Data warehouses have come a long way since their earliest iterations back in the 1980s. They’re now faster, more powerful, and in the cloud. But what hasn’t changed is their goal: to unlock the full value of an organization’s data.
The latest developments are only making this easier with automation, empowerment, and openness. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest data warehousing trends to watch for.
Better Bridging the Cloud and On-Premise
Out of all the data warehousing trends we’ve seen, this is the most exciting for users. Organizations are at different stages in their data journey. Some organizations have made enormous progress in taking full advantage of the cloud. Others are just making their first steps in extending their on-premise data solutions in the cloud.
Regardless of where each organization is, the best data warehouses of today successfully bridge the gap between the cloud and on-premise. What does this mean exactly? Essentially, a data warehouse is a perfect way to transition towards the cloud.
With a data warehouse in the cloud, you can choose exactly what data goes to the cloud and what stays on-premise. This flexibility helps keeps those complex authorizations used for on-premise storage in place while making key data available to any stakeholders who might need it.
Experience the biggest breakthroughs yourself with the free 30-day SAP Data Warehouse Cloud trial.
More Open Than Ever Before
Data is coming in from more places than ever before. It’s not just on-premise vs. cloud data. There are multi-cloud solutions. There are third-party and first-party data. Don’t forget data that’s generated — and often siloed — by individual departments or regions. On top of that, there are so many tools now used along the data journey, from adaptors to analytics solutions. When an organization is scaling quickly, this all becomes even more complex.
Fortunately, this a landscape that the data warehouses of today can help simplify. A modern data warehouse serves as an open hub for this data that can later be leveraged to generate value. From this data warehouse, everything from reporting to analytics to data science can be successfully conducted.
Empowering Business Users to Dive Into Data
How valuable is data if decision-makers can’t get their hands on it? Almost worthless. The data warehouses of the past were powerful, for sure, but they weren’t exactly accessible. They remained in the realm of IT, so any business user who wanted to pull some data couldn’t do this on their own.
That’s no longer the case. Thanks to features such as virtualization and SAP Data Warehouse Cloud’s Spaces feature, business users can get immediate access to the data they need. These spaces are virtual workspaces where specific users can play around with the data as they please in a safe and secure place. This video explains exactly how it works.
Data becomes a lot more valuable when it’s available to the people that need it. Smart, data-backed decisions can be made without delay when business users are empowered to experiment with data. Proofs of concept can be run in record time. Business cases can be tested without delay. All of this is a huge improvement of the way things used to be, where data would just sit there until it was asked for.
End-to-End from Start to Finish
Setting up a data warehouse project was once a great challenge. The back-end infrastructure and integrations weren’t always simple. To make things even more complicated, integrations for end-users — such as analytics tools – also had to be taken care off. This meant that data couldn’t generate as much value as needed, as there would be obstacles along the data journey.
Fortunately, the end-to-end capabilities of today’s data warehouses make that a lot easier. With an end-to-end data warehouse solution, analytics is available right out of the box. When an analytics solution such as SAP Analytics Cloud is directly built into the data warehouse solution, precious time and money can be saved.
Essentially, every stage of the data journey can now be handled – from storage, to modelling, to visualization – by a solution such as SAP Data Warehouse Cloud.
The Data Warehousing Trends of Tomorrow
These are just some of the data warehousing trends to look out for. As the value of data continues to increase, you can bet that the power of data warehouses will also scale.
To see these trends for yourself, sign up for the free SAP Data Warehouse Cloud trial. This is the only end-to-end data management and decision-making cloud solution designed for business and enterprise-grade experiences. We’re combining powerful data management capabilities with the broadest advanced analytics, helping you to make confident decisions – all in one, all in the cloud.