SAP 1

What is SAP

SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software is central application which covers Sales and Distribution (SAP SD), Production Planning (SAP PP), Financials (SAP FI), Human Capital Management (SAP HCM) and many more.

SAP ERP is a transactional system with data being written to its database frequently in a productive business environment.

Analytical operations are usually performed in SAP BW or HANA models.

SAP BW (Business Warehouse) - data warehouses (DW) are applications on a separate database that take data from source systems, then using ETL (Extraction, Transformation, Loading) process cleanse it, apply business logic and optimally store it within themselves for faster access from reports. ETL process is used to more quickly access KPIs (Key Performance Indicators - are being measured across time frames and used for measuring companies to make forecast and decisions) of the company.

Before SAP BW on HANA arrived, one of the biggest downfalls of SAP BW was that there were too many layers of redundant data from pre-cleansing, cleansing and multiple layers of transforming data. All this inherent latency (time taken for data to reach from source to reporting layer) made it a bulky truck which always got the job done but was never meant for a street race. Then came SAP HANA – SAP’s new revolutionary database and then the idea to take the BW application off the traditional databases and put it on top of HANA.

And now BW on HANA is BW4/HANA

SAP flow is as follows:
1) ERP
2) Cleansing and homogenization of data
3) BI
4) from BI to Business Strategy
5) ERP