I have been asked for an education advice by the folks from my BW past. In this blog I will discuss the pros and cons of two career options for SAP BI specialists: HANA Modeler vs. S/4HANA Analytics developer. Being both, I am sharing my subjective thoughts.
For those lost what I am talking about, this video will serve a good intro into S/4HANA Analytics.
First things first: what do we believe in?
While technically both modelling approaches are possible on both types of the systems: traditional Business Suite @ HANA and S/4HANA (subject to SP levels), to me it all comes down to the question which type of the systems will prevail in the long run? If I were to believe in S/4 as much as SAP does, certainly the latter will be in majority.
Customer choice between the two
Now, a little situation to decide which approach will the customer take if they have an S/4HANA system. Let us compare pros and cons of using the two different environments:
HANA Modelling: build Calculation Views | S/4HANA Analytics: build CDS views |
Pros:
· GUI available! · Quite mature environment, potentially less bugs · A lot of literature, courses, best practices · May be used to build a HANA-native Data Warehouse (subject to licenses) |
Pros:
· Something that SAP bets on · SAP-delivered content needs 0-installation · SAP-delivered content is evolving a lot · CDS views are ABAP entities. Thus, contrary to marketing naming (S/4HANA something), these are DB-agnostic and knowledge reusable · ABAP-managed users and authorizations · Enough (nearly-) free education. I will make a separate post on that |
Cons:
· SAP-delivered HANA Live content is not evolving anymore · In many cases DB users require creation & role admin (aka “red tape”) · HANA Modelling knowledge is not directly applicable on other DB’s · Loses out on simplifications (think sFin, sLog, etc.) |
Cons:
· No GUI, only coding. Many consultants will drop out at this point, but is it bad? · New environment, more bugs, notes, etc. · Education just starting · Not suitable for building an integrated Data Warehouse (without BW). |
Now, which one will the customer take? In the long run, I think they will follow SAP with their S/4HANA vision and modelling using CDS technology.
Conclusion
All-in-all, if you:
- think S/4HANA implementations will take off
- haven’t invested HANA Modelling education
- don’t mind a bit of coding
taking the S/4HANA Analytics route, i.e. learning to build CDS views and expose them to the preferred front-end(s), makes much of a better sense. Take S4H410 or follow my future blog posts on a (nearly-) free way to obtain the same knowledge.
If you:
- think there will be more migrations of existing environments to HANA DB
- have unrecovered investment in HANA modelling education
- willing to wait for a decent GUI for CDS’es (fingers crossed here)
take HA300 and a certification exam and enjoy yourse