SAP Data Integration


What is Data Integration?

Data integration is the process of providing a single, unified view of information by combining data that resides in different sources. The process of data integration involves a set of practices, tools, and architectural procedures.

Data integration has become a business imperative as organizations see competitive advantage in data quality, data governance, data modeling, and the challenges of isolated or siloed data. The extract, transform, load (ETL) process is a commonly used data integration model.

SAP offers a suite of data integration tools. These tools are available on premise or in the cloud and cover a variety of different use cases. Data integration tools provided by SAP include SAP Data Services, SAP Cloud Platform Integration for data services, SAP HANA smart data integration, SAP Cloud Platform smart data integration, SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server, and SAP Data Hub.

Vendors like Qlik, Quickbase, Stonebranch, Boomi, and TIBCO provide data integration capabilities for SAP customers.

What is Data Integration?

Data integration is the process of providing a single, unified view of information by combining data that resides in different sources. The process of data integration involves a set of practices, tools, and architectural procedures.

Data integration has become a business imperative as organizations see competitive advantage in data quality, data governance, data modeling, and the challenges of isolated or siloed data. The extract, transform, load (ETL) process is a commonly used data integration model.

SAP offers a suite of data integration tools. These tools are available on premise or in the cloud and cover a variety of different use cases. Data integration tools provided by SAP include SAP Data Services, SAP Cloud Platform Integration for data services, SAP HANA smart data integration, SAP Cloud Platform smart data integration, SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server, and SAP Data Hub.

Vendors like Qlik, Quickbase, Stonebranch, Boomi, and TIBCO provide data integration capabilities for SAP customers.

Benefits of Data Integration

In addition to consolidating information, data integration can also ensure that the data is clean, accurate, and enhanced for business use. It is also an important component to any effective data management strategy, and can help companies optimize analytics, ensure consistency between operational applications, share data outside of the organization, coordinate data services, and support data migration and consolidation.

Key Data Integration Considerations for SAPinsiders

  • Include end users in decisions about data integration. TIBCO’s Senior Solution Engineer Iain Harfield explains that while the primary decision makers for integration strategies are often those in charge of lines of business with enterprise architects driving the implementation strategy, end users also play a pivotal role in building our an integration strategy. “…not including them in the process can put an organization at risk of providing solutions that fall short of addressing business challenges,” Harfield says.
  • Blend SAP ERP data with non-SAP source data. SAPinsider’s 2021 integration research revealed that 90% of respondents need to integrate non-SAP data with their SAP data. In an SAPinsider thought leadership article, Qlik’s Vice President of SAP Business Matthew Hayes discusses the endless ways a business can benefit from integrating SAP ERP data with non-SAP source data. “The irony is that SAP data becomes more valuable if you expand it with related data from other sources,” Hayes says.
  • Deploy data lakes and data warehouses in the cloud. SAPinsider’s Data Management and Data Warehousing in Cloud Benchmark Report found that deploying data in a hybrid model was a popular choice for analytics, ERP, and supply chain data. To mitigate the challenge a hybrid model can pose from an integration standpoint, SAPinsider recommends that integration be achieved, in part, by moving data into a centralized cloud data lake or data warehouse.

11 results

  1. React to Market Changes with SAP Data Automation

    Click Here to View Session Deck. Whether it’s supplier performance, defective materials, or an unexpected natural disaster that bottlenecks your supply chain, data automation can help you adapt to changing market conditions and make business decisions. Simplify processes like changing material orders through automation and uploading new data to SAP. By utilizing software that understands the complexity…...…
  2. Precog Delivers Analytics-Ready Data — from Everywhere

    Reading time: 5 mins

    Data is essential for companies that want to work in a forward-thinking way, as organizations need information to power their analytics. However, many organizations struggle with data management. Most organizations surveyed in SAPinsider’s 2023 SAP Data Management Strategies Research Report said that their data management strategy meets their requirements either only partially, slightly, or did…
  3. Leslie Hanson image

    Connecting SAP to an Application Network for Enterprise-Wide Connectivity

    With increasing demand to ensure interconnectivity between varied systems within an enterprise landscape, many systems provide integration solutions to facilitate ingestion and retrieval of data. This content is for SAPinsider Monthly Subscription, SAPinsider Annual Subscription, and SAPinsider Premium Annual Subscription members only.Log In Join Now
  4. image of Zach Chisholm

    How to Eat an Elephant: Learn How Bega Integrated their M&A Divestment End-to-End

    Bega, after acquiring Lion Drinks and Dairy division, needed to carve out a relevant IT ecosystem which included over 200 systems and their entire SAP landscape – whilst ensuring operations for both organizations never missed a beat. This meant that the supply chain had to stay entirely unaffected: every order needed to be processed seamlessly,…
  5. sap data integration image

    Video: Data’s Value in SAP Integration Programs

    Deeper data insights can help drive the business agility sought by leaders. This is especially important in SAP system integrations projects, where according to SAPinsider research, 90% of organizations support non-SAP to SAP integration. How can organizations unlock the total value of data in SAP system integrations? An intelligent API-led approach can bring everything into…
  6. Displays pieces of a puzzle

    Unlock Data’s Value in SAP Integration Programs

    Reading time: 8 mins

    SAP system integrations go beyond SAP – 90% of organizations support non-SAP to SAP integration, while only 78% perform SAP to SAP integration, according to SAPinsider research. This means that when defining a data integration strategy, organizations need to prepare to work with data in both their SAP systems and non-SAP systems. Unlocking the full…
  7. Data Sheet: CCH Tagetik – SAP Integration

    Reading time: 1 min

    Discover how when you combine CCH Tagetik with SAP, you can have it all: intuitive, fast, accurate and easy-to-use CPM that addresses the needs of both Finance and IT. Find other insightful content from Wolters Kluwer | CCH Tagetik on their Vendor Showcase
  8. data connected city

    An Introduction to DataOps: A New Approach to Acting on Large Volumes of Information Faster and More Effectively

    Reading time: 6 mins

    Companies seeking better ways to collect, understand, and act on data should know about an emerging data management methodology called “DataOps”. This new movement aims to improve an organization’s use of data through better data quality, shorter cycle time, superior data management, and accelerated analytics. As data volumes grow and become more diverse, distributed, and…
  9. SAP’s Integration Solution Advisory Methodology (ISA-M) for the Intelligent Enterprise

    SAP’s Integration Solution Advisory Methodology (ISA-M) for the Intelligent Enterprise

    Reading time: 17 mins

    by Matthias Allgaier, SAP SE A solid integration strategy is crucial for providing the flexibility and agility organizations require to meet rapidly changing business needs. When building this strategy, enterprise architects must take into account a variety of pervasive integration requirements. For example, leveraging intelligent technologies to advance business outcomes — becoming an Intelligent Enterprise,…
  10. Managing Data with SAP Solutions: SAP HANA and non-HANA Use Cases

    Reading time: 17 mins

    See some examples of integration solutions based on SAP-provided replication tools that you can use to integrate SAP and non-SAP applications. The tools support a wide variety of data types (structured and unstructured) and formats (including data streams). Key Concept The new SAP HANA replication and consolidation capabilities can simplify the architecture of the solution…...…