Blueprints always start with confidence. We kick off a BW-to-Snowflake migration, trace the KPIs back to “the” extractor, and everyone nods. Then design uncovers the truth: three Z-versions of that extractor, each a little different, each feeding reports that never quite match. What looked clean on day one turns into weeks of reconciling schema drift that crept across BW over years.
The real culprit isn’t bad intent. It’s a modeling culture built around producing a report, not managing a data product. Needs changed. Teams copied logic to get a number on the page. The copies stuck. Drift became normal.
This is exactly where SAP BDC Connect for Snowflake changes the story. SAP data products show up as first-class assets in Snowflake, and the shared SAP semantic definitions live in Snowflake Horizon data catalog so the meaning stays consistent. That keeps the same contract flowing across Fiori, SAC, and Snowflake and cuts off drift before it starts.
Here’s how we put it together now.
1. The Authoritative Core Stays in SAP
Treat SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) data products as your source of record. Think of them as contracts: Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay, Finance, WAM. They carry the business, meaning your leaders already recognize.
When these contracts remain authoritative, we’re not re-implementing SAP logic downstream or shipping surprises to the field.
- Same definitions you trust in SAP
- Lineage back to S/4HANA or ECC
- No extra outbound product required
- If you already license BDC and Snowflake, you’re covered
2. The Enterprise Extension Happens in Snowflake
Use Snowflaketo extend those SAP products for broader enterprise use:
- Governance & discovery: Register every product in Snowflake Horizon so ownership, policies, and lineage are visible where people actually work.
- Freshness you can price: Set target refresh with Dynamic Tables per product/SLA. Ops boards can be sub-hourly. Planning can be nightly. Cost follows those choices.
- Help where it matters: Start with Cortex Analyst for natural-language questions over governed data. Add Cortex Agents when teams need repeatable multi-step tasks (retrieve, reason, summarize, act) within Snowflake’s security model.
Why This is Not HANA Sidecar and BW All Over Again
Sidecar and BW gave speed, but it also duplicated storage and security, and it often drifted from SAP definitions.
This model flips that premise on its head:
- We start from semantics, not replication. BDC publishes shared definitions you extend, not reinvent.
- Governance rides with the product. Horizon bakes in policy, lineage, and discovery as part of publishing.
- Freshness is a business knob. Dynamic Tables make latency a conscious choice tied to cost, not a habit.
The Outcome Leaders Care About
- Consistent SAP data products in both SAC and Snowflake. Operators, decision makers, and analysts all see the same truth.
- Lower total cost of ownership. Fewer parallel stacks to run and reconcile, and spend aligned to the SLAs you actually need.
- Clean exec narrative. “This KPI refreshes every 30 minutes for dispatch; that one updates nightly for planning. Same definition everywhere.”
How I’d Start This Quarter
- Name the contracts. List the SAP data products you’ll keep authoritative in BDC (O2C, P2P, Finance, WAM). Assign an owner and an SLA to each.
- Draw the handoff. Be explicit about where BDC stops and Snowflake Silver-2/Gold/Platinum begins, including what enrichment belongs in Snowflake.
- Register early. Publish to Horizon from day one so governance and lineage ship with the product.
- Pick target-lags. Set Dynamic Table freshness by persona and decision window. Share the latency-versus-cost curve with Finance before you go live.
- Turn on assistance where it pays off. Add Cortex Analyst for common questions; introduce Cortex Agents where repetitive multi-step work exists.
The Cut and Dry
Keep SAP definitions authoritative in BDC. Extend them in Snowflake where the business needs both reach and speed. Let freshness—not folklore—drive spend. That’s how you get one truth across SAC and Snowflake with a lower cost to run and a clearer story to tell.
Every enterprise wants speed and scale. The challenge is doing it without sacrificing the definitions and discipline that make your data trustworthy.
By keeping SAP BDC as the authoritative core and extending those products in Snowflake, organizations can finally have both: the precision of ERP and the agility of the modern data cloud.
Ready to start laying ERP and analytic foundations for the AI era with a pattern that brings control and innovation back into alignment? Let’s talk today.
