SAP BDC Key Features

[swati_gawade]

SAP BDC Key Features

In my last blog post (SAP BDC for Dummies - SAP Community) I have explained the concept of SAP BDC .

Now let us see the key features of SAP BDC.

There are 5 key features of SAP BDC.

1. BDC Cockpit
2. Intelligent apps
3. Knowledge Graphs
4. Data Products
5. Object store

1. BDC Cockpit

The BDC Cockpit in SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) is the central user interface for managing and orchestrating all components of the BDC environment. It plays a crucial role for administrators, data scientists, and analysts by providing a unified workspace to explore, configure, and deploy data-driven solutions.

The SAP Business Data Cloud Cockpit is:

• The main entry point for interacting with the BDC platform.
• A centralized UI for managing the data landscape, applications, and data products.
• A tool for exploring, deploying, and activating intelligent applications and data packages.

Key Features of the BDC Cockpit

• Landscape Configuration
• Set up and manage connections to SAP and non-SAP source and target systems.
• Define which components (e.g., SAP S/4HANA, SuccessFactors) are part of your SAP BDC data landscape.
• Artifact Management
  • Data Packages: Bundled data models and dashboards for specific scenarios.
  • Intelligent Applications: Prebuilt apps for reporting and analytics.
• Discover and deploy: View metadata like category, system type, version, and purpose.
• Data Product Activation
• Activate data packages to make Data Products available via Foundation Services.
• These products can then be used in SAP Datasphere, SAP Analytics Cloud, or AI/ML workflows.
• User Roles
• Administrators: Configure systems and manage access.
• Data Scientists/Analysts: Deploy models, explore data, and build insights.

 2. Intelligent apps

 Intelligent Applications in SAP Business Data Cloud are AI-powered, adaptive applications designed to transform business operations by learning from data, understanding business context, and automating decision-making processes. 

 Each intelligent application in SAP Business Data Cloud is underpinned by curated, governed data products, sets of structured business data and metadata designed to accelerate use cases and reduce data integration overhead. And with SAP Databricks natively available in SAP Business Data Cloud, users can leverage SAP data products with existing lakehouses with a zero-copy approach.

An SAP Business Data Cloud administrator can install intelligent apps to the SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud tenants in the SAP Business Data Cloud formation.

When an intelligent app is installed:

• SAP-managed spaces are created in SAP Datasphere to contain the insight app content.
• Replication flows, tables, views, and analytic models are created in these spaces to ingest, prepare and expose the required data to SAP Analytics Cloud.

 3. Knowledge Graphs

SAP Business Data Cloud Knowledge Graphs refer to a powerful capability within SAP HANA Cloud and the broader SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) that enables businesses to connect, contextualize, and analyze their enterprise data using graph-based models. 

SAP Knowledge Graphs are semantic data structures that:

• Connect structured and unstructured data across SAP systems.
• Model relationships between business entities (e.g., customers, products, invoices).
• Enable AI and analytics to understand business context more deeply.
• Support natural language queries and intelligent automation.

They are now a general availability (GA) feature in SAP HANA Cloud as of Q1 2025(What’s New in SAP HANA Cloud – March 2025 - SAP Community)

Key Features of Knowledge Graphs 

• Ontology-Driven Modelling
• At its core, an ontology is a formal representation of knowledge within a particular domain. It defines the types of entities that exist in that domain and the relationships between them.

                   Example: A "Vendor" might be linked to "Orders", "Invoices", and "Support Tickets".

• Knowledge graphs use ontologies to define business concepts and relationships.
• Multi-Model Integration
• Works alongside relational, spatial, JSON, and vector engines in SAP HANA Cloud.
• Enables a data fabric approach—unifying diverse data types and formats.
• AI Enablement
• Powers SAP Joule and other AI agents by grounding them in real business data.
• Reduces hallucinations in AI outputs by providing context-aware answers 
• Natural Language Access
• Users can query data using plain language.
• AI agents can retrieve and act on data across SAP systems.
• Pre-Populated Graphs
• Comes with pre-built knowledge graphs for common SAP modules (e.g., S/4HANA, SuccessFactors).

Read more about knowledge graphs in Connecting the Facts: SAP HANA Cloud’s Knowledge G... - SAP Community

4. Data Products

Data Product is a grouping concept that carries the relevant metadata to describe the dataset and its data qualities. A Data Product itself is not directly consumable, but it exposes data through output ports, which can be implemented as APIs or events. In the first iteration of BDC, the primary Data Products expose a single output port as delta-sharing API. In principle, there can be multiple output ports of various API and/or event types. To understand data ingestion, lineage, and dependencies, Data Products can also have input ports which are the equivalent of an ORD Integration Dependency that lists the APIs and events that are used to ingest or process the data.

Types of Data Products: There are three main types of Data Products:

• SAP-managed Data Products: Pre-built by SAP, focusing on data from ERP and line-of-business applications.
• Customer-defined Data Products: Created by customers to meet specific analytical needs, leveraging data from various sources.
• Partner-defined Data Products: Developed by SAP partners, offering specialized datasets tailored to specific industries or use cases. 

5. Object store

The Object Store in SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC)—delivered via the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP)—is a cloud-native storage service designed to handle unstructured data such as files, documents, images, and large binary objects (BLOBs).

This service is particularly useful for handling large amounts of unstructured data, such as documents, images, and backups.

Key Features of Object Store

1. Instance Sharing: The Object Store on SAP BTP supports instance sharing, which allows multiple applications to share databases, messaging queues, and other services. This feature helps in reusing computing resources, exchanging data, and reducing costs.
2. Integration with Hyperscalers: The Object Store can be integrated with various hyperscaler options such as Azure Blob Storage, Amazon S3, and Google Cloud Storage. This flexibility allows users to leverage their existing cloud infrastructure.
3. Service Plans: The Object Store offers different service plans, with the 'standard' plan enabling the instance sharing functionality. Users need to upgrade to the 'standard' plan to utilize this feature.

These are key features in SAP BDC for now.

Happy Learning!

Swati Gawade-Shingade.

Cognizant technology Solutions.