SAP Data Warehouse Cloud - Graphical View vs. Data Flow

[pbaumann]

Hi Experts!

I tried to find out what is the difference between a graphical view and a data flow and what are the different use cases?

From my perspective a unique feature of data flow is the python script capabilitiy. But away from that it looks similar, can be handled similar and I can do mostly the same actions like Joins, Projections, Union, Aggregation, Formulas, ...

So when to use what? Does data flow work with persistency in the steps?

Thank you for some hints, examples and explainations!

Regards,

Peter

[kpsauer]

Hi pbaumann08 ,

a data flow always persists data in a table in Data Warehouse Cloud, whereas a graphical view creates a view for remote data access. However, you could also materialize a graphical view and persist the data, but that is fully optional.

Data Flows can use the standard transformations or Python script coded transformations. Graphical views have no scripting possibilities, only standard transformations and calculations on single columns. Alternatively, you could use a SQL script based view for coding table functions.

Also consider the source system connection, as not every connection is able to support remote data access.

The data flow persists the data only in the target table. Intermediate results are not persisted.

Best regards
KP Sauer

[pbaumann]

Hi KP Sauer!Thank you for the fast response! Meanwhile I also found a good comparison here: https://visualbi.com/blogs/sap/sap-data-warehouse-cloud/sap-data-warehouse-cloud-overview-of-data-fl... answer clear some points but basically I see a large overlap in use cases. Would be good to see some examples comparing the concepts with aspects like amount of data or complexity. It enables similar scenarios like in a BW/4HANA where you can persist or model virtually. But in general I see the trend to virtualize wherever possible, especially in the cloud. Would be interested to hear if the functionality continues to diverge in the future?Best regards,

Peter

[jean_aguilar]

Hi @kpsauer , which one (dataflow vs materialized graphical view) performs better in terms of performance? which one will you use if you can achieve the same result with both methods?