The Rise of the Lakehouse in SAP Ecosystems: Transitioning from SAP BW/4HANA to a Unified Databricks Lakehouse Architecture

The Rise of the Lakehouse in SAP Ecosystems: Transitioning from SAP BW/4HANA to a Unified Databricks Lakehouse Architecture

Sumit Sachdeva

Technical Manager – Predictive Analytics / Business Intelligence The Scotts Company LLC

Marysville, Ohio, USA

Abstract – Traditional enterprise data architectures often struggle to balance the structured reliability of SAP systems with the high-performance demands of modern big data and AI/ML workloads. While SAP BW/4HANA remains a robust platform for structured reporting, its proprietary nature and schema-on- write constraints can create significant data silos. This paper explores the transition from the traditional SAP Business Warehouse (BW) environment to a unified Databricks Lakehouse architecture. We propose a transition framework that maps SAPs Layered Scalable Architecture (LSA++) to the modern Medallion architecture (Bronze, Silver, Gold). By leveraging Delta Lake and Unity Catalog, organizations can achieve a "lean SAP core" where operational processes remain in SAP, but advanced analytics and cross-functional data intelligence are unified within a scalable, open-source-based Lakehouse.

Keywords – SAP BW/4HANA, Databricks, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, SAP HANA, Delta Lake, SAP, Data Warehouse, SAP BW, Layered Scalable Architecture, Medallion Architecture, Unity Catalog

1. INTRODUCTION

   Enterprise intelligence has historically relied on the "walled garden" of SAP BW/4HANA for its high-fidelity analytical reporting. However, as organizations move toward data democratization and real-time AI, the traditional SAP BW architecture faces challenges like high latency, scalability costs and closed ecosystems. Batch-oriented extraction processes often delay data visibility. Scaling high-performance HANA memory can be cost-prohibitive for non-critical datasets. Proprietary formats make it difficult for modern data science tools (Python, R, PySpark) to access data without heavy extraction layers. The emergence of the Databricks Lakehouse offers a promising alternative. By combining the governance of a data warehouse with the flexibility of a data lake, the Lakehouse architecture allows enterprises to unify their SAP and non-SAP data into a single, high-performance platform.

2. ARCHITECTURAL COMPARISON: BW/4HANA VS. DATABRICKS LAKEHOUSE

   In the traditional enterprise world, SAP BW/4HANA functions much like a high-end, pre-organized filing cabinet. It

   is a classic Data Warehouse where structure is the top priority. Before any piece of information can be placed inside, you must define exactly where it belongs and how it should look, this is a concept known as Schema-on-Write. Because it is built specifically to integrate with other SAP systems, it excels at producing standard, high-fidelity business reports. However, this rigidity limit data democratization. If an organization wants to add modern data types, like social media trends or IoT sensor logs, it requires significant manual effort to clean and force that data into the existing filing system, often leading to high costs and slow delivery of new insights.

   In contrast, the Databricks Lakehouse represents a shift toward a modern, automated warehouse. It combines the best of a "Data Lake" (which can store any type of file) with the "Data Warehouse" (which provides organization and speed). This architecture uses Schema-on-Read, meaning you can drop data into the system in its raw form and only worry about the structure when you are ready to use it. This flexibility allows data scientists to use the information for Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning much more easily than they could within the restricted environment of an SAP system.

   TABLE I. Core differences between bw/4hana and databricks

   Feature	SAP BW/4HANA (LSA++)	Databricks Lakehouse (Medallion)
   Storage Engine	SAP HANA (In- memory, Proprietary)	Delta Lake (Open Parquet on Cloud Storage)
   Processing	Schema-on-write (Rigid)	Schema-on-read (Flexible)
   Cost Model	Licensed/Memory- based	Consumption/Compute-based
   Integrations	Primarily SAP-centric	Tool-agnostic (SQL, Python, Scala)
   AI/ML	SAP Predictive Analysis Library	MLflow & Native Mosaic AI Integration

   One of the most significant technical differences lies in how these systems handle "compute" and "storage." In a system like SAP BW/4HANA, the storage and the engine that runs reports are often tightly linked, making it expensive to scale. Databricks "decouples" these two elements. This allows an enterprise to store massive amounts of data cheaply on cloud storage while only paying for high-powered processing when they actually need to run a complex report or train an AI model. By moving to Lakehouse, companies can keep their critical SAP data while gaining the ability to mix it with outside information, all while operating on a more cost- effective "pay-as-you-go" model.

   This transition ultimately moves the business from static reporting to adaptive intelligence. While SAP remains the reliable "system of record" for transactions, the Databricks Lakehouse becomes the "system of intelligence" that can learn from historical data and predict future trends. This hybrid approach ensures that the business stays organized enough to pass an audit, but flexible enough to innovate with AI

3. TECHNICAL ARCHITECHTURE AND MIGRATION FRAMEWORK

   This framework evolves beyond simple automation, repositioning intelligent process management as a core component of modern data engineering. Instead of staying within the rigid limits of SAP BW traditional Layered Scalable Architecture (LSA++), this new approach adopts Medallion Architecture. The core of this change is a decoupled model where data storage and computer processing are separated. This allows a business to store vast amounts of SAP data cheaply while only paying for high-powered processing when needed to run complex models or AI tasks.

   TABLE II. Structure comparison

   SAP BW/4HANA (LSA++)	Databricks Lakehouse (Medallion)	Functionality Shift
   Data Acquisition Layer (ODP, PSA, DataSource)	Bronze Layer (Raw Delta Tables)	Shifts from rigid Schema-on-Write to flexible Schema-on- Read.
   Corporate Memory (ADSO – Staging)	Bronze Layer (Delta Log / History)	Proprietary table logs are replaced by the open-source Delta Log for auditability.
   Integration/Transformation Layer (InfoProviders, BW Transformations)	Silver Layer (Refined Delta Tables)	ABAP/GUI-based logic is refactored into Spark SQL and PySpark.
   Reporting Layer (HANA Calculation Views, BW Queries)	Gold Layer (Aggregated Delta Tables)	In-memory proprietary views are replaced by pre-calculated, optimized SQL Warehouses.

   1. Discovery and Assessment

      The initial stage focuses on auditing the existing SAP landscape to identify high-value data asets and complex dependencies. Organizations must inventory critical SAP objects, such as SAP CDS Views, ODP DataSources, and HANA Calculation Views, that drive existing business reports. This assessment involves documenting deeply nested ABAP routines and "black box" transformations that must be refactored into open-source code to move away from proprietary constraints. Additionally, a data volume analysis is conducted to determine the necessary scaling for cloud storage and serverless compute resources, ensuring a cost-effective "pay-as-you-go" model

   2. Data Ingestion and Connectivity Layer

      • Traditional systems often use fixed rules that break when data structures change. To fix this, the Lakehouse ingestion layer is "source-agnostic," meaning it can handle data from many different places like bank statements, customer portals, and lockbox files without needing a complete redesign. We can use high-performance tools to link directly to the SAP ecosystem. This allows for "parallel extraction," which means we can pull large amounts of data from sources such as SAP CDS Views or SAP DataSources, into the Bronze Layer very quickly. To keep this data fresh, we implement Change Data Capture (CDC). Rather than waiting for slow, once-a-day batches, CDC looks for small changes in real-time and syncs them immediately, ensuring that dashboards always show the most current numbers.

      • To modernize the move away from legacy systems like SAP ECC and SAP BW, organizations can use SAP Datasphere as a central data hub. This tool acts as a bridge, using "Replication Flows" to pull data from old sources and place it into an Amazon S3 bucket in a flexible format like Parquet. Once the data lands in S3, Apache Airflow acts as a conductor to schedule and manage the process. From there, Databricks uses Delta Live Tables (DLT) and Auto Loader to automatically "push" that data into the Bronze Layer. This setup creates a safety buffer, making the system much more reliable and easier to manage during large migrations.

   3. The Intelligence and Transformation Layer (Medallion Flow)

      In a traditional SAP environment, business logic is often locked inside "black box" Calculation Views or deeply nested ABAP routines or transformations that are difficult for external systems to access. The Databricks Lakehouse framework breaks this down into a transparent, tiered process that mimics how a functional expert learns from data over time. By moving from the Bronze to the Silver layer, the data undergoes "normalization," where the focus is on cleaning and standardizing the complex technical formats unique to SAP.

      For example, technical date stamps (DATS) and 8-digit time strings (TIMS) are converted into standard ISO timestamps that modern AI and machine learning tools can easily interpret.

      This layer also serves as the new home for the heavy-duty logic previously managed by SAP HANA Calculation Views and BW Transformations. We rebuild these graphical joins and SQL scripts using flexible, open languages like Python (PySpark) or Spark SQL. During this stage, we handle "Feature Engineering," where raw business rules such as calculating Net Margin or Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) are written as reusable functions. This transition allows the system to manage difficult tasks like multi-currency conversion and Unit of Measure (UoM) standardization by pulling exchange rates and conversion factors into a Unified Transaction Dataset.

      The final transition moves data from the Silver layer to the Gold Layer, which acts as the high-performance aggregation layer. This layer replaces the final "Analytic Views" or "BW Queries" that business users rely on for their daily reports. By pre-calculating common aggregations such as total regional sales per quarter, we ensure that the data is highly optimized for consumption. These Gold tables are then served via Databricks SQL Warehouses, providing sub-second query performance for tools like Tableau, Power BI or SAP Analytics Cloud. This structured approach ensures that the logic is not only preserved but is also made more flexible, allowing the business to update rules in hours rather than the weeks often required for SAP changes.

      TABLE III. SAP VS DATABRICKS

      SAP Source Logic	Databricks Destination Layer	Technology Used
      BW Transformation / ABAP Routine	Silver Layer	Spark SQL / PySpark
      HANA Calculation View (Joins/UoM)	Silver Layer	Spark SQL / Python
      HANA Analytic View/ Calculation View/ BW Query	Gold Layer	Databricks SQL
      HANA Currency Conversion Engine	Silver (Feature Engineering)	Custom Python/SQL Functions

   4. Governance and Unified Metadata (Unity Catalog)

      In a traditional SAP environment, governance is built directly into the application layer. In SAP ECC or BW, security and tracking are managed through complex "Authorization Objects" and "Analytic Privileges" that control exactly which user can see specific rows or columns of transaction data. This system is highly "system-centric," meaning the rules are locked inside the SAP software. While this provides excellent security, it often creates a "black box" where it is difficult for external data scientists to see the history of a data point or understand the full journey of a transaction from the source to a final report.

      To prevent the loss of control when moving to cloud, the proposed framework uses Unity Catalog as the central "brain" for the entire Lakehouse. Unlike the scattered governance of the past, Unity Catalog manages metadata, security permissions, and Lineage a visual map showing exactly where data came from and how it was changed in one single location. This ensures that the system maintains the same high level of Auditability and Traceability that SAP is famous for. Every time a transformation occurs, it is recorded in a "Delta Log" which creates a permanent, unchangeable paper trail that satisfies internal auditors and protects the integrity of the organization.

      TABLE IV. Key Differences in governance

      Feature	SAP ECC / BW Governance	Databricks Unity Catalog
      Security Model	Use Authorization Objects locked inside the SAP app.	Uses standard SQL-based permissions across all data.
      Data Lineage	Often hidden; requires specialized SAP tools to trace.	Automated, visual map showing data flow from source to report.
      User Access	Limited primarily to SAP-licensed users.	Open to data scientists using Python, SQL, or BI tools.
      Change Tracking	Uses SAP Change Logs (e.g., table CDHDR/CDPOS).	Uses the "Delta Log" to record every version of every file.
      Governance Scope	Mostly limited to SAP data.	Unified governance for SAP and non-SAP data together.

   5. Analytical Inference and Consumption

      The final stage of this process is the Gold Layer, where data is organized into polished, high-performance tables that are ready for business use. To get this data into the hands of users, we use Databricks SQL Warehouses with Serverless technology. While traditional SAP systems rely on a fixed application layer to handle requests, Serverless compute can instantly grow to handle huge, complex queris and then shut down when they are finished. This ensures that when a manager opens a report in tools like Power BI or Tableau, the charts load almost immediately.

      The system does more than just show data, it includes a Feedback Loop. Just like an accountant learning from a mistake, any data errors or manual corrections found during analysis are captured and sent back to the Intelligence Layer. This allows the machine learning models to retrain using those corrections, which makes the entire system more accurate and reliable over time.

      When businesses use tools like SAP Analysis for Office or connect dashboards directly to SAP BW Queries and HANA Views, they often hit an application bottleneck.

      • Processing Power: In an SAP environment, when you run a report, the work happens inside the HANA

        database or the BW server. If many people run big reports at the same time, the whole system slows down for everyone. In the Lakehouse, Serverless SQL Warehouses give each query its own dedicated power, so performance stays fast no matter how many people are logged in.

      • Data Speed and Connections: Standard reporting tools often lag when connected "live" to SAP because they have to translate complicated SAP ruleslike hierarchies or currency logicat the exact moment you run the report. By pre-calculating all that logic into the Gold Layer, the Lakehouse provides data that is already "ready-to-use," so the reporting tool doesn't have to do any heavy lifting.

      • The Learning Loop vs. Static Reporting: Traditional SAP reporting is a one-way street; you look at the data, and if there is an error, you have to manually fix it in the source system. In this Lakehouse framework, the Feedback Loop uses every user correction as a lesson for the AI model. This means the system learns from mistakes instead of just showing them over and over again.

      • Flexibility of Tools: SAP Analysis for Office is powerful but mostly limited to Excel and does not easily support modern AI features. The Lakehouse provides a Unified Transaction Dataset that is open to everyone. A data analyst can use it in Excel, a data scientist can use it in Python, and a manager can view it in a modern dashboardall using the same high- quality data.

   TABLE V. Summary of key differences

   Feature	SAP Analysis for Office / Direct BI Connect	Databricks Lakehouse (Gold Layer)
   Compute Source	Shared SAP HANA/BW Resources	Dedicated Serverless SQL Warehouses
   Data Logic	Calculated at runtime (Slow for big data)	Pre-calculated and Optimized (Fast)
   User Interaction	Static/Manual correction required	Automated Feedback Loop for ML
   Tool Choice	Primarily Excel or SAP- native tools	Any SQL-compliant tool (Power BI, Tableau, etc.)

4. COST COMPARISON

   The transition from SAP BW/4HANA to a Databricks Lakehouse architecture represents a fundamental shift in how a company manages its data budget. In a traditional SAP setup, organizations often operate within a proprietary silo licensing model. Under this structure, costs are primarily tied to the volume of high-performance HANA in-memory storage utilized. This can become very expensive because the enterprise must pay for high-end memory even for non-critical

   datasets that are not used frequently. In contrast, the Databricks Lakehouse operates on a "pay-as-you-go" consumption model where you only pay for high-powered processing while actively running a report or training an AI model.

   1. Decoupling Compute and Storage

      One of the most significant financial advantages of the Lakehouse is that it "decouples," or separates, storage from compute. In the legacy SAP system, the storage and the engine used to run reports are often tightly linked, which makes it costly and difficult to scale independently. With Databricks, an enterprise can store massive amounts of SAP data cheaply on cloud storage (such as Amazon S3) and only pay for expensive processing power during the specific times they are actually using it.

   2. Eliminating Resource Bottleneck and Serverless Scaling

      This modern model also solves the problem of "application bottlenecks". In a typical SAP environment, when many people try to run large, complex reports at the same time, the work happens inside the shared HANA database or BW server. This can slow down the system for everyone unless the company invests in more expensive hardware. However, Databricks uses "Serverless SQL Warehouses," which can instantly grow to handle a sudden rush of queries and then shut down as soon as the work is finished. This ensures fast performance without the company having to pay for powerful hardware that sits idle most of the day.

   3. Efficiency Gain and Automation

   The Lakehouse architecture further reduces costs by making the business more efficient through automated intelligence. Because the system uses machine learning to handle data errors that previously required manual human intervention, the "Straight-Through Processing" (STP) rate can increase which means more data volume is handled automatically without the IT team needing to step in. Additionally, the total time it takes to process a transaction can drop significantly, eliminating the expensive delays caused by waiting for old-fashioned 24-hour "batch" updates.

   TABLE VI. Cost comparison Table

   Feature	SAP BW/4HANA	Databricks Lakehouse
   Main Cost Driver	HANA In-memory storage volume	Compute used per task
   Data Storage	Expensive proprietary memory	Low-cost cloud object storage
   Scaling	Fixed and manual capacity	Automatic Serverless scaling
   Data Speed	24-hour batch cycles	Real-time updates (CDC)
   User Access	Limited primarily to SAP-licensed users	Open to SQL, Python, or BI tools

5. BENEFITS

   Moving from a traditional SAP environment to a Databricks Lakehouse offers several strategic advantages. This transition shifts an organization from a rigid, proprietary system to one that is flexible, fast, and driven by artificial intelligence. By breaking down the barriers of a closed ecosystem, businesses can better handle modern data demands and gain deeper insights.

   1. Architectural Flexibility and Agility

      One of the primary benefits of this move is the shift to a decoupled infrastructure. In SAP BW/4HANA, the storage and the engine that processes data are often tightly linked, making it expensive to grow. Databricks separates these two, allowing companies to store massive amounts of data cheaply while paying for high-powered processing only when they actually need it. This flexibility is enhanced by a "Schema-on-Read" approach. Unlike SAP, which requires you to define exactly how data looks before saving it (Schema-on-Write), the Lakehouse lets you save raw data immediately and structure it only when you are ready to use it. This creates an open ecosystem where data scientists can easily use modern tools like Python, R, and PySpark tools that are often difficult to use within the restricted SAP environment.

   2. Operational Efficiency and Velocity

      The Lakehouse archiecture also significantly improves the speed and efficiency of data operations. By using Change Data Capture (CDC) and modern connectivity tools, organizations can eliminate the lag of traditional 24-hour batch cycles. This ensures that business dashboards always show real-time, current numbers. Furthermore, the transition promotes automated processing. This automation leads to much shorter cycle times, the total time to move data from extraction to a final report can drop significantly.

   3. Intelligence and Continuous Learning

      Transitioning to a Lakehouse moves a business beyond static, historical reporting toward "adaptive intelligence". While SAP remains a reliable system for recording transactions, the Lakehouse acts as a "system of intelligence" that can learn from the past to predict future trends. A key feature of this system is self-improving logic through a "Feedback Loop". If a user finds and corrects an error during analysis, that correction is captured and used to retrain the system's machine learning models. This ensures the system learns from its mistakes and prevents the same errors from happening again in future cycles.

   4. Performance Optimization: Serverless SQL and Pre- Calculation

      To overcome the application bottlenecks common when tools like SAP Analysis for Office connect directly to BW Queries, the Lakehouse optimizes for "consumption readiness". In an SAP environment, running a report utilizes shared HANA or BW resources, which can slow down the entire system when multiple users are active.

      Utilizing Databricks SQL Warehouses with Serverless technology ensures that each query has its own dedicated power, maintaining fast performance regardless of the number of logged-in users. The Lakehouse architecture pre-calculates complex logic such as hierarchies or currency conversions into the Gold Layer. By serving pre-calculated and optimized tables, the reporting tool (such as Power BI or Tableau) does not have to perform heavy lifting at runtime, resulting in sub- second query performance. This effectively replaces the final "Analytic Views" or "BW Queries" that business users rely on for daily reporting.

   5. Governance and audit in an open ecosystem

      Maintaining the "Enterprise-Grade" governance of SAP while moving to an open platform requires a centralized metadata strategy. In traditional SAP ECC or BW, security is "system-centric," managed through complex "Authorization Objects" that lock rules inside the software. While secure, this creates a "black box" where it is difficult to see the full journey of a transaction.

      To prevent loss of control, the proposed framework uses Unity Catalog as the central "brain" for the Lakehouse. Unity Catalog manages metadata, security permissions, and Lineage a visual map showing exactly where data came from and how it was changed in one location. This maintains the high level of auditability and traceability for which SAP is known. Furthermore, every transformation is recorded in a "Delta Log," which creates a permanent, unchangeable paper trail that satisfies internal auditors and protects the integrity of the organization's data.

   6. Cost Management

   Finally, the Lakehouse provides superior control over costs. Moving to a "pay-as-you-go" consumption model is often much more cost-effective than the memory-based licensing required for SAP HANA, which can be very expensive for data that isn't mission-critical.

6. RESULT AND DISCUSSION

   To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed transition from SAP BW/4HANA to a Databricks Lakehouse, a simulated enterprise data scenario was designed to mirror the technical and operational challenges found in large-scale SAP environments. The simulation utilized a representative dataset

   consisting of over 100,000 records. The objective was to assess improvements in matching performance, processing efficiency, and the resilience of the architecture compared to traditional, rule-based SAP configurations.

   1. Performance and Straight Through Processing

      The most critical result of the migration is the increase in the Straight-Through Processing (STP) rate. In the legacy SAP BW environment, rigid, rule-based matching often failed when faced with partial payments or inconsistent regional formats, leading to a high volume of "exceptions" that required human intervention. By moving these transformations to the Databricks Intelligence Layer, the system uses machine learning to resolve these complex cases automatically.

      • Match Accuracy: The Lakehouse framework achieved a 90% accuracy rate by learning from historical data patterns that were invisible to static SAP rules.

      • Automation Gains: The STP rate rose from 60% to 85%, meaning 25% more of the total data volume was processed without any manual "touches" from the IT teams.

   2. Processing Efficiency: Data Velocity and Cycle Times

      The Average Processing Time per Transaction is a measure of "business velocity." In this study, it tracks the total time from initial extraction to the point where the data is fully cleared and visible in the Gold Layer

      • Ending the Batch Cycle: Traditional SAP BW migrations often struggle with 24-hour "batch windows". By using SAP Datasphere and Databricks CDC, the technical lag was virtually eliminated.

      • Drastic Time Reduction: The total processing time dropped from 9 minutes (which included technical wait times and manual reconciliation) to 2.8 minutes (largely automated system time).

      • Serverless Impact: Utilizing Serverless SQL Warehouses prevented the "application bottleneck" common when many users run reports simultaneously in SAP BW, ensuring consistent performance regardless of system load.

   3. Exception Handling and Continuous Learning

      A major technical advantage of the Databricks Lakehouse over SAP BW is its ability to treat data quality issues as training data rather than just system errors.

      • The Feedback Loop: When a data architect or user corrects a mapping error at the Gold Layer, that correction is fed back into the Silver Layer.

      • Self-Improving Logic: Unlike SAP BW, which requires a developer to manually reconfigure transformations, the Lakehouse ML models retrain on these corrections to prevent the same error from occurring in future cycles.

      • Integrity and Audit: Despite this fluid learning process, Unity Catalog and the Delta Log maintain a "golden record" of every version of the data, satisfying the strict audit requirements previously handled by the SAP application layer.

7. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

The migration from SAP BW/4HANA to a Databricks Lakehouse represents a shift from a static "system of record" to an adaptive "system of intelligence." This framework successfully addresses the bottlenecks of high transaction volumes and inconsistent data by decoupling compute from storage and embedding learning loops into the data engineering pipeline. The results demonstrate that organizations can achieve faster business cycles and higher data accuracy while maintaining the enterprise-grade governance required for modern analytical operations.

The transition from SAP BW/4HANA to a unified Databricks Lakehouse architecture provides a foundation for several promising avenues of research and technical development.

1. ross-Platform Performance Benchmarking

   The effectiveness of the proposed Medallion-based migration should be evaluated across diverse cloud environments (e.g., Azure, GCP) to assess the impact of varying serverless SQL warehouse performances on sub- second query requirements.

2. Generative AI and Large Language Model (LLM) Integration

   Future research should investigate the integration of LLMs within the "System of Intelligence" to enable natural language querying of complex SAP datasets. This includes exploring how Mosaic AI can be leveraged to automate the refactoring of legacy ABAP routines into optimized PySpark code.

3. Real-Time Operational Write-Back Capabilities

While the current framework emphasizes analytical consumption, further study is required to develop secure "closed-loop" architectures. This would involve using machine learning insights generated in the Lakehouse to automatically trigger transactional updates back into the SAP S/4HANA core for automated supply chain or financial adjustments.

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