Business Data Cloud, beyond the marketing

You’ve likely heard the buzz about SAP’s new Business Data Cloud (BDC) and may still have some lingering questions about what it really entails. With its promise to revolutionize data management and analytics, it’s natural to wonder how BDC fits into your current landscape and what new opportunities it brings. In this blog, we’ll dive deeper into key concepts like insight apps and data products, explore the potential for customization of those data products, and address common concerns such as the future of your current SAPBW, SAC, Datasphere and Databricks environments.

Insight apps & data products

An Insight app is a standardized, fully functional set of objects that is created and maintained by SAP. The content within such an insight app can consist of objects within Datasphere, SAP foundation Services and SAC and includes the connections between the relevant tools too. 

• These new insight apps are something that the customer subscribes to and are additionally priced and licensed by SAP.

• You will gain most from these insight apps in case you are maintaining a clean core concept, since customized fields will probably not be available in the standardized data products and insight apps.

A Data product exists in Datasphere and it’s underlying SAP foundation Services. These data products consist of 2 categories:

• Primary data products: Based on 1 application and can be used as generic building blocks.

• Derived data products: Based on a combination of data sources and is more specific.

The general idea is that these data products are developed by SAP and SAP-partners so the amount of released data products can increase rapidly.

Datasphere Object store and Delta share

These data products stay in the object store underneath Datasphere and can be shared through a concept called delta share. This is a way of sharing the data across systems, without actually copying the data. This new concept has 2 major benefits:

·       It eliminates the need to duplicate physical data across multiple systems.

·       Lowers the amount of data that is stored in the in-memory HANA database and stores it in HANA Cloud data lake files instead. This will reduce the overall cost.

Build you own custom data products

SAP data products can be copied in SAC or Datasphere and can act as independent entities from that point onwards. These new data products (owned by you) can be combined with 'custom' data products which can consist of SAP and non-SAP sources.

Integrating Business Data Cloud into your landscape

Many SAP customers already have 1 of the tools that is available in the business data cloud, in their current landscape. The following topics cover SAC, Datasphere, Databricks and BW.

• In case you have an existing SAC or Datasphere in your landscape and you are interested in BDC, we have great news. Because those instances can be rewired without any migration towards BDC. SAP announced this will be possible by Q3-2025.

• You can only rewire your current datasphere environment if your license model is consumption based.

• In case you already have an existing Databricks instance which manages SAP data, then you can integrate with business data cloud using the delta share connection which is planned for H2-2025.

• In case you already have an existing Databricks instance that does not handle SAP data, it can be positioned alongside SAP Databricks instead.

• Do keep in mind that at the time of writing, only S/4HANA private cloud and S/4HANA public cloud are supported for BDC. 

Migrating from BW 7.5 and BW/4 HANA to the Business Data Cloud

Specifically for customers that are still on BW7.5, SAP offers a migration towards the Business Data Cloud. In case you are considering this, you should keep the following in mind:

Prerequisites

• To be eligible for the new BW7.5 private cloud edition you need BW7.5 on HANA

• Legacy objects like classic DSO, Infocubes and Multiproviders cannot be migrated

• Advanced DSO's, composite provider can be migrated

• BW7.5 and BW/4 HANA need to be migrated to PCE

Maintenance and migration

• Your current BW 7.5 instance is maintained until 2027

• In case you migrate to BW 7.5 PCE, this maintenance is extended until 2030

• You need to migrate your BW7.5 or BW/4 HANA to PCE first and then into BDC to start using new features like AI, BDC data products and insight apps  

• SAP will manage the migration of your BW7.5 or BW/4HANA system to PCE, and the timeframe may range from for 2 weeks to 4 weeks

Conclusion

SAP Business Data cloud seems exiting with its ability to integrate insight apps, data products, and custom solutions. The seamless sharing of data through Delta Share and the flexibility of combining SAP and non-SAP sources opens up new possibilities and can position it as the modern analytics & AI solution. 

If you’re eager to explore SAP Business Data Cloud firsthand, stay tuned because a private preview is planned to be released by Q2 2025.

In case of remaining questions, feel free to reach out to Joran.de.vries@mccoy-partners.com or freek.van.hoof@mccoy-partners.com