Information Integration

Information Integration means to bring information from different locations and have it
make sense in the context what a user do everyday.

Information integration provides your company with both structured and unstructured
information that is consistent and accessible: Users have constant access to consistent
information, no matter where it is stored.

In SAP NetWeaver the Information Integration is achieved through Business Intelligence,

Knowledge Management and Master Data Management.

1. Business Intelligence (BI)

Business intelligence refers to skills, technologies, applications and practices used to help
a business acquire a better understanding of its commercial context. BI technologies
provide historical, current, and predictive views of business operations.

Business Intelligence in SAP NetWeaver provides:

• Data Warehousing
• Business Intelligence (BI) Platform
• Business Intelligence Suite (BI Explorer)
• Development Technologies

Data Warehousing

Data warehousing forms the basis of BI solution that allows you to convert data into
valuable information. Integrated and company-specific data warehousing provides
decision makers in your company with the information and knowledge they need to
define goal-oriented measures to ensure the success of the company. Data warehousing in
BI includes the following functions, which you can apply to data from any source (SAP
or non-SAP) and of any age (historic or current):

 Integration (Data Staging from Source Systems)

 Transformation
 Consolidation
 Cleanup
 Storage
 Staging for analysis and interpretation

Business Intelligence Platform

The Business Intelligence platform serves as a technological infrastructure and offers
various analytical technologies and functions in the context of the Analytic Engine. The
Analytic Engine provides OLAP functions.

Business Intelligence Suite

The SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence Suite, the Business Explorer (BEx), provides
flexible reporting and analysis tools for strategic analyses and decision-making support
within a business. These tools include query, reporting, and analysis functions.

Development Technologies

Development Technologies involves:

BI and Java SDK: to create analytical applications with which you access both
multidimensional (OLAP) and tabular (OLTP) data. BI Java Connectors, a group of four
JCA-enabled (J2EE Connector Architecture) resource adapters, implement the BI Java
SDK APIs and allow you to connect applications that you have created with the SDK to
various data sources.

Open Analysis Interfaces: make various interfaces available for connecting front-end
tools from third-party providers.

Web Design API: allows implementing highly individual scenarios and demanding
applications with customer-defined interface elements.

The following graphic provides an overview of the architecture of the SAP BI in a

heterogeneous system infrastructure.
 The three level architecture of the SAP BI

Data Sources: It comprises the source systems. SAP provides extraction mechanisms for
production data from SAP systems. For non-SAP system, there are the BAPI interface,
the interfaces for accessing relational database systems and multi-dimensional
applications and an interface for processing XML files. You can also load data from flat
files.

Persistent Storage Area: It is entry layer …..AP NetWeaver BI can connect any data
sources using various interfaces that are aligned with the origin and format of the data.
This makes it possible to load the data into the entry layer, the Persistent Staging Area.

Info Provider: Stores the data prepared by one or more layers of data warehouse so it can
be used for a specific purpose.

Master Data: Master data enriches the data models by delivering information such as
texts, attributes, and hierarchies.

Virtual Providers: Used to access the source data directly from the SAP NetWeaver BI
system.
Analytic Engine: provides methods and services for analysis and planning as well as
generic services such as caching and security.

Planning Modeler: used to define models that allow data to be entered and changed in
the scope of business planning.

BEx Query Designer: used to generate views of the InfoProvider data that are optimized
for analysis or planning purposes. These views are called queries and form the basis for
analysis, planning, and reporting.

Meta Data & Documents: used to document data and objects in SAP NetWeaver BI.

Business Explorer Suite (BEx): The tools of BEex (Web Analyzer etc.) can be used to
define the display of the query data. The tools support the creation of Web-based and
Microsoft Excel-based applications for analysis, planning, and reporting.

Visual Composer: is used to create Web-based analytical applications. This enables you
to provide users with the data from the SAP NetWeaver BI system together with data
from other systems in composite applications.

Information Broadcasting: is used to broadcast the BI applications you created using the
BEx tools by e-mail or to the SAP NetWeaver portal. You can also integrate content from
BI into the SAP NetWeaver portal using roles or iViews.

SAP NetWeaver BI has an open architecture. This allows the integration of external, non-
SAP sources, the broadcasting of BI data to downstream systems, and the moving of data
to near-line storages to decrease the volume of data in InfoProviders. Third-party tools
for analysis and reporting can also be connected using the open analysis interfaces
ODBO (OLE DB for OLAP) and XMLA (XML for Analysis).

2. Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management enables users to provide a central, role-specific point of entry to

unstructured information from various data sources. This unstructured information can
exist in different formats such as text documents, presentations, or HTML files. Workers
in an organization can access information from different source such as file servers, their
intranet, or the World Wide Web. The Knowledge Management capabilities support you
in structuring information and making it available to the correct target audience.

Knowledge Management is a part of the SAP NetWeaver usage type Enterprise Portal.
Applications in other SAP NetWeaver usage types, for example, Business Intelligence
can be linked to Knowledge Management. The entire functional scope and configuration
of the Knowledge Management capabilities are available in portal iViews.

Knowledge Management comprises the following functions:

  Navigation in folders
 Knowledge Management services
 Document creation and publishing
 Search (finds documents in all integrated repositories)
 Integration of repositories (Unstructured information is stored in various types of
repository such as file servers or document management systems)
 Taxonomies and classification (Taxonomy is a hierarchical structure of categories
in which you classify documents according to content, organizational, or other
criteria)

The following figure shows the Knowledge Management architecture.

Knowledge Management Architecture

Search and Classification (TREX): enables various types of search and classification
operations.

Repository Framework: the physical storage location for documents. It provides a range
of basic functions for documents and folders. It enables the integration of documents into
a virtual hierarchy and a namespace. The documents can be stored on different systems
(Windows, WebDAV (set of extensions to the HTTP that allows users to edit and manage
files collaboratively on remote WWW servers.), or HTTP). Repository managers are used
to access these systems.
Knowledge Management Services: responsible for many tasks required by all repository
managers of applications. Using the index management service, the SAP NetWeaver
stand-alone engine Search and Classification (TREX) accesses the content of the
connected repositories through the repository framework to index, classify, and search
these. It also allow you to create subscription, caches, or properties.

Knowledge Management Applications: used to access documents and administration

tools. You can use form-based and time-dependent publishing if you want to publish
documents. You use the XML Forms Builder for the former. This allows you to create
XML forms using a graphical user interface. You can use these forms to create structured
documents. You use the Navigation iView to navigate in repositories and folders, find the
documents you need, open them, and edit them with the appropriate program. In addition,
you can use the search to find documents.

3. Master Data Management

Master Data Management (MDM) enables to consolidate master data from your entire
system landscape and make it available in all your systems. It improves the accuracy of
the enterprise-wide data that you use to carry out business analytics and reporting and, in
turn, helps you to improve the accuracy and efficacy of your key business decisions.

Master data is the core data of an enterprise that exists independently of specific business
transactions and is referenced in business transactions. Master data represents business
objects rather than business transactions and is rarely changed over a long period of time.
The following objects are among a company’s most important master data objects:

• Product
• Customer
• Supplier
• Employee

One must be aware of that there are several different views on master data. MDM system
architecture would consist of a single central MDM server connected to client systems
through SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI) using XML documents.

There are six standard implementation scenarios:

Master Data Consolidation: In this scenario, users exercise MDM to collect master data
from several systems at a central location, detect and clean up duplicate and identical
objects, and manage the local object keys for cross-system communication. With this
consolidated data, users can access the information they need to perform company-wide
analyses and consolidated reporting.

Master Data Harmonization: This scenario enhances the Master Data Consolidation
scenario by forwarding the consolidated master data information to all connected, remote
systems, thus depositing unified, high-quality data in heterogeneous system landscapes.
With this scenario, you can synchronize globally relevant data across your system
landscape. For example, you can assign the same address to all occurrences of a
particular customer.

Central Master Data Management: The Central Master Data Management scenario
focuses on creation and maintenance of data in the central data repository. It then
distributes the newly created data to the connected application systems where it can be
complemented with locally relevant information.

Rich Product Content Management: This scenario is intended for the product
information management (PIM) market, as it offers many functions for managing product
data and corresponding image files centrally via MDM. It can also be used to prepare for
publishing product catalogs, either in electronic Web format or in print.

Customer Data Integration: The Customer Data Integration scenario lets you harmonize
customer master data records across heterogeneous systems.

Global Data Synchronization: Through the Global Data Synchronization industry

scenario, reunified object information is synchronized with global data pools, such as
1Sync, in a standard industrial format, then provided to trading partners.

The general structure of the SAP MDM is shown in the following figure.
 SAP MDM Building Blocks

SAP Exchange Infrastructure (SAP XI): enables to connect systems from different
vendors (non-SAP and SAP) in different versions and implemented in different
programming languages (Java, ABAP, and so on) to each other. SAP XI is based on an
open architecture, uses open standards (in particular those from the XML and Java
environments) and offers those services that are essential in a heterogeneous and complex
system landscape.

Content Integrator: Takes over data and starts to find duplicates, bad data and any other
relationships based on rules that you specify. As content integrator finds duplicates, it
creates ID mappings.

Master Data Server: The cleaned data arrives in Master Data Server, which then uses
three layers to store and manipulate it:

• Object Layer is repository for master data. For example, if ten customer records
exist in all the distributed systems, the Object Layer has to have a place to store
every field from all of them.
• Service Layer: is like a tool box for manipulating and managing master data.
Tools for creating, changing and monitoring the status of objects, quires, defining
and executing workflows etc.
• Provisioning Layer: conceives how data is distributed by using SAP XI. This
layer performs such functions as allowing distributed systems to subscribe to
certain data in the central repository so that any changes there flow out to them.

MDM Adapter: accepts data from all the distributed heterogeneous sources and
normalizes it into a standard format. It also interacts with search and other functions of
the distributed systems.

SAP MDM also uses SAP Enterprise Portal for its user interface and SAP BI for data
analysis.