SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse provides an open architecture in many areas: You can extract data from various systems into a BW system and can evaluate this data for your reporting using various front-end tools.
SAP Business Explorer, the front-end component of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse, provides flexible reporting and analysis tools to support strategic analysis and decision making in your organization.
The following interfaces are available to connect third-party front-end tools:
The following table provides an overview of the various interfaces:
OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) |
OLAP BAPI |
XML for Analysis (XML/A) |
Easy Query |
Technical Protocol |
|||
COM(Component Object Model) protocol |
RFC (Remote Function Call) protocol |
HTTP/SOAP protocol |
HTTP/SOAP protocol |
Query Language |
|||
MDX |
Service-Specific Entry Parameters |
||
Data Provision |
|||
Data is formatted in generic form. Processing of data is flexible, but therefore complex as well. |
Data and some metadata from the standard view of a defined query is in typed format. Data can be processed very easily. |
||
Communication |
|||
Stateless |
|||
Client-Side Requirements |
|||
Drive installation on clients (see Integration and Installation ). Download SAP NetWeaver BW ODBO 32 bit (as part of the WINDOWS SAP GUI) from SAP Service Marketplace (SMP authorization required): http://service.sap.com/swdc → Installations and Upgrades → Installations and Upgrades Entry by Application Group → SAP Frontend Components → SAP GUI FOR WINDOWS. |
Access library provided on every SAP platform. Download the RFC lib from SAP Service Marketplace (SMP authorization required):http://service.sap.com/swdc → Installations and Upgrades → Installations and Upgrades Entry by Application Group → Additional Components → SAP RFC SDK. |
SOAP client proxy must be generated on the basis of the WSDL description. |
|
Platform Dependency |
|||
For MS Windows platform only |
Every platform supported by SAP |
Every platform |
The following overview illustrates the options for accessing BW data using interfaces.
Platform Dependency
The interface used depends on the platform: OLE DB for OLAP requires MS Windows, OLAP BAPI requires an SAP platform. XML for Analysis und Easy Query are non-platform dependent.