Business Information Warehouse

This Session provides you with: an overview of the functions and technology in the SAP Business Information Warehouse (BW)

basic knowledge of how BW works

Overview

What is a data warehouse?

OLTP Vs OLAP
A multi-dimensional data model

SAP BW architecture
mySAP Business Applications

What is Data Warehouse?

Defined in many different ways, but not rigorously.
A decision support database that is maintained separately from the organizations operational database Support information processing by providing a solid platform of consolidated, historical data for analysis.

A data warehouse is a subject-oriented, integrated, time-variant, and nonvolatile collection of data in support of managements decision-making process.W. H. Inmon Data warehousing: The process of constructing and using data warehouses

Categories of Data Warehouse:

Data Warehouse

ODS
Data Marts Dependent Data Marts Independent data Marts EDW

OLTP Vs OLAP
OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) refers to the type of data processing typically done in an R/3 system. BW is an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) system.

SAP BW Data Model

Data that has been loaded into BW from various source systems, is stored in BW in the form of star schemas. This type of table assignment is ideal for reporting purposes. The dimensions answer question such as "Who?" "What?" and "When?"

The facts provide answers to questions such as; how much money, how many people, how much did we pay?

Example : Sales

Star Schema

SAP BW: Extended Star Schema

MDM/Star Schema and BW

Info Cube

SAP BW Architecture

BW has a multi- level architecture to provide the maximum degree of flexibility.

Bottom Layer: BW can extract and use data provided by a variety of sources. These include R/3 and R/2 systems, non-SAP systems, flat files, commercial data providers, and even other BW systems.

Middle Layer:
The BW server provides all the tools necessary to model, extract, transform, aggregate, store, and access data. Since the description of the data, regardless of its source, is contained in a common Metadata Repository, data from a variety of sources can be combined to give you enhanced data analysis options.

Top Layer: BW users can access data through the SAP Business Explorer, a standard Web Browser, or third-party display tools, which have been certified for use with a common BAPI interface.

mySAP Business Applications

The SAP Business Information Warehouse has a central position among the mySAP solutions. Typical characteristics of the individual solutions are separate development, implementation, and maintenance of the components, and independent release cycles in the different areas.
BAPI and ALE technology takes care of communication between these various systems. The advantages of this architecture include quicker implementation, flexibility, openness, and extendibility.

BW Strategy: An End-To-End Solution

BW Strategy: An End-To-End So

BW Strategy: An End-To-End Solution

BW is a complete data warehouse solution, from the extraction of data from various source systems, to providing a set of tools for analyzing and displaying the data.

Open Hub Service:

The open hub service enables you to distribute data from an SAP BW system into external data marts, analytical applications, and other applications. Through the open hub service, SAP BW becomes a hub of an enterprise data warehouse.

System Landscape: The System Landscape of SAP BW is similar to that of SAP R/3.

Extractions

 This Section discusses the SAP BW extraction and load process of data from various source systems.

Non-SAP Source systems:

Data from non-SAP data sources can be loaded into SAP BW in one of the three ways.

Flat file source systems (loaded through Flat Files).

External source systems connect to external systems with thirdparty custom extraction tools (using staging BAPIs).

External data providers such as Nielsen.

SAP Source Systems: SAP R/3 Source system (after release 3.1H). SAP BW System - using Myself. Other SAP products.

Data Sources and Info Sources:

Flat Files: Flat files can be used to load both Master and Transactional data from non-SAP source system into SAP BW. SAP BW can load data from 3 non-ASP Formats. 1. CSV is a Character Separated Value file type (extension .CSV). 2. ASCII is a fixed-length record format file. 3. XML files.

Third-Party Extraction Tools:

Third-party vendors of extraction products certified for SAP BW include.

Acta Works for SAP from Acta Technologies

Evolutionary Technology Inc. (ETI)

Genio Informatica etc.,

External Data Providers: External data providers are suppliers of data to SAP BW (e.g., A.C. Nielsen and Dun & Bradstreet). They usually are value added services that are available. External data providers use the BAPI concept to load data into SAP BW.

Types of extractions:
Flat File
Generic CO/PA LIS & LO FI/SL

Generic Data Extraction:

This extraction is used when:

There is no Data Source in business content. SAP R/3 tables to be extracted from a cross-application or custom tables (Z Tables).

CO/PA Data Extraction:

This method is specific to the extraction of data from the CO/PA application component from SAP R/3.

It collects all of the OLTP data for calculative margins (sales, cost of sales, overhead costs).

LIS and LO Data Extraction:

LIS and Lo are two very closely related application-specific extractor types.
LIS (Logistics Information Systems) is a cross application component of SAP R/3 collecting supply chain information from the following : Sales Information System. Purchasing Information System. Inventory Controlling. Shop Floor Information System.

Plant Maintenance Information System.

Quality Management Information System.

 LIS Data Extractors suffer from limitations like Performance, Volume of data and Complexity of Usage. To remedy these limitations, SAP developed the LO data extraction method. This method is used to extract data from the LO (Logistics) application component in SAP R/3.

FI/SL Data Extraction: Finance, Special Ledger (FI/SL) is another applicationspecific extraction method in SAP BW. It collects all of the OLTP data for Financial accounting, Special Ledger. FI/SL combines data from different levels of OLTP applications (e.g., FI/GL, EC/PCA, CO/CCA).

Update Methods: An Update method is a scheme used to update data in SAP BW. The updates available in SAP BW are: Full Update extract all the data from source system. Initialization - reset.

Delta Update extract only the data that have been changed or added since the last extract.

Business Explorer (BEx)

Contents:
BEx Analyzer BEx Browser

BEx Components

The Business Explorer helps to analyze the data in the SAP Business Information Warehouse.

BEx Analyzer:
BEx Analyzer is a Microsoft Excel-based interactive environment where analyses and queries are defined by selected characteristics and key figures.

BEx Browser:

The BEx Browser is a graphical interface for organizing reports of SAP BW.

BEx Browser

Creating a Query

Choosing Characteristics and Key Figures

SAP Business Explorer Toolbar: The SAP Business Explorer toolbar integrates SAP BW reporting functionality into Microsoft Excel.

Sample Report:

Some Reporting Topics: Exceptions Conditions

Variables
Calculated Key Figures Formulas Functions Filters

Free Characteristics

Q&A