Azure Data Factory SAP OpenHub Connector
- Proven connector
- Relatively cheap on-demand pricing
- Simple & powerful solution if used with smaller amounts of few tables/objects
- Batch processing only
- Complicated setup for bigger data/more tables
- Complicated incremental data load setup (via requests)
- Not all BW objects support reading delta/difference)
Extraction options
- File-based extraction - exporting data into CSV and storing them to some server) - more complicated and you may lose schema/data type information as you extract data from SAP data types into CSV
- OpenHub Table-based extraction - new tables are created in HANA database; - schema is persisted but extra memory is needed for those new tables. You also need to develop a new transformation from the source SAP object into this OpenHub table.
Main Challenges
- Scalability: OpenHub is less scalable than other modern data ingestion tools. For large volumes of data, OpenHub may struggle to keep up.
- Performance: OpenHub can be slower and is heavily dependent on the underlying hardware of the on-prem environment.
- Data Latency: OpenHub is associated with batch processing, which can result in data latency, whereas real-time data processing might be needed in certain cases.
- Dependency on SAP Landscape: SAP is not known for its quick reaction when it comes to changing landspaces/external requirements.
- Resource hungry: requirements for SAP scalability in terms of hardware are correlated with the amount of data and complexity of extractions.
- Difficulty customizing/Lack of Features: any new feature will likely need to be a bespoke solution, requiring ABAP development. There are also two ways how you can extract data from SAP BW using OpenHub
Use the SAP CDC connector instead
Azure recommends using the ADF SAP CDC connector for all ECC, S/4 or BW use-cases as it is much simpler to set up and delivers better performance.
Feel free to contact us so we can help you select the best tool for your use-cases.