.

The days of obtaining BI adoption through pre-defined canned reports in DW is gone. The future is about [1]easy to create operational reporting with great graphics, [2] some pre-defined reporting, as well as [3] allowingtrue self-service analysis against these so-called data lakes. Options 2 and 3 need modeling.

Johannes@lombardjohannes

s4hana and data warehousing

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