Db2 vs. SAP Business Warehouse

I have primarily used it as the basis for a SIS - but I have migrated more than a few systems from there database systems to DB2 (Filemaker, MySQL, etc.). DB2 does have a better structural approach, as opposed to Filemaker, which allows for more data consistency, but this can also lead to an inflexibility that can sometimes be counterintuitive when attempting to compensate for the flexibility of the work environment as Schools tend to have an all in one approach.

Incentivized

SAP BW is best for: 1. Large enterprises 2. Enterprises with 3+ legacy systems with entrenched users (politically difficult to merge) 3. Enterprises with employees who can understand both the technical capabilities of SAP BW and the needs of the business users - ability to speak both languages, otherwise the program could be unwieldy and potentially underutilized (it's not particularly inexpensive) SAP BW is less appropriate for: 1. Small enterprises 2. Enterprises who have well established, same location, CRM and UFS - the integration of data analysis will be easier and less expensive with other solutions 3. HANA

Incentivized

• DB2 maintains itself very well. The Task Scheduler component of DB2 allows for statistics gathering and reorganization of indexes and tables without user interaction or without specific knowledge of cron or Windows Task Scheduler / Scheduled jobs.
• Its use of ASYNC, NEARSYNC, and SYNC HADR (High Availability Disaster Recovery ) models gives you a range of options for maintaining a very high uptime ratio. Failover from PRIMARY to SECONDARY becomes very easy with just a single command or windowed mouse click.
• Task Scheduler ( DB2 9.7 and earlier ) allows for jobs to be run within other jobs, and exit and error codes can define what other jobs are run. This allows for ease of maintenance without third party softwares.
• Tablespace usage and automatic storage help keep your data segmented while at rest, making partitioning easier.
• Ability to run commands via CLI (Command Line Interface) or via Control Center / Data Studio ( DB2 10.x+) makes administration a breeze.

Incentivized

• ETL, great at taking data from OLTP source, flat file, etc... Easy drag and drop for transformations.
• Great reporting possibilities, easy to connect with BO, BPC, etc...
• Great Master Data Management (MDM )for BPC - helps us maintain master data for BPC.

Incentivized

• everything about Db2 is 'heavy', even the Community edition and some of the clients
• difficult to configure for beginners /option overload
• LUW and z platforms have minor inconsistencies that really should be a non-issue
• support seems to be declining in terms of quality/quickness of responses

Incentivized

• Age of software is showing as it struggles with very large data modules, which were not as prevalent in its early years
• Querying performance at times can be very slow
• Support and development for BEx has been discontinued or hard to find.

Incentivized

The DB2 database is a solid option for our school. We have been on this journey now for 3-4 years so we are still adapting to what it can do. We will renew our use of DB2 because we don’t see. Major need to change. Also, changing a main database in a school environment is a major project, so we’ll avoid that if possible.

Incentivized

You have to be well versed in using the technology, not only from a GUI interface but from a command line interface to successfully use this software to its fullest.

Incentivized

It needs minimal trainings and can perform tasks of data management and reporting.

Incentivized

I have never had DB2 go down unexpectedly. It just works solidly every day. When I look at the logs, sometimes DB2 has figured out there was a need to build an index. Instead of waiting for me to do it, the database automatically created the index for me. At my current company, we have had zero issues for the past 8 years. We have upgrade the server 3 times and upgraded the OS each time and the only thing we saw was that DB2 got better and faster. It is simply amazing.

Incentivized

The performances are exceptional if you take care to maintain the database. It is a very powerful tool and at the same time very easy to use. In our installation, we expect a DB machine on the mainframe with access to the database through ODBC connectors directly from branch servers, with fabulous end users experience.

Incentivized

Easily the best product support team. :) Whenever we have questions, they have answered those in a timely manner and we like how they go above and beyond to help.

Incentivized

the material was very clear and all subjects have been handled

Incentivized

db2 work well with the application, also the replication tool can keep it up

With the other two mentioned above, I needed to have processes and frameworks that executed outside of the environment driving DB management operations. Yes, these are completely different solutions; however, the support you get for framework, library, and language support allows for runtime at a different layer than with other solutions.

Incentivized

SAP Business Warehouse scores higher in data warehouse functionalities for integration to SAP ERP and other SAP solutions such as SAP CRM, SAP APO, and SAP SRM. Standard SAP data source extractors which are available in SAP ERP can be used immediately for full or delta replication into SAP Business Warehouse. System governance in SAP Business Warehouse is top-notch with change management support for migration between system landscape from the development system to production system.

Incentivized

DB2 can be configured and can work with a variety of applications as opposed to how it was designed initially to only with with IBM mainframes. It's easy implementation process makes it a good buy for many organizations to scale their applications to be the best in terms of versatility, resilience and application performance

Incentivized

• Time efficiency is the major point to highlight, especially the minimal time this takes while querying a larger set of data.
• Reliability becomes another major factor as the application can be accessed at any point in time.
• Users might initially find it challenging to use the application.

Incentivized

• It has helped cut down on parts shortages with the minimum stock flags.
• People are able to track down parts easier because they can see where they were last used.
• Our sales team has better visibility on lead times so they can accurately quote our customers.

Incentivized