A common challenge our clients face is integrating data from siloed Enterprise systems such as Esri and SAP. In simple terms, Esri – SAP integration means that an object such as a valve or a utility pole in SAP has a one to one relationship with that same object in Esri. The benefits of Esri – SAP integration can be realized across the organization from transparency for customers/citizens, to more accurate asset failure analysis, to more accurate regulatory inspections. While the benefits are obvious, the challenge historically has been that integration were complex and required significant investment in third party technology and custom solutions.We are excited to share that this is changing. Esri’s recognition of SAP HANA as a certified geodatabase offers new and enterprise changing opportunities to combine data from both systems at the presentation layer without costly database integration. Working with Esri, SAP, and some key customers we have identified a framework and common integration patterns to create early and lasting value within the enterprise.
Starting last fall, we spent time with several of our clients in the utility, transportation, oil and gas, and local government industries that have investments in Esri and SAP. The goal of the meetings was to help our clients understand the new integration patterns supported by ArcGIS Pro and SAP HANA and look for opportunities to leverage the integration in new and innovative ways. At each client we facilitated value acceleration workshops with representatives across a wide variety of departments, identifying potential use cases to integrate specific GIS and SAP data. We left each workshop with dozens of potential use cases from fire hydrant status viewers, to dashboards used to track services provided to the homeless.
Through those meetings we realized that there wasn’t a single integration use case or Esri/SAP application that would justify migrating an Enterprise’s GIS to a HANA geodatabase rather it’s the incremental value from geo-enabling dozens of use cases. The geo-enabled Enterprise itself is the “killer app”.
…we realized that there wasn’t a single integration use case or Esri/SAP application that would justify migrating an Enterprise’s GIS to a HANA geodatabase rather it’s the incremental value from geo-enabling dozens of use cases. The geo-enabled Enterprise itself is the “killer app”
While the use cases differ between clients, a quick-win opportunity we identified at several clients was to migrate their Publish geodatabase to HANA. This can occur quickly leveraging our Esri experience and the tools and accelerators from the SAP Database Migration Factory program and provides a foundation to test further Esri with HANA use cases.
Esri and SAP landscape with Esri Publish geodatabase hosted in SAP HANA
Using the experience and lessons learned from our first set of clients Locana developed the Esri with HANA value acceleration framework. The framework includes templates and accelerators that we use to help clients identify and deploy use cases that validate and take advantage of the benefits from both platforms.
We have continued down the value acceleration path with the City of San Diego, one of our key Clients, building out two of the use cases identified during the use case workshops. In my next blog post I’ll provide some more details from those projects and highlight the lessons we learned integrating Esri and SAP data within the HANA geodatabase.
