SAP Datasphere FAQ

Have a question about SAP Datasphere? You're in the right place! Start here to find answers to some of our most frequently asked questions.

1. SAP Datasphere

1.1. What is SAP Datasphere?

SAP Datasphere, the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, is a comprehensive data service that enables every data professional to deliver seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data. It provides a unified experience for data integration, data cataloging, semantic modeling, data warehousing, data federation, and data virtualization.

1.2. How will SAP Datasphere benefit customers?

SAP Datasphere enables data professionals to easily distribute mission-critical business data—with business context and logic preserved—across the data landscape.  

1.3. What impact does SAP Datasphere have on SAP Data Warehouse Cloud?

SAP Datasphere, a comprehensive data service that delivers seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data, is the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud. We’ve kept all the powerful capabilities of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud and added newly available data integration, data cataloging, and semantic modeling features, which we will continue to build on in the future.

1.4. What does this mean for SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customers?

As of March 8, 2023, existing SAP Data Warehouse Cloud tenants transitioned to SAP Datasphere. This update was automatic, and existing SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customers continued as is with either subscription or CPEA offerings without interruption. All the capabilities of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud remain part of SAP Datasphere.

1.5. How does SAP Datasphere compare to SAP Data Intelligence Cloud?

While the initial release of SAP Datasphere primarily targets SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customers, some SAP Data Intelligence Cloud features have already been added. Other SAP Data Intelligence Cloud capabilities will be included into SAP Datasphere to eventually cover the major use cases that SAP Data Intelligence Cloud provides.

1.6. What does this mean for SAP Data Intelligence Cloud customers?

SAP has recently announced that mainstream maintenance of SAP Data Intelligence Cloud will continue through the timeframe specified in this SAP Note. Existing SAP Data Intelligence Cloud customers will be supported through this date. SAP is still supporting both solutions however with the strategic focus on SAP Datasphere the vision is that customers will transition workloads from SAP Data Intelligence Cloud to SAP Datasphere over time as the product evolves and as their needs and priorities allow.

1.7. What is the integration between SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud?

SAP Datasphere is tightly integrated with SAP Analytics Cloud to support analytics and planning use cases. We intend to further strengthen the integration with the release of the Analytic Model in SAP Datasphere. The Analytic Model offers a multi-dimensional modeling experience and comes with powerful new features, such as calculated and restricted measures, exception aggregations and the pruning of attributes and measures. These new analytical capabilities help solve complex modeling requirements, and further establish SAP Datasphere models as “first class citizens” in SAP Analytics Cloud. Finally, it is important to highlight that SAP Datasphere can also serve as the data foundation for extended planning and analysis with SAP Analytics Cloud.

1.8. How does SAP Datasphere relate to SAP Business Technology Platform?

SAP Datasphere is a comprehensive data service within SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) that enables a business data fabric architecture. It includes SAP Datasphere, BW bridge which allows existing SAP BW customers to leverage existing models and transformations. SAP Datasphere is built on SAP HANA Cloud, another product within SAP BTP.  

1.9. Where can I find out more about SAP Datasphere?

Visit the SAP Datasphere page at sap.com/datasphere to find out more about the features, technical information, and pricing. Read SAP’s announcement blog and technical blog. Get support from real SAP Datasphere users and product experts by joining the SAP Community.   

2. Business Data Fabric

2.1. What is a business data fabric?

A business data fabric is a data management architecture that focuses on delivering an integrated, semantically-rich data layer over underlying data landscapes to provide seamless and scalable access to data without duplication. A business data fabric equips any organization to deliver meaningful data to every data consumer—with business context and logic intact. SAP Datasphere, and its open data ecosystem, is the technology foundation that enables a business data fabric. 

2.2. How is the business data fabric different?

A business data fabric builds on the classic data fabric approach to further simplify how organizations can deliver data to every consumer—with business context and application logic intact. While previous data fabric architectures successfully minimized data management complexity, most failed to keep the semantic context and application logic from the data sources. The full business perspective of data had to be manually rebuilt in parallel to deliver data in business terms. The business data fabric augments previous data fabric capabilities to retain and deliver the pre-established semantic context and application logic that come from the business data by default.  

2.3. What is the value of the business data fabric?

The value of the business data fabric for customers lies in the simplified delivery of authoritative data in business terms to consumers across highly distributed data landscapes. Business innovation is no longer constrained by where data resides, slowed down by the development of new data staging plans, or hindered by incomplete business context. Rapid creation of intelligent data-driven applications and quick spin up of new analytics and planning projects is unleashed, and ultimately organizations can derive more business value from their data assets. 

2.4. Where can I find out more about the business data fabric?

Visit the SAP Datasphere page at sap.com/datasphere to learn more about the business data fabric. 

3. Open Data Ecosystem

3.1. How does SAP Datasphere enable a powerful open data ecosystem?
SAP is partnering with Collibra, Confluent, Databricks, DataRobot, and Google Cloud to radically simplify customers’ data landscapes with a business data fabric. By closely integrating their data and AI platforms with SAP Datasphere, organizations can now access their mission-critical business data across any cloud infrastructure. For more information on the open data ecosystem, read the blog announcement and press release.