DISCLAIMER

This document is prepared based on available information at the time of composing this report. As SAP certifies additional technology vendors or SAP adds new interfaces to SAP BW, information in this document may change at any time without notice.

Author recommends readers to visit SAP official WEB site http://www.sap.com for the latest information.

Table Of Contents

The SAP BW 2.0B: Open Data Interfaces

Certified Third-Party Data Access Products

Certified Products for OLAP BAPI (BW-OBI)

Certified Third-Party Data Extraction Transformation Loads (ETL ) Products to load data in SAP BW

Certified Data Provider BAPI’s (BW-DPI BAPI’s)

Summary

Reference

Author

The SAP BW 2.0B: Open Data Interfaces

The SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) is an open data warehouse environment. What this “openness” means is that SAP provides several methods to integrate SAP BW in any enterprise. These open methods include the following types of interfaces:

· Flat Files Interface. This is native to SAP BW. SAP BW supports common flat data file formats, such as comma separated files, Microsoft Excel files, etc.

· DB-Link Interface: This is a database specific technology that enables SAP BW to import data. In SAP BW 2.0B, this type of interface was limited to Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server database only.

· Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) to load data in as well as to access information from its data stores that are platform independent. (Hardware, software, databases, etc.)

The BASIS technology on which SAP BW is built-on, offers several classes of API’s. Most of the APIs are based on Remote Function Calls (RFC’s) that are common to all SAP products including SAP BW. The RFC’s are the most widely used mechanisms to interact with SAP business functions, processes and data. Java and COM implementations established to interact with SAP processes are nothing more than wrappers around RFC’s to make development tasks simple.

SAP provides several product-specific Business APIs (BAPI’s), which are object-oriented interface implementations using RFC’s that most developers use to interact with SAP products.

SAP offers following categories of BAPIs for SAP BW:

Data Load. APIs are called Staging BAPIs or SBAPI.
Data Access. OLEDB for OLAP and OLAP BAPI.
Data Mining. APIs to integrate BW with Data Mining Tools (in BW 3.0)

In addition to data load BAPI’s, SAP BW also supports a flat file interface to import data from common flat file data formats, such as a comma delimited file or Microsoft Excel file. In addition to BAPI’s, SAP BW also supports Microsoft OLEDB for OLAP API to access data from SAP BW and develop analytical applications against SAP BW data stores. This OLEDB for OLAP interface is often used by third-party OLAP tools to build ad hoc query, reporting, and analytical applications.

To assure that integrity of SAP BW components is not compromised, third party tools vendors and SAP go through a rigorous exercise to certify that third-party products are in compliance with available API’s for each version of SAP BW. In the chapter 15 of my book ‘Business Information Warehouse for SAP’, you will find an example of how to integrate 3^rd party data access tools with SAP BW.

The following sections list SAP certified products that load data in SAP BW or access data from SAP BW.

Certified Third-Party Data Access Products (BW ODB)

Vendor	Product	Product Version	BW API Version
arcplan Information Services AG URL: http://www.arcplan.com	inSight dynaSight	2.5 3.0	BW-ODB 1.2 BW-ODB 1.2 BW-ODB 2.0
Brio Technology, Inc. URL: http://www.Brio.com	Brio Enterprise	6.0	BW-ODB 1.2
Business Objects URL: http://www.businessobjects.com	BusinessObjects BW Connect BusinessObjects	5.1.1	BW-ODB 2.0 BW-ODB 1.2
Cognos, Inc. URL: http://www.cognos.com/sapbw	PowerPlay SAP BW Interface	1.0	BW-ODB 1.2 BW-ODB 2.0
Comshare URL: http://www.comshare.com	Comshare Decision	2.5.1	BW-ODB 1.2
Information Businders: URL: www.informationbuilders.com/products	WebFOCUS for SAP BW	4.3	BW-ODB 2.0
MIS Technologies URL: http://www.misag.com	MIS Alea OnVision	3.7 2.0	BW-ODB 1.2 BW-ODB 2.0
PointOut GmbH URL: http://www.pointout.de	PointOut for BW	8.01	BW-ODB 1.2
Seagate Software URL: http://www.seagatesoftware.com	Seagate Worksheet Seagate Crystal Reports Seagate Holos	7 7 7	BW-ODB 1.2
SAS Institute URL: http://www/sas.com	Enterprise Guide	1.2	BW-ODB 2.0
Ton Beller AG URL: http://www.tonbeller.com	Qubon	2000	BW-ODB 1.2

Certified Products for OLAP BAPI (BW-OBI)

The OLAP BAPI’s are new as of SAP BW, release 2.0 and are more powerful than OLEDB for OLAP. OLAP BAPI’s are more powerful because the OLEDB for OLAP API is based on Microsoft’s OLAP standard, which is based on Microsoft’s Analysis Services and is limited to Microsoft’s platform. On the other hand, OLAP BAPI’s are platform independent and provide additional functionality that may be limiting due to ODBO specifications. Thus far, there is only one vendor that has been certified for OLAP BAPI.

Vendor

Product

Product Version

BW API Version

Arcplan Information Services AG

URL: http://www.arcplan.com

dynaSight

2.5

BW-OBI 2.0

Certified Third-Party Data Extraction Transformation Loads (ETL ) Products to load data in SAP BW.

The data Extraction, Transformation, and Load (ETL) process is common to all data warehouses. SAP BW provides built-in methods to perform ETL as part of the business content for SAP R/3 OLTP. However, when data sources are not generated from SAP R/3 OLTP, third-party ETL tools can be used to perform ETL functions along with SAP BW data transformation capabilities.

The most common data load API for SAP BW is called the Staging BAPI (SBAPI). The reason behind the name “staging” is that such BAPI’s do not load data directly in a database data stores; they interact with the database engine through the SAP BW Staging engine, which handles data manipulations and loads data in the reporting data stores. The basic principle behind Staging BAPI’s is that the third-party tools communicate with the SAP BW staging engine through a Remote Function Call (RFC) server. The RFC server is registered in SAP BW as part of the third-party data source definition. In the chapter 14 of my book ‘Business Information Warehouse for SAP’, you will find an example of how to integrate 3^rd party ETL tools with SAP BW.

The following list shows certified vendors/products for SAP BW 1.2x and BW 2.0x. Other vendors may also provide products to load data in SAP BW but have not certified by SAP.

Vendor	Product	Product Version	BW API Version
Acta Technology, Inc. URL: http://www.acta.com	ActaWorks ActaWorks	3.0 5.0	BW-STA 1.2 BW-STA 2.0
Ascential Software, Inc. URL: http://www.ascentialsoftware.com	DataStage load pack for SAP BW	3.6	BW-STA 1.2
Evolutionary Technologies URL: http://www.eti.com	ETI*EXTRACT	1.0	BW-STA 1.2
Hummingbird Communications URL: http://www.hummingbird.com	Génio	3.0	BW-STA 1.2
Informatica Corporation URL: http://www.informatica.com	PowerCenter	4.5	BW-STA 1.2
Informix Software URL: http://www.informix.com	Prism Connect for BW	2.0 3.6	BW-STA 1.2
Information Builders URL: www.informationbuilders.com/products	SNAPpack Data Migrator	2.6	BW-STA 1.2
SeeBeyond Deutschland URL: http://www.seebeyond.com	e*WayTM Adapter for R/3	4.1	BW-STA 2.0
systemfabrik GmbH URL: http://ssystemfabrik.com	Business Warehouse Connector	4.0	BW-STA 1.2
Mercator Software URL: http://www.tsisoft.com	Mercator for R/3	1.4.2	BW-STA 1.2
NSX Software: URL: http://www.nsxsoftware.com	NSX Data Stager	1.1	BW-STA 1.2
SeeBeyond URL: http://www.seebeyond.com	e*Way Adapter for R/4	4.1	BW-STA 2.0
systemfabrik URL:	Bw Connector	4.0	BW –STA 1.2
WRQ, Inc. URL: http://www.wrq.com	VeraStream for Business Warehouse	7 8	BW-STA 1.2 BW –STA 2.0

Certified Data Provider BAPI’s (BW-DPI BAPI’s)

The Data Provider BAPI’s (BW-DPI BAPI’s) support a real-time interface for transaction applications to display and analyze data at the business explorer level without storing data in an InfoCube. Through the use of BW-DPI BAPIs, real-time interfaces to syndicated data providers can be designed. The BW-DPI interface provides a method to update and retrieve metadata, send master data extracts to the SAP BW and retrieve external transaction data. The following vendor provides a Data Provider BAPI’s that is certified to work with SAP BW.

Vendor

Product

Product Version

BW API Version

ACNielsen U.S.

URL: http://www.acnielsen.com

EDW* Connect

1.02

BW-DPI 1.2

Summary

This documents lists all SAP-certified products that either load data into SAP BW or access data for reporting as of April 18, 2001. There are other vendors not included in this list who also claim their products to work with SAP BW. It is a good idea to make certain that any product that you select to use has been certified for the version of SAP BW that you are planning to implement as BAPI and OLAP interfaces are often SAP BW version specific.

To date, SAP has not defined any BAPI’s or a certification process to extract data from SAP BW. Third-party ETL vendors suggest that their tools can be used to extract data from SAP BW. If you choose to use ETL tools to extract data from SAP BW make sure that when the tool access SAP BW at the database level, the integrity of extracted information is not compromised and does not interrupt the SAP BASIS operations.

The extraction of data from SAP R/3 is a huge challenge. Some of the tools listed in this documents can also extract data from SAP R/3 at an application layer. Check with the vendor of choice listed in this document to see if their product can help you extract data from SAP R/3 OLTP. Also make sure that the third-party ETL tool you choose to work with does not access data from SAP R/3 OLTP at the database level. Not accessing data at the application layer will interrupt SAP R/3 OLTP operations and cause you to get inconsistent data. Furthermore, SAP does not recommend users access information from SAP R/3 OLTP at the database level.

Reference

SAP WEB Site: http://www.sap.com/partners/software/directory/

For latest listing of certified BW interfaces and products

Book: Business Information Warehouse for SAP by Naeem Hashmi www.amazon.com, ISBN: 0-7615-2335-9
- Chapter 10: Loading data in SAP BW using Flat Files
- Chapter 14: Loading data in SAP BW using 3^rd Party ETL tool Staging BAPIs)
- Chapter 15: Accessing data from SAP BW using 3^rd Party tools (ODBO)

Author

Naeem Hashmi is Founder and Chief Technology Officer of the Information Frameworks. Naeem is a practitioner, architect, and a pioneer in ERP Data warehousing with well over 24 years of actual product development in emerging Information technologies, research, education, product management covering such technologies as Information Delivery Architecture; e-Business; ERP applications; Data Warehousing; Data Mining; CRM, Internet, Object and Client/Server Technologies; Enterprise Application Integration, Information Architectures and solutions deployment in large global companies.

A former Technical Director and Senior Technologist and Solution Architect for Compaq/Digital, Naeem directed early SAP BW customer projects and the Benchmark and Engineering Group at Compaq/Digital. Naeem has worked directly with SAP management and engineering team members in defining requirements and architecture for SAP BW.

Naeem authored the best selling book on BW titled, “Business Information Warehouse for SAP”. He is a member of Intelligent ERP magazine’s board of editors, is a frequent speaker at IT industry conferences. Naeem is a Nuclear Physicist and Radiological Health and Environmental Scientist with heavy focus on high performance computing and data mining. Naeem can be reached at nhashmi@infoframeworks.com.

About the Information Frameworks

The Information Frameworks is a strategic, tactical advisory and consulting organization specializing in defining information frameworks and technologies suited best for horizontal and vertical industry specific e-business solution. Key focus areas are enterprise architecture, enterprise business intelligence, application integration, and technology transfer. The Information Frameworks plays a pivotal role among Information Technology providers and its Consumers to architect integrated eBusiness Intelligence and Integration solutions that address eBusiness implementation challenges today and years to come.

Information Frameworks

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Londonderry, NH 03053

Tel: 603-661-6820

Web: http://infoframeworks.com