Building and Running a Data Warehouse 

Setting up and running a data warehouse, especially an enterprise data warehouse, is a highly complex undertaking that cannot be tackled without the right tools. Business Intelligence in SAP NetWeaver offers an integrated solution encompassing the entire data warehouse process from extraction, to the data warehouse architecture, to analysis and reporting.

Data Warehousing as part of Business Intelligence in SAP NetWeaver provides:

●      Data staging:

○       Extraction, transformation, loading (ETL) of data: The data sources can be accessed by means of extraction in the background. Extractors are delivered for SAP applications or can be generated. Standard applications from other providers can be accessed by integrating their ETL tools.

○       Real-time data warehousing: Near-real time availability of data in the operational data store can be achieved using real-time data acquisition technology.

○       Remote data access: Data can be accessed without being saved in the BI system using VirtualProviders (see below).

●      Modeling a layer architecture: InfoCubes support the modeling of star schemas (with one large fact table in the center and several surrounding dimension tables) in the architected data mart layer. VirtualProviders allow you to access source data directly. InfoCubes can be combined in virtual star schemas (MultiProvider) using Shared or Conformed Dimensions (master data tables).

The persistent staging area, data warehouse layer and operational data store are built from flat data stores known as DataStore objects.

InfoObjects (characteristics and key figures) form the basis of the InfoCube or DataStore object description. Vertical consistency can be ensured by using the same InfoObjects in the various layers. thus preventing interface problems that can arise when building the layers using different tools.

●      Transformation: Transformation rules serve to cleanse and consolidate data.

●      Modeling the data flow: Data transfer processes serve to transfer the data to the different stores. Process chains are used to schedule and monitor data processing.

●      Staging data for analysis: You can define queries based on any InfoProvider using Business Explorer. BEx queries form the basis of applications available to users in the portal or based on Microsoft Excel.