SAP Zero Copy does not mean Zero Cost: What companies should consider

Posted

September 29, 2026

6 min read

What does SAP Zero Copy mean?

In the context of SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC), SAP Zero Copy refers to the ability to share existing data products with supported external platforms without creating an additional physical copy for the exchange. An integration with Microsoft Fabric has been announced.

At first glance, this approach can offer several benefits:

Fewer additional data copies when sharing existing data products
Faster provisioning of existing data products
Less synchronization effort
Business-ready, semantically enriched SAP data products

From a technical perspective, this is an interesting approach. However, the term “Zero Copy” describes only one part of the overall architecture. It does not mean that data is available without first being provisioned in the BDC, nor does it mean that the data can be used free of charge.

No unrestricted access to raw data from the SAP system

Companies should also bear in mind that Zero Copy does not provide general direct access to any raw data in the SAP source system. Users can access the data products and shares that are available in the SAP Business Data Cloud, have been created there and are supported for the respective scenario.

For standardized business use cases, this curated approach can be valuable. However, if companies require individual tables, additional fields, custom extraction logic or new data at short notice, implementation depends on whether a suitable data product already exists or first needs to be created. This shifts some of the flexibility from direct access to the SAP system to the BDC layer.

Is SAP Zero Copy free?

No. “Zero Copy” primarily describes the technical method of accessing data. It does not mean “zero cost.”

The SAP Business Data Cloud uses Capacity Units as the billing metric for its capacity services, including SAP Business Data Cloud Connect. The specific capacity requirements depend on the service used as well as assumptions regarding data volume and usage. They should be assessed using the latest SAP Business Data Cloud Capacity Unit Estimator.

For an SAP-to-Fabric scenario, several cost layers therefore need to be considered together:

Implementation, licensing and operation of the SAP Business Data Cloud
Provisioning, development and maintenance of the required data products
Use of SAP BDC Connect and the Capacity Units required for it
Microsoft Fabric capacity and any additional compute and storage requirements on the target side
Project, operational and governance costs throughout the entire lifecycle

This brings together capacity-based and usage-based components on both the SAP and Microsoft sides. The total cost can therefore only be assessed reliably once data volumes, refresh frequencies, access patterns and planned analytics or AI workloads are known.

Does Zero Copy really eliminate a copy?

When an existing data product in the BDC is shared, Zero Copy can eliminate an additional physical replication. However, the data must first be transferred from the SAP source system to the BDC, processed there and made available as a data product. The upstream data movement and storage do not automatically disappear.

When compared with a direct provisioning approach to Microsoft Fabric, both architectures retain a platform layer in which SAP data is prepared for analytics and AI. The main difference lies in where the data products are created, how flexibly the source data can be accessed and how the components involved are licensed and operated.

SAP Zero Copy therefore does not necessarily reduce overall complexity. It can eliminate the additional copy created when data is shared across platforms, but it also requires the SAP Business Data Cloud as an additional central component.

Alternative architecture: Providing SAP data directly in Microsoft Fabric

An alternative is to selectively extract relevant SAP data and make it permanently available in Microsoft Fabric. This approach deliberately creates a copy of the data in OneLake. In return, the data is available in the Microsoft environment for reporting, analytics, data science and AI, independently of an upstream BDC data product.

dab Nexus can be used to implement this type of architecture. The solution supports connectivity via RFC and OData and makes SAP data directly available in Microsoft Fabric. The RFC-based option uses an SAP-certified add-on without modifying the SAP standard.

One key difference compared with the BDC model lies in the cost structure. The dab Nexus software license is based on a subscription model and is not tied to the volume of data transferred or the number of records extracted. This makes the software licensing costs predictable in advance. As with any target architecture, additional costs apply for Microsoft Fabric, operations and potentially other components.

Open Mirroring as a predictable alternative to SAP Zero Copy

In combination with Microsoft Fabric Open Mirroring, selected SAP data is continuously replicated to OneLake. This is explicitly not a Zero Copy approach. The data is deliberately stored in Microsoft Fabric, where it can be combined with other data sources and used for downstream workloads.

Microsoft does not charge compute costs for merging delta loads through Open Mirroring. This means that the data can initially be consolidated in the mirror without additional compute charges. Capacity-based allowances apply to mirroring storage. With an F16 capacity, for example, up to 16 terabytes of mirroring storage are available. Usage-based compute costs arise when the data is processed further in the data lake.

For companies, this approach offers the following characteristics:

SAP data is stored directly in the Microsoft environment.
SAP data can be combined with other data sources within OneLake.
Analytics and AI workloads in Microsoft Fabric can access the provisioned data directly.
The dab Nexus software license remains predictable regardless of the volume of data transferred.
This direct data path does not require an additional BDC implementation.

Conclusion: SAP Zero Copy in the context of the overall data architecture

SAP Zero Copy can eliminate the need for an additional physical copy when sharing a data product that is already available in the SAP Business Data Cloud. However, the prior provisioning of the data in the BDC, the development of the data products and the associated licensing, implementation and operating costs remain unchanged.

To make a well-founded decision, companies should therefore look beyond whether a copy is created during the final integration step. They should consider the complete data path, the available data products, the required level of flexibility, the governance model, data freshness, product availability and long-term total cost of ownership.

SAP Business Data Cloud and direct data provisioning with dab Nexus follow different approaches. For companies looking to establish Microsoft Fabric as their central data platform, dab Nexus offers an attractive alternative: