Data-Discovery in SAP : Lumira Discovery vs Analytics Cloud

This is an extension of the blog Adapting to SAP Analytics Cloud for Hybrid Data Discovery. In this blog, we will explore the current feature comparisons between Lumira Discovery and Analytics Cloud by evaluating the 5 steps of self-service BI for both the tools.

Note: In-depth recommendations were shared online in our webinar, a replay of which is available here.

While comparing these features we identified lot of similarities which would make the transition easier. However, each tool has unique set of features, for which we have identified work arounds and high-level strategies based on the current SAP road map.

Color coding has been used as follows, Green – better; Red – inferior; Black – neutral/similar.

Data Acquisition: When evaluating this functionality, we have two modes: Live and Import. There are specific use cases for each mode of acquisition based on size and additional enhancements of data.

The following table compares the Import options focusing on SAP data-sources,

The following table compares the Live connectivity options only for SAP sources,

At high level conclusions we see a lot of similarity in the connectivity options. SAP Lumira Discovery does have BICS connector for Live BW, HTTP based INA connector for Live HANA and few more free hand SQL options.

The following table compares the Import options focusing on supported JDBC connectors,

Data Preparation: End users would always prefer to make additional changes to the data for further analysis and to make it presentable. The following table compares the most important features that will be leveraged for importing data.

As there are currently more data preparation options available in Discovery, this would be the biggest gap during the transition between the two tools. But since SAC has a frequent update cycle, this functional parity might also be reduced over time. The other key factor to consider is ability of SAC in future to consume Discovery datasets as quoted by SAP below,

Visualizations and Storyboarding: Functionalities like types of charts, ad-hoc analysis, controls, ranking, conditional formatting and hierarchies on charts are common between the tools. In fact, Discovery 2.x has lot of options inherited from SAC and notable similarities can be found in UI and navigation.

Collaboration: The biggest advantage of Discovery is that it integrates with SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise (BIP) and there is option to share documents locally. However, SAP has proposed a hybrid integration between the BIP and the SAP Cloud Platform leveraged by SAC.

The following would be an overview of all other feature comparison between the tools,

Based on the above evaluation we can clearly see that there is considerably less functional parity between the tools, except for the data preparation options and dependency on different platforms. We also cannot discount the Planning (like Value Driver Tree and BPC integration) and Predictive (like Smart Discovery and R viz) that are available in SAC on top of the BI features.