SAP

SAP Business
Business Information
Information Warehouse
Warehouse
(SAP
(SAP BW)
BW)
PART
PART 11
(SAP
(SAP BW
BW Overview)
Overview)

April 2004

Author: Arthur X. Wang

SAP BW Training PART 1

Course Overview
Course Objects
Course Outline
Hand-on Exercise and Practice test

ERP & SAP & SAP Business Intelligence

What is ERP
SAP AG & SAP R/3 & mySAP Business Suite introduction
SAP Business Intelligence Introduction

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

Data Warehouse concept and fundamentals
SAP BW introduction

BW Certification Exam
Exam format
Types of Questions
Exam content and weighting information
Scoring
Rules and Procedures
Exam registration

Course Overview
Course Objects
To Prepare you to implement and administer a BW system
To prepare you to sit for the certification test in SAP BW

Course Outline
This course will cover following areas:
BW Architecture
Data Modeling
BEx Reporting and Web Reporting
Data Staging and Extraction
Warehouse Management
BW Authorization
How to write ABAP program for ETL
How to prepare for SAP BW Certification exam

Hands-on exercise and practice test

What is ERP?

Depends when you ask:

1979

1989

No definition
SAP was still
busy inventing
it!
ERP = Standard
Business
Software (=SAP!)

1999

Today
E-Business no
longer replacement
but extension of
ERP

ERP = Old
E-Business = New!

How is ERP defined today?

No universally accepted definition today. Some

examples:
Press
Backoffice admin & operations applications common to most
companies

Analysts
ERP = HR + Finance + Corporate Functions + Blue Collar
Operations

Others
HR + Finance + Purchasing + Distribution + Technology

Who are the major players in ERP?

SAP
Founded in 1972
The 3rd largest software company in the world with subsidiaries in over 50 countries
The market leader in ERP arena
80% Fortune-500 company implemented SAP
10 Million users in 120 countries
60,100+ installation of its software in 19,300+ companies in the world
IDC and Garter group ranked SAP #1 in growth in software industry in 2003.

PeopleSoft
Oracle
J.D.Edwards
Baan
Lawson

What is SAP R/3?

SAP = System, Application and Product in Data Processing

R3 = Real Time 3 tiers
A transactional system based on a client-server architecture
and uses a relational database to track all information related
to corporate.
The current major modules of SAP R3 include:
FI: Finance
HR: Human Resources

CO: Controlling

PM: Plant Management

LO: Logistics

PP: Production Management

QM: Quality Management

AM: Fixed Asset Management

SM: Service Management

WF: Work Flow

IS: Industry Solutions

MM: Materials Management

SD: Sales and Distribution
PS: Project System

SAP R/3

SAP R/3 (FI/CO)

SAP R/3 (GL)

SAP R/3 (CO)

SAP R/3 (Logistics)

SAP R/3 (MM)

SAP R/3 (MM)

SAP R/3 (HR)

Sap R/3 Reports

SAP R/3 (CO) Reports

SAP R/3 Sample Report

SAP R/3 User Menu

What is mySAP ERP?

How Does mySAP ERP fit?

What is the evolution from R/3 to mySAP ERP?

mySAP ERP

SAP R/3 Release

3.1 4.6C

Extensions

Extensions

Application Core

Application Core

Application Core

SAP R/3
Enterprise

SAP Basis

WEB Application
Server

WEB Application
Server
Enterprise Portal
Business
Intelligence

Technology

Exchange
Integration

SAP NetWeaver

SAP Enterprise

SEM, Extended
Finance,
Extended HR,
Portal, BW,
ESS/MSS,

Additional
Functions

Functionality

SAP Application server evolution

Web Programming Model

HTTP, SMTP, HTML, XML,
WML, SOAP, .
JAVA
Web Access through ITS
XML Communication
(SAP BC)
ABAP Objects
3 tier Client / Server
Architecture
RFC Communication

ABAP / 4

SAP R/3

mySAP.com

SAP Web Application Server

How mySAP ERP differs from SAP R/3 Enterprise

Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM)

Business Analytics (BW-based)

mySAP Human Resources -Overview

Operations: Overview New Developments

SAP Product Architecture

SAP for <Industry>
SAP Packaged
Solutions

SAP for Aerospace & Defence

SAP for Automotive

Service Management for <Industry>

Financial Insights for <Industry>

SAP xApps

mySAP Business Suite

SAP xRPM

mySAP ERP
mySAP BI
mySAP CRM
mySAP EP
mySAP SCM
mySAP HCM
mySAP PLM

mySAP SRM
mySAP Financials
mySAP Market Place

(Resource & Portfolio

Management)
SAP xAPP EP
(Employee Productivity)

SAP Small Business

Solutions
mySAP
All-in-One

SAP
Business
One

SAP NetWeaver
SAP Enterprise Portal

SAP Business Intelligence

Web Application Server

SAP Master Data Mgmt

SAP Exchange Infrastructure

Technology Components

ERP & SAP Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence
Business Intelligence is the process of transforming data into information and
transforming that information into knowledge through discovery
Business Benefits of SAP Business Intelligence

The capabilities of SAP BI help individuals optimize business

processes and better align them with the goals of the business.
With SAP BI, customers improve business efficiency, enhance
quality of relationships, and achieve maximum business value.
Most complete BI solution stack
Data warehousing
Business intelligence platform
Business intelligence suite of tools
Measurement and management with pre-packaged business content

Integrated BI solution
Complete solution from a single, enterprise-class vendor
Lower TCO and faster ROI than "best-of-breed Frankenstein monsters"
Complete access to underlying transactional system
Nearly 7,000 global installations
Comprehensive partner "ecosystem"

ERP & SAP Business Intelligence

Business Intelligence
Key Functional area
Data warehousing

Data warehouse management

Extraction, transformation, and loading
Business modeling

Business intelligence platform

Online analytical processing (OLAP)

Data mining
Alerting

Business intelligence suite of tools

Query design
Reporting and analysis
Web application design

Measurement and management

Business Content
Metadata management
Collaborative business intelligence (working together within the enterprise portal environment)

Key element of SAP NetWeaver

SAP's comprehensive BI solution forms part of the integration and application platform SAP
NetWeaver, and as such is able to leverage seamless integration with other SAP NetWeaver
elements. The advantages of integration in SAP NetWeaver:

Allows business intelligence to migrate from a tactical application to an enterprise-wide strategic solution

Is able to accommodate growing customer requirements

Delivers lowest overall TCO

Is the foundation technology for customer, partners, and SAP to deliver platform-independent solutions.

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

Data Warehousing Concept and Fundamentals
A data warehouse is separate application environment with a dedicated
database drawing on diverse data sources and designed to support query and
analysis.
A collection of integrated, subject-oriented databases designed to support the
DSS function, where each unit of data is relevant to some moment in time.
A data warehouse is a copy of transaction data, specially restructured for
queries and analyses R. Kimball : The Data Warehouse Toolkit 1996.

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

Data Warehousing Concept and Fundamentals
A data warehouse has the following properties:
Read only access.
Cross-organizational focus
Data warehouse data is stored persistently over a particular time period.
Historization: Data is stored by time on a long-term basis
Designed for efficient query processing
Evaluation tool

Data Warehouse Objects:

Standardized structuring and display of all business information
Simple access to business information via a single point of entry
Highly-developed reporting for analysis with self service for all areas
Quick and cost-efficient implementation
High performance environment. Data modeling from heterogeneous sources
Relieving OLTP systems

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

OLTP vs OLAP

OLTP Systems
(Operative
Environment)

OLAP Systems
(Informative
Environment)

Target

Efficiency through automation

of business process

Generation of knowledge
(competitive advantage)

Priority

High availability, higher data

volume

Simple use, flexible data

access

View of Data

Detailed

Frequently aggregated

Age of Data

Current

Historical

Database
Operations

Add, change, delete(refresh),

and read

Read

Typical Data
Structure

Relational (flat tables, high

normalization)

Multi-dimensional structures

Integration of data
from various
applications
(modules)

Minimal

Comprehensive

Data Set

6-18 months

2-7 years

Normalization

Highly Normalized for

performance

Highly denormalized for

querying

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

SAP BW introduction
What is SAP BW
SAP BW = SAP Business Information Warehouse
A state-of-the-art and end-to-end SAP data warehousing solution.
Provide knowledge workers and decision makers with rapid access to data from SAP R/3 and other
non-SAP sources

SAP BW Drivers
End users need current and historical data for better decision making
SAP Predefined reports may not meet your needs and are hard to find.
Custom SAP reports using ABAP have following limits

Static: Do not support ad-hoc querying capability

Expensive to maintain
Negatively impact the performance of the transaction system
Difficult to integrate SAP with non-SAP data

SAP LIS (Logistics Information Systems) has following issues:

All data must be in SAP R3

Requires significant amount of training, and users need knowledge of SAP data before LIS cube can be
customized

The execution of queries to LIS has a negative impact on SAP R3 transaction processing performance

Third-party solutions: Can help extract data from SAP, but not end-to-end solution.
Custom data warehouse solutions:

Very Expensive

Implementation time is long

Metadata are difficult to be synchronized with SAP R3

Extracting data from SAP R3 has traditionally been a difficult task.

The integration effort is often plagued with difficulties

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

SAP BW introduction
SAP BW Features and Functionality
Optimized data structure for reporting and analysis
A separate system and independent release
OLAP Engine and function-rich reporting tools
Comprehensive three tier architecture
Automated data extraction and loading capabilities supply the SAP BW with data from SAP modules,
non-SAP applications and external sources.
Pre-configured with SAP global business know-how
The Administrator Workbench: A single point of control for creating, monitoring and easily main
Hub-and-spoke capability
Support web-based multidimensional on-line analysis

Business Benefits:
Increased Effectiveness of decision making
Cost Reduction by Reducing Time to Action
Optimization of Business Process

Key Advantages:

End-To-End Solution
Robust, Business driven solution
Open Platform Complemented Through Partners
Function-rich and adaptable solution
Business Content to Maximize ROI

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

William H. Inmon, The father of data warehousing, about
SAP BW:

No other vendor has the same reach across

all the environments in a comprehensive
manner. Some vendors have software. Other
vendors have hardware. But in terms of forming
a complete picture across the entire corporate
information factory landscape no other vendor
can compete
White Paper available at WWW.billinmon.com

Data Warehousing & SAP BW

IDC: #1 in packaged data warehousing
Career Opportunities: (Rates: $70-$140)
BW Architect
BW Administrator
BW ETL developer
BW reports developer

BW is a still relative new product

Reporting in BW is SAP strategic direction
The demand for BW professional is high
The pay for experienced BW expert is very attractive

BW Certification Exam
Format of the Exam
The tests are administered by computer.
Certification Duration: 3 hours
Number of certification questions: 80 multiple choice questions.
Tip: You can mark questions to return to later if you are not sure of the answers.
Passing the exam requires a minimum of 70%.
The questions are chosen randomly from a pool of thousands of questions. Each
candidate in the same classroom will have the same questions, but in different
sequence.

BW Certification Exam
Types of questions
Single Answer (only one answer)
Example

A conceptual description of data objects, their attributes, and the relationships between them
is:
A. A data warehouse
B. A data model
C. An infoCatalog
D. An infoSet
E. An infoSource
Answer: B.

Multiple Choice (one or more answer)

Example

Which of the following are types of SAP BW InfoCubes?:

A. MultiCube
B. Inverted Cube
C. Remote Cube
D. Relational Cube
E. Basic Cube
Answer: A, C, E

BW Certification Exam
Exam content
Reporting (20%+)
Data Modeling (10% - 20%)
Warehouse management (20%+)
Extraction (10% - 20%)
Authorization (1% - 10%)
Experience from implementation (Case study/project) (1% - 10%)
The passing score is 70%.

Exam Weighting Information

For latest exam weighting information, please check SAP web site:
www.sap.com/usa/education

BW Certification Exam
Scoring
Regardless of the type of questions, scoring of the answer is based on Boolean
logic:
Correct Answer

Your Selection

Your score

True

True

False

False

True

Fasle

False

True

There is no penalty for an incorrect answer

Only one correct answer (maximum of 2 points)
More than one Answer (maximum of 5 points)
Correct Answer

Incorrect Answer

No Answer

If there is only one

correct answer

2 points

0 point (no point

deducted)

0 point

If there is more than

one answer

1 point

0 point (no point

deducted)

0 point

BW Certification Exam
Exam rules and procedure
Canadidates must produce an official valid ID. Documents with photo
The exam questions must not be written down.
No assistance is allowed, but candidates whose mother tongue is not Englist may use a
dictory provided it contains no notes and is inspected and accepted by the proctor before
the start of the exam.
Unsuccessful candidates may retake the same exam after a three-months waiting period.
Before admission to the same exam for a third time, the candidate must produce evidence
of training suitable to rectify the gaps identified in the cadidates comptenance at previous
exam.
No candidate may take the same release more than 3 times.
The exma fee cover only one exam and candidates must pay the exam fee for retakes.

Exam Registration
Register by phone: 1-888-777-1SAP (1727)
Register on web: www.sap.com/usa/education
Registration will only be taken up to 5 business days prior to the scheduled exam event.
The exam schedule can be found on web.
Fee: CDN$ 700 (This fee applies whether you pass or fail)