Difference between SAP BW 3.5 &

BI 7.0 (NetWeaver 2004s) – what is new?

Srinath VelloreSAP BI Trainer

http://www.efoxsystems.com

2

Differences between BW 3.5 and BI 7.0

Let us take a look at some of the major new features of version 2004s: Data Warehouse Workbench Data Flow BI Accelerator Web Application Designer BEx Broadcaster BEx Query Designer BEx Report Designer ReModeling Toolbox Security Changes New ETL Interface BPS Integrated Planning PDF print Real-time data acquisition (RDA) BEx Web Analyzer

We will now take a quick look at these

features

3

Administrator WorkBnh Vs Datawarehouse Workbench

Enhanced Navigation Info Package Group Process Chains PSA Tree Manage (Context Menu) Event Collectors Process Chains Reporting Agent Information Broadcasting

Data Flow in BI

Enhanced Process design and Modeling capabilities Data Source activation automatically generates a PSA table Info Package is only used to load till PSA Transformation replaces Transfer Rules & Update Rules Info Source is Optional, only needed for complex (multi-step) procedures DTP replaces Info Package, Data Marts interface and Info Spoke ODS renamed as DSO, introduced Write Optimized DSO New Better Search facility Infoset now also supports Infocubes Export to PDF & allows Printing Better Unicode Conversion support

Good

Thing

5

BI Accelerator for 2004s

The SAP BI accelerator makes query response time 50-10,000 faster.

You use process chains to maintain the HPA engine after each data load

Both HP and IBM have standard solutions ranging from $32K to $200K+ that can be

installed and tested in as little as 2-4 weeks

SAP NW 2004s BI

HPA Engine/Adaptive Computing

DataAcquisition

InfoCubes

AnalyticEngine

SAP

BW

Any

tool

1. In-memory processing

2. Dictionary-based, smart compression using integers

3. High parallel data access / horizontal partitioning

4. Column-based data storage & access/vertical table decomposition

6

Web Application Designer gets better

The Web Application Designer is improved with new chart types (Heat Map, GANTT & Milestone Trend Analysis), as well as new layout elements such as ‘tab strips’.

WAD also has new step-by-step wizards for maps, command editing to create Web API Commands and charts, as well as a simplified wizard for layout elements such as radio buttons, action buttons etc.

This reduce the amount of custom coding required with the help of Command wizards, Auto complete and support for HTML tags.

WAD is a key tool for all SAP BI shops and in NW2004s the

tool is simplified and more powerful.

New: integration with NW 2004s BEx Report

Designer.

7

New Object Types

You can broadcast BEx query views and formatted reports (“reports”) in addition to Web applications, queries and workbooks. Reports are a new BEx object type developed within the new BEx Report Designer tool.New Output Formats

New output formats are based on the distribution type you select. But, you now can broadcast web documents as PDF files.

New Broadcaster features of BI 2004s

8

BEx Query Designer gets a needed ‘facelift’

The 3.5x BEx Query Designer

Note:

The NW2004s BEx Query Designer

This new property pane makes it easier to format and control displays

than in the past.

9

BEx Report Designer is here!!

This new tool was created to simplify the formatting of reports and fix many of the printing issues in previous versions of BW.

We now get color control, header-footer control and many new features such as location control of cells and integration of pictures, charts and fixed text.

For many, this tool may reduce the need for 3rd party tools to address structured reports.

Source: SAP AG, 2006

Don't Forget

10

New Remodeling Tool Box

In older BW versions, if you forgot to include a field in your infocube, the rework was quite substantial and often involved reloading the infocube as well.

NW 2004s goes a long way to address the complaints that BW is a hard to maintain environment with ‘forever’ fixed models.

Source: SAP AG, Richard Brown, Aug. 2006

In NW2004s you get a new tool to add characteristics and key figures to your model.

11

Better security features

There are many new security features in NW 2004s

Role menus are displayed in the portal and passwords becomes case sensitive.

Authorizations are fundamental building

blocks of the new reporting concept and security contains both

the data value and hierarchy restrictions.

The new security can be built using new “RSECADMIN”

transaction

ASUG Security Upgrade by Eric Dwyer, Nike: http://www.asug.com/client_files/Calendar/Upload/EA1_upgrade_bw_security_2.ppt

Source: SAP AG

Resource

12

Better interface for ETL Design

SAP NetWeaver 2004s has a new and better GUI and formula editors to write complex transfer rules, update rules and data mapping.

On a typical DW project, 40-60% of project effort will be spent on data integration, transformation and loads (used to be higher when tools were more immature).

13

BPS Integrated Planning

You can now create planning templates using the web based planning wizard to create models using patterns in the data (tool: “Road map Pattern”). Queries based on aggregation levels can now also write back to the InfoProvider

1 2 3 4 5 6

InfoProvider Aggregation Level Planning SequencePlanning FunctionFilter Pattern

Source: SAP AG, 2006

14

BEx Web Analyzer integrates Excel

The Excel integration in the BEx analyzer is far better.

Unlike dynamic HTML, you can now use the BEx analyzer more like a real application without refreshing the whole page every time you click on something (this is due to the Java component in NW2004s)Source: SAP AG, 2006

News: BEx browser goes away in NW2004s

15

Real-time Data warehousing gets better

NW 2004s has more features for updates that does not follow the typical asynchronous (batch) updates. This include:

1. We can use XML to fill the PSA directly 2. Daemon-based update from delta queue (BW API)3. Daemon-based update of the ODS and minimal logging

Note: XML documents creates many tags that will slow down

large dataloads due to the size of each XML record (relatively large)

However, it works great for smaller streams of data.

16

Drag-and Drop in BeX Web Analyzer

Unlike the old days of dynamic HTML, you can now use the web analyzer more like a real application without refreshing the whole page every time you click on something.

I.e. You can drag a characteristics into a filter area and automatically filter on that value, and you can also drag it into a column header or a a row.

Building conditions and activating them was often confusing in earlier versions and exception based reporting was sometimes not easy to create for beginning users. NW2004s has now simplified this with more wizards that helps users to build this step-by-step.

BEx web analyzer is a better user tool than in the past. You now get the best world of Java & the web instead of the more ‘clunky’ user

experience related to Dynamic HTML

17

Hints on the upgrade – client, engines and usage types

We are in a transition period, when some items of NW2004s are separate engines, some are clients, and other are usage types.

Key question: is you organization committed to java and the new NW2004s direction?-- if so, go java ‘all the way’..

Source: SAP Installable software units May 2006

Note: standard system copy and SAP migration tools have no standard support for splitting or merging

systems with different usage types

BW Version

Release date

End of mainstream maintenance

2.0B 8/14/00 12/31/20052.1C 12/18/00 12/31/20053.0A 11/15/01 12/31/20053.0B 5/13/02 12/31/20063.1C 11/11/02 12/31/20063.2 3/31/03 12/31/20063.3 8/30/03 12/31/20063.5 3/31/04 3/31/2010

#1 reason for upgrade:

“Because I had to!”

Why upgrade? Because the Time is running out…

Srinath VelloreSAP BI Trainer

srinath@gbans.comhttp://www.efoxsystems.com