SAP BW is a continuous data warehousing solution that uses former SAP technologies. This SAP BW is built on the Basis of 3-tier architecture and coded in the ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) language. This 3-tier architecture and code language uses ALE (Application Link Enabling) and BAPI (Business Application Programming Interface) to link BW with SAP systems and non-SAP systems.

BW Architecture

The BW has three layers in it. The top layer is the reporting layer. This top layer may be BW Business Explorer (BEx) or a third-party reporting device. This BEx consists of two components: one is BEx Analyzer and other is BEx Browser.

BW Server is a middle layer that carries out three tasks: it administrates the BW system, stores data and retrieves the data. In The bottom layer it consists of source systems, which may be R/3 systems, BW systems, flat files, and other systems. In the source systems a SAP component called Plug-In must be installed. It contains extractors. An extractor is a set of ABAP programs, database tables, and other objects that BW uses, which helps to extract data from the SAP systems. This BW Server contain Administrator Workbench, Metadata Repository and Metadata Manager, Staging Engine, PSA, ODS and User Roles.

?This Administrator Workbench checks metadata and all BW objects. It has two components: one is BW Scheduler and other is BW Monitor. This component helps to load data and to monitor the data.

?This Metadata Repository contains information relating to data warehouse. Metadata Repository contains two types one is business-related and other is technical. Metadata Manager is used to maintain Metadata Repository.

?PSA (Persistent Staging Area) is also a BW server. This PSA stores data in the original format while being imported from the source system. It ensures quality check of data before they are loaded in their destinations, such as ODS Objects or Info Cubes.

?This ODS (Operational Data Store) Objects helps to build a multilayer structure for operational data reporting. It is used for detail reporting.

?Info Cubes is an actual table and they are the associated dimension tables in a star schema.

?The OLAP Processor is the analytical processing engine. It analyzes and retrieves data as per users? requests.

?Documents are stored in BDS (Business Document Services). The documents can appear in different formats like Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and HTML.

BW Business Content

The BW's most powerful selling is Business Content. It contains standard reports and other associated objects. For standard reports, BW use a function called Generic Data Extraction. This function is used to extract R/3 data.

Nowadays, BW is rapidly evolving. It helps to plan BW projects and their scopes.

This sap e-business consists of three components: they are my SAP Technology, my SAP Services and my SAP Hosted Solutions.

?MySAP Technology provides an infrastructure for Web Application Server and for process-centric collaboration. This infrastructure contains a component called mySAP Business Intelligence.

?Another type of services called mySAP Services are the best services which support SAP offers to the customers. They offer for business analysis, technology implementation, and training to system support.

?This mySAP Hosted Solutions are the outsourcing services of SAP. With the help of this solution, customers need not want to maintain physical machines and networks.