Business Intelligence Best Practices -Sap

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By the end of this year, worldwide investments in business intell igence (BI ) will exceed$16 bil lion.The promises of these investments are manifold. In theory , more timely andeffective decision-making should t ranslate into more competi tive strategies, greatermarket share, improved customer satisfaction, more productive employees, better controland oversight, and more accurate planning, budgets, and forecasts.The real-world resultsoften fall short.

There are a number of misconceptions and factors that stifle the payoff of a BIinit iative. Among the worst offenders, or worst practices, are the following:

BI is just a data warehouse. A data warehouse offers structured business infor-mation . In and of itself, it does not offer business intelligence . I t i s only one of manycriti cal building blocks. Equating a data warehouse with business intelligence beli esthe very reason you implement BI solut ions in the fi rst place, which is not only tostructure, store, and access information, but to interpret and actually act upon it forthe types of benefi ts I just cited.True BI scenarios incorporate much more than a datawarehouse and a slick UI .They work in lockstep with business process management,collaboration tools, and business applications.Tying analytics back into action thats what BI is all about.

Good reports = Good BI . Many who design and implement BI strategies are lul ledinto a false sense of securit y, believing that good reports are indicative of good BI.Building and delivering good reports is only one facet of BI ; it is by no means acomplete picture. Dashboards, alerts, balanced scorecards, and KPI s are also highlyeffective means for communicating business insights, and are means that are becomingmore popular given the trend toward exception-based reporting.

BI ends when the report hits the executives inbox. If you want to gauge theefficacy of your BI activities, take a look at what happens once a report reaches

your CEO or your LOB executives. I see it time and time again. An important issuewarrants executive review and the CEO asks for a report.The report i s run (or insome cases, created at great expense) and sent via email to the CEOs inbox.Theinbox offers no inherent support for collaboration among key stakeholders, no contextupon which to draw meaningful conclusions, and no simulat ion or modeling capabil i-ti es in summary, no actionable intelligence. And most glaring of all i s the lack oftie-in to processes and applications. BI should be a catalyst for business transforma-tion, an enabler of smart business.That CEO should be empowered to make better andsmarter decisions (ul timately affecting the bottom line of the organization), and toquickly initiate process changes where recognized to be advantageous.

SAPs Peter Graf on

Business I ntelligence Best(and Worst! ) Practices

SAP insider S-1

Peter GrafSenior Vice President,

SAP CollaborativeSolutions Product

M arketing

InsideTrack, Understand, and ManageYour Enterprise Performance:Integrated Business IntelligenceSolutions from Business Objects

Extending the Value of YourInvestment in SAP BW:Do All Your Users HaveAccess to SAP BW Data?

The Role of Data Integration:How Informatica and SAP BISupport Data I ntegration forData Warehousing, BusinessIntelligence, and Beyond

Business Intelligence andInformation LifecycleManagement Do YouHave to Choose?

SAS Gives You The Powerto Know

Monitor, Report, and AnalyzeYour SAP Business IntelligenceData Across the Whole

Enterprise

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Continued on page S-2

This article appeared in the Jan Feb Mar 2005 issue of SAP Insider and appears here withpermission from the publisher, Wellesley Information Services (WIS), www.WISpubs.com .

Subscribe today. Visit www.SAPinsider.com.

SAP insider Special Feature: SAP Business Intelligence
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One size report fits all. We all understand thatinterest in a specific type of data say, sales figures doesnt mean a one-size-fi ts-all report i s appropriate. Amarketing manager may want to review sales figures bypromotional campaigns, a sales manager by sales rep andproduct, and a purchasing manager may want t o focus ontrends over time in order to avoid out-of-stock situations.And yet, many companies resign themselves to having adata warehouse administrator run a report and having theusers decipher it on their own. Or worse, the administrator(without the relevant business understanding) runsnumerous report s tailored to what he or she perceives arethe needs of the audience. Inflexible, impersonal BI suchas this forces users to make compromises and hinders thequality of insights to be gained.

Six different tools (and six different answers!).With the advent of Sarbanes-Oxley, acute concernsabout timeliness, accuracy, and consistency reach wellbeyond the IT department. Internal controls and trust-worthiness of financial figures are key concerns for everyCEO and CFO who has to attest to a financial statement.Compliance can be difficult or easy to obtain, dependingon the route you take. Isolated data warehouse implemen-tations take you down a difficult and expensive path tocompliance. And it s a path marred by risk. You extractinformation from a data warehouse, manipulate it withexternal tools, and then return the revised data to thesystem.There is no single version of the truth, and datamodifications cannot be traced or audited.

To get the best, buy best-of-breed applications andtools. One of the myths that enabled best-of-breed envi-ronments to take hold in the 1990s was the notion thatthey offered flexibili ty. I t didnt take long for both thebusiness and IT sides of the house to discover the fallacy

of this claim. It s hard (if not impossible) for a businessgroup or executive to get to one version of the truthwhen different organizations take a different approach toBI . Moreover, manual integration of multi ple productsexponentially compounds IT overhead and expense.Modifications, software patches, updates, upgrades, andintegration exercises basically, day-to-day dealings forevery IT department wreak havoc on a so-called best-of-breed BI landscape. Vendors dont coordinate therelease schedules with one another.They all issue updates

at will, leaving IT organizations to administer change toone system, then revisit every other system that i s impactedby that change. A single, integrated, and robust technologyplatform from a proven vendor, not a best of breed, is actu-

ally the key to flexibility.

Analytical and transactional applications: differentstrokes for different folks. Many BI initiativesoperate in i solation.They offer reports, but are eithernot able or were not configured to track, measure, andrefine operational execution. But the very premise of busi-ness intelligence is to assemble data for analysis thatguides subsequent act ions! I t is absolutely essenti al thatthe BI solut ions interact with operational systems, offermonitoring and feedback mechanisms, provide timely (or

preferably real-time) alerts, and align business insightswith corrective actions and process improvements.

The 7 Best BI Best PracticesThe seven best practi ces to emerge in the BI arena aresummarized in Figure 1 on page S-14. At the core of everyone of these best practices is an acute requirement for acommon, open, and unified technology platform. In thisregard, SAP customers are ideally situated because SAPNetWeaver is precisely that.

Harnessing the benefits of BI requires broad-reachingtechnical capabili ti es along a number of fronts.You obviouslyneed extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) capabili -ti es, integration brokers, and data-modeling tools.You need aportal to enable access to information and analytic applica-tions. Securit y is certainly a huge factor for every IT organi-zation these days. And cutting across all facets of a BIendeavor is the need for integration with business processesand appli cations.These capabili ties are all integral to theSAP NetWeaver platform.

When these technical assets are at your disposal, BI cantake flight. You can use business process management inconjunction with analytics.You can wield the portal for broad-based delivery of content, be it reports, alerts, or KPIs.Youcan tap into collaboration tools so that people can discuss thecontents of a report , reevaluate findings, and question conclu-sions.You can readily tie analyti cs back into transactions. Andyou can create processes around analyt ics, for example, viaad hoc workflow definitions and guided procedures.

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Gain visibility into your business and leverage all your enterprise data.Reduce costs while increasingproductivity and minimizing demandson IT. Pinpoint your most profitablecustomers and improve your overallfinancial performance. And ult imately,be able to act efficiently on the businessinsights available within SAP NetWeaver.

SAP customers look to business intel-ligence (BI) vendors to deliver all ofthese benefi ts, and more. Easy to say not as easy to achieve. But with thereporting offerings from BusinessObjects, SAP customers get solutionsthat are uniquely integrated with SAPBusiness Information Warehouse (SAP

certi fied product off erings. What doesthat mean for customers? You get best-of-breed SAP r eporting functionalitywith the lowest risk to maximize yourSAP investment.

Customer AdoptionThe roster of SAP customer companiesthat have embraced Business Objectsand SAP reporting solutions includessome of the worlds best-known andmost successful enterprises. EastmanKodak Company, Johnson & Johnson,and Telecom Italia SpA have joined theranks of long-standing SAP customers,such as Air Products and Chemicals,BMW Group, Fir stEnergy Corp., andNVI DIA, to leverage the power ofBusiness Objects report ing solutions.

With a comprehensive portfolio ofBI products, Business Objects addresses

the specific needs of all users across theenterprise, from the knowledge worker/ information consumer to analysts andpower users to business managers andexecutives (see Figure 1 ).

Enhancing SAP BusinessIntelligence Capabilit iesEmpowering employees with the infor-mation they need and in a format theyrequire to make better decisions faster

Track, Understand, and M anage

Your Enterprise PerformanceIntegrated Business Intelligence Solutionsfrom Business Objects

Gordon BreeseVice PresidentSAP Alliance,

Business ObjectsBW), a core component of SAP BusinessIntelligence (SAP BI).

Developed Jointly with SAPOver the past four years, BusinessObjects has worked hand-in-hand withSAP and the Walldorf, Germany-basedSAP competency and developmentcenter to develop its integrated solutionfor formatted reporting, CrystalEnterprise, for SAP customers.

The result s? Unparall eled integrationwith SAP BW and the SAP NetWeaverstrategy, in addit ion to integration withSAP R/3, plus a leading position in thenumber and scope of SAP NetWeaver

Figure 1 Business Objects Complete Business Intelligence Solut ion


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was a primary objective for SAP andBusiness Objects.To this end, CrystalEnterprise SAP Edition 10 was inte-grated with SAP BW.The bundled solu-

tion, available for the Windowsplatform, includes over 100 reporttemplates, plus the abili ty to create 10custom reports.

For those seeking to create customreports from all their enterpri se infor-mation, including SAP BW, SAP R/3,and non-SAP data, Business Objectsdeveloped Crystal Enterprise Enhanced SAP Edition. Users cancreate and customize presentation-

quality reports on their own, withoutneeding to rely on the specialized skillsof I T personnel and while honoring SAPsecurity (see Figure 2 ).

Crystal Enterprise EnhancedSAP Edition enables SAP customers to:

Get t he information you need, whenyou need it, and in a format you canuse to make smarter decisions

Gain full access to all your SAP BW,SAP R/3, and non-SAP data to track,understand, and manage your businessin order to maximize enterpriseperformance

Reduce IT expenditures, reportdevelopment time, and end-usertraining

Empower end users to easilycreate their own presentation-quality reports

Securely manage your information,adhering to SAP security standards,by scheduling and distributing reportsvia the Web

Loading Data into SAP BWIf your requirements also includeaccessing heterogeneous source datafor loading into SAP BW, BusinessObjects Data Integrator gives you

the flexibility of a fully functional,enterprise-class data integrationplatform.

Data Integrator accelerates theimplementation of SAP BW by simpli-fying access to disparate data sources

for integration with your SAP BWenvironment. Data Integrator can:

Integrate heterogeneous data withone tool and a single, easy-to-usegraphical user interface

Provide a drag-and-drop design envi-ronment that allows users to easilymanage data integration taskswithout programming

Easily load SAP BW with any SAP

R/3 data that is not contained in thestandard BW extractors, includingcustom SAP R/3 tables or data fromindustr y-specifi c modules

Designed for SAP CustomersCovering the ful l BI spectrum fromoperational reporting to ad hoc queryand analysis to enterprise performancemanagement, Business Objects CrystalEnterprise offers proven solutions

optimized for the SAP NetWeaver plat-form. Business Objects enjoys Certifiedfor SAP NetWeaver certification for itsWebIntelligence and Crystal Enterpri se

Enhanced SAP Edition solutions.

As SAP customers have been

exposed to the very real advantages ofBusiness Objects solutions, they haveresponded by complementing theirSAP BI strategic enterpri se report ingsolution with integrated reportingsolutions from Business Objects.Combining world-leading BI function-ality from Business Objects with theSAP NetWeaver open integration andapplication platform, SAP customerscan leverage the best in business intelli-

gence with full end-user power andcontrol and lower organizational TCO.

For More InformationTo learn more, contact yourBusiness Objects representat iveat +1 800 877-2340 or+1 604 681-3435, call your SAPsalesrepresentative, or visit the jointSAP and Business Objects Web site atwww.businessobjects-sap.com .

Figure 2 Self-Service Access to Crystal Reports Within the SAP BW Interface


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Extending the Value of YourI nvestment in SAP BW :Do All Your Users Have Accessto SAP BW Data?

Scott LawrenceDirector,

Product M arketing,Cognos

A 2004 survey conducted by METAGroup, a leading provider of IT research,advisory services, and strategic consult ing,indicates that 56% of customers withthree or more SAP modules deployedplan to standardize on SAP BusinessInformation Warehouse (SAP BW)within the next two to three years.Thepercentage increases to 63% for SAPcustomers running five or more modules. 1

As an SAP customer, you are likelyeither planning to invest or have alreadymade the strategic investment in SAPNetWeaver to leverage its BI capabili -ties.The next step is extending the infor-mation stored in SAP BW to more ofyour decision-makers in finance, sales,marketing, operations, and HR.

Cognos Further Expands theReach of Your SAP BW DataMany customers choose Cognos softwareto cure business pains such as lengthyreporting times, cumbersome reportauthoring, combining disparate data intoa coherent view, and poor visibility intoperformance. Cognos, an SAP SoftwarePartner, can also extend and enhance thevalue of your SAP investment: More users leveraging the value of the

information available from SAP BW,a key component of SAP NetWeaver

Self-service and increased report ingflexibility for novice users

Added abilit y to amortize your overallSAP BW and SAP NetWeaver invest-ment over a larger number of users

Most importantly, Cognos fur therenhances your SAP solution in helping yourun your business intelligently by providingbusiness intelligence insights to the rightusers, at the right time, in the right format.

The Benefits of I ntegrationCertified by SAPCognos has been one of the first vendorsto earn Powered by SAP NetWeavercertification for its Cognos ReportNetcomponents.These components holdcertifications for integration with threekey components of SAP NetWeaver: pre-packaged iViews for integration with

SAP Enterprise Portal; the CognosDriver for BAPI an OLAP BAPIinterface into SAP BW; and certi fieddeployment of Cognos Dispatcher onSAP Web Application Server.Thesecertifications assure you of:

Confidence and integrity of results byleveraging your investment in security,business content, and business rules,including hierarchies, multi plelanguages, and currencies

Time savings and simplicity with aseamless, simple port al experience forbusiness users to get the informationthey need in a familiar interface

Reduced costs and simplified mainte-nance by utilizing your existing IT envi-ronment to deploy the reporting from using the SAP BW applicationfor as much of the query processing aspossible, to deploying the report ing

solution on the SAP Web ApplicationServers already in place1

K. Schlegel et al., SAP BW: Staying One Step Aheadof a Juggernaut, META Group, July 27,2004.

From an ROI-oriented perspective,

Cognos ReportNet has a high potential of

becoming one of the leading reporting

platforms for SAP customers.

Jrg Narr, Analyst at the Business

Application Research Center (BARC)

and lead author of the BARC report

Front-ends for SAP BW

How Cognos ReportNetLeverages SAP BW andSAP NetWeaverCognos ReportNet, our Web-basedreport ing application, lets you createreports using:

All your SAP BW data MasterData, ODS Data, InfoCubes,Mult iProviders, and SAP BW Queries

All your SAP business rules

languages, currencies, conversions,hierarchies, aggregations, calculations,and more

All your infrastructure SAP BWquery processing power and deploy-ment on the SAP Web ApplicationServer, with no duplication orredundancies

Cognos integration also extends toSAP security and SAP EnterprisePortal.This allows you to access andinteract with any report created in


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Cognos ReportNet in the familiar SAPEnterprise Portal environment. I t alsoprovides single sign-on across SAP BWand SAP Enterprise Portal using yourSAP roles for data access and to drivethe user experience in Cognos ReportNet.You can extend this security to supportsingle sign-on access across all yourdata, including non-SAP BW data.

Powerful, Flexible, Self-ServiceReporting Across Your CompanyWith Cognos ReportNet, you cancombine data from multiple SAP BWsources and instances with non-SAPBW data (for example, relational datawarehouses) within a single report .Thiscreates a single view of your operationsand helps eliminate the multiple reportsand reporting solutions that youre likelystruggling with today.

Cognos ReportNet simplifi es andstreamlines every aspect of reportingfor SAP customers, including those whomust use data from SAP BW and other,non-SAP sources.

Users can create multiobject, multi -query, multipage reports, as well aspixel-perfect production reports (seeFigure 1 ), all over the Web, bringingtogether key information from across

your organization. A table of contents or

paging down leads users to subsequentpages of supporting details.

Cognos ReportNets easy-to-use,Web-based report creation for sophisti-

cated or simple ad hoc reports (seeFigure 2 ) provides flexible report sched-uling and output options includingbursting, for broad distribution tohundreds or thousands of users with onetouch to the SAP BW server.

Cognos ReportNet also supportsusers across geographic boundaries withdiverse output format requirements.Multilingual reports feature automaticlocalization to reduce authoring times

and ensure data consistency across loca-tions. Multiple output formats meet t heneeds of all end users to increase satis-faction and use users can havepersonalized default output formats orcan change report formats to HTML,PDF, Excel, or CSV.The ability tooutput in PDF addresses the need toprint your highly formatted, multipagereports at the touch of a button.

Ultimately, users can access reports

when and where they need to they

even have the option to schedule reportsto run at off-peak hours to reducenetwork load, or immediately afterSAP BW data is refreshed for themost current information. CognosReportNets easy-to-learn reportingenvironment ensures broad deploymentand uptake with little or no training,and low administration overhead.

About CognosCognos is a world leader in reporting,business intelligence, and enterpriseplanning software. Industry analysts,customers, and experts recognize

Cognoss leadership in these fields andin the emerging field of corporateperformance management. They point tothe breadth and excellence of Cognosperformance management software asthe source of this leadership.

Founded in 1969, Cognos todayserves more than 23,000 customers inover 135 countr ies. For more informa-tion, please visit www.Cognos.com .

Figure 1 Pixel-Perfect Reportsfor ProductionReport ing and High-Volume Web I nvoicing

Figure 2 Multipage Report from SAP BW and Non-SAP BW Data with Sophisticated Formatting


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In an effort to gain a single view of thetruth across multiple functional areas,companies today are turning more andmore to business intelligence and dataintegration solutions to consolidate datainto operational data stores and large-scale warehouses. When using the rightframework with the right data integra-tion tools, companies can have faster,more comprehensive report ing withricher sets of business analytics andimproved data quality within an ODS.

At the same time, many customersare realizing that data integration is not

just for data warehousing anymore.Today, there are numerous other killerapps in the data integration arena, andcompanies need to look to their totalinformation integration and data move-ment needs; there is much that dataintegration technologies can be doing foryour organization and its bottom line.

This is particularly true in SAPsolut ion environments, which are onlyas effective as their source informationis complete, accurate, and timely.

Operational areas of parti cular concernto SAP customers include:

Quick integration of non-SAP datainto SAP BW

Feeding data from SAP BW intodownstream applications

Large-scale data migration andconsolidation

Synchronization of data fromlegacy systems

Seamless SAP R/3 upgrades

high volumes of data into SAP environ-ments, including SAP R/3, mySAP, andSAP NetWeaver especially SAPBusiness Information Warehouse (SAPBW). Informaticas PowerCenter dataintegration product family is certified forintegration via the DMI interface andproven to integrate data into SAP in astandard, seamless, and simplifiedfashion. I t can also load data into SAPthrough other standard SAP-approved

interfaces and technologies, includingBAPI (for bidirectional access), BCI,Web services, ALE/I DOC, and ABAP.

For example, Informati caPowerCenter Connect technology forSAP, and in particular SAP BW (thecore component of SAP NetWeaverBusiness Intelligence), provides bi-directional connectivity that enablesorganizations to quickly integratenon-SAP data into SAP BW, as well

as leverage data from SAP BW tofeed downstr eam applications. Workingin conjunction with InformaticaPowerCenter, companies can easily accessand transform data from any source topopulate and extend any source.

Regardless of the interface,Informatica provides application-layerintegration with SAP solutions.Time-to-implementation and costs are minimizedthrough codeless GUI -based developmentfor leveraging DMI , BAPI , and other

The Role of Data I ntegration:How Informatica and SAP BI SupportData Integration for Data Warehousing,Business Intelligence, and Beyond

David LyleVice President ofProduct Strategy,

I nformatica

SAP application instance consolidation Heterogeneous IT l andscapes where

external or third-party data must becombined with SAP data

The good news is that the same dataintegration and ETL (extract, trans-form, and load) technologies that havebeen developed, honed, and packagedover the years for data warehousingand business intelligence usage in yourSAP BI solut ions can be brought tobear in migrations, consolidations, andupgrades, as a growing number of SAPcustomers can attest.

Integration Any Data, AnySystem,Any Time into SAPAs an SAP Software Partner, Informaticais a leader in adaptive software forintegrating immediate, accurate, andunderstandable enterprise data. In anSAP environment, this includes:

Scalable, codeless data access fromany system to any system in real-time, change-capture, or batch modes

Comprehensive data profiling,filt ering, and cleansing capabiliti es

Transparent sourcing, transforming, andloading of high-volume data from olderapplications such as pre-SAP supplychain and manufacturing systems

Quick adaptation to system and datachanges with an open, scalable, exten-sible architecture

The Data Migration Interface (DMI) isthe SAP-endorsed approach to integrating


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interfaces, and through reusable objectssuch as data transforms and mappings.PowerCenter is also adept at capturingand managing metadata, which is a key

aspect of implementing master datamanagement strategies, as well assuccessful business intelligence andcompliance with Sarbanes-Oxley andother regulatory mandates. Whats more,SAP and Informatica data integrationfeatures extend your current data inte-gration and report ing capabiliti es:

Drive Migration andConsolidation EfficiencyIf youve ever engaged in large-scale

data migration or system consolidation,you know the traditional hurdles ofmoving high-volume data from main-frame systems and other diversesources.Typically complex transforma-tion and conversion are involved, as wellas data cleansing and validation.

Informaticas PowerCenter data inte-gration software works with SAP toenable these processes to be performedfaster and more efficiently through seam-less, direct data access, visually drivendesign, a leading high-performance trans-formation and integration engine, and theability to cleanse, profile, and optimizedata along the way as an integral stepin the holistic integration process.

Stay Synchronized withLegacy SystemsMuch of the data in large, global enter-prises resides in mainframe applicationsas a system of record. I t i s criti cal to beable to include that data in SAP BW orother warehouse initiatives to provideaccurate and complete reporting for keydecision-making efforts.To ease theoften problematic sourcing of andsynchronization with mainframe data,Informatica PowerExchange unlockscomplex data held on mainframes orlegacy midrange systems through aseamless, codeless, direct accessapproach. Migrations and consolidationsoften require keeping legacy applications

up and running for some time, which inturn requires that data be kept in syncbetween SAP and the older systems.

PowerExchange provides patentedchanged data capture technology thatenables old and new applications to bekept synchronized as long as you wish.Data changes are quickly identified andpropagated between SAP and legacyappli cations, transparently and non-

invasively to the host systems withno special coding and no systemperformance hit.

Power a Single View of EnterpriseData Across All SystemsComing full circle, data warehousingand business intelligence (BI) continueto be key concerns of SAP customerslooking to fully leverage their SAP data.Everything about PowerCenter thatappli es to migration, upgrades, andinstance consolidation is also true forcreating single enterprise views via SAPBW using both SAP and non-SAP enter-prise data. DMI and BAPI Web servicescan be leveraged by PowerCenter toprovision and update SAP BW, and placeit at the center of an enterprise businessintelligence environment.

In line with any data, any source, anytime, data can be extracted transparentlyand noninvasively from any non-SAPsystem. PowerCenter accesses all data

constructs, and the data is accessed at themetadata level metadata being key toeffective BI .The extracted data can becleansed and optimized for BI , and loadedinto SAP BW for single views of anyvariable whether it is a customer, aproduct, a supplier, a sales area, etc. along with analysis and reporting inbatch, real-time, or near-real-time modes.And because there is no hand coding

involved, it i s easy to respond to changinginformation needs. PowerCenter alsoenables writing data back from SAP BWvia Open Hub Service to downstreamsystems and applications.

Informatica FullyComplements SAP

Data in, data out, data back in.Unidirectional, bidirectional. Real time,change-capture, batch, right time.

Whatever the data integration challengeyoure facing, with more than 400 jointSAP and Informatica customers world-wide, Informatica has a long history ofhelping SAP customers cut the time,costs, and risks of migrating, consoli-dating, and synchronizing data andsystems; upgrading to the latest SAPsolutions; and ful ly leveraging SAP datain an enterpri se BI context.

To learn more, please visitwww.informatica.com .

Success Story: 46 Million Records Migrated into SAP for I mprovedSupply Chain Ef ficiencyIn one of the worlds largest logistical solutions, a government customer wanted one

general system that integrated as many organizational processes as possible.Informaticas software was used to access, cleanse, transform, and deliver 46 milliondata records from multiple sources (including mainframe data) into a single SAPsystem, completing the project in one-third the budgeted time and saving anestimated 50 person-years of effort .

Moreover, the data transformed by PowerCenter i s of immensely better quali ty thanwhat the customer had before,with just 350 bad records across all 46 mil lion entri es.With the initial consolidation project complete, the customer continues to use Informaticato integrate data into SAP, achieving a high degree of r euse and standardization forongoing interfaces with various systems thus enabling a single materials masterwith a standard way of looking at logistical information across the organization.


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Business I ntelligence and Information LifecycleM anagement Do You Have to Choose?Leverage Your SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Investmentwith Proactive Information Lifecycle Management

Leo KistnerDirector SAPBusiness Unit,

OuterBay TechnologiesIn a typical data warehouse environ-ment, the volume of enterprise data isgrowing at an exceedingly rapid pace.At the same time, the abili ty to analyze

all the relevant data across differentsubject areas is crucial to making theright tactical and strategic businessdecisions.

Current data warehouses sufferfrom this explosion of unmanaged data,which limits performance and increasesstorage costs. Information LifecycleManagement (ILM) is an approach todata management that promises benefitsusing methods called data aging and storage tiering to categorize andmanage data based on its age and valueusing multiple storage devices with

different performance and cost criteria.ILM enables enterprises to proactivelymanage data growth and guaranteetransparent access to any data on various

storage levels at any time. With ILM,enterprises can store more data for less.

How Do You Manage YourData Today?A data warehouse is designed to supportstrategic decision-making, but for atruly complete picture of the business,companies need access to the detailedhistory of business processes andgeographic areas.The chall enge is thatthe data needed for historical analysis ismost often stored at a highly granularlevel and not all of it is necessarily

inside your SAP Business InformationWarehouse (SAP BW) . In addition,many companies are forced or want tokeep detailed, histori cal data on hand inorder to meet their internal service levelsor legal obligations.

The traditional approach to managingthe volume and variety of detailed infor-mation in enterprise databases is simplyto add more infrastructure (servers, disks,etc.), working in combination with manual

processes involved in data archiving, suchas unloading and reloading/reindexingdata. However, the cost of managing suchIT systems and processes can exceed theacquisition costs of servers and raw diskstorage many times over.Additionally, datawarehouse users cannot be kept waiting forhistorical data to be restored and indexed;they also need access to detailed data forregular reporting and ad hoc analysis.

As a result, companies face a data

management tradeoff, being forced tochoose between high TCO for yoursupporting IT infrastructure or limitedaccess to historical and detailedinformation.

OuterBay LiveArchive for SAPBusiness Intelligence (SAP BI)One solution for a data aging strategyfor SAP BI is OuterBays LiveArchive

for SAP BI , making data and storage

OuterBay LiveArchive for SAP BI at a GlanceFeatures Manages actual data volume in SAP BW Provides transparent access to all levels of information Runs all queries and applications without modifications

Supports flexible configuration and support for all storage types Provides enabling technology for customers data aging strategies

Benefits Improves manageabili ty of large quanti ti es (terabytes, petabytes) of critical

business information Provides seamless access to detailed and historical data Reduces the total cost of ownership Accelerates backup and recovery processes Improves the effectiveness of business intelligence by offering more detail ed

information (or more history) with your current infrastructure


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management for SAP BI users easy andaffordable.

OuterBay LiveArchive is a result ofa development partnership between

SAP and OuterBay.This offeringmanages the acceleration of datagrowth by identifying and relocatinghistorical and detailed data to an online,easily accessible archive (a livearchive ) on more cost-eff ective storagetiers. At the same time, OuterBayLiveArchive provides real-time useraccess to detailed historical data foreffective business intell igence, and isdesigned to help you manage the need

for low TCO and a high degree of dataavailability (see Figure 1 ).

Value of Combined ReportingFor effective business intelligence, a dataaging strategy requires the ability toquery and analyze all information. Asingle query might involve access tohistorical data and real-time information.Uti lizing OuterBays LiveArchive, histor-ical and detailed data is relocated out of

the SAP BW database (with SAP BWbeing the core component of SAP BI)to the real-time, online live archive.OuterBay LiveArchive also providesCombined Reporting capabilities,which enable any information (currentlyin both the data warehouse and theLiveArchive) to be available at SAP BIusers fingertips (see Figure 2 ).

There is no need to reload the infor-mation back to the SAP BW system fora combined view. This virtual aggrega-tion is performed automatically andtransparently by LiveArchive. UsingInfoProviders and/or MultiProviders,SAP BI users get the ful l value out oftheir SAP BW systems.

With Combined Reporting, the SAPBW database can be streamlined foroptimal performance due to reducedoverhead for maintenance and manage-ment of high volumes of data. CombinedReporting also enables a more aggressive

data aging strategy, since all informationis available whether it is in SAP BW orthe LiveArchive.This data aging strategycan be adopted for any combination ofInfoCubes and ODS objects. As the data

storage location is totally transparent toSAP BW users, they can query any dataprovided by InfoProvider/MultiProviderobjects. In addition, the solution lever-ages more cost-effective storage tiers,reducing IT infrastructure TCO.

As a result, companies no longerhave to make a choice between lowTCO for IT infrastructure and fullaccess to historical and detail informa-tion. Combined Reporting delivers thebest of both worlds.There are no black

holes, as any data is available and canbe used to satisfy the business query.

Using Combined Reporting fromLiveArchive along with data aging prin-ciples significantly increases the qualityof decision-making reports for strategicenterprise management, as typicallymore detail or history of data is avail-able with low additional costs in termsof infrastructure investment.

The combination of a user-defineddata aging strategy and OuterBayLiveArchive enables users to realizethe benefi ts of I nformation Li fecycleManagement today. For more onOuterBay LiveArchive, please visitwww.outerbay.com .

Figure 1 Storage Tiering: Use Low-Cost, Near-Line Storage for LiveArchiveand Reserve High-Performance, Primary Storage for SAP BW

Figure 2 Combined Reporting Gives Users Transparent Access to Al lLevels of I nformation Across Storage Tiers


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Getting ahead of the competition andstaying there poses a constant chal-lenge. I t requires a business to answersuch fundamental questions as:

What is the minimal level of inventoryneeded to service my customers at a95% level?

How can I prevent defects before theyreach my customer?

How will my Profit & Loss statementbe affected if I run additionalmarketing campaigns?

Are my revenue projections based onan accurate forecast of demand?

Companies often find that a singleapproach cannot deliver meaningfulanswers to these deceptively simplequestions, and that each cross-functionaltask requires another specific tool.SAS, however, can deliver the standardfor business analytics without compro-mising on functionality or requiringinvestment in additional tools.Furthermore, you can enhance SAPBusiness Intelligence (SAP BI ) by using

SAS business analytics through SAP-certifi ed interfaces and technology.

SAP-Certified IntegrationOffered by SASSAS offers SAP-certi fied integrationwith SAP NetWeaver, including SAPBusiness Information Warehouse(SAP BW) the key component ofSAP Business Intell igence. 1 SAS also

the security and performance of BIapplications.

SAP BI users can switch easily toSAS for viewing, analyzing, and ad hocreport ing on their SAP BI data usingSAS Enterprise Guide, which is a partof the broader suite of SAS BusinessIntell igence offerings and delivers anumber of specially designed interfacesto support diverse users and their variedreporting and analytic needs.

With the abil ity to access, analyze,and share results within a commoninfrastructure and shared metadata(including SAPs metadata), SAS tech-nology makes information and insightsaccessible to employees at all levels ofyour organization.

Beyond BI: Adding Analytical

IntelligenceKnowing what an organization hasdone in the past and how it has doneit simply does not provide sufficientinformation to drive the organizationforward. Only by going beyond BI(see Figure 1 on the next page) byemploying historical reporting anddescriptive statistics, for example can companies achieve a competitiveedge and be able to answer questions

that drive the bottom line, such as:

SAS Gives YouThe Power to Know

Bernd KosnarTechnology Strategist,

SAS EMEAintegrates with SAP R/3and all the relational andnonrelational databases,spreadsheets, and otherelectronic data vital to your organization.

These easy-to-use data integrationcapabilities upload data into new appli-cations offered by SAP NetWeaver orSAP BI. Multinational SAP customers,and companies adjusting after mergersand acquisit ions, will benefi t by consoli-dating data from multiple SAPinstances and non-SAP systems. SASdata integration includes built-in dataquality capabili ti es, assuring that data i sveri fied, augmented, and standardized atthe point of entry, and that it worksseamlessly in SAP applications.

SAP-Certified BusinessIntelligenceSAS offers a wide range of interfacesfor business intelligence. I ts standards-centric architecture provides capabilitiesthat run the gamut from simplereporting and OLAP analysis to

advanced forecasting and data mining.SAS offers specific interfaces for manylevels of users, including informationconsumers,business analysts, powerusers, IT professionals, and advancedstatisticians. I t uncovers the intelligencehidden within volumes of data, allowingeach user to find the information perti-nent to their field while working in theirfamiliar SAP BI environment.The ITdepartment retains control over the

quality and consistency of data and over

Tonny DierckxDirector I ntelligence

Architecture,SAS EMEA

1

see www.sas.com/news/preleases/102703/news2.html.


12/14S-12 SAP insider



What is the minimal level ofinventory needed to service mycustomers at a 95% level?Through the use of SAS optimization

capabili ties, organizations can evaluatethe tradeoffs of certain scenarios to findthe one that gives the best fit.

How can I prevent defects beforethey reach my customer?Use SAS to data mine the sources ofwarranty-specific data to develop objec-tive clusters and facilitate the diagnosisof likely defects.

How will my P&L statement be

affected if I run additional marketingcampaigns?Capture the added value of runningadditional marketing campaigns byusing mathematical, constraint-basedoptimization, derived from the resourcesand costs available.

Are my revenue projections basedon an accurate forecast of demand?Gain accurate revenue projections basedon dynamic forecasting of demandthrough the application of proven statis-ti cal forecast methods.

It is not uncommon for predictiveanalytics to be based on hundreds, oreven thousands, of influencing variables.With proven implementation methodolo-gies, SAS can identify and retrieve theimportant variables from across yourorganization and your SAP BI environ-ment. SAS Analyti c Intelligence delivers

a wide portfolio of analytic capabili ti esto ensure that the business issue can beaddressed with the appropriate analyt-ical approach.

SAS enables companies to deploythese powerful analytics enterprise-wideto assist with the planning, simulation,optimization, and forecasting of businessscenarios in concert wi th your SAPNetWeaver environment using certifiedinterfaces.

Closing the LoopSAP customers need the ability toupdate operational systems to benefitfrom acquired intelligence and toapply this intelligence in real time tobusiness processes. SAS makes it easyby providing smooth integration with keyenterprise resource planning and front-office systems, including SAP solut ions.

SAS Intelligence Solutions A Depth of Experience inAnalyticsSAS provides the basis for advancedanalytics, offering solutions to enhancecustomer intelligence, marketingautomation, financial intelligence, IT

value management, performancemanagement, human capital manage-ment, supply chain intelligence, andactivity-based management. Solutionsfor banking, insurance, telco, and retailprovide industry-specific intelligence.SASs best practices and best-in-classanalysis perfectly complement thebusiness content offered by SAP BI .

The SAS Solution Adapter forSAP solutions provides a seamless link

between operational data in SAP solu-tions and SAS solutions, making it easyfor SAP customers to get to the properdata without having to write any inter-face or code.

Bottom LineBeing able to react to business needsquickly, to leverage all existing data,and to avoid creating a patchwork ofvarious solutions are the objectives thatshould drive IT decisions today. SASextracts intelligence from all operationalsystems and leverages ongoing tech-nology investments, working throughSAP NetWeaver to integrate thepeople, information, and processes

that comprise your organization. SASenables you and your company to createa unique competitive advantage, onethat stimulates continuous growth andinnovation in the most intelligent way.SAS and SAP software make a perfectcombination, one that gives your enter-pri se all you need to go beyond BI .

For more information on how to takeyour enterprise beyond BI, please visitwww.sas.com/sapinsider .

Figure 1 Modeling,Predictive Analysis, and Optimization Take You Beyond BI


13/14SAP insider S-13



Organizations have long recognized thevalue of a consolidated data architec-ture, where multiple streams of informa-tion from disparate operational sourcesare collated and cleansed for reporting

and analysis. For SAP customers, SAPBusiness Intelligence (SAP BI, acomponent of SAP NetWeaver) offersan efficient path to achieving this corpo-rate vision of having one single versionof the truth. Having all the data readilyavailable is often, however, only half thebatt le. Organizations face challenges ofdistr ibuting this valuable information toall information consumers across theenterprise from executive users topower analysts and from shop floorsupervisors to sales representatives.MicroStrategys business intelligence(BI) platform allows all users access tovaluable corporate data over an easy-to-use thin-cli ent Web interface, with userself-service capabilities.

As BI becomes an integral partof corporate decision-making, SAPcustomers have come to expect theirBI software to have the same mission-critical robustness as the rest of theirSAP solution. Complementing SAPBIs proven archit ecture, MicroStrategyoffers a simil arly scalable, secure, andmaintainable system with built-incaching, hot fail over, and clustering,allowing IT administrators to maintaina 24x7 operation with minimal over-head resources. With its commitmentto keeping certi fication current,MicroStrategy also ensures that thelatest SAP features and optimizationsare incorporated into the software.

The technical and functional synergybetween MicroStrategy and SAP providesnew options for customers to expand theuse and reach of BI . Combining the inter-active reporting and analysis capabilities

of MicroStrategy with the advancedcapabilities of the SAP NetWeaverarchitecture provides organizations witha unique and powerful insight into thetactical and strategic nature of theirbusiness. By empowering all users withthe right data, customers can react inreal time to changing business patterns.

To learn more about how thousandsof customers across verticals worldwidehave come to rely on MicroStrategy tech-

nology, visit www.microstrategy.com .

M onitor, Report, and Analyze Your

SAP Business I ntelligence DataAcross the Whole Enterprise

Bala ChandranProduct Manager,

M icroStrategyMicroStrategy offers a Powered bySAP NetWeaver solution throughMicroStrategy 7i, version 7.5.3 anaward-winning thin-client reporting andanalysis interface. Customers can develop

BI applications ranging from highlyformatt ed pixel-perfect scorecards topowerful predictive and forecasting models,all leveraging existing SAP NetWeavercomponents such as SAP BI , SAP WebApplication Server, and SAP EnterprisePortal (see Figure 1 ). Being Poweredby SAP NetWeaver, the MicroStrategysolution also allows users to access andcombine the critical enterprise informa-tion (as made available via SAP BI ) withother data from within a single interfacewith drill -through to underlying data. Allof these applications are built on a singleplatform architecture SAP NetWeaver

with shared metadata and comprehen-sive securi ty, allowing MicroStrategycustomers to achieve low TCO.

Figure 1 Interactive Reporting on SAP BW and Other Data ThroughSAP Enterprise Portal


14/14


The Breakthrough BI Best Practice Speed and BI are not terms often heard in the samebreath. This is a misconception. I f you have the rightplatform (and again, SAP customers do, with SAPNetWeaver), you can achieve high-performance BI evenwhen contending with huge data volumes and largenumbers of queri es. In its next release, SAP NetWeaverleverages scalable and distributed attribute-search tech-nology, vertical decomposit ion, horizontal parti tioning,smart compression, and in-memory processing.You canexpect speeds that are orders of magnitude, not justgradual improvements, over what you have now.

A New Era in BI and the Demise ofLong-Standing Tradeoff sNowhere is the term Powered by SAP NetWeaver more aptthan BI .True business intelligence compels us to investigate,

integrate, and innovate; to be quick and confident when wetake action; and to ensure data integrity, consistency, andalignment wi th business objectives the whole way through.Youcant do these things when wrestling with multiple platforms.You can with SAP NetWeaver.

Look out across the SAP customer and partner base(including the partners you see profiled in this SpecialFeature), and you see a new era in BI take root. Long-standing tradeoffs with regard to ease of integration, flexi-bility, performance, and TCO go away when you migrateBI activit ies to the SAP NetWeaver platform.

Run business processes and BI activitieson one common, integrated technologyplatform.

Remember that Business Intelligence starts with business, not technology,and that business is in constant flux. Run BI activities on the same platformthat runs your business processes, and you can readily achieve and maintainalignment between them, even as business condit ions and requirements change.

In fact, much of this alignment (that which is not wholly unique to your busi-ness) should come prefabricated.This is certainly the case with SAP businessapplications and the SAP NetWeaver technology platform.

Dont reinvent the (technology platform)wheel.

The trend line in the BI market mirrors that which took hold in the ERPmarket: utili zing preintegrated technology suites or platforms has proven to beless costly, more flexible, and capable of support ing more robust BI activities.

Foster interaction and cooperate amongBI project participants early and oft en.

BI projects draw upon a broad-reaching mix of skill sets. Communication andcooperation among business, portal, data warehouse, development, administra-tive, and other teams are streamlined when one platform is in place and allproject participants speak a common language.

Think big, start small(er), iterate, andlearn.

Start ing with a focused effort , then iterating and refining a BI solution, opti -mizes its value. An integrated platform allows you to stay open and extensible(for example, you can activate features when the time is right) .

Invest in technology that is standards-based, open, and backed by a vendor thatwill be around for the long haul.

Choose a platform that adheres to open standards, supports integration withthird-party offerings, and has the size and success to run certi fication programsfor a wide variety of products.

Make data quality a top priority. Much rides on the integrity of the information and conclusions drawn from BIprojects. An integrated platform significantly reduces the chance for datacontamination and inconsistency.

Architect for your current requirementsand budget, but be acutely aware ofthe need for downstream growth andflexibility.

Strike the right balance between current budget constraints and inevitabledownstream growth. Here, a common, scalable platform becomes a key asset.

Figure 1 The 7 Best BI Best Practices

Continued from page S-2

Business Intelligence Best Practices -Sap

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