SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (short: SAP BI) (formerly Business Information Warehouse, short BW) is the data warehouse application (short- DW) SAP AG and part of SAP NetWeaver. BW consists among other things of components for data management ( Data Warehousing Workbench), for the definition of user queries through an OLAP processor ( Business Explorer, shortly BEx ), from a data-mining environment ( Analysis Process Designer, short APD) and a component for the control of loading processes. The current version of SAP Business Intelligence has the release number 7.3 and is part of the SAP NetWeaver 7.3.

  • 6.1 Notes and references
  • 6.2 External links

Application

BW is very often used for DW applications (reporting) in the SAP ERP environment, since the so-called BW Business Content contains ready-made ERP extractors and associated data elements, OLAP cubes and reports. This should be possible to accelerate the development of data warehouse applications. BW is an integral and complimentary part of several SAP solutions. The resulting mainly in Germany very high market share moved many companies to implement SAP BI as a homogeneous Business Intelligence platform for the entire company. Other advantages of BW integration with Microsoft Excel and javascript enabled browser-based evaluation. Products from other business intelligence vendors are often used to complement BW as front-ends to improve the performance, flexibility and ease of use of BW.

For the end user, the created reports or analyzes, there are several user programs provided by SAP, which are summarized under the term Business Explorer (BEx ). The BEx Analyzer consists essentially of VBA macros for Microsoft Excel. Regardless of Excel, the following programs are running: The BEx Web Application Designer to design web templates with interactive elements, the BEx Report Designer for specific formatted reports and the BEx Information Broadcaster for pre-computing and sending reports.

In the coming years the BEx tools should be complemented by components of Business Objects and replaced later. The direct connection of Xcelsius 2008 to BW is already possible.

Versions

The first version of the product was launched in 1997 " Information System Business Warehouse " under the name. During this time, the product name has changed several times.

Integration of data sources

The following possibilities exist to bind data sources:

  • BI Service API (S- API): Direct connection from SAP source systems with the Service API SAP
  • File Interface: Automatically import files in CSV or ASCII format
  • DB Connect: Access to other databases via SAP-specific Database shared libraries ( DBSL )
  • Universal Data Connect: Access to relational or multidimensional data sources based on a J2EE Connector Architecture
  • Web Services: Integration of XML data streams via the SOAP protocol

Pictures of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse

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