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Modernizing Your Data Platform: The Benefits of Expert-Led SAP and Cloud Data Lake Integration

Suharsh Anand – Enterprise Architect – Jul 26, 2024

As a business leader, you know the difference between acting on a hunch and making a decision based on real-time, actionable insights. Understanding customer behavior as it unfolds, monitoring operational performance in real-time, and identifying emerging market trends – these are just a few of the advantages real-time data offers. 

But despite the wealth of data being generated, the fragmented data landscape prevents companies from gaining a holistic view of their operations and making truly informed decisions. Many companies store crucial data within siloed systems, making it difficult to access and analyze alongside information from other sources. The answer to this dilemma lies in integrating SAP data with cloud data lakes. 

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at why companies are moving in this direction, the challenges involved, and the benefits of working with a certified expert. 

Why Companies Want to Integrate SAP Data with Cloud Solutions

If your organization is exploring data integration between your on-premise Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, like SAP, with cloud data lakes, you’re hardly alone. Data lakes like Google Cloud Platform (GCP) BigQuery, Azure Data Lake, and AWS Redshift provide a central repository for storing vast amounts of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. By bridging the gap between SAP and cloud data lakes, organizations can better capitalize on their data and gain a comprehensive understanding of their operations. 

A number of factors tend to drive the decision to integrate SAP data with cloud data lakes:

  • Strategic Data Retention in the Age of S/4HANA: Modernization efforts often involve migrating to SAP S/4HANA. At the same time, companies are understandably hesitant to abandon historical data that holds valuable insights. Integrating with cloud data lakes provides a cost-effective solution for retaining historical SAP data in a separate yet accessible repository. That way companies can leverage the benefits of S/4HANA while preserving the strategic value of their historical information.
  • Advanced Analytics without System Strain: Modern businesses require sophisticated analytics capabilities to gain deeper customer insights, optimize operations, and make data-driven decisions. Performing these analytics directly on a busy SAP system can strain its resources and impact performance. Cloud data lakes provide a dedicated platform for replicating and storing SAP data, allowing businesses to perform complex analytics on this data-rich repository without compromising the performance of their core SAP system. 
  • Streamlined Operational Efficiency through Holistic Reporting: Integrating SAP data with cloud data lakes empowers companies to create a unified view of their operations. Financial data from SAP can be combined with data from other sources, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems or manufacturing equipment logs. This comprehensive data set allows businesses to generate insightful reports that span departments and functions. Improved visibility into operational performance enables data-driven decision making, leading to optimized processes and enhanced overall efficiency.

Common Challenges in SAP to Cloud Integration

Achieving seamless data transfer is not a task for your in-house team. When companies seek out oXya for help, we typically find they have encountered one or more of these challenges:

  • Real-Time Data Replication with Low Latency: The leveraging of real-time insights depends on ensuring data from SAP is replicated to the cloud data lake (BigQuery, Azure Data Lake, or Redshift) with minimal latency. This necessitates careful consideration of data extraction methods, such as Change Data Capture (CDC) or log mining techniques, to capture modifications at the source and efficiently transfer them to the target. Balancing speed with data integrity is important to avoid introducing inconsistencies or delays that could compromise the value of real-time analytics.
  • Minimizing ETL Script Development and Maintenance: Traditionally, Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) processes have involved writing and maintaining custom scripts to map and transform data between disparate systems. This approach can be laborious, error-prone, and require ongoing maintenance as SAP schemas evolve. Modern integration solutions leverage pre-built connectors and transformations, minimizing the need for manual scripting and streamlining the development process.
  • Cost-Effective Data Storage and Management: Cloud data lakes offer unparalleled scalability for storing vast amounts of data. But managing the cost of storing this data, particularly for historical or less frequently accessed information, requires a strategic approach. Techniques such as data tiering, where inactive data is migrated to lower-cost storage options, or leveraging partitioning schemes within the data lake itself, become crucial considerations for optimizing storage costs without sacrificing data accessibility.

Why Companies Seek External Expertise

Navigating the intricacies of integrating SAP systems with cloud platforms is a formidable challenge for many organizations. The complexity of these projects and the time required — 400 hours or more is not uncommon — often leads companies to seek external assistance. By leveraging external expertise, businesses can ensure a more efficient transition, reduce the risk of costly errors, and ultimately achieve their digital transformation goals more effectively. This is where oXya’s distinct advantages matter. 

The oXya Advantage

Certified Expertise Across Platforms

oXya’s team includes highly skilled professionals who hold certifications in SAP, GCP, Microsoft Azure, and AWS. This multi-platform expertise ensures that our services meet the highest standards of quality and performance, and enable us to execute projects with precision and reliability. 

Comprehensive Services

oXya offers a comprehensive suite of services that cover every aspect of the data integration process. From the initial setup and configuration to ongoing maintenance and support, we provide end-to-end solutions tailored to your specific business needs. Our services include:

  • Initial Assessment and Planning: We conduct thorough assessments to understand your current IT landscape, identify potential challenges, and develop a detailed project plan.
  • Configuration and Implementation: Our experts handle the technical aspects of setting up and configuring the integration, ensuring that all systems are properly connected and optimized for performance.
  • Data Migration and Validation: We manage the transfer of data from SAP systems to cloud platforms, performing rigorous validation to ensure data integrity and consistency.
  • Ongoing Support and Maintenance: Post-implementation, we offer continuous support and maintenance services to address any issues, apply updates, and optimize system performance.

Security and Compliance

Data security and compliance are foundational pieces that no organization can overlook. oXya ensures that all data transfer projects adhere to strict security standards and regulatory requirements such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act). We implement robust security measures, including data encryption, masking, and secure access controls, to protect sensitive information throughout the transfer process. Our compliance expertise ensures that your data management practices meet all relevant legal and regulatory standards, mitigating the risk of fines and reputational damage.

Industry-Specific Benefits

Certain industries, such as utilities, manufacturing, and retail, generate vast amounts of data that require efficient handling and analysis. oXya’s solutions are designed to address the unique challenges faced by these industries. For example:

  • Utilities: We enable real-time data analysis for better resource management and predictive maintenance.
  • Manufacturing: Our solutions facilitate seamless data integration across the supply chain, enhancing production efficiency and reducing downtime.
  • Retail: We support advanced analytics for customer behavior insights, inventory management, and sales forecasting.

Our industry-specific expertise ensures that your data integration project aligns with your business objectives and delivers valuable insights and operational improvements.

Tailored Solutions

oXya understands that every business has unique requirements and budget constraints. We offer customized solutions that cater to your specific needs, using a variety of tools and connectors such as SAP Landscape Transformation (SLT), BryteFlow, and Qlik (formerly Attunity). Our tailored approach ensures that you receive a solution that fits your organizational goals and maximizes the value of your data assets. We work closely with you to design and implement a data integration strategy that aligns with your business processes and delivers measurable results.

Need Help? Contact oXya

Seamless data transfer from SAP systems to cloud data lakes is critical for leveraging data effectively. The challenges in SAP to cloud integration require certified expertise and comprehensive solutions. oXya stands out as a trusted partner, offering tailored solutions,  long-term support, and a commitment to security and compliance. Contact oXya today for a consultation and discover why 99% of our customers are satisfied and 97% recommend our services.

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