0 Introduction
In the fiercely increasing competition amongst corporations it has become mandatory to make
quick and sound crucial business decisions based on analysis of business critical data. This is the
point where data warehouses come into play. Although many companies are relying on data
warehouses, they are still struggling to achieve positive results due to fragmented and
inconsistent data. For them SAP’s Business Information Warehouse (BW) provides a complete
information factory solution. BW is the central component in the SAP suite of applications with an
added advantage of being a software package that can be used in both SAP and non-SAP
environments.
SAP’s BW information model is based on the core building block of InfoObjects which are used to
describe business processes and information requirements. They provide basis for setting up
complex information models in multiple languages, currencies, units of measure, hierarchy, etc.
The key elements in the SAP’s BW information model are:
• DataSources
• InfoSources
• ODS Objects
• InfoCubes
• InfoProviders
• MultiProviders
Data Sources
DataSources are flat data structures containing data that logically belongs together. They are
responsible for extracting and staging data from various source systems.
InfoSources
InfoSources are the group of InfoObjects that belong together from a business point of view. It
contains the transactional data obtained from the transactions in online transactional processes
(OLTP) and master data such as addresses of customers and organizations, which remain
unchanged for longer time period.
ODS objects
An ODS object is a dataset which is formed as a result of merging data from one or more info
sources. In it information is stored in the form of flat, transparent database tables that are used for
preparing reports and quality assurance purposes.
InfoCubes
InfoCubes are multidimensional data storage containers for reporting and analysis of data. They
consist of keys figures and characteristics of which latter is organized as dimensions facilitating
users to analyze data from various business perspectives such as geographical area or types of
sales channel.
InfoProviders
InfoProviders refer to all the data objects that are present in the SAP BW systems. These include
all the data targets viz. InfoCubes, ODS objects and master data tables along with Info sets,
remote Infocubes and MultiProviders.
MultiProviders
MultiProvider is a virtual information provider which is a combination of any two physical or virtual
info providers. MultiProviders do not contain any data and are used to combine data from
different info providers. Their main purpose is to make this data accessible for reports and
analysis.
SAP’s BW is based on "Enhanced Star schema" or "Info Cubes" database design. This database
design has a central database table, known as ‘Fact Table’ which is surrounded by associated
dimension tables. These dimension tables contain references to the pointer tables that point to
the master data tables which in turn contain Master data objects such as customer, material and
destination country stored in BW as Info objects. An InfoObjects can contain single field
definitions such as transaction data or complex Customer Master Data that hold attributes,
hierarchy and customer texts that are stored in their own tables.
The database design used to meet these objectives is an "Enhanced Star Schema" or
"InfoCube" (the data against which the end user runs queries).
The info cubes and master data tables that are used in a BW system are generally unique to that
system as shown in the figure below:
In case of any problem in order to enable the administrator to identify the problem the
InfoPackages are organized on the basis of the object to which they are transporting data- Info
cube, ODS or Master Data. The overall request status for the object is displayed, and an alarm is
triggered if any Info Package run from any Info Source fails. In this way, the administrator is able
to locate the exact position where a failure is going to impact the users and the BW system. Also,
for InfoCubes, Master Data and the ODS to give an overview of the history of requests for the
system, the progress of the last N requests through each stage of extraction and load is
displayed, and for any failures, the step that failed is displayed. The performance of requests can
be monitored by display of performance statistics for each stage of extraction and load in the form
of graphs.
Being implemented on top of SAP Web Application Services SAP’s BW provides a multi-tier
architecture (figure shown below), along with a complete software development environment,
system management tools and additional functionalities such as currency conversion or security.
Although it is closely related to SAP R/3, SAP BW is a completely separate software package
which comes with automated extraction and loading facilities.
Components of BW architecture
SAP BW is based on integrated metadata concept with metadata being managed by metadata
services. SAP’s BW has following layers:
The administration services in SAP BW can be availed through Administration Workbench (AWB).
It is a single point of entry for data warehouse development, administration and maintenance
tasks in SAP BW with Metadata modeling component, scheduler and monitor as its main
components as described in the figure hereunder:
Modeling Features
• Metadata modeling provides a Metadata Repository where all the metadata is stored and
a Metadata Manager that handles all the requests for retrieving, adding, changing, or
deleting metadata.
• Reporting and scheduling mechanism: Reporting and scheduling are the processes
required for the smooth functioning of SAP BW. The various batch processes in the SAP
BW need to be planned to provide timely results, avoid resource conflicts by running too
many jobs at a time and to take care of logical dependencies between different jobs.
These processes are controlled in the scheduler component of AWB. This is achieved by
either scheduling single processes independently or defining process chains for complex
network of jobs required to update the information available in the SAP BW system.
Reporting Agent controls execution of queries in a batch mode to print reports, identify
exception conditions and notify users and pre compute results for web templates.
• Administering ETL service layer in multi- tier level: SAP’s ETL service layer provides
services for data extraction, data transformation and loading of data. It also serves as the
staging area for intermediate data storage for quality assurance purposes. The extraction
technology of SAP BW is supported by database management systems of mySAP
technology and does not allow extraction from other database systems like IBM, IMS and
Sybase. It does not support dBase, MS Access and MS Excel file formats. However, it
provides all the functionality required for loading data from non- SAP systems as the ETL
services layer provide open interfaces for loading non-SAP data.
ETL service comprises of two parts: Staging engine and Storage Service. Staging engine
manages staging process for all data received from several source systems. It interfaces with the
AWB scheduler and monitor for scheduling and monitoring data load processes. However,
Storage Service manages and provides access to data targets in SAP BW and the aggregates
that are stored in relational and multidimensional database management systems.
It is true, however, that the extraction technology provided as an integral part of SAP BW is
restricted to database management systems supported by mySAP technology and that it does
not allow extracting data from other database systems like IBM IMS and Sybase. It also does not
support proprietary file formats such as dBase file formats, Microsoft Access file formats,
Microsoft Excel file formats, and others. On the other hand, the ETL services layer of SAP BW
provides all the functionality required to load data from non-SAP systems in exactly the same way
as it does for data from SAP systems. SAP BW does not in fact distinguish between different
types of source systems after data has arrived in the staging area. The ETL services layer
provides open interfaces for loading non-SAP data.
SAP BW can be integrated with other SAP components based on application programming
interface (API) service. It provides a framework to enable comprehensive data replication based
on data extractors that encapsulate the application logic. Data Extractor fills the extract structure
of data source with a data from data source and offers sophisticated handling of changes. In
addition to supporting extractors, the service APIs also enable online access via RemoteCube
technology and flexible staging for hierarchies. On the other hand SAP provides an open
interface called Staging Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI) to extract data from
non-SAP sources. BAPI serves the purpose of connecting third- party ETL tools to SAP BW and
provides access to SAP BW objects which facilitates use of customer extraction routines. Data
can be extracted at the database level by using: DB connect, flat files and XML. DB connect
facilitates extraction directly from DBMS. In this the metadata files are loaded by replicating
metadata tables and views into the metadatory repository of SAP BW. Data can also be uploaded
from flat files by creating routines for extraction of data and XML files can be extracted through
XML via Administrator Workbench in SAP BW.
• Operational Data Store: It stores detailed data and supports tactical, day-to-day decision
making. A SAP view ODS as a near real-time informational environment that supports
operational reporting by interacting with existing transactional systems, data warehouses,
or analytical applications. SAP BW allows flexible access to data in the ODS, the data
warehouse, and the multidimensional models.
• Data Marts: A data mart provides the data needed by a decentralized function,
department, or business area. You need to weight the pros and cons before developing a
data mart. For example, a data mart can be implemented faster and cheaper than a data
warehouse, sometimes costing 80% less than a full data warehouse. But as data marts
proliferate, the cost advantages can disappear. The IT organization must maintain the
individual data marts and the multitude of ETL and warehouse management processes
that go with them. Multiple data marts can complicate data integration efforts, increase
the amount of inconsistent data, require more business rules, and create the data
stovepipes that data warehousing strives to eliminate.
• Interfaces: The data mart interface enables users to transfer and update transactional
data and metadata from one SAP BW system to other SAP BW systems.
• Open Hub Services: The open hub service is used to share data in SAP BW with non-
SAP data marts, analytical applications, and other applications. This service controls data
distribution and maintains data consistency across systems. With the open hub service,
actual data and the corresponding metadata are retrieved from InfoCubes or ODS
objects.
SAP BW Business Warehouse
- Storage Service Layers -
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• Master data manager: Master Data Manager generates the master data infrastructure
containing master data tables as well as master data update and the retrieval routines. It
also maintains master data and provides access to master data for use by SAP BW
reporting components and for exporting to other data warehouse services for analysis
and access services.
• ODS Manager: ODS manager generates ODS data object infrastructure. It maintains an
active data table for maintaining ODS object data, a change log for every update applied
to the ODS object data as part of application process and provides access to ODS object
data for SAP BW reporting and analysis functionality.
• Archiving Manager: The Archiving Manager stores unused, dormant data in an archive
with the help of Archive Development Kit (ADK). ADK is connected to the SAP BW via
Archiving Manager. It also keeps track of relevant metadata such as Infocubes and ODS
objects which possibly will change over time.
• InfoCube Manager: It serves the function of generating the InfoCube Meta tables. It
maintains InfoCube data tables and provides access to InfoCube data tables for SAP BW
reporting and analysis.
OLAP BAPI: SAP BW 3.0 comes with the OLAP BAPI Interface (OBI) which provides functions
that can be used by third party reporting tools to access BW Info cubes. It provides an open
interface to access any information that is available through OLAP engine.
Integrating with XML: OLAP BAPI serves as the basis for the SAP implementation of XML for
analysis. It is an XML API based on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) designed for
standardized access to an analytical data provider over the web. The XML interface introduced
with SAP BW 3.0 release accepts XML data streams compliant with the SOAP. Unlike all other
SAP BW interfaces in XML interface the actual data transfer is initiated by the source system.
Open Hub Services: The Open Hub Service allows controlled distribution of consistent data from
any SAP BW InfoProvider to flat files, database tables and other applications with full support for
delta management, selections, projections and aggregation. Open Hub Services have InfoSpokes
as their core metadata objects. With the SAP 3.0 release InfoSpokes have become generally
available.
Content Management Framework: The SAP Web Content Management Server stores
unstructured information that users can go through and use efficiently. Integration with the SAP
BW content management framework provides an integrated view on structured and unstructured
information to the end user.
6.0 Conclusion
With the growing network of processes and systems, the need for efficient management support
systems is also increasing. However for this it is not enough to place a company strategically and
give guidelines for its further development. Instead it is essential to have real time analysis and
graphical visualization of the key performance indicators. In SAP BW automatic assimilation and
analysis of information is possible. BW gives a holistic view of the company by considering both
the financial data and non- financial assets of the company. As corporate planning is often not
done in one common planning tool (e.g. turnover plan in a sales system and cost center plan in
excel) studying interdependencies and coordination among them has become even more tedious.
Thus the strategic management system must establish a planning process through all levels of
planning in the company to make the data available for all responsible persons in one system.
With SAP BW it is possible to upload data of different planning tools, manipulate planning data
and write back changed data to the operational system. SAP BW can also be used as early
warning system to inform the responsible persons about critical indicators on the basis of already
defined thresholds of these indicators.
7.0 Outlook
SAP BW has the usual data warehouse layers accompanied by administrative services through
the Administrative Workbench. It allows exchange of data and metadata with other systems and
tools in the case of SAP-specific interfaces like Staging BAPI and the OLAP BAPI and supports
other industry standard interfaces allowing easy access to data and metadata maintained in SAP.
Also, the metadata objects that are available in SAP BW are used to build Operational data
stores, data warehouses and info marts. Thus, the services provided by SAP with SAP BW
makes it a major tool for complete corporate information and strategy management.