Layer Architecture of Data Warehouse (LSA)

The structure and running of a data warehouse in general, and an enterprise data warehouse in particular, is highly complex and cannot be tackled without the support of suitable tools. The SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse provides you with an integrated solution:

The concept of layered scalable architecture (LSA) assists you in designing and implementing various layers in the BW system for data acquisition, Corporate Memory, data distribution and data analysis. We differentiate between two main layers here: The Enterprise Data Warehouse layer and the Architected Data Mart layer.

The following graphic illustrates the structure of the different layers:

Depending on your requirements, the system might also contain further layers. The data in a layer does not necessarily have to be saved in persistent format.

Note that the LSA has fixed rules regarding where necessary transformations are performed:

• Only transformations independent of the business process are performed between data acquisition layer and data propagation layer (usually in the Quality & Harmonization layer). These transformations create a Data Warehouse data model from data. This data model can be reused for different data marts.

• Transformations that relate to a specific business process are only performed after the Enterprise Data Warehouse layer (in other words, in the Business Transformation layer).

If you are using an SAP HANA database for your BW system, you should base your system on the new layer architecture (LSA++). More information: Layer Architecture of a Data Warehouse with SAP HANA Database (LSA++)