SAP Knowledge Graph and Vector Engine

SAP Business Data Cloud

SAP is planning a new data universe with a semantic layer as a digital twin for the existing ERP. It is a bold and ambitious plan that is set to succeed with the new Business Data Cloud. The desire for consolidated and orchestrated management and presentation of ERP company data has existed for many years.

SAP Data Hub and Datasphere are two attempts to get a grip on data management. For a long time now, there has no longer been a single database in the SAP ERP universe. R/3 was the pure doctrine of a three-tier client/server model: one database server, several application servers and hundreds to thousands of clients. All master and transaction data was consolidated and orchestrated on the central database server in the form of Oracle, IBM DB2 or Microsoft SQL Server.

The concepts of Data Hub and Datasphere were shipwrecked! Now Business Data Cloud is to save the ambitious goal. From DSAG's point of view, the BDC could become SAP's biggest change in strategy since Hana and S/4. The target image promised by SAP is intended to harmonize today's fragmented data structures. This is an enormous challenge: SAP not only wants to take on more operational responsibility than before for the integration and provision of uniform data models - the BDC is about nothing less than the transformation of existing landscapes into a future-proof, cloud-centric architecture for on-prem and public cloud customers alike. The success of the BDC will therefore also depend on how well it integrates into these architectures and provides SAP data without technical and commercial restrictions. This is a framework condition that is equally important for partners, SAP and user companies.

Data integration with Graph and Vector Engine

The Hana database platform contains interesting IT tools that can be used to create a semantic layer. The meta level for data can also be understood as the digital twin of an ERP system. With SAP Knowledge Graph and Vector Engine, however, operational data can not only be organized and visualized, but also prepared and used for AI.

With the Vector Engine in the Hana Cloud, existing SAP customers can combine the possibilities of large language models (LLMs) with company-specific real-time data and know-how about business processes within the multi-model database Hana. The Vector Engine has been generally available since last year. Hana Cloud is a database-as-a-service offering for operational data applications and one of the services of the Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) that is most frequently used internally at SAP. More than 180 different applications and services currently make use of the multi-model functions of Hana Cloud.

SAP ERP Digital Twin

The SAP Knowledge Graph is the theoretical superstructure - meta level - for the SAP Business Data Cloud. BDC and BTP thus form a symbiosis and structure for future ERP models from SAP. An extension of existing ERP systems via the concept of a digital twin based on SQL, graph and vectors appears plausible from an IT perspective.

Whether SAP partners and existing customers will recognize the potential and be able to use these IT tools - Hana, Graph and Vector Engine - is still an open question. If SAP does not make more efforts in the areas of communication, training and best practice guides, this IT treasure will remain untapped.