DW - Products & Vendor

SAP Business Warehouse

SAP Business Warehouse is a part of SAP NetWeaver release platform. Prior to NetWeaver 7.4, it was referred to as SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse.

Data warehousing in SAP BW means data integration, transformation, data cleansing, storing and data staging. DW process includes data modeling in BW system, staging and administration. The main tool, which is used to manage DW tasks in BW system, is the administration workbench.

Key Features

SAP BW provides capabilities like Business Intelligence, which includes Analytical Services and Business Planning, Analytical Reporting, Query processing and information, and Enterprise data warehousing.
It provides a combination of databases and database management tools that helps in making decision.
Other key features of BW system include Business Application Programming Interface (BAPI) that supports connection to non-SAP R/3 applications, automated data extraction and loading, an integrated OLAP processor, metadata repository, administration tools, multi-language support, and a web enabled interface.
SAP BW was first introduced in 1998 by SAP, a German company. SAP BW system was based on a model-driven approach to make Enterprise Data Warehouse easy, simple and more efficient for SAP R3 data.
From last 16 years, SAP BW has evolved as one of the key system for many companies to manage their enterprise data warehousing needs.
The Business Explorer (BEx) provides an option for flexible reporting, strategic analysis and operative reporting in the company.
It is used to perform reporting, query execution and analysis function in BI system. You can also process current and historical data up to various degree of details over Web and in Excel format.
Using BEx information broadcasting, BI content can be shared via email as document or in the form of links as live data or you can also publish using SAP EP functions.

Business Objects & Products

SAP Business Objects in known as the most common Business Intelligence tool and is used for manipulating data, user access, analyzing, formatting and publishing information on different platforms. It is a front-end based set of tools, which enables business users and decision makers to display, sort, and analyze business intelligence current and historical data.

It comprises of the following tools −

Web Intelligence

Web Intelligence (WebI) is called as the most common Business Objects detailed reporting tool that supports various features of data analysis like drill, hierarchies, charts, calculated measures, etc. It allows end-users to create ad-hoc queries in query panel and to perform data analysis both online and offline.

SAP Business Objects Xcelsius / Dashboards

Dashboards provide data visualization and dash-boarding capabilities to the end-users and you can create interactive dashboards using this tool.

You can also add various types of charts and graphs and create dynamic dashboards for data visualizations and these are mostly used in financial meetings in an organization.

Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports are used for pixel-perfect reporting. This enables the users to create and design reports and later use it for printing purpose.

Explorer

The Explorer allows a user to search the content in BI repository and best matches are shown in the form of charts. There is no need to write down the queries to perform search.

Various other components and tools introduced for detailed reporting, data visualization and dash-boarding purpose are Design Studio, Analysis edition for Microsoft Office, BI Repository and Business Objects Mobile platform.

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