I read with interest the other day that Teradata was expanding their go-to-market efforts with SAP. Their stated approach is “consolidation of all data on one database platform will support joint SAP-Teradata customers’ efforts to standardize and rationalize their IT investments while lowering their total cost of ownership”. What does this really mean for customers? It means watch out for the pitfalls of putting all your eggs in one basket when it comes to data warehousing.

The “one database, one data warehouse” approach clearly benefits Teradata, but not so much customers. Sure it’s a reasonable approach to centralize production data and SAP transaction data, but what about other requirements such as audit and GRC? Here, the glove doesn’t fit. Centralizing audit data into Teradata is like smashing a walnut with a sledgehammer. This effort will be very time consuming and expensive. Think about it - how do you get the SAP data into Teradata (BIG ETL efforts/cost the customer has to bear)? How do you do random, ad hoc queries in a reasonable time frame? Will you have the DBAs available to maintain terabytes of audit data for months? Years? The point is, collection and analysis of SAP audit data has unique requirements that can be better served with a focused solution.

The requirements for data warehouses have evolved - the “one size fits all” approach has significant hidden administrative and capital costs. What customers need is the flexibility to integrate the right tools for the right job - at a reasonable cost and using open standards.

Jim

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