SAP and Databricks : A Full-Circle Moment

SAP and Databricks: A Full-Circle Moment?

“What goes around comes back around…”

Last week, SAP announced SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) at its “SAP Business Data Cloud Unleashed” virtual event. A key highlight? The strategic partnership with Databricks, enabling SAP data to be seamlessly available in Databricks for AI use cases and workloads. (If you're looking for detailed analysis of this announcement, check out posts by Jon Reed, Ethan Jewett, and Larry Dignan - links in the comment section).?

For me, this announcement is more than just news—it's personal, like a Marty McFly back to the future moment! It brings back memories of a key moment in my career over a decade ago. Consider this a throwback to my HANA diaries, the first installment of many stories I hope to share.

Flashback to 2014: A Spark of Opportunity?

“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west…” ?

In early 2014, Hadoop was gaining traction, and SAP customers were asking how we could handle "Big Data." At the time, our responses were... let’s say, less than ideal. Realizing we needed to embrace this shift rather than resist it, we came across the open-source Spark community and a small company called Databricks behind it. It was virtually unknown in the SAP ecosystem back then.

In late May or early June of 2014, I walked into Databricks office in Berkeley, unannounced. No one knew me there. Arsalan Tavakoli greeted me, and despite my initial (and mistaken) brazen assumption that I needed to speak with someone in product rather than business development, Arsalan patiently engaged with me. Within minutes, we were brainstorming on a whiteboard. No formalities. No endless meetings. No future calendaring - Just action.

On the same day, I met Databricks’ leadership team: Ion Stoica (then CEO), Matei Zaharia (CTO), and later the head of Engg, Ali Ghodsi (now CEO). Arsalan vouched for me as more than just another enterprise tire-kicker, which opened doors for meaningful collaboration.

The “moment of truth” - from theory to reality

"Make it real a fantasy…”

In mid-June 2014, we had invited the Databricks team to SAP’s Palo Alto office to meet Franz Faerber —the head of HANA engineering, who was visiting from Germany. Here’s where it gets interesting: while the Databricks team was meeting with my colleagues in a nearby conference room, I found myself briefing Franz in my office about the potential partnership. All happening in real-time.? His reaction? Paraphrased: “You had me at hello.” He immediately saw the value of the partnership and called it a “no-brainer.”

What happened next was the moment of truth. When I told Franz that the Databricks team was just steps away in a conference room, he laughed at my audacity to pull this off but didn’t hesitate. Without any preparation or fanfare, we walked into the conference room where they were —and within moments we were deep in discussion, and by the end of the meeting we had agreement on moving forward. That moment epitomized the new SAP (since we had launched HANA in 2010)- agile and focused on customer value.

In just 3-4 weeks, we went from concept to partnership, that included engineering lab work and an early goto market approach. By July 1st, 2014, the deal was inked—just in time for Spark Summit—where I had the honor of presenting in a cameo alongside the CEO Ion Stoica’s opening keynote and then delivering the opening keynote on Day 2 (see comment section for links to the keynote, it didn't age too badly, initially I was worried I would cringe when watching it)

The essence of that partnership? Giving customers “choice” while enabling unified access to all types of data—regardless of format or location. In last week’s announcement: Ali Ghodsi echoed this very principle when he said the SAP partnership would “bring together all their data regardless of format or where it lives.”

Full Circle: Fast Forward to Now and Why This Still Matters

“And a new day will dawn for those who stand long…”?

This recent announcement feels like validation—a reminder that we were onto something big back in 2014. It also excites me personally as it aligns with what I’m building now: rtZen, Inc (artisan) for finance operations. With rtZen, we aim to leverage SAP data alongside other systems to provide AI-driven insights and automation for finance teams. This could mark my return to the SAP ecosystem—and who knows? Maybe I’ll see you at SAPPHIRE this year!

Before I end, I wanted to congratulate the SAP and Databricks teams and wish them continued success!? Let’s continue the conversation—what excites you most about the SAP-Databricks collaboration?

Thanks to the SAP team for their support (and sorry if I have invariably forgotten someone and can only tag so many)

Vishal Sikka Bill McDermott Jim Hagemann Snabe Franz Faerber Amit Sinha

Sam Yen Abdul Razack Steve Lucas Jonathan Becher Geoff Scott

杜剑锋 Saritha Sundaresan Elena Petrov Deepak Aher Michael Bechauf Hardik Patel Mike Eacrett

Deepak Krishnamurthy Sanjay Poonen Maxwell Wessel Uddhav Gupta Ken Tsai Amogh Umbarkar Irfan Khan Cafer Tosun

John Appleby Dennis Howlett Jon Reed Mark Finnern Bjoern Goerke George Mathew R. "Ray" Wang Vijay Vijayasankar Paul Kurchina Yefim Natis Massimo Pezzini

cc Christian Klein Thomas Saueressig Jan Gilg Muhammad Alam

#SAPMentors #SAPAlumni #SAPSVLife #Databricks #SAP #AI #DeltaBridge

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