SAP BI (Business Intelligence)

However, when building a high-quality analytical reporting system, proper data storage and modeling organization plays a key role. Therefore, the SAP BI product line is complemented by a Data Warehouse based on SAP BW and SAP HANA. In particular, RBC Group supports and develops a pre-configured Data Model for banking activities: both developed in-house and as part of the SAP FSDP (Financial Services Data Platform) product based on HANA.

SAP BO/BI

Using the SAP BusinessObjects Business Intelligence (BI) Suite gives companies implementing it a significant competitive advantage. Top executives of companies using SAP BO/BI can make effective decisions based on real data and react quickly to business-critical situations.

Every employee in the company—from director to analyst, wherever they may be—can gain timely access to any information needed for the business. At the and time, business users’ information analysis capabilities are practically unlimited in terms of presentation tools, volume, and depth of data analysis. Crucially, the involvement of IT department personnel or developers in configuring analytical reports is kept to a minimum.

Functionality and Key Features of SAP BO/BI

• SAP Crystal Reports – a solution for reflecting data from various sources when compiling corporate reports in any fixed format.
• SAP BusinessObjects Web Intelligence – a solution for interactive information analysis, as well as providing company employees with independent access to information in a web environment.
• SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards – a solution necessary for creating flexible and intuitive interactive dashboards.
• SAP BusinessObjects Explorer – a solution that enables fast analysis of so-called “Big Data”.
• SAP BusinessObjects Analysis – a modern solution for fast analytical processing of data (OLAP).
• SAP BusinessObjects Live Office – a solution necessary for integrating business intelligence into Microsoft Office desktop applications to enhance convenience in daily work.
• SAP BusinessObjects Mobile – provides remote access to information from any mobile device, which is critically important in today’s world.
• SAP BusinessObjects BI – the foundation of the information infrastructure, a scalable and flexible BI platform.
• SAP BusinessObjects Integration – this solution provides integration with various external applications and data sources, including business management systems based on SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Siebel, etc.

SAP BW

SAP BW (Business Warehouse) is generally a classic data warehouse, as it provides tools for storing and analyzing massive arrays of data. At the same time, SAP BW focuses primarily on solving business tasks and, from the user’s perspective, does not require knowledge of the database structure.

Functionality and Key Features of SAP BW:

• Automatic data loading from various external sources through support for all known interfaces, as well as near-real-time loading capabilities;
• Loading stream modeling with parallel processing support;
• Numerous built-in data cleansing and transformation tools with the ability to expand them when implementing custom data logic;
• Visual data model development tools at the level of the user’s business view of required attributes and metrics (with OLAP technology tables created automatically in the database);
• Built-in business content: an industrial data model (attributes, metrics, and storage objects in the form of information cubes) and analytical reports across a wide range of business tasks;
• On-demand information distribution tools via various interaction channels.

SAP BW comes with SAP BEx (Business Explorer) for generating flexibly configurable analytical reports supplemented with graphics and various design elements (buttons, combo boxes, etc.). Although the visual capabilities of SAP BO/BI products are generally much broader, in certain cases using SAP BEx may be preferable due to its tight integration with Excel.

The SAP HANA Platform and Features of Using It for Data Warehousing

The SAP HANA platform is based on a next-generation DBMS operating on In-Memory technology, utilizing software and hardware optimization resources and tools to ensure:

• high transaction processing speed;
• storage and processing of large volumes of information (Big Data);
• efficient handling of complex analytical queries.

From a data warehousing implementation perspective, SAP HANA can either significantly enhance the functionality of the SAP BW Warehouse (see SAP BW/4HANA) or serve as a standalone Data Warehouse. In the second case, the built-in business content characteristic of SAP BW—such as universal and industrial “Star” data models—is absent. Thus, when implementing a warehouse on SAP HANA, the Data Model must be built “from scratch” using HANA’s flexible capabilities and modeling tools based on HANA Studio.

Nevertheless, there are currently at least two implementation options for a pre-configured Data Model for banking business when building a warehouse on SAP HANA:

• Using the SAP FSDP (Financial Services Data Platform) product:
  • The predecessor to SAP FSDP comprises the corresponding components of the SAP Bank Analyzer product, currently implemented in many banks and other financial institutions for integrated financial and risk management;
  • RBC Group has experience working with the integrated Data Model based on Bank Analyzer.
• RBC Group supplies its own Data Model for the banking business, which offers the following advantages:
  • Broader coverage of banking specifics compared to SAP FSDP;
  • Optimization of the Data Model type depending on the purpose of the data processing layer (loading, storage, reporting) in SAP HANA – specifically, using the modern “Data World” Data Model concept for the data storage layer.

In both proposed options, the logical Data Model is supplied in SAP Power Designer format, allowing it to be transferred into the physical SAP HANA model using the same SAP product.