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Oracle Exadata vs SAP Business Warehouse comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Oracle Exadata
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
129
Ranking in other categories
Data Warehouse (2nd)
SAP Business Warehouse
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
25
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Data Warehouse (14th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed-Yehia - PeerSpot reviewer
Exceptional database performance with high availability and good reliability
The major use of Exadata is for running databases, big databases, and also for backing them up. It provides high availability and high performance specifically for databases, and not for applications, just Oracle databases High availability and high performance are very valuable aspects of the…
Srini-Dhanaraj - PeerSpot reviewer
The solution enables seamless connection, but it is expensive, and the information is one day old
Out-of-the-box reports are very useful. The product provides a seamless connection between the SAP operation system and the data warehouse. It also moves the data from the operating system to the data warehouse in a 3D format. The report generation is easy. It’s a drag-and-drop process. People who want to do a project need not reinvent the wheel. Everything is designed, built, and delivered out of the box. All we have to do is interact with the customers to understand the kind of reports they need and check whether they are already available in the out-of-the-box report. If they are available, we just have to enable them and give the URLs to the customers. The Integration between the SAP operating system and data warehouse is excellent. The UI is good.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Oracle Exadata is the integration with other solutions, such as SAN storage and shared VLAN network."
"I am satisfied with its functionalities and performance."
"The performance on the databases is good."
"It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing."
"A very stable solution, which we have hardly any problems with."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The product is flexible."
"We have used this solution for a long period of time so it has become easy for us to query any kind of data from Oracle Exadata which has been valuable."
"The real-time information is great."
"I like that it integrates to open-source."
"The key element in this solution is its rapid response. If you have a question about prices, buyers, customers, providers, or services, you need the answer in a minute or two. That's the key benefit for us that a solution like BW gives us."
"What I like most about SAP Business Warehouse is that it's a seamless integration platform. A valuable feature in the tool is the monitoring alert that makes you aware of what process chain has failed. There's no manual monitoring required if you have configured an alert system, so the process chain can run in the background, and you can get alerts about it. The functionalities I find good in SAP Business Warehouse are alerting and monitoring. If you have configured the tool and have integrated it with SAP Solution Manager, then it's a good product to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the advanced structuring of data capabilities. You can get different structures of data to suit your needs."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the integration with SAP ERP."
"The most useful feature is definitely the speed."
"In terms of stability, comparatively, the solution is quite stable."
 

Cons

"I have found Oracle Exadata to be scalable. However, you have to purchase more hardware, such as memory."
"The analytics features must be improved."
"Setting up Exadata is complex. You need an Oracle vendor or someone who is Oracle-certified to set it up."
"Since the product is an appliance, it is very costly."
"Exadata would be improved with single dashboard visibility."
"We need a monitoring tool which can in one place, where we can manage, monitor the entire Exadata components."
"Patching must be simplified."
"The solution lacks a visualized console."
"One of our requirements is the ability to easily get answers regarding trends and exceptions. In BW, it is not that easy to get such information. I expect better trend and exception detection, better pattern detection."
"It's a product that is at the end of life so they will not improve it anymore."
"What I'd like to improve in SAP Business Warehouse is its data structure, that's a little bit rigid. It could be a bit more flexible, so you can design your data structure and improve performance when creating a solution. Currently, the way data is stored in SAP Business Warehouse is rigid."
"Areas for improvement in SAP Business Warehouse include enhancing scheduling and monitoring tools, as well as improving communication about hidden features to make them more accessible to users."
"It takes more work to get the data, including reporting on that data, because some coding is required, and a significant level of transformation is needed when using SAP Business Warehouse."
"I would like to see a different end solution in order to read the data and attract internal users."
"The problem with BW, and the factor that differentiated it from the original BW, is that you only get limited functionality with your runtime license. So, you have to pay extra for extracting data."
"You can start quickly but, when you have to get a little more detailed, when you have to change something, when you have to solve problems, it's not that easy. It's easy to start but evolving is not that easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Initial investment price could use improvement"
"The pricing of Oracle Exadata is too high."
"Oracle is always costly but it's fine."
"I'm giving Oracle Exadata five out of ten in terms of pricing. Its price could be lower."
"All things considered, the price of this product is fairly high, as is always the case with Oracle."
"The price is very high."
"Exadata is an expensive tool, but, considering the ROI, it's worth going for the solution."
"I would rate the tool's pricing a nine out of ten."
"The license for SAP Business Warehouse is paid yearly, and there's no extra cost in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"I would not recommend it to small-scale companies. The price is too much."
"Overall, the pricing is not fixed and is expensive."
"It's quite pricey. SAP changed its pricing policy, so they give you one engine and then you have to buy everything next to it, like MSS, the BPC licenses, and everything else."
"The licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse depends on your revenue. Its licensing structure is a little bit complicated. The more your revenue is, the higher the price, but SAP does have different pricing structures for various companies. For small businesses, licensing isn't based on revenue, but for big companies, it's revenue-based. There's some agreement regarding pricing for huge companies, so it's different, and SAP Business Warehouse pricing isn't fixed. On a scale of one to ten, I'm rating the licensing cost for SAP Business Warehouse as five because it's very high. As your revenue grows, your licensing cost also increases, so you have to factor that in when calculating your cost."
"SAP Business Warehouse licensing is a bit expensive compared to other products in the market."
"It's moderately expensive, but definitely has its branding and price value for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
10%
Government
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Retailer
9%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business47
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise86
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Oracle Exadata?
It is the best solution for OLTP and data warehousing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Oracle Exadata?
The cost of Oracle Exadata is substantial, particularly in terms of maintenance costs and licensing. This pricing strategy has led to strained relationships with IT companies including HP and Cisco...
What needs improvement with Oracle Exadata?
Patching Oracle Exadata can be challenging due to its numerous components including network, blade, CPU, storage, and VMs. The system's complexity extends beyond simple maintenance tasks. The perfo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SAP Business Warehouse?
The solution is quite expensive. We paid a yearly subscription fee.
What needs improvement with SAP Business Warehouse?
Over a period, we realized that the license and maintenance costs were quite expensive. Every day, we had to run the background job ODS. Eventually, we moved away from SAP Business Warehouse and bo...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PayPal, EBS, Organic Food Retailer, Garmin, University of Minnesota, Major Semiconductor Company, Deutsche Bank, Starwood, Ziraat Bank, SK Telecom, and P&G.
Medtronic, Cirque du Soleil, Antarc, B&G Manufacturing, EarlySense, eBay, Ferrero, James Austin Company, Lenovo, Sagem, RAK Ceramics, Vodafone
Find out what your peers are saying about Oracle Exadata vs. SAP Business Warehouse and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,836 professionals have used our research since 2012.