This week, Databricks and SAP announced an exciting new partnership designed to simplify and accelerate the process of deriving insights from SAP data. The result of this collaboration is SAP Databricks, a service that will be offered natively within the SAP Business Data Cloud (DBC).
By combining Databricks’ cutting-edge AI, governance, and data engineering capabilities with SAP’s comprehensive data solutions, this partnership promises to revolutionise how organisations leverage their SAP data.
What makes SAP Databricks unique?
At the heart of SAP Databricks is Delta Sharing, a technology that eliminates the need to copy data from SAP to Delta Lake. Instead, data is linked indirectly and registered in Unity Catalog, enabling governance features directly on SAP data.
Gone are the days of building complex and costly ETL pipelines to extract and load SAP data into data ecosystems. This innovative approach ensures that data remains secure, trustworthy, and accessible without unnecessary duplication.
Key benefits of SAP Databricks
This partnership brings together the best of both platforms, offering organisations a range of transformative benefits:
- Seamless access to SAP data
SAP data can now be accessed natively within Databricks, enabling organisations to efficiently combine it with other enterprise-wide solutions - Enhanced data governance
Unity Catalog-based governance eliminates the need for data copying, reducing errors and improving trust in data quality. - AI-Driven insights
Organisations can leverage Databricks’ market-leading AI capabilities directly on SAP data, unlocking new insights and addressing critical business challenges.
Overcoming long-standing SAP data challenges
At Valcon, we have extensive experience building and implementing data platforms for clients who rely heavily on SAP for their operational and enterprise data. Historically, extracting data from SAP systems has been a significant challenge due to:
- Siloed data: SAP data is often stored in diverse formats and spread across numerous tables within a single implementation.
- Complex ETL pipelines: extracting and loading SAP data into platforms like Azure Data Factory has required custom ETL pipelines, which are both costly and time-consuming to build and maintain.
- Data duplication risks: traditional extraction methods involve copying data to target systems, increasing the risk of errors and reducing data quality.
Given that SAP is one of the largest repositories of data globally – and with approximately 77% of the world’s transaction revenue passing through at least one SAP system – the potential for advanced analytics and AI-driven insights is immense.
How Valcon can help your organisation
As one of the leading Elite Databricks implementation partners, Valcon is uniquely positioned to help organisations capitalise on this major shift. By combining our extensive experience in SAP data extraction, Databricks on AWS and Azure and AI, we enable clients to unlock the full potential of their data.
Here are just a few ways we can support your organisation:
- Migrating legacy ETL pipelines: replace expensive and complex SAP ETL processes with modern, efficient solutions.
- Enhancing data governance: leverage Unity Catalog to unlock governance capabilities for SAP assets.
- Building AI-powered solutions: develop advanced analytics and AI-driven use cases that were previously unattainable.
Example use cases
SAP Databricks opens the door to a wide range of transformative business applications, including:
- Financial forecasting and planning: Gain deeper insights into financial performance and improve decision-making.
- Supply chain optimisation: Streamline operations and reduce inefficiencies across the supply chain.
- Real-time inventory management: Monitor and manage inventory levels with unprecedented accuracy.
Want to know more?
If you’re interested in integrating your SAP data into your data stack using Databricks – or simply want to learn more about this exciting new service – please don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected] or [email protected].
