Summary

This chapter introduced the basic concept of data warehousing and discussed what SAP BW is, why we need it, its architecture, and what Business Content is. Later chapters will discuss these subjects in more details.

Key Terms

Term	Description
Data warehouse	A data warehouse is a dedicated reporting and analysis environment based on the star schema database design technique that requires paying special attention to the data ETTL process.
Star schema	A star schema is a technique used in the data warehouse database design that aims to help data retrieval for online analytical processing.
ETTL	ETTL represents one of the most challenging tasks in building a data warehouse. It involves the process of extracting, transforming, transferring, and loading data correctly and quickly.
BW	BW is a data warehousing solution from SAP.

For Further Information

• Book: The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit: Expert Methods for Designing, Developing, and Deploying Data Warehouses, by Ralph Kimball. John Wiley & Sons, 1998. ISBN: 0471255475.

• Book: Business Information Warehouse for SAP, by Naeem Hashmi. Prima Publishing, 2000. ISBN: 0761523359.

• Web site: http://service.sap.com/bw/ is the official BW Web site maintained by SAP. It contains the original BW materials.

• SAP white paper: "mySAP Technology for Open E-Business Integration – Overview." Available at http://www.sap.com/.

• SAP white paper: "Portal Infrastructure: People-Centric Collaboration." Available at http://www.sap.com/.

• SAP white paper: " mySAP Business Intelligence." Available at http://www.sap.com/.

Next…

We will create an InfoCube that implements the Figure 1.1 star schema.