Integration, Storage and Management
of Data
Comprehensive, meaningful data analyses are only possible if the datasets are bundled into a business query and integrated. These datasets can have different formats and sources. The data warehouse is therefore the basis for a business intelligence solution.
Enterprise data is collected centrally in the Enterprise Data Warehouse of SAP NetWeaver BI. The data is usually extracted from different sources and loaded into SAP NetWeaver BI. SAP NetWeaver BI supports all kinds of sources - relational and multidimensional, SAP and non-SAP. Technical cleanup steps are then performed and business rules are applied in order to consolidate the data for evaluations. The consolidated data is stored in the Enterprise Data Warehouse. This entire process is called extraction, transformation and loading (ETL).
Data can be stored in different layers of the data warehouse architecture with different granularities, depending on your requirements. The data flow describes the path taken by the data through the data warehouse layers until it is ready for evaluation.
Data administration in the Enterprise Data Warehouse includes control of the processes that transfer the data to the Enterprise Data Warehouse and broadcast the data within the Enterprise Data Warehouse as well as convert strategies for optimal data retention and history keeping (limiting the data volume. This is also called Information Lifecycle Management.
With extraction to downstream systems, you can make the data consolidated in the Enterprise Data Warehouse available to further BI systems or further applications in your system landscape.
A metadata concept permits you to document the data in SAP NetWeaver BI using definitions or information in structured and unstructured form.
The Data Warehousing Workbench is the central work environment that provides the tools for performing the tasks in the SAP NetWeaver BI Enterprise Data Warehouse.
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