Chapter 4: Getting Started with SAP BW

Team-Fly

---

In this Chapter

This chapter introduces the SAP BW application development, administration, and data access environments. Notice that SAP BW screen menus and options are quite different from typical SAP R/3 application modules. The purpose of this chapter is to provide you with a visual tour of the SAP BW environment. In later chapters, you learn the steps needed to configure SAP BW, develop applications, and manage the SAP BW environment.

In traditional SAP R/3 OLTP instances, SAPGUI is the primary frontend used to administer and develop applications or to access data. SAP BW, however, supports multiple user interfaces based on the user role.

In SAP BW 1.2B, SAPGUI is primarily used by administrators to administer instances and manage data warehouse objects such as InfoCubes. The data warehouse developers use SAPGUI to implement data warehouse objects that store data. The analytical application developers and end users use SAP BW BEX Analyzer to develop analytical applications in Microsoft Excel.

In SAP BW 2.0A, however, the applications developers may develop queries in the InfoSet Query that need SAPGUI, and the users of such queries also require SAPGUI rather than the BEX Analyzer. The administration and development of analytical applications becomes even more complex when you implement SAP Internet Transaction Server (ITS) to develop Web-centric analytical applications. Here, the SAP BW administrators also need to learn the ITS administration on the Microsoft NT Internet Transaction Server. Moreover, the Web-based SAP BW 2.0 applications developers need to learn Web authoring tools, such as Microsoft FrontPage and HTML, to develop professional-looking Web applications.

In this chapter, you will learn how to log on to the SAP BW backend and frontend using SAPGUI and BEX Analyzer, respectively.

---

Team-Fly