Product Architecture-BW

Agenda
What BI Is
Architecture Overview
SAP BW Objects
Star Schema
Administrator Workbench
Business Explorer
SAP BW Architecture
Data warehouse with BW

What BI Is

Knowledge Workers in an organization need to be able

to access relevant, comprehensive information and use
analysis tools to make better business decisions that will
help the organization gain a competitive advantage. This
is Business Intelligence.

Architecture overview

BI Concepts R/3 vs. BI

Operational (R3)

Analytical (BI)

Detailed

Summarized

Can be updated in real-time

Snapshot no updating

Accurate up to the second

Record has a time-stamp

Used for clerical purposes

Used for Analytical purposes

Real-time data access

Delayed data access (depending

on load schedule)

Transaction Processing

Analytical processing

Business Information Warehouse

The following description of a BW data warehouse layer
is based on William H. Inmons definition:
A BW data warehouse layer offers:

Subject-oriented, integrated data

Original data that will not be changed in relation
to the goals of a Particular project (unflavored
data)
Granular data
Historical data (that cannot be overwritten or
deleted)

Extended Star Schema

Extended Star schema is used to give

multidimensional analysis of what
happened. Hence the data storage (i.e.
data modeling) has to be set up
differently.

The central table in an OLAP data model

is the fact table. The surrounding tables
are called the dimensions. Using the
above data model, it is possible to build
reports that answer questions such as:

The supervisor that gave the most discounts

The quantity shipped on a particular date,

month, year or quarter

In which zip code did product A sell the most.

Extended Star Schema- with Example

Dimension ID : The DIMID is typically the value that is stored in a dimension table and the fact table. The DIMID is normally the link
between a fact table record and the dimension table record. It is a system-generated value.
Surrgogate ID: In SAP BI Master data is loaded once and used across the system when needed.So to Share master data a SID table is
created where it holds the id of each entry. This ID is generated by system when data is loaded to object called SID.
Dim ID is generated when you load Transaction data.
SID is generated when you load master data.

SAP
BW Objects
Infoobjects
ODS ( DSO in BI 7.0 onwards)
Infocubes
Multiprovider ( Combination of different Cubes and DSOs)
Infosets
PSA

SAP BW Objects
InfoArea
InfoAreas are used to organize InfoCubes and InfoObjects. Each Info Cube is
assigned to an InfoArea. Through an InfoObject Catalog, each InfoObject is assigned
to an InfoArea as well. The maximum number of characters allowed for the technical
name is 30.
Info Objects:
The basic information stores in BW are InfoObjects.

Using InfoObjects, Information is mapped in a structured form.

This is required for constructing data targets

ODS or DSO:

A Data Store object (DSO) is a two dimensional storage unit which mainly stores
consolidated and cleansed transaction data or master data on a lowest granularity. It
is a two dimensional Transparent Table. Data is stored at detailed level. With DSO, it
is also possible to overwrite data fields. Detailed level reporting can be obtained from
a DSO.
DSO has Overwrite and additive functionalities. If all characteristics are same, key
figures are aggregated/overwritten based on the functionality chosen.
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SAP BW Objects
Info Cube
Info cube: Info cube is a multidimensional data storage containers for reporting and
analysis of data, is a collection of relational tables arranged according to the
star schema: A large fact table in the centre, surrounded by several dimension tables.
The maximum number of characters allowed for the technical name is 30 .Info cubes
has different types based on whether they store data physically or virtually.
Multi Provider: consist of different combinations of the following InfoProviders:
InfoCube, DataStore object, InfoObject, VirtualProvider,and aggregation level. A
union operation is used to combine the data from these objects in Multi Provider. It does
not contain any data, the data will its data comes exclusively from the InfoProviders

based on.
PSA : Persistent Staging Area in which request data is stored in the format of a
transfer structure PSA is created by a DataSource and source system and presents an
Input storage location in BW, in which the requested data is saved unchanged to the
source system.

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SAP BW Objects
Infosets :

Infoset is a special kind of Infoprovider which does not store data physically. In
other words, Infoset are InfoProviders that logically join data and provide this
data for BI queries. Infoset collects data from the tables of InfoProviders used
to build it. Infoset describes data sources that are defined as a rule of join on
Datastore objects, Info-objects or standard InfoCubes.

DSO ( Data Store Objects) and/or InfoObjects (characteristics with master

data) are connected in the InfoSet using join conditions.
A join condition determines the combination of records from the individual
objects that are included in the resulting set.

Infosets are one of the data providers & can be used to build queries in BEx
explorer.

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Administrator Workbench

The Administrator Workbench is the tool for controlling, monitoring and

maintaining all of the processes connected with data staging and
processing in the Business Information Warehouse.
Administrator Workbench has
1) Metadata Repository
2) Business Content
3) Modelling
4) Administration
5) Reporting Agent
6) Transport Connection

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Administrator Workbench

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Business Explorer

Business explorer enables us to deal with Reporting Part.

Business explorer has

1) BEx Analyzer
2) BEx Browzer
3) Query Designer
4) Web Application Designer

BEx Analyzer is used to design interactive queries for analysis and reporting
through Microsoft Excel.

BEx Analyzer is used to analyze and view BW queries/reports.

BEx Analyzer is used to analyze and view workbooks.

BEx Query Designer is used to design queries.

BEx Web Application Designer is used to design web based applications &
distribute them to others.

BEx Web Application Designer is used to build custom BI applications like

Sales Dashboards & Cockpits.
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SAP BW Architecture

OLAP Processor

Update Rules

Update Rules

Update Rules

Update Rules

BW Operational Data Store

Transfer Rules Update Rules

Transfer Rules Update Rules

PSA

PSA

DataSource A

DataSource B

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BI Overview Another Way to Look at It

Business
Explorer

BI
OLAP
(Online
Analytical
Processing)
System
R/3
OLTP
(Online
Transactional
Processing)
System

Analyzer

BI Data

Excel

BI Prod

Data Extractor
R/3 Prod
R/3 Data