

Snowflake and SAP Business Data Cloud are key competitors in cloud data warehousing and analytics. Snowflake holds a slight advantage due to its adaptable architecture and ease of scalability.
Features: Snowflake provides dynamic computing units via SQL, enabling users to scale on demand without downtime. Its zero copy cloning allows straightforward environment setups, while the separation of storage and compute enhances scalability. Snowflake also offers Snowpipe for efficient data ingestion and a Time Travel feature for historical data querying. SAP Business Data Cloud focuses on integrated AI and machine learning capabilities, offering extensive planning functions within its cloud ecosystem.
Room for Improvement: Snowflake users look for better support in stored procedures, pricing clarity, and expanded data source compatibility, along with enhanced ETL processes. SAP Business Data Cloud could improve by offering more direct connectivity options, enhancing hierarchical data support, and refining its visualization and predictive analytics. Improved real-time integration with non-SAP sources is also desired by users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Snowflake is built for seamless deployment on Public Cloud platforms, ensuring easy scaling and management, with customer support noted for its integration within the UI. SAP Business Data Cloud offers flexibility in deployment, including Hybrid Cloud. It benefits from comprehensive documentation but would improve with more prompt customer service.
Pricing and ROI: Snowflake’s pricing model relies on credit usage, which is flexible but can be complex to predict. It offers cost efficiency when usage fluctuates, yet some users find cost predictability challenging. SAP Business Data Cloud is seen as expensive but worthwhile for organizations already invested in SAP’s ecosystem, providing robust integration and functionality, which justifies the cost for some users.
We have saved a lot on the number of employees, and implementation time for the projects has reduced significantly since we started using the standard features of SAP Business Data Cloud.
Once the content is available, then it is a faster go-live with lesser cost in implementation, and that would give an ROI.
There is a return on investment with SAP Business Data Cloud, as it saves money because it performs results quickly and easily, facilitating integrations and speeding up operations compared to other analytics tools, thereby saving time and money.
The technical support is a very well-organized service, with a lot of tools for me as a consultant and for the end user on how to contact SAP support and get issues solved.
For example, when I provide a set of instructions, they often simply ask me to implement those steps without checking whether they are applicable.
In SAP's policy, for the first couple of years, the product team is also part of the support team.
We sought this documentation multiple times but faced difficulty in obtaining it.
I received great support in migrating data to Snowflake, with quick responses and innovative solutions.
I am satisfied with the work of technical support from Snowflake; they are responsive and helpful.
SAP Analytics Cloud can be used by a small company, and it can be used by a large corporate.
Since SAP has consolidated everything on one platform, there is ample room to expand as much as needed.
There are no limitations in terms of scale, so it fits both SMB customers and enterprise customers.
Snowflake is very scalable and has a dedicated team constantly improving the product.
The billing doubles with size increase, but processing does not necessarily speed up accordingly.
Recently, Snowflake has introduced streaming capabilities, real-time and dynamic tables, along with various connectors.
You have a chance to test it on your test tenant in small increments, so it should not break your productive reports and productive environment.
Other than during these quarterly release periods, the availability is excellent.
In a typical quarter, the availability has been over 99%; in a few cases, it dropped to around 98.5%.
Snowflake is highly stable and performs well even with large data sets exceeding terabytes, maintaining stability throughout.
Snowflake is very stable, especially when used with AWS.
Snowflake as a SaaS offering means that maintenance isn't an issue for me.
On the other hand, it is perfectly fitting to the SAP environment, with seamless integration to all SAP modules, not only ERP but also SuccessFactors and other tools from the SAP family.
If SAP can come up with innovative options to reduce licensing costs, many customers would incline toward SAP Business Data Cloud.
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
Enhancements in user experience for data observability and quality checks would be beneficial, as these tasks currently require SQL coding, which might be challenging for some users.
What things you are going with to ask the support and how we manage the relationship matters a lot.
If more connectors were brought in and more visibility features were added, particularly around cost tracking in the FinOps area, it would be beneficial.
If I compare the cost with SAP competitors, I find that when creating an enterprise data lake, if I don't use SAP Business Data Cloud and make it directly in the hyperscalers, it is pretty much cheaper than doing the same in SAP Business Data Cloud.
Frankly, pricing, setup cost, and licensing seem a bit high compared to other hyperscalers.
The pricing for SAP Business Data Cloud is higher compared to alternatives.
When it comes to cloud support, the setup cost is very cheap compared to other platforms, such as Oracle or PostgreSQL, which typically require higher costs.
Snowflake's pricing is on the higher side.
Snowflake lacks transparency in estimating resource usage.
For SuccessFactors and S/4HANA Cloud, there are pre-built reports available which are commonly used by customers.
SAP Business Data Cloud has positively impacted my organization by federating SAP data, which is now available for all to use.
The main standout feature is BDC Connect, as it is very useful for sharing data without replicating to third-party tools such as Enterprise Databricks, Snowflake or even in the near future, Google BigQuery as well as Microsoft Fabric.
We had a comparison with Databricks and Snowflake a few months back, and this auto-scaling takes an edge within Snowflake; that's what our observation reflects.
I have used the Snowflake Zero-Copy Cloning feature in the past while prototyping data in lower environments. This feature is helpful as it saves a lot of time during the data replication process.
Snowflake has contributed to significant cost savings.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Snowflake | 14.9% |
| SAP Business Data Cloud | 2.8% |
| Other | 82.3% |

| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 28 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 19 |
| Large Enterprise | 50 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 30 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 20 |
| Large Enterprise | 60 |
SAP Business Data Cloud provides cloud-based predictive analysis, robust visualization, and integrated planning capabilities with seamless SAP integration. It enhances analytics and reporting efficiency with machine learning and AI features.
SAP Business Data Cloud stands out with its user-friendly application design, leveraging TypeScript scripting for flexibility. It enables easy data integration, customizable dashboards, and collaborative planning. Renowned for its seamless connectivity and comprehensive business intelligence offerings, it is designed to support real-time analytics and planning across both on-prem and cloud environments. Improvements are anticipated in visualization features, connectivity, and third-party system integration, with calls for more customizable chart options and real-time reporting capabilities.
What are the most important features of SAP Business Data Cloud?SAP Business Data Cloud serves industries by powering cloud-based reporting, analytics, financial planning, and executive dashboards. Companies utilize it to integrate SAP and non-SAP data sources for insights and forecasts. It is applied in constructing dashboards, boardroom presentations, budgeting, and predictive analytics, supporting versatile use cases across multiple sectors.
Snowflake provides a modern data warehousing solution with features designed for seamless integration, scalability, and consumption-based pricing. It handles large datasets efficiently, making it a market leader for businesses migrating to the cloud.
Snowflake offers a flexible architecture that separates storage and compute resources, supporting efficient ETL jobs. Known for scalability and ease of use, it features built-in time zone conversion and robust data sharing capabilities. Its enhanced security, performance, and ability to handle semi-structured data are notable. Users suggest improvements in UI, pricing, on-premises integration, and data science functions, while calling for better transaction performance and machine learning capabilities. Users benefit from effective SQL querying, real-time analytics, and sharing options, supporting comprehensive data analysis with tools like Tableau and Power BI.
What are Snowflake's Key Features?
What Benefits Should You Look for?
In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Snowflake's flexible data warehousing and analytics capabilities facilitate cloud migration, streamline data storage, and allow organizations to consolidate data from multiple sources for advanced insights and AI-driven strategies. Its integration with analytics tools supports comprehensive data analysis and reporting tasks.
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