openSAP

Modern Data Warehousing with SAP BW/4HANA

Week 2 Unit 1

00:00:07 Hello and welcome to week two, Integrating SAP HANA Platform Capabilities,
00:00:12 unit one, Open Access to SAP BW/4HANA Data. In this unit, we will cover
00:00:20 and introduce the mixed architecture as one of the best practice architectures
00:00:26 for data warehouses. We will show the different architectural types
00:00:31 as well as the SAP HANA view generation demo. Alright, let's have a look at the idea
00:00:39 of mixed scenarios and mixed architectures. What's the point about it?
00:00:44 You know that SAP BW/4HANA is an application running on top of the SAP HANA database,
00:00:50 and, of course, the SAP HANA database itself, and you remember this from week zero
probably,
00:00:55 can also be used to build data warehouses. So, the key idea here is to basically combine
assets
00:01:01 from both sides, manage data on both sides, reuse data from one side on the other side,
00:01:08 basically all kinds of combinations of processes, data, whatever you can think of
00:01:14 in a single data warehouse architecture to basically pick and choose what makes life easiest
00:01:21 in a certain situation. We have tools in place which help with the integration
00:01:28 of such scenarios to basically cross the border between the SQL world and the BW/4HANA
world.
00:01:34 We have tools in place which help with transporting such scenarios
00:01:39 because that's also something which happens on different levels.
00:01:43 But the key is that SAP HANA is underneath all the artifacts are basically the central repository

00:01:49 and runtime for all the data warehouse scenarios. What are the motivations and the benefits
00:01:57 of running such a scenario and the usage of the best of both worlds?
00:02:02 It's, of course, with that approach it's possible to use SAP BW/4HANA skills as well as native
SQL skills.
00:02:13 So, the idea is to combine the skills and use the best of both worlds here.
00:02:20 The next point is that it's quite easy with this kind of architecture to seamlessly integrate
00:02:26 BW data into the native world. As well as vice versa.
00:02:31 So this means native-built data models can be integrated in BW/4HANA and used as a source
or as one layer
00:02:45 for virtualization here. It's quite important when you, let's say, create a
00:02:54 calculation scenario out of a BW4/HANA object, that you can use all the HANA features and
functions.
00:03:05 Like predictive, spatial, or some other HANA platform features.
00:03:10 All the HANA platform features which are available can be used on BW data.
00:03:17 That's basically one of the aspects of openness of BW4/HANA in general,
00:03:21 that we basically said we open access of data which we store in BW/4HANA to any
00:03:26 of consumer who's able to kind of speak SQL, which contains, of course, all the engines
00:03:31 which you have inside HANA, but also things beyond, like BI clients,
00:03:35 which are not even SAP, provided by SAP, but by partners. All that basically is possible
00:03:44 because we have this SQL interface on top of BW data. Yeah. That SQL interface is,
00:03:50 of course, needed for accessing the data via SQL tools. So, let's come to the first example
00:03:59 of an architecture type, which we see here, and it's what we call a virtual data mart.
00:04:04 So, the idea in this scenario would basically be that the customer is using SAP BW/4HANA
00:04:10 to mainly do the data warehouse stuff, store the data, transform the data, manage the data,
00:04:16 using all the stuff which we saw in week one. You'll remember all the aDSO stuff, the request
handling,
00:04:22 all these nice features, use that to manage the data. Maybe also do the partitioning, whatever,

00:04:27 all these features, but then, basically, do the consumption of data and maybe
00:04:31 some additional logic on the SQL side by basically using generated views out of
00:04:37 BW objects, and that's possible in any layer of BW/4HANA. So you can basically use pretty
much any object
00:04:44 in BW/4HANA to generate a calculation view out of that, that's what you see on the left hand
side,
00:04:49 as generated view. And on top, you can build your own logic, right.
00:04:53 You can build calculations on top, you can build projections on top, you can join data,
00:04:58 you can basically do whatever you want and then even consume the data via SQL
00:05:03 by basically any type of client or by any other tool, right?
00:05:06 Could also be one of the HANA engines, could be pretty much anything that's able
00:05:12 to kind of speak SQL. Important to mention here as well is
00:05:17 that these generated HANA views are part of the SAP BW/4HANA lifecycle management.
00:05:23 Exactly. So when you change a BW/4HANA object, the generated view gets adapted
automatically
00:05:28 Yeah. And the authorization, the security concept
00:05:31 of BW/4HANA, I was almost forgetting this, but it's a very important point, the security concept

00:05:37 of BW/4HANA is also incorporated in these views, so we make sure that you can't see data
using the SQL
00:05:43 access, which you're not supposed to see, via the BW/4HANA access already.
00:05:51 So, the next architecture type is the pure SQL consumption, or the SQL consumption.
00:05:57 And therefore, it is possible to create a so-called HANA calculation scenario out of a BW
query.
00:06:05 And then you can create your own view built on of the generated view, and consume that via
SAP clients
00:06:16 as well as non-SAP clients or third-party tools. But you can use, or you can access the BW
queries as well.
00:06:24 That's the idea here. So that you combine the best of both worlds
00:06:28 here, accessing the BW queries to use the analytic engine for certain scenarios and for certain
access patterns,
00:06:37 but on the other hand, you can access the data fully native by creating a calculation scenario
00:06:47 and access this calculation scenario via third-party tools or our SAP BI clients.
00:06:57 Here, it's the same, the generated views are part of the HANA lifecycle management
00:07:01 and we are using the SAP BW4/HANA authorization concept to access the right data.
00:07:07 All right. Another aspect which is also very interesting and which is also very commonly
00:07:12 by our customers is that they basically, use technologies for certain data warehouse
operations.
00:07:21 Basically to do, for example, certain complex transformations or transformations which are

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00:07:28 on mass data, not record by record, as the typical BW transformation works.
00:07:35 And this can also be done by again taking, for example, an aDSO using the generated
calculation view
00:07:41 out of this aDSO, then putting your transformation logic in, for example, a SQL view, or a
calculation view on top,
00:07:49 and again consuming this calculation view in a data flow via a data source
00:07:53 and then loading to the next layer. That's a schema which we see quite frequently,
00:07:58 how customers are using the modeling capabilities of especially calculation views to build
certain
00:08:05 transformation logic which would not be so easy to build using the standard framework of
BW/4HANA.
00:08:12 Yeah, and last, but not least it's of course possible to consume natively built SQL models
00:08:20 created via views into BW/4HANA. So the idea here with that pattern is
00:08:27 that the customer is loading the data into a HANA table, building the logic in a view, and then
consuming that HANA
00:08:37 calculation view in a CompositeProvider and/or Open ODS view into BW/4HANA.
00:08:43 But this is part of one of the other units later on. Exactly. But it's basically something which you
would
00:08:49 also see, the picture here looks very simple, it's something which you would also see if you
basically
00:08:53 have both an SQL-based data warehouse and a BW/4HANA-based data warehouse
00:08:58 on the same platform, right? Then you would like to share data from one side
00:09:01 with the other, and we basically here described up to now, both directions opening, or making,

00:09:08 the data in BW/4HANA available via the generated calculation views
00:09:12 and consuming the data from the SQL side on the BW/4HANA side using CompositeProviders
or Open ODS views
00:09:20 or even data sources when it comes to loading. So this means that you store the data once
00:09:24 and you can consume the data many times. So it's a very flexible way
00:09:28 of using both the technologies on one platform and minimizing redundancy in data movement
in between.
00:09:35 Now let's come to a system demo. And we picked a very interesting topic, which is,
00:09:41 especially right now, very interesting. Because customers are asking a lot about data privacy.

00:09:46 Data privacy is one of the hot topics these days, and we basically picked an example
00:09:51 which is called differential data privacy. It's a functionality which comes with HANA 2.0,
00:09:59 and it's basically, if you look at the example which you see here, if you look at the upper table,

00:10:04 it's basically some sort of information about employees potentially, so you have the
00:10:11 of an employee, some information like the birthday, I don't know why the weight is in here, but
never mind.
00:10:18 I hope that's not stored in our HR system, to be honest. It's probably not the case.
00:10:25 But salaries are very confidential and very sensitive information.
00:10:30 Now the point about differential privacy is that, of course, for many analyses, it's very important

00:10:35 to allow people access to that kind of data, but to allow this access in a way that makes it
impossible
00:10:43 to identify persons, for example, based on the salary, or get information about individual
salaries, while,

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00:10:50 on a higher level, you still want to be able to make conclusions about the data.
00:10:55 So, basically, the idea is to change the key figures of this table, so change the salary, in a way

00:11:01 that an individual line would not make any sense anymore. So the salaries for each individual
line
00:11:07 will be totally different, but, if you sum up a sufficiently large number of employees, then, that's

00:11:13 what we'll see in the demo, then the numbers are quite close to the original, to the original
numbers again.
00:11:20 Now, we have to add to this, that this is a HANA 2.0 feature which only works
00:11:24 with the HANA deployment infrastructure, so the newer repository of HANA 2.0,
00:11:32 and we're currently in a POC state here. So, this is not officially released, the way
00:11:36 that we did here, so generating calculation views from BW/4HANA into the HANA deployment
infrastructure
00:11:43 is not officially released yet. There's a note out there, note 2463312,
00:11:50 which you should check for the current status. We hope that at some point in time in the future,

00:11:54 this will be officially available and then such scenarios can be built by any customer.
00:11:59 We thought the example is so interesting that it makes sense to show it to you anyway.
00:12:04 So, let's jump into the demo here. Here's the aDSO which contains the data
00:12:09 which we just looked at, right? So, what's important to note here is the checkbox
00:12:15 which says that we want to generate an external SAP HANA view, a calculation view, out of
this aDSO.
00:12:22 When we look at the details of the aDSO, you see a list of attributes which is similar
00:12:28 to what we saw in the table before. Fortunately, there's no weight information here,
00:12:35 but we see some information about gender. For example, we see the important
00:12:40 and sensitive key figure, which is the salary. We see geographic information like region, zip
code.
00:12:46 And so on. Now, let's look at the HANA side,
00:12:52 at the corresponding generated calculation view. And we see that here it's basically with a
prefix BW2HANA
00:13:00 and then the name of the aDSO. Here you see the structure of this generated HANA view.
00:13:06 It's basically the same structure as we have for the aDSO A table itself with two additional
technical columns,
00:13:13 the one row count column and the request transaction sequence number, in addition.
00:13:19 But that's basically the interface which BW/4HANA generates for SQL consumption.
00:13:27 Now let's look at logic and then this anonymization, this differential privacy logic,
00:13:33 how this is put on top and how you can basically leverage this.
00:13:36 So here we are, as I said, in the access A environment, access advanced, which is basically
the modeling environment
00:13:46 for HANA 2.0. And we have a calculation view here. Let's look at that one.
00:13:52 Which basically takes the view generated by BW/4HANA, adds a note which basically contains
the configuration
00:14:00 for this data anonymization feature, for the differential privacy,
00:14:04 and then just does a projection, and the typical stuff which you do, on top in a calculation view
in general.
00:14:10 So, maybe let's have a brief look at the details of this note.
00:14:14 I don't think the mappings are very interesting, but what you see is... maybe let's look at the
columns first,

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00:14:21 so it's again the same list of columns, plus an additional column.
00:14:25 Namely, the salary here. So, here we have the original salary, that's the unscrambled
00:14:30 salary which contains the original data, and here's the kind of scrambled salary,
00:14:35 which, to which some additions or subtractions are applied, to basically make the data, yeah,
useless
00:14:43 on an individual line level, as I just described. There are some parameters which this algorithm
needs,
00:14:51 it doesn't make sense to go into detail here, we'll see the results in a second when we look
00:14:56 at the data which comes out of this view. We'll basically now do a preview on this calculation
view,
00:15:03 and see how the original key figure, the original salary as it's stored in the aDSO,
00:15:11 and the scrambled one, how they compare. Now maybe let's start with a comparison on level
00:15:20 of individual lines. When you look at this, you see, well in total,
00:15:28 there's no big difference. We could, we could also look at the tabular view,
00:15:32 if you read carefully, you see there's a minimal difference from a percentage perspective,
00:15:37 between these two numbers. So, when you aggregate this to a very, very high level,
00:15:42 then you basically have an error which you can neglect. You would see the same, for example,
if you drill
00:15:51 a little bit for example, by T level, which is kind of the salary level in SAP terms.
00:15:58 We have five salary levels if you do the comparison, maybe let's do this, graphically again,
00:16:05 you would see the numbers of the original salary and the scrambled salary.
00:16:09 They are pretty much the same. And the same applies, of course, if you, for example,
00:16:13 if you drill down by region, or let's maybe take the zip code here, we have quite a number
00:16:18 of different zip codes, so it's a much finer granularity already, but you see some deviations
here,
00:16:25 but if you really look at the numbers and do the math here, you would see that it's always
00:16:30 in the range of probably below one percent. So, if you look at these numbers, they would really
still
00:16:35 make sense for a business person, right, if you have to do certain analyses
00:16:41 on this low granularity, on this highly aggregated data, you still get to the right conclusions
00:16:48 because you almost see the same data, but what happens if you really drill down, say,
00:16:53 to the individual employee, is very surprising. That's the cool feature here.
00:17:00 Now compare the original salary here and the scrambled salary on individual line level,
00:17:08 you will see that it doesn't seem to make any sense, right?
00:17:11 Here you have a salary of roughly 120,000 whatever it is, euros, dollars, doesn't matter.
00:17:17 Over here, it's 31,000. Down here we have a very funny example where someone is
00:17:23 obviously willing to pay money to actually go to work. Which is not even the case for us.
00:17:28 Even though we like SAP a lot and we like SAP BW/4HANA a lot, and we like this feature a lot.

00:17:33 But I would not work for a negative salary, of course. So, that's a very interesting feature,
00:17:40 a functionality which the HANA platform provides, which is very useful and, as we said,
00:17:45 a very hot topic these days. And using this mechanism of exposing the BW
00:17:53 to the SQL side, using HANA calculation views, you can actually very easily leverage this,
00:17:58 on top of data stored in BW. And, as Gordon described, we could actually
00:18:03 also do the same scenario the way back and integrate the results of this scrambled data
00:18:10 into BW via CompositeProvider, and then have a closed scenario within BW,

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00:18:15 you use a BW query on top of scrambled data which is stored in an unscrambled fashion
inside BW/4HANA.
00:18:23 And I guess with that, we are finished for today. So what are the key takeaways, Gordon?
00:18:28 The key takeaways, mixed scenarios are the best practice for modern data warehouse
architectures,
00:18:36 using best of both worlds, using BW/4HANA scenarios, as well as SQL data warehouse
scenarios,
00:18:45 SAP BW/4HANA logic can be exposed to SAP HANA and then we can leverage all the HANA
platform
00:18:53 features and functions, and generated HANA views are part
00:18:58 of the lifecycle management, and it's possible to use the BW authorization concept.
00:19:04 And in the demo, we showed that it is quite to consume BW data, in the HANA view
00:19:14 and build some quite interesting logic on top of Yeah.
00:19:19 And that's it for today. And please don't forget your self-test.

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Week 2 Unit 2

00:00:08 Hello and welcome to week two, unit two: Using SAP HANA for Data Integration.
00:00:15 In the previous unit, we talked about the integration of SAP BW/4 objects
00:00:21 into the native HANA world. And in this unit, we will talk about
00:00:25 the integration of the HANA capabilities into BW/4HANA. This means we will give you an
overview
00:00:31 of the data integration capabilities we have in BW/4HANA followed by an overview
00:00:37 of SAP HANA Enterprise Information Management. The abbreviation here is SAP EIM.
00:00:44 And we will give you the complete picture or a picture of the integration scenarios
00:00:49 we have in SAP BW/4HANA, followed by a system demo, of course.
00:00:54 All right, so let's have a look at the overall picture of data integration with SAP BW/4HANA.
00:00:59 There are basically two main pillars here. One is built-in capabilities of BW/4HANA
00:01:05 for data integration. The other pillar is basically
00:01:08 what the HANA platform provides us. Let's look at the built-in capabilities first.
00:01:13 Those are mainly based on Operational Data Provisioning.
00:01:16 That's a framework which we built a while ago for integration of data from classic SAP source
systems,
00:01:23 like SAP ECC systems, S/4HANA systems, Business ByDesign, and so on.
00:01:29 The second option which the BW/4HANA application comes with is the possibility to do file
uploads.
00:01:36 Here we support stuff like CSV files, Excel sheets, and so on.
00:01:41 And when you look at the capabilities which the HANA platform brings into play,
00:01:46 then that's mainly access to non-SAP data, of course, because that's what we need
00:01:51 in addition to the capabilities of the application. So reaching out to any type of relational
database.
00:01:58 For example, reaching out to social media data. That's possible with HANA Enterprise
Information Management.
00:02:06 Also reaching out to big data systems like Hadoop, Hive, Spark, Vora.
00:02:10 That's also part of that framework. And together we have a pretty comprehensive
00:02:16 of data integration capabilities. Now that's not all we have.
00:02:21 On top of the functionalities which come with the bundle of BW/4HANA and the HANA
platform,
00:02:27 the HANA Data Management Suite also provides additional data integration capabilities.
00:02:33 For example, SAP Data Services. And then there's, for example, SLT,
00:02:36 SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server, such capabilities you can use on top of
00:02:41 the actual BW/4HANA system. And even that is not all that we can offer.
00:02:49 You can include, of course, into your system landscape and into your scenarios, any kind
00:02:54 of standard ETL tool which is certified for SAP HANA. So now we'll give an overview of the
capabilities
00:03:03 we have in the integration part. As you know, we have the HANA database as a platform,
00:03:11 and on top of that we have the application server, and now the question is how we can
00:03:15 bring in the data from the database into the application server.
00:03:20 And therefore we the HANA Enterprise Information Management, SAP HANA EIM, with the
functionalities of
00:03:26 smart data integration and smart data quality. We have smart data access for accessing the
data virtually.
00:03:34 And we have the SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server

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00:03:38 to replicate data from the source into a target. Target in that case is, of course, the SAP HANA
database.
00:03:45 And EIM is for persisting the data rapidly. Exactly.
00:03:53 So, what do we have in Smart Data Access and Smart Data Integration?
00:03:58 And what are the differences between smart data access and smart data integration?
00:04:03 SDA and SDI? SDI means there's smart data integration.
00:04:09 Here we integrate data virtually via real-time or via batch.
00:04:14 In the end, this is done in the so-called data provisioning server.
00:04:18 From an architectural point of view. It's what you see on the right-hand side.
00:04:21 Exactly, that's on the right side. We have a data provisioning server,
00:04:25 and on the other side, we have the smart data access for accessing the data more or less
virtually.
00:04:31 Here we create virtual tables, and then we directly consume these virtual tables into
BW/4HANA.
00:04:39 And this is running on the index server of SAP HANA. From architecture, it's more or less the
same,
00:04:46 but we have of course differences here. We have a variety of adapters you can use here.
00:04:55 We have built-in adapters. We have, I think, 30 or 40 adapters,
00:04:59 it's documented in the EIM Help. As well as custom adapters.
00:05:05 Custom adapters means we deliver a so-called software development kit, an SDK,
00:05:10 where the customer can build their own adapter based on the business requirements here.
00:05:17 And the connector between the HANA world and the BW world here, is the so-called virtual
tables.
00:05:23 And the virtual tables are created via the BW layer. Right, so let's have a look at
00:05:33 the way you consume these functionalities from a BW perspective.
00:05:37 What we described so far was basically the functionality which is contained in the HANA
platform.
00:05:43 So how does BW help you, and how does BW integrate this and help you leverage these
capabilities?
00:05:50 To consume data from any of these sources using HANA EIM, like smart data integration
00:05:56 or also smart data access, we have a dedicated source system type in SAP BW/4HANA,
00:06:02 which is the so-called HANA source system. So the HANA source system supports, as I just
said,
00:06:07 both smart data integration and smart data access. It also allows you to access local HANA
schemas,
00:06:13 so if you have a couple of additional schemas running on the same database
00:06:18 as your BW/4HANA installation, then of course you can access data from there.
00:06:23 And it also allows access to other tenants in the same HANA database.
00:06:26 If you have a multi-tenant installation, then you can also reach out to these other tenants.
00:06:31 That's basically the connectivity and how BW/4HANA leverages the connectivity
00:06:36 which you get from SDA or SDI. That's done on the source system level.
00:06:41 On the DataSource level, we do the actual connection to a table, for example,
00:06:45 or any kind of source object on the remote server, database or whatever it is,
00:06:51 it could be a web server, whatever. So basically when you create a HANA DataSource
00:06:56 based on a table in a remote database, BW/4HANA will create the corresponding virtual table
00:07:02 as an adapter to the foreign object, and manage the lifecycle of all of this.
00:07:07 So basically, all the work which is done on HANA platform level is kind of hidden from
00:07:13 because BW does this automatically once you create the DataSource.

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00:07:18 And, of course, the DataSource manages the data transfer when you create, it's kind of the
adapter of the BW side,
00:07:23 to connect a data transfer process, to create an open ODS view, all that kind of stuff.
00:07:28 One remark. We saw in one of the first slides that we have two options to access non-SAP
data here.
00:07:36 We had the more standard stuff like the relational databases and social media stuff.
00:07:43 And we also had the big data systems. We have a dedicated source system type
00:07:47 in BW/4HANA as well for big data systems, it's called the Big Data source system.
00:07:52 From a technology perspective, it's actually the as the HANA source system.
00:07:57 It's just encapsulated in a different folder basically in your source system tree
00:08:03 because the world of big data is getting so important that it makes sense to put this structure
into
00:08:08 your BW/4HANA data sources right away so you don't mix up access to HANA systems
00:08:14 with access to Hadoop systems, for example. Right, and here in the picture, you see how this
works.
00:08:19 You can actually either, using such a HANA source system, access tables or views in a local
HANA schema.
00:08:28 Or you can access remote sources via a virtual table, which as I said,
00:08:33 will be generated by BW/4HANA for you. All right, and with that, we're ready for the demo.
00:08:39 What are we going to show, Gordon? In the demo, yeah of course,
00:08:42 we will configure SAP HANA smart data integration, SDI. We will connect a source system
00:08:48 to our BW/4HANA system. And then we will create an
00:08:53 SAP HANA source system in our system. We will create the corresponding data source here.

00:08:58 And we will show you the tables which are created from BW/4HANA.
00:09:02 So that's pretty much end to end. We will basically take our BW/4HANA system
00:09:05 and the underlying HANA platform, connect this to, in this case, another HANA database,
00:09:11 and then create the source system on the BW and even reach out to one of the tables
00:09:16 in the remote source. So that you get an impression of how this feels,
00:09:19 what you have to do on the HANA back-end side. what the BW/4HANA application offers on
top of
00:09:24 So okay, let's jump into the system.
00:09:32 Here we have the studio. Now we have to go to the... on the system layer.
00:09:41 So that's the back-end side of the HANA database right now, right?
00:09:44 So we're not looking at the BW modeling tools, but actually at HANA Studio.
00:09:47 So we have to go to provisioning here. Provisioning encapsulates all the connectivity
00:09:52 from the HANA database to other sources. Here we have the so-called remote sources,
00:09:55 which are the connections to other databases. And basically we're creating a new remote
source now
00:10:01 to a different database. Yeah, we have to give them a name.
00:10:05 Let's say, M29 OPENSAP. The adapter...
00:10:12 Here you see the list of adapters which Gordon mentioned earlier.
00:10:14 This is basically the list of adapters for smart data access.
00:10:19 If you switch the source location from index server to data provisioning server,
00:10:25 which we haven't configured here, you would have additional adapters provided by
00:10:29 smart data integration. So here, since we're reaching out
00:10:32 to another HANA database, we choose HANA ODBC here. And we basically have to provide
the connectivity now.

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00:10:38 So we need the server name, that's a quick cut and paste, I guess.
00:10:46 Yeah. Because that's kind of difficult to remember.
00:10:50 Port is 30015. Then you basically provide, that's I think
00:10:55 the general ODBC port for the remote HANA database. Then you have to provide credentials,
00:11:02 user name and a password. And once you've done that,
00:11:05 you can actually start working with the remote data, as we'll see in a second.
00:11:09 So unless we have done a typo. We'll see, yeah, creation of the remote connection,
00:11:16 or the remote source was successful. We see the connection now on the left-hand side here.
00:11:22 There's M29_OPENSAP, and you can actually even start browsing the source objects here.
00:11:27 But that's something... From now, once we've done this kind of connectivity,
00:11:33 once this is established, we can actually switch back to the BW side.
00:11:37 And then really start working, creating a HANA source system on top of this connection.
00:11:42 And then move on to really reaching out to the remote objects.
00:11:45 And we'll see how that works. Now we create a new source system.
00:11:49 This is new, source system. We give it a name, ZOPENSAP.
00:12:00 Now we have the different connection types here. We have to choose one.
00:12:04 In our case, of course, this is as we explained, this smart data access.
00:12:08 Smart data integration would basically be the same bullet point by the way.
00:12:11 But you see the options which we just mentioned. The Local HANA Schema, Smart Data
Access
00:12:15 or Smart Data Integration, another tenant, or the Big Data. All these four would basically be
based
00:12:20 on the same technology. The other ones are the ones which I described initially,
00:12:23 which are provided by the BW/4HANA application. All right, so now we select a remote source.

00:12:31 Remember the remote source which we just created, or the list which was already available.
00:12:35 Here's the one. Yeah, here's one we already created: M29_ OPENSAP.
00:12:39 Of course, use that. Now the point is in this database,
00:12:45 we have of course multiple schemas which we could potentially access.
00:12:47 And we choose the schema from which we want to read our data.
00:12:52 That one. This is the schema here.
00:12:54 Okay, so now we basically have the possibility to access any kind of database artifact
00:12:59 from this schema once the source system is activated. And that, of course, accessing remote
object,
00:13:06 in BW is done via data source, right? A data source is always the connector
00:13:10 to any source object in the outside world, whether it's an SAP system, an ECC system,
00:13:15 whether you have the classic extractors or in S/4HANA with the CDS views.
00:13:20 Here it's the source objects, or the database objects in the remote database.
00:13:29 So, here you can see, this is the already created source system.
00:13:33 And now we will create a new data source based on the remote source we created previously.

00:13:41 So here we are. Right, it's in the source system

00:13:45 which we just created. So it's tied to this connection.
00:13:47 Exactly. And now we should actually...
00:13:50 Now we have the possibility to choose a source object, a proposal from a HANA table or view,

00:13:57 or from a native DSO which we've already mentioned. So, here we are.

10
00:14:04 Okay, now we should get a list of the source objects in this remote schema.
00:14:09 And we see a group of tables from which maybe we choose the sales orders tables here.
00:14:20 The data source gets a name. We choose an application component.
00:14:27 openSAP, of course. I tend to choose "No it's not connected"
00:14:30 because I'm such a lazy guy. So this is, of course, transactional data.
00:14:35 Finish. So, and here we are.
00:14:40 Here you can see the name of the data source, the source system, and the extraction field.
00:14:46 You can see the details about the connectivity. So some source system details,
00:14:49 it's based on smart data access. It's the HANA ODBC.
00:14:53 Connectivity, you see the name of the remote source, all that is in here.
00:14:58 Maybe let's look at the fields. That should now be the list of fields
00:15:02 which we have in the source object. And once we activate this.
00:15:09 Yeah, we have a couple of objects here. Now I will activate the data.
00:15:13 And then we should actually also be able to see the virtual table which was being created
00:15:17 by the BW data source. So the connectivity, the adapter object,
00:15:21 on the HANA data platform side. Therefore we have to go to the properties level.
00:15:26 Now the data source is activated. So, and here on the technical attributes,
00:15:34 for extraction you can see the virtual table for accessing, or the view for the query access.
00:15:40 And this can be used as well. So those objects are things
00:15:45 which are actually generated on database level, so when you go back to the database
explorer,
00:15:50 on the HANA studio side, you should actually be able to find those objects
00:15:53 somewhere in the schema on which the BW/4HANA server runs. Yeah, I mean, that's it so far.

00:16:00 Now we've created a source system, we've created a data source. And now we look ready to
load the data into BW/4...
00:16:06 Now it's the same game as always, as if it were, say, an ECC system
00:16:11 with a data source as an adapter you can basically start building.
00:16:15 So what are the key takeaways? First of all, BW/4HANA has
00:16:18 very comprehensive data integration capabilities. Partly delivered by the application itself,
00:16:26 partly they are coming with the HANA platform. And then, of course, there's a lot of additional
stuff,
00:16:34 with the HANA Data Management Suite, with third-party tools,
00:16:38 so all of that can add to the connectivity as well. So we are very, very open in that respect.
00:16:44 And you've also seen how BW basically helps to leverage and orchestrate these capabilities.
00:16:50 So you don't really have to work a lot on the database level to, for example,
00:16:54 create the virtual tables and establish the connectivity. All of that is done by BW/4HANA.
00:17:00 Once you create the standard BW/4HANA objects, which you also know from the old worlds,
00:17:06 for example, of a BW system, with the DB connect source system and so on, right?
00:17:11 Creating a data source does all the stuff which you actually need.
00:17:14 The only thing you need to do on the back-end side is actually establishing the connectivity.
00:17:19 Yeah, and with that, I guess it's time for the self-test.

11
Week 2 Unit 3

00:00:08 Hello, and welcome to week two, unit three, Working With External Data.
00:00:15 In the last unit, we already covered the possibilities how to integrate external data,
00:00:22 and now the question is how we can use the data in BW/4.
00:00:26 Use it here means directly consume the data via queries, or directly access the data
00:00:31 via an Open ODS view, via virtual access, or persist the data in an advanced DataStore
Object.
00:00:40 Here we have the possibilities to use InfoObjects, or we have the possibilities to use fields
00:00:46 in the advanced DataStore Object. As you might know, a typical or a usual way
00:00:53 to model a data flow in BW is first, you have to create InfoObjects.
00:01:00 You have to model InfoObjects. This could be painful,
00:01:03 and this could be a long-running process. Usually it's a significant effort here
00:01:12 to model all the needed InfoObjects. Of course, in our business content,
00:01:18 we deliver InfoObjects as a jumpstart, but in the end,
00:01:24 you have to think about the design of all the InfoObjects, all the related attributes, these are
InfoObjects as well,
00:01:31 and then you can start creating your data model. Once you are done with the InfoObject
modeling,
00:01:37 then you can start building, or modeling your advanced DataStore Object.
00:01:41 Once this is done, then you can start loading the data. Besides that, we have of course
00:01:47 first load the data into the InfoObjects to see which data you have,
00:01:54 and then you can combine that InfoObject in the advanced DataStore Objects.
00:01:59 This, of course, has some advantages. So this means when you have InfoObjects already in
place
00:02:07 delivered via business content or former projects, then this way of modeling could be quite fast
as well.
00:02:13 It's extremely efficient. I mean, you model the object once,
00:02:17 and wherever you use it, you have it right away with all its properties, with all the attributes,
00:02:22 with the text, with all the hierarchies, with the type definition, which is very consistent,
00:02:27 so you don't have to remember what type did I use for my customer ID.
00:02:31 Was it a character 10, was it a character 15, was it a numerical character.
00:02:35 You just use the InfoObject wherever you need, and it's guaranteed that the system,
00:02:39 for example in all the aDSOs where you have some custom information,
00:02:43 that the system uses exactly the right data type. Yeah. So this consistency
00:02:47 is one of the strong points about InfoObjects. As Gordon said, the kind of downside
00:02:56 when it comes to non-SAP data is that you don't get them for free.
00:02:59 You have to build them, and you have to build a significant number of InfoObjects
00:03:02 before you can actually start working. Now, let's see what the other option here is.
00:03:08 Well, with BW/4HANA, we actually support a second modeling paradigm,
00:03:13 which is more directed to having a quick look at data, and then start working, and start maybe
transforming data
00:03:20 according to our needs. And that's basically based on fields.
00:03:23 So the idea is, as you see on the right-hand side, you basically have access to the data,
00:03:28 for example via data source, as we showed in the last unit.
00:03:33 Then you think, well actually, I would like to persist this data in an aDSO
00:03:39 without a lot of modeling. In fact, using this field based modeling approach

12
00:03:43 for advanced DataStore Objects, it's possible to generate an aDSO
00:03:47 out of a data source, for example. So you don't have to model anything.
00:03:50 It's basically just taking over the definition of the data source,
00:03:54 and modeling an advanced DataStore Object or generating an advanced DataStore Object
00:03:58 or DataStore Object right out of this with all the properties,
00:04:00 all the field names from the data source, and the data types.
00:04:03 From a functional perspective, it's really like a complete aDSO,
00:04:06 it has all the functionalities with parallel loads, a separate activation step, the rollback
mechanisms.
00:04:12 All that is still in place, but it has much, much slimmer metadata.
00:04:18 Basically, it's much faster to model. And you can bring in your data from the external source
00:04:25 very, very quickly into BW, and then start continuing your work.
00:04:28 Of course, when you generate such an aDSO from a data source, that's just a template.
00:04:32 You use the data source as a template, and you can adjust it afterwards.
00:04:36 We'll see this in the demo that, for example, if you realize that the customer ID,
00:04:39 which comes from the external source, actually matches one of the InfoObjects,
00:04:42 you can use the aDSO generated from the data source, and then start replacing those fields
00:04:48 like the customer ID by InfoObjects which you already have.
00:04:51 So you can also create a mix of InfoObjects and fields, and basically combine the best of both
ways here.
00:04:58 So what's the key idea here? It's really about quick consumption of the data.
00:05:04 On the other hand, if you don't want to bring the data into BW at all
00:05:08 but want to virtually access it, there's an even faster way,
00:05:12 which allows you to basically just take the data source as it is,
00:05:15 enrich it with a little bit of, kind of, BW semantics. Basically, describe whether it's master data
or facts.
00:05:23 If it's facts, also define what, for example, characteristics and what fields are key figures.
00:05:29 Then you can basically start working with the external data right away
00:05:32 without any data movement, and without any additional effort.
00:05:36 So just basically adding this kind of metadata in the so-called Open ODS view,
00:05:41 and then you can right away, start working with the data, and then refine the solution on the
way.
00:05:47 Introduce transformation, maybe decide to actually load the data, and then continue to work.
00:05:53 It's really driven by the data, looking at the data, and evolving the scenario
00:05:58 step by step towards an actual solution. So, Uli already mentioned it.
00:06:07 The DataStore Object can contain fields, and/or InfoObjects.
00:06:14 Here on the screenshot, you can see that this InfoObject contains purely fields.
00:06:20 You can see it on the right side. Here, we have a special symbol.
00:06:25 This DataStore Object only contains. Only contains fields, yeah.
00:06:27 You can see that on the special symbol. We don't have an InfoObject symbol here.
00:06:33 You can see we have different... we have key fields, we have data fields.
00:06:36 In the end, this is a, yeah, a typical DataStore Object, but in that case, it contains only fields.
00:06:45 It can be modeled with the fields. The aDSO can be created using a data source as a
template.
00:06:51 We will show that later on in the demo as well. It's interesting to know that it is possible
00:06:57 to combine fields, and create InfoObjects in one advanced DSO.
00:07:03 So in the end, you have the same features and functions in the DataStore Object with fields

13
00:07:08 as on the DataStore Object with InfoObjects. Exactly, now coming to the Open ODS view,
00:07:13 if you really want to consume the data right away, make it available wherever it is at this
moment,
00:07:19 whether it's in a local HANA schema, whether it's outside your database,
00:07:22 and you reach out to it via Smart Data Access, for example. Open ODS views are a way to do
that.
00:07:29 What you basically do is you use the source with the structure it has,
00:07:33 and you add a little bit of semantics. So you basically define whether it's facts,
00:07:37 master data, or texts, all that's possible. Hierarchies are not supported here.
00:07:43 The metadata is pretty much defined on field definitions again.
00:07:48 So basically, we have a list of field names and data types. It's possible to reuse InfoObjects as
well,
00:07:55 so if one of the fields which you have, just as in the case of the advanced DataStore Object,
00:08:01 turns out to actually be an InfoObject, which you already have in place,
00:08:05 you can associate this InfoObject, and basically create a link between a field
00:08:09 and the information which comes from the InfoObject. You can also create such links,
00:08:15 or so-called associations, between multiple Open ODS views. So if you have an Open ODS
view, for example for a fact,
00:08:21 and another one for master data, you can create a link from, say, as you see
00:08:25 in this example here, from the CustomerID field of your facts to the customer Open ODS view,

00:08:30 and then combine these two things to basically use, for example,
00:08:33 attributes of the customer for drilldown in the sales orders.
00:08:38 Of course, all that is also built into the authorization framework of SAP BW/4HANA
00:08:44 so it's also secure from that perspective. So yeah.
00:08:50 Preparation of demo. This is now the preparation of the demo.
00:08:53 As we already showed in week one, we will use exactly the same data model here
00:08:58 as we used in week one. We have a sales order, table, and in that sales order table,
00:09:04 we have already created a sales order InfoObject. In that InfoObject, we have different
InfoObjects.
00:09:12 Additionally, we have OrderDate, DueDate. Besides that, we have the texts,
00:09:18 and we have the attributes here. For some of them, we have hierarchies as well, yeah.
00:09:23 Right, but here the point is, we basically don't want to use all the InfoObjects
00:09:27 which we created earlier, which we prepared for this openSAP class basically.
00:09:32 Remember, when we showed this demo in week we basically had all the InfoObjects prepared.

00:09:37 We had built them ahead of time, and we're basically just showing you the result
00:09:42 or maybe assembling some of the InfoObjects into the advanced DataStore Object.
00:09:45 Now, the demo is really about looking at these data structures as they are
00:09:50 and making them available in BW/4HANA as quickly as possible.
00:09:54 All right, yeah. As we said, we will basically show both parts.
00:09:56 We will show you how to quickly load data into an aDSO from the sales order source, I think,
here.
00:10:02 Then we'll show you how to directly consume this data without even moving it to BW/4HANA.
00:10:08 Yep, then let's jump into the demo part. Here we are.
00:10:13 It's actually the same data source which we used in the previous unit, right?
00:10:17 It's the one, which we created based on smart data access, can you maybe zoom in a little bit
or...?

14
00:10:25 Sure, zoom. That's the one. That's the sales orders
00:10:31 pointing to the remote HANA database. Now, let's create a DataStore Object
00:10:38 directly derived from the definition of the data source. So we basically create a DataStore
Object.
00:10:45 We connect it with the data source. And the system knows right away how the metadata
00:10:50 of the DataStore Object should look. Assign a name, and as you will see,
00:10:54 that's basically all you have to do. Then you have the full-fledged capabilities
00:10:59 of BW/4HANA for data management available. So all the functionalities of the DataStore
Object
00:11:05 are in place. You see, you can actually choose what kind of,
00:11:09 what flavor of DataStore Object you want to use. When you go to the details,
00:11:13 you'll see the field list of the source object. So all that is in place.
00:11:18 I think we have to define a key field? No, we actually have a key field...
00:11:20 We have a key field, yeah. ...in this case.
00:11:22 So we can probably activate this right away, and we are done with modeling a persistency in
BW/4HANA
00:11:27 without any upfront effort. Remember, last week, we basically had
00:11:32 the InfoObjects in place before we could actually do that. What you can do as well is we can
change the type here.
00:11:38 Exactly, so what we could do, for example, is see we see here, we have the ProductID and the
CustomerID.
00:11:43 If, for example, for one of them, we know we have a suitable InfoObject,
00:11:47 we can replace the field with the InfoObject, and leverage all the information
00:11:53 which comes from that, all the metadata. And eventually, on the CompositeProvider level,
00:11:57 also the data coming from that InfoObject. Right, and now we could potentially activate it,
00:12:02 but I guess we don't want to go into more detail here. If you go back to the, oh...
00:12:07 That's activated. Let's activate the object. See how fast it is.
00:12:10 How fast. It's fast, yeah. Here you can see the special signs
00:12:14 for InfoObjects and for fields. That's fine. Of course, you also see we have all the capabilities
00:12:20 which we know from data flows in BW/4HANA. We can build a transformation.
00:12:26 Also that works, of course, from a data source to any advanced DataStore Object,
00:12:30 whether it's based on fields or InfoObjects or any mix, doesn't matter.
00:12:34 We have DTPs available. So all the toolset which you know, is available here.
00:12:40 All right. That's it for that part.
00:12:44 Now, basically let's see how we can directly consume this data without even moving it, right.
00:12:50 So we basically want to leave the data where it in the remote database,
00:12:56 and first, have a look at it from the BW side to then potentially
00:12:59 decide what we want to do, right. Just to get a first impression.
00:13:02 Maybe create a quick query, which business user can actually start working with,
00:13:06 before we decide what the next steps are to make this really a kind of industrialized solution,
00:13:11 which also has to, for example, guarantee certain availability SLAs or performance SLAs,
00:13:19 all that kind of stuff. It's really about getting a very,
00:13:21 very quickly look. And for that, you create an Open ODS view
00:13:25 on the same data source again. You will see that we can right away
00:13:31 run a query on that object. So again, we assign a name to the Open ODS view here.
00:13:39 In this case, it's facts. Yeah, it's facts.
00:13:41 It's sales order data. It's based on the data source,

15
00:13:45 which we just selected. So the system proposes that already.
00:13:49 It still gives you the option to change because there might be multiple data sources
00:13:53 with the same name in different source systems. I guess that's it.
00:13:57 Just like in the case of the aDSO, you now see the field list on the left-hand side.
00:14:01 In the middle, if you open the characteristics and key figures folder, you actually see,
00:14:08 see all the attributes which are available and the key figures and so on.
00:14:13 Right, so we could activate this? Yeah, sure.
00:14:17 Right now, there's one thing which is actually missing here.
00:14:21 If you look at the key figures, they don't have a currency assigned.
00:14:24 We do have a currency field, but the system has not detected that this is a currency.
00:14:28 That's something which we can, for example, model on top of the source data.
00:14:32 So, Gordon, if you take the currency field, and put it, drag it down to the Currency folder,
00:14:38 then we can actually maybe use the sub total, one of the key figures, and assign the currency
field
00:14:43 as the Currency element here. Maybe let's just do it for that one.
00:14:48 Then we'll see that this already has the same effect as if you are modeling an InfoObject
00:14:53 with a currency on the BW/4HANA side. So now, we're actually ready to run a query
00:14:59 on this table, right? Without any movement?
00:15:01 I mean we can start with a simple data preview. Let's just do a data preview,
00:15:05 let's not do anything too complex here. Bring this up a little bit.
00:15:12 You see that the system has started summing all the numbers. The subtotal displays a star.
00:15:19 This star comes from the fact that for the sub total, we have defined a currency.
00:15:23 So the system knows apparently there are multiple currencies,
00:15:26 so I can't just add them up. If you drill down by currency,
00:15:28 you should see the effect here. For the sub total, we actually have a currency assigned.
00:15:34 For the other key figures, we don't. That's why the system just interpreted them as numbers
00:15:38 and added up euros and US dollars. So you see that there's some semantics
00:15:43 which the source itself doesn't come with. It doesn't know the connection between the key
figure
00:15:47 and the currency in this case. But you can define this additional semantics
00:15:52 in the Open ODS view and then basically use all the BW functionalities,
00:15:56 like all the formatting for example, which you get in the query,
00:15:59 which puts the dollar sign in front of the number, and the euro symbol at the end of the
number.
00:16:03 All this formatting is basically out of the box there. Interesting to know is that we're now
accessing the data
00:16:08 fully virtually, without persisting the data. So we're reaching out to the external database.
00:16:14 Next step, and that's probably the conclusion of the demo, would be to add master data to this.

00:16:19 Now, again we have two options. We could, for example use an InfoObject here as well.
00:16:24 If you go to maybe product, or CustomerID here, on the right-hand side, we have the
possibility
00:16:30 to create an association to an InfoObject. So we could just, as in the case of the advanced
00:16:36 a few minutes ago, associate an InfoObject here, and then leverage all the capabilities of the
InfoObject.
00:16:41 For example, if it has a hierarchy, this would be consumable on the query side.
00:16:47 If we have navigation attributes, we could use them and so on.

16
00:16:50 But we are actually going for a different way We are basically adding a second Open ODS
00:16:56 for the customer master data coming from the remote system. Right, so we're basically
combining
00:17:01 two data sets from the remote system and accessing them from our local BW/4HANA system.

00:17:10 So now, we're talking about master data. That's master data, right.
00:17:14 It's again, now in this case, it's based on a virtual table using smart data access.
00:17:18 We have our source system assigned already. That's the source system we created in the last
unit.
00:17:23 This is this openSAP source system. Exactly. Here we are. Now, let's choose
00:17:29 the right table. So we're even skipping the step
00:17:31 of creating a data source here, we could also create a data source,
00:17:34 and then the Open ODS view on top. But for...
00:17:38 Take this products here. Let's take a customer.
00:17:41 Yeah, let's take the customer. All right and finish.
00:17:46 Right, so this is master data. Looks a little bit different.
00:17:49 Maybe, let's have a look at this here. Okay, that looks good.
00:17:52 Can you open the characteristics? Also looks good, okay, that's almost fine.
00:17:57 Now, let's add a little bit more complexity here. For the customer, we want a text
representation as well.
00:18:04 So we can actually add, just as for the InfoObject, we can add texts.
00:18:09 Of course, these texts need another source. In this case, we have created,
00:18:15 we find in the source system a table, which creates the language-dependent text
00:18:20 for the company or for the customer. Customers, maybe not such a good example.
00:18:26 In that case, for products that would be, of course, very relevant because bikes
00:18:29 have a different in German than in English, for example. So we have a customer text here as
well.
00:18:35 So let's finish that. Exactly, and then you see there's an additional
00:18:41 called Text here. You've probably to do this small modification here,
00:18:47 removing the language. Remove it, yep.
00:18:52 Reassign it. Just drag it over to the Language Code here.
00:18:57 And now, we're basically done. Let's activate this Open ODS view.
00:19:00 Now, it basically behaves based on the external like an InfoObject with attributes and text.
00:19:06 No hierarchies but attributes and language- dependent text. We could even start defining
authorizations
00:19:11 on top of this by the way. So now, let's go back to the facts,
00:19:18 which we created earlier. Here we are, these are the facts.
00:19:21 All right, and associate this, go to the CustomerID.
00:19:28 One below the product. Yeah, here we are.
00:19:32 Exactly and associate this Open ODS view for the customer. Right, and let's even use some
navigation attributes.
00:19:41 So we want to drill down by some of the stuff just as we did in week one if you...
00:19:50 ...enlarge this a little bit. Let's take some of the...
00:19:52 Postal Code maybe. Exactly, Country, Region,
00:19:54 State, Province, and City maybe, the lower four ones, OK.
00:19:59 That's fine. So those are ones we want to use.
00:20:01 You can also switch the display here to Text The system should actually offer this.

17
00:20:06 Maybe let's do Text. Key and Text or Text? Text and Key is fine or Key and Text is also good.
00:20:11 Either way, and let's activate this now. If we run the preview now,
00:20:15 we should actually see multiple things. First of all, we should have all this address information,
00:20:22 the geographic stuff available for drilldown in the preview.
00:20:27 If we drill down by customer, we should actually see the text representation
00:20:31 next to the CustomerID. So maybe let's have a look at the attributes.
00:20:37 For example, we can drill down by city now. Let's use city, just for...
00:20:44 demo purposes. You see a list of cities here,
00:20:46 which actually come from the customers. So it's really a join with navigation attributes
00:20:50 as you know for InfoObjects. To conclude the demo, maybe let's drill down by CustomerID.
00:20:58 And check if we really see the text representation next to the CustomerID.
00:21:03 So it offers basic functionality, which you know from InfoObjects.
00:21:08 Not the full flexibility, not the full capabilities like hierarchies are missing,
00:21:12 some formatting things like conversion exits are also missing.
00:21:16 But it's a very quick way to start looking at data, and start working with data,
00:21:21 and determine what the next steps are. For example, if you see that,
00:21:24 well, that's all good and nice, but actually, we need to tweak the customer numbers
00:21:30 a little bit to really match because potentially, the master data
00:21:34 and the transaction data comes from different systems, and they don't really match.
00:21:38 Then you can work out what you have to do. Maybe introduce a transformation in between
somewhere,
00:21:43 store parts of the data and transform them, and bring it together with the other data then
00:21:48 on this transformed data. So you can basically start working up your way
00:21:51 towards a solution, which business users can work with. Of course, you have the possibility to
give something
00:21:58 to the business user very, very quickly without having this upfront design of a long
00:22:06 list of InfoObjects, and the long loading processes
00:22:09 before you can actually start. So this is really a second modeling paradigm
00:22:13 next to the kind of standard InfoObject-based EDW-styled modeling paradigm,
00:22:18 which is very, very useful in many projects. So let's summarize what we saw, Gordon.
00:22:26 Yeah, we saw that we have a field-based modeling speeds the data integration up dramatically

00:22:31 for non-SAP data. You can use BW/4HANA for agile
00:22:38 and data-driven modeling approaches. So this is what we called agile data modeling.
00:22:44 But you can use, let's say, classic BW modeling as well. I mean, when InfoObjects are already
in place,
00:22:51 then we are quite fast as well. But this kind of modeling, this field-based modeling,
00:22:57 speeds up modeling scenarios, and, of course, can be used as a prototyping mechanism.
00:23:03 That's also very useful here. To show the business the data,
00:23:05 what is in the data, and so on and so forth. And actually determine where the kind of
00:23:10 deficits are, what you have to work on and so Yeah, and I think the beauty of BW/4
00:23:14 is that you can combine both approaches, that you can combine this field-based approach
00:23:20 with the classic InfoObject-based approach. It's not about right and wrong.
00:23:23 It's about what's right for a given purpose. Okay.
00:23:27 With that, we'll hand over to the self-test.

18
Week 2 Unit 4

00:00:08 Hello and welcome to week two unit four SAP SQL Data Warehousing - Overview.
00:00:14 So in this unit, we are basically going to introduce the second pillar of SAP's data warehousing
strategy,
00:00:19 which is SAP SQL Data Warehousing. And for that, I have Axel with me
00:00:22 who is from our SQL Data Warehousing team. Thanks for having me.
00:00:25 You're most welcome, Axel. So what are we going to discuss in this unit?
00:00:29 We'll first give an introduction of SAP SQL Data Warehousing,
00:00:32 which is based on open standards. We'll show you the core components
00:00:36 of SAP SQL Data Warehousing, and we will basically also do a little bit of a positioning,
00:00:41 and show you what are the driving principles behind the development of this SAP SQL Data
Warehousing,
00:00:47 which is basically our big point here is this Agile Data Warehouse development.
00:00:52 So, Axel, maybe can you describe the big picture a little bit for us?
00:00:55 Yeah, so the SAP SQL Data Warehousing approach is based on the HANA Data Management
Suite.
00:01:00 You can see this in the middle of the screen. So the HANA Data Management Suite based
00:01:06 on certain components, which are SAP HANA, of course, including the XSA or the Cloud
Foundry stack,
00:01:11 also the supporting tools available on the stack. We have the integration with the SAP Data
Hub,
00:01:17 also focusing on the SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer, which is a modeling tool.
00:01:23 And then we also leverage SAP Big Data services to leverage the Hadoop space in this
environment.
00:01:31 So, having said that, this is our baseline. We have the HANA Data Management Suite
00:01:35 with the different products and tools available, and on the next screen, we'll show you how this

00:01:42 phase into the SQL data warehouse approach. So that's basically now the next level of detail,
00:01:48 where you show what tools and what editors you're using in the area of SQL data
warehousing.
00:01:54 So for us it's important to really highlight that we have a bunch of editors available,
00:01:59 but let's take a quick look at the further details. So in the middle of the screen you can see
00:02:05 the different components also available on the HANA Data Management Suite,
00:02:09 which is the SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer. I tried to highlight that one already before,

00:02:14 so this is the tool you can really focus on data modeling. It's not an implementation tool it's a
real modeling tool.
00:02:22 Sorry, it's the one on the left-hand side right, called SAP EAD...?
00:02:25 Correct. SAP Enterprise Architecture Designer, it's on the left side of the screen.
00:02:31 And we are actually focusing on two modeling concepts in EAD for data warehousing,
00:02:36 which is the conceptual data model. So this is a model relevant for the business users
00:02:41 where you are able to provide information on an entity level.
00:02:46 You specify the different attributes and the measures, and also how the entities relate to each
other.
00:02:51 And within the same tool, you can migrate a conceptual model into a physical model.
00:02:57 So this would be related to the physical implementation, so you can focus on
00:03:03 how you want to model the data warehouse, which data modeling techniques.

19
00:03:07 And you also integrate the different entities on the table level,
00:03:10 you apply primary keys and all of that stuff. So you can do all of that
00:03:14 in Enterprise Architecture Designer. Once you're done, you can export the models
00:03:19 into an XSA-compatible structure. And as XSA is based on a file-based approach,
00:03:25 so every object you want to build on the database, every object you want to build on the
application layer
00:03:31 can be exported in a separate file. Due to the fact that you get a bunch of files,
00:03:35 we are offering either a local export, like a zip file export, a project export,
00:03:41 or you can bring them into a Git repository or any other repository management system
00:03:46 to keep track of the number of files related to your application which also relates to versioning.

00:03:52 So that's the topic on Enterprise Architecture Designer. Once you model your system
00:03:57 and you want to reuse that, you switch to Web IDE,
00:04:01 which is the web-based integrated development environment. And within the Web IDE,
00:04:06 we have a number of editors available, you can see in the middle of the screen.
00:04:10 So there's interaction from the EAD models, you can bring them into a local zip file
00:04:16 or into a Git repository. And the same repository with the same objects
00:04:20 can be reused in the Web IDE. So you clone the repository into your project and Web IDE,
00:04:26 and due to the file extension, this will bring up the built-in editors in the Web IDE.
00:04:31 So Web IDE is installed on the HANA platform, there's no separate tool installation required.
00:04:36 Everything is installed on the platform. The related topics for data warehousing are, of course,
SQL.
00:04:42 So if you want to focus on your scripts to create the tables and the different entities,
00:04:48 you can do that. What we're focusing on is really a Git-based approach,
00:04:53 a workspace approach, where we have a number of files created,
00:04:58 then you'll use the Calc View editor, a graphical editor, to edit
00:05:03 how you want to integrate the data. You can bring in procedures.
00:05:07 We have for persistency management, of course, tables in there, but we're also offering
something we call
00:05:13 the native DataStore object, and we'll go into the further details in the next section.
00:05:18 We're able to reach out to connected systems using virtual tables.
00:05:24 We have the flow graph integration, which is how you want to process the data
00:05:28 from one persistency to another... Similar to transformation capabilities which...
00:05:31 Correct. And then we're offering also something we call Task Chain.
00:05:36 So this is if you want a sequence and the activity of a flow graph,
00:05:42 or an NDSO data activation, or you have stop procedures,
00:05:46 you want to put them in a sequence will give you the Task Chain editor,
00:05:49 which is also a graphical editor, where you can put the sequence in a row.
00:05:54 So this is again, as you mentioned, so this is related to BW process chains,
00:05:59 but it's fully embedded in the Web IDE. So this is maybe a little bit or maybe a lot
00:06:03 of theory here and a lot of different components. As Axel said in the next unit,
00:06:07 we are basically going through a very detailed demo where you can see
00:06:10 all these components in work and where you get a feeling of what this looks
00:06:14 in the Web IDE with all the individual components. And you'll get a much better hands-on
feeling about it.
00:06:19 There's one topic I want to mention. So the integration to SAP Data Hub,

20
00:06:22 which is also part of the HANA Data Management Suite. We have a data tiering solution in
place,
00:06:27 which is called Data Lifecycle Manager, so you can see that also in the middle of the screen.
00:06:32 So this is, you know, how you can offload the into the SAP Data Hub core data tiering solution,

00:06:38 which also offers the option using DLM to offload the data into the Big Data services
environment.
00:06:45 So the components we highlighted before related to HANA Data Management Suite.
00:06:50 So you can all find them, and we have the graphical editors available
00:06:54 to make the implementation and the model experience a real success.
00:06:59 All right, so let's move on to the main drivers for this kind of development.
00:07:03 What are the key ideas behind or driving in the development of SAP SQL Data Warehousing?

00:07:09 Okay. So, of course, it's time to market. So I highlighted before the
00:07:13 Enterprise Architecture Designer as a modeling tool. So this is our offering,
00:07:16 where we bring in industry data models. So this will give you a jumpstart
00:07:21 on the capabilities we offer. And, of course, as we offer conceptual models
00:07:26 in Enterprise Architecture Designer, we'll have the ability to talk to the business users
00:07:31 to verify our offering, and then the business user can adjust based on their need,
00:07:36 then you can bring that into the physical environment. So this is in terms of time to market.
00:07:42 Due to the fact that we are open standard here, what we're offering is also methods
00:07:47 and standards to run complex systems. So continuous integration, continuous testing
00:07:52 is a topic you might be aware of. So every time you develop a new feature,
00:07:57 we'll offer the option to bring in automated tests, and you can kind of run them
00:08:02 before you check in the changes to be aware that the changes are consistent,
00:08:08 but also in within the aspect of the performance so that will provide a stable system
00:08:13 and also a good performance response once you bring the changes to the system.
00:08:20 As this solution is attracting IT professionals, people out there really interested
00:08:26 in using the bits and pieces to build a data warehouse system,
00:08:30 also using continuous integration, continuous testing like open standard environments,
00:08:36 we are attracting those type of IT professionals with this solution.
00:08:41 Of course, every time HANA brings in new features, they're immediately available for the
solution
00:08:47 as we're fully based on the Web IDE, and all the editors we build are available in the Web IDE.

00:08:52 So once we bring in new features on the HANA level, they're immediately available,
00:08:56 so you stay competitive no matter if you're interested in new levels of machine learning as an
example.
00:09:03 So this becomes available. So all the predictive algorithms, of course,
00:09:07 the geospatial capabilities of HANA, all this is built in and readily available for solutions.
00:09:14 It also integrates the complexities so if you want to bring in data from different sources,
00:09:19 of course you can do that. And you can also, as I mentioned before,
00:09:22 in terms of data tiering, you can offload some data to some other storage locations
00:09:27 like SAP Data Hub core data tiering solution or Big Data services still accessible
00:09:32 from the central HANA model. So you don't need to change the model if you tier data,
00:09:37 it's going to be all accessible from the single HANA model. Maybe coming back to the point of
data integration

21
00:09:41 those capabilities are actually also the same that we use from the BW/4HANA side
00:09:45 when it comes to integrating non-SAP data. That's basically the topics of previous units
00:09:50 of this week, which we already saw there. Right, so you already described it's not only
00:09:55 the set of tools which we have in the HANA platform, it's also the modeling paradigm
00:09:59 and development paradigm, which is a key component of this whole concept.
00:10:04 Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on this? Of course, so we're heavily focusing on DevOps.

00:10:09 So we'll give you the ability to work on the modeling, on the planning, and on the
implementation part,
00:10:15 which is kind of the development approach. But then once you bring that into an operational
level,
00:10:20 you need to be sure that everything you implemented has been fully tested before you bring
that
00:10:25 into an operational approach. And if you follow the slide on the screen,
00:10:31 you can see we have different sections in here, and they all nicely interact with each other.
00:10:36 The tools are associated with the different phases. You know, we talked about Enterprise
Architecture Designer,
00:10:42 we talked about Git, we talked about the Web IDE,
00:10:45 we talked about continuous integration and continuous testing tools.
00:10:50 We have data warehousing foundation available for data tiering solutions,
00:10:54 and this all nicely integrates. So it's a tool-based development process,
00:11:00 and we'll offer this option in terms of faster time to market. So, basically you do not have to
follow this approach,
00:11:08 of course, as a customer, but I mean, for those people who are familiar
00:11:12 with kind of modern standard software development, that's, of course, the approach
00:11:16 which is typically applied in the cloud world. And we basically have used this as a template
00:11:24 for all the development of data warehouse solutions as well, right?
00:11:28 It's an option, but we have prepared the tools in a way that they actually support
00:11:32 this modeling methodology. In this class, we're talking on-premises, of course
00:11:36 we have them available also in our Cloud Foundry like SAP Cloud Platform environment.
00:11:40 So you can easily adapt then also for the cloud environment. All right, so that's basically the
key idea
00:11:46 of agile development here, right Axel? Yeah, so we learned in the past,
00:11:49 so if you're coming from an SQL approach, and you probably have two systems,
00:11:53 like a dev system and a production system, in most cases, those systems are out of sync.
00:11:59 So if you look at the left side of the screen, you probably end up in a situation,
00:12:05 we'd better not change a running system, because we're not prepared for the changes,
00:12:09 we have no continuous integration, no testing in there.
00:12:12 So therefore you better change where the DevOps approach I just walked you through.
00:12:18 We're kind of pushing you in a way you might want to change as frequently as required.
00:12:24 Because every time you change something, we're offering the option to bring an automated
test.
00:12:29 So you're kind of ensured that the modification you applied already fits the system
requirements.
00:12:36 So you can change as frequently as required, which, of course, is a major culture change
00:12:43 compared to, you know, we only do less frequent updates to the system versus what we
change as frequently as we like.

22
00:12:51 That's basically encouraged or enabled by integrating the Ops part in the in the DevOps cycle
correct?
00:12:57 Correct, yes. So also from a development perspective,
00:13:02 working with a SAP SQL Data Warehousing is a little bit different from,
00:13:06 for example, working with BW/4 HANA or with an ABAP-based system.
00:13:10 You don't have a central development system on which everybody works,
00:13:13 but you have a slightly different approach here. Yes, so our approach here is,
00:13:17 of course, we have a central repository. You can see that in the middle of the screen on the
left.
00:13:21 So in this case, it's Git, but you can use other repository management systems.
00:13:26 So in these terms, you have a central repository, but every developer clones the repository
00:13:33 into his local workspace. And every developer can work on the full entity
00:13:38 of the objects available on the Git repository, so everybody works in his own set of isolation
levels.
00:13:45 The check-in process, of course, needs to be managed. As one developer completes the
development of a feature,
00:13:51 it has to go back to the central Git repository, and this is a check-in process.
00:13:56 And for the check-in process, we have the automated test to verify that the modification
doesn't break the system.
00:14:02 So the check-in process is a thing you need to discuss within a team. You can sometimes
automate it
00:14:09 because you're implementing something new, or that nobody else makes changes to.
00:14:15 But in general, it's a topic to check back the local changes into the central Git repository,
00:14:21 and then the central repository will be deployed once to your QA system or production system.

00:14:27 One nice feature is also that you can hold multiple versions of your data warehouse
development
00:14:32 in the same Git repository right? So you can basically have last week's version,
00:14:35 this week's version, versions from a long time back, and all this can be kept here and actually
then checked out
00:14:41 to do corrections or enhancements of even older versions which are currently still deployed
00:14:46 in the productive system while the development side has already progressed to a much much
newer release, right?
00:14:52 Yeah, so that's the slide on the right. So the specifics on the XSA and Cloud Foundry
00:14:58 is we're specifying every object on the application level or on the database level by file.
00:15:04 So within that file, we specified the to-be structure. So we don't specify the delta,
00:15:10 like the Alter Table as an example, We only specify the new to-be structure.
00:15:15 And once you build it on the database, the according Alter Table statements
00:15:21 for persistency management will be adjusted and generated, and applied to the database.
00:15:26 So it's agnostic, so that's why you specify the new to-be structure,
00:15:31 you check that in on the Git repository because you're using the different editors
00:15:36 to specify how the objects should be created and specified. You check that in into a Git
repository,
00:15:42 and then you run a build step, and the build step will adjust the structures
00:15:47 on the database. It will apply the changes to the application layer.
00:15:52 So it's kind of disconnected, but you're clear on, I have a version of files,
00:15:58 and this will also come back to your point, we're able to revert to the previous version

23
00:16:03 because in the Git you have different branches. You can bring in different versions of
branches,
00:16:09 and once you want to switch back to the previous branch, as the branch consists of the full set
of objects,
00:16:15 you can reset it to the previous branch. And due to the capabilities
00:16:19 of Core Data Services that we're comparing what's the structure on the database,
00:16:23 what's the new to-be structure, we're dynamically generating
00:16:26 the according Alter Table statements to be applied on the database.
00:16:30 So data will be kept as long as the data types are compatible
00:16:33 once you're switching versions. And for the virtual objects like the calculation views
00:16:39 or the flow graphs, as an example, they will be all the time deleted and recreated.
00:16:44 So we'll keep track of the versioning here. We have the different layers
00:16:48 on specifying what the application should look like, and then we have the build phase,
00:16:53 where you're building the objects on a database, and the adjustments will be dynamically
generated.
00:17:01 So basically each of the tool areas which we saw earlier whether it's Enterprise Architecture
Design,
00:17:06 whether it's artifacts built in the Web IDE, or even the stuff coming from smart data integration.

00:17:11 All this produces files, and the XSA build process turns these files into runtime artifacts on the
database.
00:17:19 Correct, yes. And in some cases, as you said,
00:17:22 if it requires changes to physical objects like tables, it actually determines
00:17:26 whether it's an alter statement, whether it's an add column statement,
00:17:29 or whatever, what kind of changes are required. So maybe let's briefly summarize:
00:17:35 On the left-hand side, we see the positioning, a little bit of the positioning of SAP SQL Data
Warehousing.
00:17:41 What it's geared to, what the customer group is which we want to attract with it.
00:17:46 Right, so the customers we want to attract are the customers who are interested
00:17:52 in running an SQL-based data warehouse today. So we want HANA as a platform to attract
those customers
00:18:00 to onboard the solutions they have today on a non-SAP environment.
00:18:04 So onboard those applications to the same platform, right next to BW, as an example.
00:18:11 So you can reuse all the competencies you've built in your career,
00:18:18 and you can reuse them in the SQL Data Warehousing approach.
00:18:23 We're focusing, of course, on third-party data warehouse replacements,
00:18:27 so this is the topic on, well, let's bring a Teradata system and the model into a HANA world.
00:18:37 We are offering development agility, as we tried to highlight before.
00:18:40 So we'll give you the tools and the techniques in an open standard environment, where you
can
00:18:47 the systems and the applications you're building more secure because you're able to pre-run
tests before you
00:18:54 bring the systems into your production environment. And I guess we have already discussed
00:18:59 all the characteristics here on the right-hand side. So that from a degree of freedom
perspective,
00:19:04 you basically have the full SQL capability. So you're completely free in what modeling
paradigm
00:19:10 or methodology you want to follow. Whether that's multi-dimensional,

24
00:19:12 whether it's the normal form, whether it's data vault, anything is fine right there.
00:19:17 None of these approaches is preferred, everything is possible here with this toolset.
00:19:22 Agility we basically mentioned, think of the DevOps picture, that's really key to understanding
00:19:31 how we want these components to interact and how we basically encourage customers to use
them.
00:19:36 Flexibility, customizability, of course. That's one of the key components as well,
00:19:41 and I think we have well described this. What's maybe interesting or important to consider
00:19:46 is that, of course, we have a variety of tools here, which are provided by SAP.
00:19:51 But we're still open to integrating tools from third-party vendors as well.
00:19:55 So you can use the full-fledged tool set, which the HANA platform provides.
00:19:59 And basically these tools cover all the aspects of data warehousing.
00:20:02 If you think back to the slide where Axel showed you all the components,
00:20:07 you have everything in place you need to build a data warehouse.
00:20:09 And you can use these components in an integrated way, as we describe here,
00:20:13 but you can also replace individual things, individual components of this picture
00:20:18 with your own best-of-breed solutions and bring those in. Yeah, correct.
00:20:22 That's the open standards approach I would say. Okay, so let's summarize: What have we
learned in this unit?
00:20:28 We've basically gotten our first impression of SAP SQL Data Warehousing.
00:20:32 You have understood that it's an open approach, and that we basically want to address
customers
00:20:40 with deep SQL and database knowledge with it. So it's not so much about a conflict with
BW/4HANA,
00:20:48 it's actually much more about extending our footprint in the data warehousing area
00:20:52 and also about collaboration with BW/4HANA, which we'll see in the next unit.
00:20:57 You've also seen that we basically have a tool in the HANA platform,
00:21:00 with Enterprise Architecture Designer, with the Web IDE, with the features
00:21:05 which smart data integration brings, which allows you to build an end-to-end data warehouse
00:21:10 completely out of the box with this tool set. And last but not least, also from a methodology
perspective,
00:21:17 we actually have kind of one preferred approach, which is DevOps, which of course is optional,

00:21:22 you don't have to follow it. But we strongly encourage it, and we make sure that our tools
00:21:27 support this modeling and this working paradigm, development paradigm as well as possible.
00:21:33 And I guess with that I say thanks to Axel and encourage you to do your self-test.
00:21:39 Thank you.

25
Week 2 Unit 5

00:00:08 Hello, and welcome to week two, unit five: SAP SQL Data Warehousing integration with SAP
BW/4HANA.
00:00:14 With this unit we are basically going to cover a number of scenarios showing the integration
capabilities
00:00:21 between SAP SQL Data Warehousing and SAP BW/4HANA, and we will give you a demo
which gives you an impression
00:00:27 of the look and feel of SAP SQL data warehousing, as well as the integration with BW/4HANA
on the other side.
00:00:34 So, let's jump into the scenarios. So, from a use case perspective, we'll try
00:00:40 to highlight the onboarding of SQL data marts to your data warehouse system.
00:00:44 We'll also want to highlight the combination of SQL data warehousing and BW/4 on the same
platform.
00:00:51 And, of course, we'll also want to focus a little bit on building SQL-based data integration
layers,
00:00:58 which could be of third normal form or the data vault modeling technique.
00:01:02 Basically, that's the scenario which you see on the right, in the image.
00:01:06 We basically have, pictured here, an integration layer consisting of a couple of tables on the
SQL side,
00:01:12 we have a flow graph which joins and transforms the data into a usable format for the
BW/4HANA side,
00:01:22 stores it in a table or maybe in an NDSO, which we'll also see in the demo.
00:01:27 And then on the BW/4HANA side, you can use the techniques which were learned
00:01:30 in the previous units of this week, like the HANA Source System and HANA DataSources
00:01:35 to continue working with this data, either in a virtual way, accessing it right
00:01:39 on the SQL side, or to load it further into SAP BW/4HANA data targets.
00:01:45 I guess with that, we are ready for the demo. So as we said, the first part of the demo, which
will be done by Axel,
00:01:52 basically gives you an impression of the look and feel of the Web IDE and how you work with
the tools of SAP SQL Data Warehousing.
00:01:58 And later on, I will take over and show you how to integrate those assets, those artifacts,
00:02:05 with the SAP BW/4HANA side. So we're logged on to the Web IDE for SAP HANA;
00:02:12 it's a browser-based application. Within that, we have a workspace,
00:02:17 and we also prepared a project to do that. The different modules within a project, we're going
to focus
00:02:23 on the database module at the beginning. So, there's a source folder, and we created a set
00:02:29 of subfolders to do that. One folder is about the source data,
00:02:34 so those are the tables, like third normal form, as we highlighted before, and you can have a
look
00:02:39 at the definition of the objects by right mouse clicking on the .HDBCDS file extension file,
00:02:46 which is pretty much the definition of the entity, like a table.
00:02:50 We have different editors, like a code editor, and also a graphical editor.
00:02:55 So this is the definition of the entity address. It consists out of a number of attributes,
00:03:02 and also holds the key. So this is the definition of how we want
00:03:05 to create a table later on, using the build process. Maybe I can briefly jump in here.
00:03:10 So you see this is not a create table statement, but it's a description of the end-state of the
table
00:03:15 as you want to have it in the target system, or as a result of the build.

26
00:03:20 So we are actually on the file level, on top of the actual database where we do the modeling
00:03:25 and the description of the artifacts. The build process will basically take those files
00:03:31 and turn them into runtime artifacts in the database, right?
00:03:33 Exactly, so this is the to-be structure. So the way you want to have the table created at the
end,
00:03:39 the way the table exists right now in the database, or it doesn't exist.
00:03:43 So this is the part of the build process. So the build process kind of compares the new
00:03:48 to-be structure with the existing structure on the database, and it will identify
00:03:53 the relevant auto-table statements and also execute the statements
00:03:57 to adjust the definition, as you can see it right now, with the structure on the database.
00:04:03 So it's implicit auto-table, which are going to be executed. The data will be kept, as long as it's
possible,
00:04:09 like, data type conversions, with supporting all the conversions, you know, available.
00:04:15 Of course, if you do some inconsistent data type conversions you know, you need to manually
adjust that.
00:04:22 But, that's the way you can do that. And next to the code editor,
00:04:28 we also have a graphical table editor. So that's the table editor using the graphical form.
00:04:34 If you double-click on it, you can see the same elements available also on the .HDBCDS file,
00:04:41 and actually, the graphical table editor is leveraging the same .HDBCDS file I highlighted
before
00:04:48 on the code editor level. So there's no inconsistencies, it's two views
00:04:51 on the same thing, but there's really one thing underneath, which is the file definition.
00:04:57 Exactly. If you want to apply some changes on the graphical editor, like adding a column, you
can do that in here.
00:05:03 So what will happen once you save, the definition will be adjusted on the .HDBCDS file.
00:05:09 And you can really decide whether you prefer to work with the file-based editor approach,
00:05:13 and to cut-and-paste out of maybe some template objects, or whether you prefer this graphical
way of editing.
00:05:18 Exactly. It's quite convenient.
00:05:20 And those files are also the ones which are being generated out of Enterprise Architecture
Designer, or any other modeling tool.
00:05:26 So you can pre-generate the files, and then you can reuse them in the Web IDE build and
editor concept.
00:05:32 And for the detailed implementation, if you apply changes to the files, you save them, and you
bring them back
00:05:38 into your git repository, which is the external repository. So you keep the repositories in sync
00:05:44 no matter where you change the file. Okay, so this is one entity,
00:05:48 then we also have a customer entity, and I'll just walk you through how this looks like.
00:05:54 So, it's pretty much about master data, right? So this is the customer entity,
00:05:58 and then we also have a customer address entity. So, it's pretty much straightforward.
00:06:04 Having said that, we have those tables. We're loading some data to those tables.
00:06:09 And then, we created two more folders. One folder, we called it Dimensions.
00:06:15 So this is a folder where we're creating a customer dimension table.
00:06:20 We're integrating data in here. The way of integration is we're using an STI flow graph,
00:06:26 a Smart Data Integration flow graph which runs on the HANA platform.
00:06:31 And it processes data from the source table into a target table. The target table is this
dimension table, right?
00:06:37 Right. So that will store the result of the transformation in the flow graph.

27
00:06:41 Exactly. We're using the flow graph editor to visualize how the flow graph is configured.
00:06:49 Once we open the flow graph, it's pre-configured in this sense, to use the source data address
table.
00:06:55 Also, to integrate the data from the source data "customer address" table. And also, as a third
pillar
00:07:02 to use the source data "customer data". So then we have a joint operation to integrate the
data.
00:07:08 You can also add, like, data quality processes into this flow graph.
00:07:13 And then we'll push the data into a dark target table, which the table we pretty find here.
00:07:18 You can also push the data into a generated table. So once this is configured and you saved it,

00:07:25 and you build it on the database, which has been done already,
00:07:30 you can click the execute button to process the data from the source table into the target table.

00:07:37 So what's really happening here is, and that's why we show this example,
00:07:40 we have data coming in third normal form, highly normalized data structure, these three tables.

00:07:47 We basically join them to build a de-normalized dimension on the right hand side for the
customer,
00:07:53 which is something we can easily use on the BW/4HANA side.
00:07:55 Correct. So you can double check if the data
00:07:58 has been processed, and the quality of the data by clicking on the grid.
00:08:02 So this will now connect to the database explorer module and displays the data process into
the target table.
00:08:11 As Ulrich mentioned, this will be one interface you can integrate or access from the
BW/4HANA perspective,
00:08:18 which is probably almost sufficient. We also prepared another level; we call that a data mart.
00:08:27 Of course, we're reusing the same table and information, but it could be a way more complex
scenario
00:08:33 in terms of transaction data, if you wanted to leverage the capabilities of a Native DataStore
Object,
00:08:39 including request management, like rollback capabilities, and also delta data processing
capabilities.
00:08:46 So if something you're aware from the BW/4HANA standard advanced NDSO object.
00:08:52 So the NDSO is kind of the environment and the objects we've created for the SQL Data
Warehousing.
00:08:58 So you're able to process master data or transaction data into the NDSO, leveraging the
recordMode capabilities
00:09:07 or chain-data capture capabilities to process the data. So, it's also based on the same file
extension, .HDBCDS.
00:09:18 Once you right-click on it, and open it with the graphical editor, you'll find out
00:09:23 that the graphical editor component is exact same as we used before on the table level.
00:09:29 So, it comes up with the same UI. Once you double-click on it
00:09:34 you see like the same elements and the same tabs, but there's one more tab called DSO
detail.
00:09:39 So within the DSO detail you can, you know, either check or uncheck the changelog
capabilities.
00:09:46 You have the capabilities on how the measures should be aggregated.

28
00:09:50 You have the information on the inbound queue deltas and also what inbound queues we
have.
00:09:55 So that's very very similar to what you have in the advanced datastore object.
00:09:58 Even some of the terminology is actually the same, and that's of course one of the features
which helps you to integrate data from one side to the other
00:10:05 because it basically relieves you of taking care of delta mechanisms,
00:10:09 because the NDSO has this built in. Right.
00:10:12 Of course, this is an unknown topic to the SQL world, to the pure SQL world,
00:10:17 because this is SAP property object, but we make this available
00:10:21 with the SQL Data Warehousing approach. Of course, we also have a flow graph in here
00:10:26 to push the data to the inbound queue. And then, there are two steps required,
00:10:31 like pushing the data into the inbound queue of the NDSO, and then run the NDSO data
activation task.
00:10:37 Due to the fact that this is a sequence of activities, we offer the option of the data warehousing
foundation
00:10:43 task chain capabilities, so we've prepared a task chain where, in this task chain, what we
pretty much do
00:10:49 is we'll of course execute the flow graphs, so this is the exact same flow graph, you know,
00:10:54 we prepared to push the data to the NDSO inbound queue. Then we'll run a second step,
00:11:00 which is the activation of the NDSO. So this is the way you process data from the inbound
queue,
00:11:06 into the active data table, and also in parallel to the changelog table to provide the capabilities
on rollback,
00:11:12 and also delta data processing. And for those of you who are a little bit confused now,
00:11:16 this is in fact very very similar technology to what we're using with the BW/4HANA process
chains
00:11:22 in the BW/4HANA cockpit. Right. So what we also have as the administrators
00:11:28 should not log on to the Web IDE, so we have a data warehousing foundation monitor.
00:11:33 Once we'll bring up the monitor, we'll log on to the data warehousing foundation monitor,
00:11:39 and from the look and feel, you see the same task chain as you prepared in the Web IDE
before.
00:11:44 So this will be the UI for the administrators to verify if a task chain has been executed,
00:11:50 also the status of the execution. And you can also schedule the execution.
00:11:55 So what we've done in the past, we've already prepared the run,
00:11:59 so the run's completed successfully. Once you click on it, you get all the information,
00:12:04 like the status and also the details: what has been processed.
00:12:08 So, in case of error, you'll also find the error messages in here.
00:12:11 So this is the way the administrator can keep track on what task chain has been executed,
00:12:18 will also provide you a view on the NDSO status. So if you have a number of NDSOs in the
system,
00:12:24 you can verify how the processing status of the individual NDSOs looks like.
00:12:29 So we'll give you way information using the monitor, which is relevant for the administrators.
00:12:36 So, let's switch back to the Web IDE. There's another component in here;
00:12:42 it's called Database Explorer. So this is the view we provide you
00:12:46 to access the container we previously built, including all the objects related for the database.
00:12:52 So in this sense you'll find like your data store object. In here, we'll have an admin UI in here.
00:12:58 If you click on "Manage", you'll find the UI where you see the request ID, the load status, and
also

29
00:13:05 if the request is available for reporting, and also if the request has been activated.
00:13:11 Maybe one step back, Axel? Just to make sure I have the right understanding.
00:13:15 So what you see here is really the result of the build process, right?
00:13:18 Before the first build, even if you start modeling
00:13:21 on the Web IDE side, but don't start the build process, all this doesn't exist?
00:13:24 Exactly. After the build process, this container exists
00:13:28 and all those stuff inside there? Yep. Exactly.
00:13:30 So this is the result of the build of the full project within the development perspective.
00:13:38 So this the administration UI for the NDSOs, and you can run like all the housekeeping
capabilities,
00:13:44 you can roll back activities in here. So everything you're pretty much aware
00:13:48 of from the BW/4HANA environment. But this is a new environment for the SQL people.
00:13:53 But this is the UI we'll provide. Of course, as this is all based on tables,
00:13:58 you can also have a look at the tables available within this container.
00:14:02 So you'll see all the different containers in here, container objects in here, of course also the
tables
00:14:09 from the source data environment, the dimension table, and also from the data mart.
00:14:16 And you also see a couple of tables generated by the NDSO. Exactly.
00:14:19 So, because request management, of course there are some hidden tables in there,
00:14:23 but they are all visible from the Database Explorer. So this how the table looks like,
00:14:28 and this is also the schema you need to leverage once you want to access this information
00:14:35 from a BW/4HANA perspective. Having said that, so, back to you, Ulrich.
00:14:40 So, let's switch over and see how we can consume this, these artifacts which Axel created
from the BW/4HANA side.
00:14:47 So I'm switching back to the BW/4HANA modeling tools, and I have prepared a data flow
which basically leverages
00:14:54 or loads classic SAP data on the left hand side, so that's the transaction part with sales order
data.
00:15:01 And we want to enhance the sales order data with customer master data coming
00:15:05 from the SQL Data Warehousing side. So what I've done is basically I've created
00:15:10 a source system here, based on a local HANA schema. We've seen this in a previous unit.
00:15:21 I chose this schema which Axel just showed, the schema which is actually generated
00:15:25 during the build process, when this container is actually turned into database artifacts.
00:15:33 So that's the source system from which we're going to load data, or from which
00:15:38 we're going to access data. On top of the source system,
00:15:41 I have created a data source here. This data source just picks one of the artifacts
00:15:45 out of the schema, here you see the schema name again, and I pick the NDSO, so that would
basically be an access
00:15:52 to the active table of the NDSO. We can actually also try to do a data preview here.
00:15:58 If we're lucky, we see some data, right. So that's now directly read from the NDSO active table.

00:16:05 It should actually be exactly the same data which Axel just showed on the database explorer
side.
00:16:10 And of course we can continue to build on top of this data source.
00:16:14 For example, putting the data flow on top. If we want to load data, we could actually load this
00:16:23 into an InfoObject, we could load this into an NDSO with a transformation DTP.
00:16:27 Or we could just put an open RDS view on top which I've done here.

30
00:16:31 If you look at that, we've put an open RDS view on top of that data source, and thereby
00:16:40 can basically access all the data of the native datastore object on the SQL side.
00:16:48 And we can now of course bring this together with the sales orders and the composite provider

00:16:52 by creating an appropriate association. And then we have all the master data
00:16:58 from the SQL side available in BW without actually having to replicate it again, right?
00:17:03 Loading it would be another option, but in this case if we have this tight integration, all the data

00:17:08 is ready for consumption on the SQL side, why would we load it again;
00:17:11 we can just directly consume it. Yep, that's it from my part of the demo,
00:17:17 so let's switch back to the presentation. What have we learned in this unit?
00:17:22 We've basically given you an impression of the interoperability between SAP's SQL Data
Warehousing
00:17:29 and SAP BW/4HANA, and how these two things can be combined on the same platform.
00:17:35 We've shown you a demo where you got an impression of the capabilities and the look and
feel
00:17:40 of the SQL Data Warehousing side, with the Web IDE, and the other tools.
00:17:46 And we've showed you how you can integrate this from the BW/4HANA side.
00:17:50 And with that, you're ready for the self test.

31
Week 2 Unit 6

00:00:08 Hello, and welcome to week two, unit six, Remarks on Architecture.
00:00:14 So, basically, over the last two weeks, we've seen a lot of different technologies,
00:00:19 we've started with the kind of classic modeling way of BW/4HANA which is derived from the
old way in BW,
00:00:27 based on Info Objects and the modernized world of advanced DataStore objects and
CompositeProviders.
00:00:32 We've seen all the HANA technologies and how you can incorporate them into BW/4HANA,
00:00:36 we've seen how to work with fields, how to reach, how to excel data, use a lot of virtualization.
00:00:41 In this unit, we basically want to show you how to put these technologies to use,
00:00:45 how to make sense out of this, and then how to put an architecture framework around this
00:00:51 to get an understanding of how to use these technologies in the right way and then what the
appropriate combinations
00:00:57 of technologies are that make sense. A second question which we'll deal with,
00:01:02 is what is an appropriate reference architecture for SAP BW/4HANA?
00:01:06 You know probably from the past, that we have always propagated a certain architecture
00:01:11 called "layered scalable architecture" for classic BW. What's the corresponding blueprint in
case of BW/4HANA?
00:01:21 And we'll also want to focus a little bit on a topic which we also dealt with in the units
00:01:28 about SAP SQL Data Warehousing, namely that technology and architecture are one thing,
00:01:33 but the development processes are an important aspect of an overall solution as well.
00:01:39 Let's maybe do the review of the classic architecture and then see how we move on.
00:01:45 I will start with the classic LSA architecture. LSA stands for "layered scalable architecture",
00:01:51 and it's more or less the classic way to model an enterprise data warehouse approach.
00:01:56 It's in the end, this is a top-down modeling approach to fulfill all the business requirements.
00:02:01 The characteristics of this classic layout scalable architecture approach,
00:02:06 is that we have stacked layers, we have a high level of data persistency in the system
00:02:13 and we load data from one layer to the other layer. It's top-down driven,
00:02:19 it's a company-wide approach to in the end, combine different source systems
00:02:24 into one enterprise data warehouse approach. Usually, this kind of classic layered scalable
architecture
00:02:32 provides a high level of governance for the company, and in the end it's like a blueprint,
00:02:40 you can copy that blueprint for other scenarios as well. Basically, all scenarios follow the same
standard,
00:02:44 the same approach, and each of the layers, of course, has certain clear service levels or
requirements
00:02:50 associated with it. Now the question is do we have an evolution of the LSA?
00:02:55 Right, and of course, that's also something which is not completely new, we've propagated
this,
00:02:59 for a couple of years already, we have something which we call LSA++
00:03:03 the next step of evolution in LSA. Besides the top-down modeling approach,
00:03:09 which we take over from LSA, we also added the bottom-up modeling approach here,
00:03:14 that's basically when you think of what we did in previous units this week,
00:03:20 what you get when you think of starting to work with data, looking at the sources and then
evolve the data model,
00:03:26 right, such approaches are also possible with BW/4HANA, so we put this bottom-up approach
for agile development,

32
00:03:33 next to the top-down approach which is for scenarios where high governance is needed
00:03:39 or big scenarios where you need this sort of governance. LSA++ puts a strong focus on
virtualization,
00:03:45 so basically tries to avoid persisting data, just for its own sake, maybe just because
00:03:51 a blueprint says so, but it really puts an effort on only materializing and persisting data
00:03:56 when there's really a good business justification for it, a requirement which really needs
persisted data
00:04:03 for certain things. That also means that LSA++ really propagates
00:04:08 using all these HANA technologies which we've seen in this week, right, using calculation
views
00:04:15 as part of your architecture, all that kind of stuff. The only layer if you look at what we have
here,
00:04:21 the only layer that's really mandatory are the source layer, of course,
00:04:25 you need source data somewhere, and the virtualization layer, so the Virtual Data Marts, the
composite provider basically,
00:04:30 and to a certain extent open all the S views, those are the layers which are really, really
mandatory,
00:04:37 which we always need, then you probably put your queries on top,
00:04:41 but everything else is to a certain extent optional, right. You only build it and load it,
00:04:46 if you really have a corresponding requirement, so LSA++ basically means is,
00:04:54 depending on what kind of solution we want to build, you actually pick and choose the layers,
00:04:59 which are relevant for the solution. Now, if you look at this from an EDW perspective,
00:05:06 from a classic EDW perspective with an Enterprise-wide Data Model,
00:05:10 then of course, many of these optional layers will be relevant because you have to harmonize
data,
00:05:14 you need to take, probably need to keep the history of data, so a raw data warehouse on Open
ODS Layer will be relevant,
00:05:24 an integrated data warehouse layer will be relevant, if you have to harmonize data from
various sources.
00:05:29 That basically means in this situation, an LSA++ implementation,
00:05:33 will look pretty much like a classic LSA implementation. You will probably not
00:05:37 have the architected data marts anymore, because the speed of HANA makes these obsolete
00:05:41 in many cases, but other than that, you will probably have very similar layers.
00:05:47 The question is what's the benefit of using BW/4HANA, as opposed to classic BW in these
cases?
00:05:53 Of course, there are benefits, and I want to mention two main benefits here,
00:05:58 the first thing is you've seen how we worked through the data modeling process with
BW/4HANA,
00:06:04 we've seen quite a lot of demos, and that's why we put this strong focus on demos in week
one and week two as well.
00:06:11 You've seen that we have a complete, new set of tools, which allows you to work much faster
and much more efficient
00:06:16 in a much more streamlined way than in the past, so building data models with BW/4HANA
00:06:22 is a much more streamlined and much more efficient process than it used to be in the past with
classic BW.
00:06:27 That's one aspect so it's the tool aspect. The other aspect is that we have this clear separation

00:06:33 between the persistence and the virtual data modeling of your composite provider where you
actually assemble,

33
00:06:38 remember that from week one, where you actually assemble the star schema out of facts
00:06:43 and the master data, right, and this also gives you much more flexibility
00:06:47 in combining facts with master data, or combining facts with facts,
00:06:50 remember the join and union capabilities which you have in the composite provider,
00:06:54 so that's also a step ahead, because it basically means that what you create
00:06:58 on top as a virtual data mart which you expose to the end user is something which is much
easier to change than in the past,
00:07:04 because it's not a persistent object but a virtual object, so here you see that even in these kind

00:07:09 of classic EDW scenarios, you benefit from BW/4HANA technologies.

00:07:15 On the other hand, if you don't have a classic EDW project, but just maybe a smaller project
just for one group
00:07:25 of business users, for one department, also, something which is not as big,
00:07:29 then of course, you can also benefit from the top-down model,
00:07:31 from the bottom-up modeling approaches which we've seen, when you don't have data
harmonization issues
00:07:36 because you just have a couple of smaller data sets, where harmonization is not such a big
deal,
00:07:42 then you can really start working in completely different ways,
00:07:44 and build your solutions much, much faster, and that's the point about LSA++
00:07:48 from my perspective, it's not so much a blueprint, as LSA was but it's actually a guidance,
00:07:54 a guidance to the right solution, right, it basically tells you how to think
00:07:59 or how to organize your solution, think about what your needs are,
00:08:03 and then basically come up with a blueprint for this individual use case, right,
00:08:07 so EDW use cases would look very much like LSA in the past, if you have something which is
much, much simpler,
00:08:13 where you just need a data snapshot once in a while, and you associate some master data,
00:08:17 then you can basically work with, say, a staging layer or corporate memory, the same for
master data,
00:08:22 assemble things and you're done, or you access the data virtually,
00:08:26 so that's the real point about it, it's basically a framework which guides you to pick
00:08:32 and choose the right layers for your solution. Okay, and now the question is what is the right
approach
00:08:40 of bringing technology, architecture, and processes together?
00:08:43 So you heard about the last couple of weeks, that we have a couple of,
00:08:48 that we have more than one ingredient here, we have in the end, we identified for that kind
00:08:53 of architecture, three ingredients, this is technology, what is technology?
00:08:58 Technology in our case is BW/4HANA, or the native HANA approach and of course,
00:09:06 the mixed modeling to combine both worlds, we have the technology approach here,
00:09:11 and we have the architecture approach here, this means is it more an Enterprise Data
Warehouse approach
00:09:16 or is it more an agile approach driven by the business users and last but not least, we have the
process approach here,
00:09:27 is it more from IT driven, is it IT driven, or is it business driven, is all the requirements
00:09:36 coming more and more from the business, or is IT owning more or less the requirements.
00:09:42 And you can also say is it something which requires a lot of governance then you probably
00:09:46 need a different process than if it's something, which is on a smaller level, on a smaller scope,

34
00:09:51 for one department, then you can probably live with a much, much more lightweight
00:09:55 and agile process than in other aspects, and all these three ingredients together
00:10:00 are basically very important, and have to be adjusted accordingly to basically
00:10:04 be able to build a big, a good solution. We have some examples or some ideas on the left-
hand side,
00:10:09 what things work together and what things don't. And the idea is to find the best ingredients
00:10:15 for your company, so this means when you have an agile architecture then you of course,
00:10:20 need an agile development cycle, otherwise, this architecture makes definitely no sense.
00:10:25 Then technology and architecture wouldn't help you, even if you get everything perfect here,
00:10:29 if you have delivery cycles of half a year, then agility is dead, right. That's part of the idea here.

00:10:35 Now let's have a look at basically, categorization of what we see in our customer base
00:10:42 in BW/4HANA. what kinds of solution customers build, using our technologies.
00:10:48 The left thing, the simplified EDW, is basically what I described when I,
00:10:52 when we had the LSA++ picture on the screen. Remember, we, I basically described how you

00:11:00 benefit from BW/4HANA technology, and the new object world if you
00:11:07 want to build a classic data warehouse, so, that's of course, the kind of mainstream
00:11:12 of what our customers are doing, the vast majority of our customers are still building,
00:11:17 using a top-down approach, they are basically using InfoObjects in a heavy way from business
content
00:11:24 or self, or custom built, and they basically, built classic Enterprise data base warehouses,
00:11:32 where the main benefits are basically in the two areas which I described,
00:11:36 it's the streamlined way of working with objects and the higher flexibility which you have
00:11:41 from virtualization. Then we have a group of customers,
00:11:45 then what you see on the lowest, on the lower bar here, on the blue bar, in the bottom here,
00:11:54 is that this can basically be achieved mainly by using the technologies which you get out
00:12:00 of the box with BW/4HANA, using BW/4HANA modeling objects,
00:12:05 advanced DataStore objects, InfoObjects, CompositeProviders, transformations, DTPs,
00:12:09 that's basically all you need for that, and you will have a much, much better data warehouse
solution, than you did in the past.
00:12:16 We have also a very big group of customers, who build something which is still close
00:12:23 to an Enterprise Data Warehouse, but much more flexible in the sense
00:12:27 that they start working in more virtualized ways, so they, for example, incorporate more of the,

00:12:34 more technologies from the HANA side, they bring in calculation views for certain areas,
00:12:37 we had these examples of and then categorizations of mixed scenarios in one of the units,
00:12:43 where we said, where for example, doing transformations on the fly can be done,
00:12:47 using a composite calculation view, then you put a CompositeProvider on top,
00:12:51 all that kind of stuff or using such calculation views for transformations, all that basically
00:12:57 gives you additional possibilities, to make your solution more flexible,
00:13:01 and maybe remove one of the other layers in your persistence architecture,
00:13:04 and then you'll basically do the next step, using more HANA technology,
00:13:08 in addition to the BW/4HANA technology, so we move a little bit to the right,
00:13:12 from a technology perspective as well, maybe you use a little bit of bottom-up modeling
00:13:17 next to top-down modeling, but it's still pretty much a waterfall project,
00:13:22 where you do an upfront design, you gather the requirements,

35
00:13:28 and then you start the implementation. Now, let's go to the far right here,
00:13:32 we actually have a couple of customers, who do something completely different with
BW/4HANA,
00:13:36 and that's very, very interesting, it's... I would say a niche, it's not a big group of customers,
00:13:42 but the interesting thing is, it's something which you would never have thought possible,
00:13:46 and you would not have associated BW in the past, with such a solution, you would never
00:13:51 have come to the idea to use BW technology for such solutions, you would've
00:13:54 used something completely different, with BW/4HANA, this is possible,
00:13:59 with the same technology which you have for the kind of classic Enterprise Data Warehouse
00:14:04 solutions which we can also build, and that's something which is,
00:14:08 we took here the term relational data lake, it's basically the idea that these customers,
00:14:14 just take data from all the sources wherever it comes from, for example, using SLT to replicate
data
00:14:20 from an S/4 system, using OData to get data from SuccessFactors,
00:14:25 whatever you have using an ETL tool to bring data in, put all the data into some HANA
schemas, right,
00:14:31 maybe just a single HANA schema, maybe one HANA schema per source, whatever,
00:14:35 and then they start building from the bottom-up to an actual solution, for example,
00:14:41 combining the source tables which are potentially highly normalized,
00:14:46 using HANA calculation views, building some logic into these calculation views,
00:14:53 and once they have reached the layer which they can consume, they actually use the
technologies of BW/4HANA on top,
00:14:59 so they use CompositeProviders, Open ODS views to basically model,
00:15:04 start a model the individual dimensions for example, using Open ODS views,
00:15:09 they use CompositeProviders to assemble star schemas, and then they put queries,
authorizations,
00:15:15 and all that stuff on top, and basically consume the data via an analytic front end,
00:15:20 that of course, uses HANA technologies to a much, much heavier extent, right,
00:15:26 basically all the data is only stored in HANA, consumption is done on BW side,
00:15:31 a couple of these customers basically tell us, what they like about this solution is that they
have all the capabilities
00:15:36 of the query designer, basically using all the modeling capabilities you have there,
00:15:41 they have the authorizations modeled on the BW/4HANA side,
00:15:45 which is also something they are used to, and which is very relevant and easy,
00:15:51 so they basically combine these two worlds, but that's not the only reason it's in many cases,
00:15:56 when you talk to these customers, they know that this is only the first step for them,
00:16:01 so the reason why they are using BW/4HANA for these technologies is not because that's the
end state,
00:16:05 but it's actually just the first step toward something which might potentially evolve over time,
00:16:11 more and more into the real data warehouse, so they realized that this was a solution,
00:16:15 which they could quickly build, and hand over to business user,
00:16:20 maybe they even built this together with a business user, right, looking at the data,
00:16:23 adjusting the calculation used consuming on the BW side, adjusting the query, and having a
look at the data,
00:16:29 and maybe giving an 80 percent solution to the business user right away,
00:16:32 after a couple of hours, maybe a couple of days, but they also realize that at some point in
time maybe,
00:16:39 if data volume is growing or if they have additional requirements, if they

36
00:16:42 need to take snapshots, then they have all the, kind of more heavyweight data warehouse
00:16:48 or EDW functionality from BW already in place, and can start leveraging this, right,
00:16:53 so they can for example, use the results, which they, of the artifacts that they built
00:17:01 on the HANA site, and really store them into ADSLs and then continue
00:17:05 to build a composite provider on top later on, right, so that's a way for example, to improve
performance,
00:17:09 at a certain point in time, maybe to, yeah, performance is one aspect,
00:17:18 maybe to take snapshots of data, all that kind of stuff, and then gradually evolve the solution
00:17:23 from something which is very simple, kind of close to real-time,
00:17:27 into something which is more of a data warehouse, so this is really a very nice example
00:17:31 of customers who are starting to work bottom-up, looking at the data, and then
00:17:36 evolving the solution over time. And you see that from a process perspective, of course,
00:17:42 that's basically what Gordon described in the last slide, you also take a different approach
here,
00:17:47 if you want to use these technologies and combine these technologies in the way I just
described,
00:17:51 you would never use a waterfall project, right, you would basically, ideally, sit down with an
expert
00:17:58 from business, look at the data, and discuss what's good, what parts of the data are good,
00:18:03 what do I have to change, and then do a next iteration, and the next iteration, and already after
each iteration,
00:18:08 have something to hand over to business, so that they can at least start working and don't
have
00:18:12 to wait until the final solution's actually ready. Yeah, so, well, let's summarize.
00:18:19 Let's summarize, well, so, why is the question find the right architecture
00:18:25 for your BW/4HANA, is not so easy to answer, so the point here is we have more than one
ingredient,
00:18:33 to build the right or the best combination of architecture, technology, and processes,
00:18:38 you described it already, what are the benefits of that kind of architecture
00:18:43 or that kind of technology, for some customers, the classic BW approach
00:18:49 with the LSA architecture or the LSA++ architecture, with different layers, persisting all the
data,
00:18:56 may fit best, but for others may not, that's why we have these different ingredients,
00:19:02 and now the question is, what is the best mix, what fits best?
00:19:06 But the point is exactly for that kind of different customer needs,
00:19:11 and different customers, and different situations, we offer a variety of technologies, processes,

00:19:21 and architecture types, and that's from my point of view, the beauty of BW/4HANA, you can
combine different things
00:19:28 and find the right and best architecture for your business. And with this, we hand over to the
weekly assignment.

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