Fragmented data landscapes pose major challenges for companies. Relevant data is typically scattered across various systems. The consequences: Departments work with different figures, reports take weeks to be generated, and AI projects fail due to poor data quality.
SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) unifies SAP and non-SAP data on a single platform, preserves the business context of the data, and provides the foundation for analytics, planning, and artificial intelligence. Fragmented data landscapes are thus a thing of the past. In this blog post, you’ll learn exactly what SAP BDC is, what components it includes, and what role it plays in the context of SAP Business AI Platform and the Autonomous Enterprise. To leverage artificial intelligence effectively, companies should implement SAP BDC strategically and establish it as a central hub for business-critical data.
SAP Business Data Cloud is a fully managed SaaS solution that unifies SAP and non-SAP data on a single platform.
The platform includes SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, and numerous other components, creating an integrated data ecosystem.
Data products preserve the business context from the source systems and provide the foundation for trustworthy analytics and AI.
SAP BDC serves as the data foundation for SAP Business AI Platform and drives the vision of the Autonomous Enterprise.
IBsolution supports companies in the strategic implementation of SAP BDC and in the modernization of existing SAP BW landscapes.
SAP Business Data Cloud is a fully managed SaaS solution that consolidates all enterprise data from SAP and third-party systems, semantically enriches it, and makes it available for analytics, planning, and AI. The central concept behind SAP BDC is the creation of a so-called Business Data Fabric. This type of architecture connects data sources without requiring complex extraction or replication processes. Business semantics such as hierarchies, definitions, and relationships are preserved. For companies, this means that all departments access the same trusted data source. Discrepancies in figures across different reports are no longer an issue.
SAP Business Data Cloud is not a single software product in the traditional sense. Rather, SAP BDC bundles a range of different components, each of which performs specific tasks and works seamlessly with the others. Companies can decide which components they want to include in their SAP BDC landscape.
SAP Datasphere handles data integration and semantic modeling. It connects SAP and non-SAP sources, models business contexts, and manages access rights through analytical roles. With live data federation, teams can access data without having to copy it to a separate system. SAP Datasphere thus forms the core of the Business Data Fabric.
SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) is the front end for dashboards, ad hoc analytics, as well as operational and financial planning. Within SAP BDC, SAP Analytics Cloud consumes the unified data products directly. AI-powered natural language queries enable data analysis, bridging the gap between raw data and business-relevant decisions.
SAP Databricks and SAP Snowflake enable business-critical ERP data to be seamlessly connected to modern external data and AI platforms. Technologically, the bidirectional data exchange is based on a zero-copy principle: Instead of copying data via ETL pipelines, the platforms access the underlying SAP BDC storage directly. Thanks to real-time access, business departments can make faster, data-driven decisions and feed AI and machine learning models directly with live data from day-to-day operations.
SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) enables companies to specifically ensure and further develop the quality of master data, which typically originates from ERP environments such as SAP S/4HANA. Since consistent master data constitutes the foundation for a reliable data landscape, this aspect is of central importance for companies with an existing SAP ERP landscape – especially in conjunction with the other components of modern data management.
In addition to the governance of traditional SAP master data, which SAP MDG handles, SAP Reltio covers the world beyond SAP: Master data from any applications and systems can be integrated and maintained. Since a robust data foundation can only be established with consistent master data across all sources, SAP MDG and SAP Reltio work together and complement each other: Together, they cover the entire spectrum of master data sources – regardless of whether they originate from SAP or non-SAP systems.
SAP HANA Cloud provides the physical, highly scalable database and storage for the enormous volumes of data in SAP BDC. It thus serves as a crucial link, enabling the centrally managed business data of SAP BDC to be used efficiently for data-intensive cloud applications, relational queries, and modern AI workflows.
A data product is a managed, curated, and reusable dataset. It is created based on comprehensive SAP application knowledge and structured so that analytics and AI applications can use it directly.
The key advantage: Data products preserve the business semantics of their source systems. A financial data product from SAP S/4HANA carries the same definitions and hierarchies that apply in the original system. This means that the dashboard and AI model work with the same terms. SAP provides prebuilt data products for all major business segments. At the same time, companies can define and manage their own data products.
New SAP Business AI Platform (BAIP) unites SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), SAP BDC, and SAP AI Foundation under one roof. Its goal is to equip AI agents with the process knowledge, data, and governance that companies need for business success. SAP BDC provides the data layer: It delivers the universal business context that every AI agent, every application, and every decision accesses. Without a trustworthy, semantically enriched database, AI agents cannot deliver reliable results.
The vision of the Autonomous Enterprise describes a company in which AI agents independently manage business processes, while employees focus on strategic tasks. SAP plays a pivotal role in this vision as the foundation of data and knowledge from which AI agents derive their business context. Through the SAP Knowledge Graph, Joule agents understand relationships between data points, navigate through processes, and provide context-aware answers.
Companies running SAP BW 7.5 or SAP BW/4HANA are provided with a clearly defined modernization path through SAP BDC. Existing SAP BW instances can be hosted as a Private Cloud Edition (PCE) within the platform. From there, companies can gradually generate data products from their SAP BW data, combine them with other sources, and migrate to SAP Datasphere at their own pace.
SAP Business Data Cloud unifies SAP and non-SAP data on a single platform, preserves the business context of the data, and provides a trusted basis for analytics, planning, and AI. As the data foundation for SAP Business AI Platform and the Autonomous Enterprise, SAP BDC becomes a central building block of the digital enterprise strategy. IBsolution provides comprehensive support to companies on their journey toward a unified data platform – from strategic assessment and the migration of existing SAP BW environments to the productive operation of SAP BDC.
SAP BDC is an overarching platform architecture that brings SAP Datasphere and other components together under one roof. SAP Datasphere remains in place as a semantic integration layer within SAP BDC.
SAP BDC connects SAP systems such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, and SAP Ariba to non-SAP sources via prebuilt connectors. With SAP BDC Connect, companies can share data products with external platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, and Microsoft Fabric.
SAP BDC is the data foundation of SAP Business AI Platform. AI agents such as SAP Joule derive their business context from the organized data products of SAP BDC. IBsolution helps companies prepare their data and identity landscape for productive AI deployment.
Yes. SAP BDC offers existing SAP BW customers a defined modernization path. Existing SAP BW instances can be hosted as a Private Cloud Edition (PCE) and migrated to SAP Datasphere step by step. IBsolution is familiar with the typical challenges of this path and supports companies in their migration from SAP BW to SAP Business Data Cloud.