The News: SAP announced the launch of SAP Datasphere, a comprehensive data service built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) delivering seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data no matter where it may reside. With the SAP Datasphere, an organization is able to develop innovative strategies to increase profits, create new revenue streams and make better decisions by understanding their data regardless of where it resides. Read more from SAP.
SAP Introduces SAP Datasphere, Next Generation Cloud Data Warehouse Service
Analyst Take: The launch of SAP Datasphere should be welcome news for organizations dealing with today’s data architecture challenges. In our experience, getting arms around all things data is at the top of the list of business mission-critical needs and every part of the equation, from data warehousing (structured data) to data lakes (unstructured or any kind of data) and beyond to data fabric (integrated layer of data and connecting processes) reaching to particular challenges like data federation, cataloging, lineage, metadata, integration and semantic modeling of data can often be problematic in myriad ways.
Organizations have had to extract data from original sources and export it to a central location, losing critical business context along the way and recapturing it only through ongoing, dedicated IT projects and manual effort. That’s why the launch of SAP Datasphere is timely. SAP Datasphere hopes to eliminate these challenges by enabling customers to build a business data fabric architecture or single environment that integrates data from sources across the organization. This will allow organizations to do what every company needs to do today: quickly deliver meaningful data with business context and logic intact.
SAP Datasphere is the Next Gen of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud
SAP Datasphere is a comprehensive data service built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) delivering seamless and scalable access to mission-critical business data no matter where it may reside. SAP Datasphere is the next generation of SAP Data Warehouse Cloud, with new capabilities that enhance the discovery, modeling, and distribution of mission-critical business data. SAP Datasphere runs in every cloud and against hybrid environments providing secure access regardless of where it resides. With SAP Datasphere Spaces, data professionals can organize, group, and manage data to create a ‘virtual workspace’ with the ability to control the level of visibility and collaboration, allowing them to deliver meaningful data to data consumers such as marketing or sales teams.
SAP Datasphere provides organizations with a unified experience for:
- Data integration
- Data cataloging
- Semantic modeling
- Data warehousing
- Data federation
- Data virtualization
SAP Datasphere Partnerships
The SAP Datasphere includes partnerships with the cloud data storage and management platforms Collibra, Confluent, Databricks, and DataRobot. These partnerships are key, as they will enable organizations to use the tools they already have to build out their business data fabric. At a time when every organization is striving to do less with more, I see this as an incredibly compelling part of the overall value proposition.
In addition, the SAP Datasphere includes a marketplace with more than 3,000 curated data sets that can be acquired at the touch of a button to quickly enrich data projects. With the SAP Datasphere Marketplace and partnerships with industry-leading open data partners, organizations will be able to combine SAP data with other non-SAP data sources. We are seeing a rise in the interest in (and preference for) marketplaces, and this should be attractive to companies wanting to explore SAP Datasphere, especially if they have non-SAP data sources.
Existing SAP Data Warehouse Cloud customers will not need to perform any additional steps or migrations in order to benefit from the new SAP Datasphere functionality in their product environment without disruption.
I see this as a big step forward at a time when almost every organization is struggling to bring data in from all across the organization to a central location, allowing and empowering ease of use. This undertaking has previously required a ton of IT time and manual effort, which is neither productive nor cost effective.
With the launch of SAP Datasphere, SAP clearly aims to change that. Using this solution, organizations will be able to build a business data fabric architecture or single environment integrating data from sources across the organization. Being able to quickly deliver meaningful data with business context and logic intact can be a game-changer. Today, it’s a foundational capability that can drive the organization-wide development of innovative strategies, help create new revenue streams, and help teams make better decisions by having better access to and the ability to more effectively utilize data. Adding to that the fact that users can combine SAP data with non-SAP data makes this solution very much worth adding to your consideration list.
Disclosure: Futurum Research is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum Research as a whole.
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Image Credit: SAP
Author Information
Shelly Kramer is a Principal Analyst and Founding Partner at Futurum Research. A serial entrepreneur with a technology centric focus, she has worked alongside some of the world’s largest brands to embrace disruption and spur innovation, understand and address the realities of the connected customer, and help navigate the process of digital transformation. She brings 20 years' experience as a brand strategist to her work at Futurum, and has deep experience helping global companies with marketing challenges, GTM strategies, messaging development, and driving strategy and digital transformation for B2B brands across multiple verticals. Shelly's coverage areas include Collaboration/CX/SaaS, platforms, ESG, and Cybersecurity, as well as topics and trends related to the Future of Work, the transformation of the workplace and how people and technology are driving that transformation. A transplanted New Yorker, she has learned to love life in the Midwest, and has firsthand experience that some of the most innovative minds and most successful companies in the world also happen to live in “flyover country.”
