The new ‘Cloud for Analytics’ feature from SAP BPC

While the Consistency and in-memory technology boosted the performance of SAP systems, it generated several benefits of 'Cloud for Analytics' customers.  SAP's new platform for BI, planning and predictive analytics promises simplicity and consistency, but it will require a fresh start for BusinessObjects or Lumira customers looking to move to this new cloud.

SAP can point to many benefits in building Cloud for Analytics, it's new cloud-based BI, analytics and planning platform, from scratch, but one drawback is that BusinessObjects and Lumira customers won't be able to bring dashboards or reports currently used on premises into this new cloud.

Before I get to this drawback, let's review all there is to like about SAP Cloud For Analytics. For starters, it will include components for BI (meaning reporting, dashboarding, data-discovery and visualization), business planning, predictive analytics and, eventually, governance, risk and compliance (GRC). The starting point for Cloud for Analytics was Cloud for Planning, the budgeting and planning application introduced last year built on the HANA Cloud Platform. No surprise, then, that the planning component of Cloud for Analytics, renamed "SAP Cloud for Analytics for Planning," is available immediately.

The benefits of Cloud for Analytics start with having BI, predictive analytics and planning all on a single platform - a unique combination in the cloud. SAP is also promising consistent and modern user interfaces that will be easy and intuitive for business users. Pricewise SAP is sticking with the Lumira Cloud freemium approach, starting with a free, basic BI service before graduating to more robust, paid levels of service starting at $25 per-user, per-month. Power-user licenses spanning multiple components and including the most advanced capabilities will top out at more than $1,000 per user, per month.

From what I've seen, the new platform delivers a clean design with lots of data-visualization elements. On speed and performance, Cloud for Analytics runs on the in-memory HANA Cloud Platform, so expect fast, in-memory performance.

If you have hundreds (or thousands) of dashboards and reports, as many SAP Business Objects customers do, and you want to take them into the cloud, managed services are the only practical option. Many Business Objects customers are ready to let go of the old content and start from scratch, but this limitation means that third-party cloud options may be as easy to embrace as Cloud for Analytics. Tapping existing data sets and metadata isn't the hard part of changing BI tools and platforms.

The good news for customers is that there's a world of new BI and analytics options in the cloud. Amazon announced two weeks ago that it's jumping in with QuickSight. Salesforce has revamped and is putting a second push into Salesforce Wave. Microsoft is steadily adding options and capabilities to Power BI. Tableau and Qlik are moving more aggressively into the cloud. And next week we'll see new analytics and BI cloud services from both IBM and Oracle. We're clearly seeing plenty of innovation and the fresh competition, and that should help keep prices competitive.