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SAP Data Services

Score8.6 out of 10

36 Reviews and Ratings

What is SAP Data Services?

SAP Data Services is an offering from SAP to improve data quality.

Categories & Use Cases

Top Performing Features

  • Master data management (MDM) integration

    Quality of integration with MDM systems

    Category average: 8.6

  • Data element standardization

    Parsing and standardization of data elements according to predefined rules

    Category average: 8.3

  • Address verification

    Data format checking and valid address checking

    Category average: 8.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Data profiling

    Ability to find anomalies and hidden relationships between data elements

    Category average: 8.3

  • Data source connectivity

    Ease of connection to multiple data sources

    Category average: 8.3

  • Match and merge

    Ability to identify potential matches and then merge

    Category average: 8.2

SAP Data Services

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

ETL to load data from both SAP and non-SAP systems to HANA as well as vice versa. SAP has been able to provide drivers and connectors so that data can be stored centrally for reporting and analytics purposes.

Pros

  • ETL tool to load data from SAP and non-SAP systems into HANA.
  • Have local scheduling as well as being able to be interfaced to other scheduling tools.
  • The Data Services designer is easy to use by developers to create their workloads.

Cons

  • Needs improvement on error descriptions. Some are too vague and require additional labor.

Return on Investment

  • Application has been reliable with high priority data loads.

Data Service - Future

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Maximize the value of all your organization’s structured and unstructured data with exceptional functionalities for data integration, quality, and cleansing.

Pros

  • cleansing
  • quality
  • data integration

Cons

  • Change Data Capture
  • Data Services Workbench
  • Cloud Platform Integration – Data Service (CPI-DS)

Return on Investment

  • Performs well in orchestrating disjointed data assets into actionable business insights and gives the organization holistic data management.
  • Transform, cleanse, match, and consolidate data by understanding the impact of quality problems on all downstream systems and applications.
  • Unlock meaning from unstructured text data to increase business insights by supporting a wide variety of SAP and non- SAP information sources.
  • Integrate, connect, and process all structured or unstructured critical data from SAP or non-SAP sources, within Big Data or enterprise solutions (on-premise or cloud).

Other Software Used

Oracle Analytics Cloud Day by Day, Azure Data Factory, Google Data Studio

SAP Data Services is the best ETL tool when paired with an SAP HANA data lake

Pros

  • Repetition of the same extract or transform for different needs. We can use variables to use the same ETL job for different types of aggregations.
  • Reliability of the jobs through the use of audit features. We can add audit gates to check for table counts and automatically send out notifications and alerts.

Cons

  • Heavy processing is required to run the standard transformations. We get around this by creating custom SQL transforms, but lose insight when we take this approach.
  • Delta loading is possible but sometimes difficult. It sometimes requires customization that creates maintenance issues.

Return on Investment

  • As an enabler of SAP HANA, it's required. So, it's a positive ROI when SAP HANA is factored into the equation.
  • We use SAP Data Services for migration into SAP migrations, and this creates a positive ROI for our implementations for new or existing clients.

Alternatives Considered

Informatica Application ILM

Other Software Used

SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Platform, Tableau Server, Microsoft Power BI, SAP HANA

SAP Data Services - A robust solutions for the ETL and Data Quality needs

Pros

  • The ETL construction process its very easy. Its ease of use and the fact that the design of the processes is completely graphic makes its learning process very fast.
  • Support on ETL Migration.
  • Data Quality Projects.
  • Metadata Administration.
  • Its connectivity capabilities with different database platforms, applications and cloud systems are excellent and has been growing with the evolution of the different versions.

Cons

  • New connectivity options for cloud solutions must be added.
  • Avoid dependency from flash in Information Steward scorecard.
  • More connectivity options for hadoop distributions.

Return on Investment

  • Very positive impact in jobs maintenance since support auto-documentation.
  • Great impact on learning curve.
  • Great results in our Data Quality Projects.

Alternatives Considered

SQL Server Integration Services

Faster deployment times with higher data accuracy

Pros

  • Integration with SAP ERP/ECC works really well.
  • A lot of flexibility in data creation, with different types of communication capabilities like BAPIs, IDocs, and Batch input.
  • Reliable and consistent results and easily enforceable data templates.

Cons

  • Initial setup of rules requires more technical expertise than master data management teams are typically used to.

Return on Investment

  • DS has had a very positive impact by reducing deployment times for SAP and has provided ability to deploy multiple sites at the same time.
  • Ongoing master data creation/migration benefits significantly from DS, and it's easy to stand up a new business unit.
  • Data accuracy improved and manual inspections are minimal.

Other Software Used

SAP ERP, OnBase by Hyland, Dolphin ImagingPlus