Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a Enterprise Data

Amen to all of that....

I especially hate the fact that you have no method for joining tables without writing programs....

and I too have not seen business content used effectively...

Dave

belindacur_at_yahoo.com (Belinda) wrote in message news:<41af5e48.0402260517.2468f500_at_posting.google.com>...
> David
>
> What you have mentioned is the tip of the iceberg. We were a fairly
> large BW site (with 40 users) the amount of resources we had to throw
> at this BW server for 35 users was a 15 CPU RISC UNIX machine with
> about 14 GB RAM. Imagine this processing grunt and the system would
> still suffer. SAP did considerable tuning but to no avail. Our peers
> in town are running their entire enterprise datawarehouse on Oracle
> with Business Objects as the reporting tool for about 4000 users on
> the similar hardware - guess how interesting it is. Our peer
> enterprise data warehouse on a Oracle 817 database handles 80 million
> records+ uploads overnight with ease with same hardware the BW system
> will be lucky to process even one tenth of that volume overnight.
>
> I will give you another interesting scenario we had cube in SAP BW
> which is a standard business content cube with about 12
> dimensions(characteristics) and 15 measures (key figures) and we had
> partitioned this cube in BW the size of this cube for a measly 1.5
> million records was about 9.5 GB and when we looked at the Oracle
> database for the schema for this table there were 6900 objects of this
> cube about 5500 tables that BW had created for this cube. When we
> dumped this cube into a flat file it was about 530 MB imagine the
> storage efficiency !!!!! of BW. Guess the huge dead workload SAP BW is
> creating to Oracle to update the CBO optimiser statistics for this
> cube and apart each day when we load the cube even though the load is
> a delta load it drops all indexes and rebuilds the indexes against the
> cube creating a shocking amount of database fragmentation and as well
> many times many indexes are degenerate. No wonder our Oracle DBAs were
> always up in the arm complaining the BW developers had built a very
> bad design. The BW developer as no control on all these large number
> of tables created a simple Bex Query generates an average 5 to 10 page
> A4 size SQL outputs the DBAs are bewildered at the query once again
> the BW developer as no control over the SQL generated. No wonder the
> performance is so shocking and sites have to keep throwing tonnes of
> hardware grunt at BW. For a 1.5 million records I can put that kind of
> data and query it more efficiently in a MS Access database.
>
> I hope Bill Inmon should go to BW user sites and look at this
> appalling joke before he comments. What is incredible is for SAP the
> next best thing to sliced bread is SAP BW that is how it is being
> positioned and little do people realise if the design and architecture
> of the system is bad nothing can fix it. SAP has written the data
> mining engine which is nothing but ABAP reports for data mining
> algorithms. What really surprises me is the entire data warehousing
> industry is blind and a silent spectator to this appalling ride the
> industry is being taken. If SAP just resells a Oracle or SQL database
> it would do more justice to customers than its over engineered product
> in BW. Oracle 9i as such powerful features like external tables,
> powerful SQL, PL/SQL, Java, materialised views in the database none of
> this can be used by BW customers they are stuck with ABAP - which is
> convoluted Cobol not a language for ETL. BW uses a powerful database
> like Oracle as a dump file store the application does not even use
> stored procedures most SQL is generated dynamically so BW customers
> can even use a mySQL database and would not get anything better in
> other industry leading database at the way BW or R/3 uses the
> underlying database. Last but not the least all the tables in BW are
> names like
> /BIC/PZVAB0101 - what a good naming convention. Have you ever seen a
> data warehouse against which a data warehouse developer cannot use SQL
> and do test query to check data - the developer cannot even issue a
> SQL query how interesting is it the whole purpose of using a
> relational data base itself is defeated. If you want to look at the
> data in the table write a ABAP program or use a simple table browser.
> Ask a BW developer whether he can issue a SQL Select with a outer join
> on the tables it will be emphatic - CAN'T. This is the 21st century
> data warehouse!!.
>
> I really like the open backend and frontend architecture of PeopleSoft
> datawarehouse architecture. They have made wise decision in using
> robust ETL in Informatica and used open RDBMS based data warehouse and
> robust OLAP and proven reporting layer.
>
> If people are arguing about the justification of business content in
> BW ask how many sites have used business content most business content
> available is not very useful. Whatever is useable try extending it you
> do not even know what tables and columns in R/3 the extractors are
> pulling data from and what tranformation it does on those fields. Try
> extending a extractor (business content) provided by SAP say the table
> is extracting data from TABLEA if you want to pull two more fields in
> TABLEA from the same extractor the only way you can do it is you have
> to wait for SAP to finish extracting the data from TABLEA into a
> internal memory array and then you use the values in the memory array
> to go and relookup at TABLEA on the keys to fetch the remaining fields
> - imagine this. I am yet to see this kind of weird architecture
> anywhere the old network and hierarchical databases were more flexible
> than this - if it all sounds too good to believe go and ask BW
> customers. Just see how many customers are successfully using a 3rd
> party reporting tool on top of BW - we struggled to get Business
> Objects working for more than 4 months on BW and could not get it to
> work. Read the literature i.e., documentation on business content that
> SAP customers get from SAP which is in the following URL to see how
> comprehensive and how much of sense it makes:
>
> http://help.sap.com/saphelp_bw/helpdata/en/75/88c338267ffd06e10000000a11405a/frameset.htm
>
> if customers ask one question to SAP support which says how or why or
> what - the price they have to pay to SAP to get answers is Euro 500 an
> hour. SAP as been one of the worlds best ever marketing exercise than
> anything else.
>
> If the classic paradigm says that people who built datawarehouses with
> open relational databases with a open backend and open frontend and
> with such powerful languages like PL/SQL & Java - 80% of them fail
> imagine the number of failed so called marketing datawarehouses built
> with SAP BW with its closed backend and closed frontend perhaps there
> are hardly any successes. I recall the famous definition of Bill Inmon
> of SAP he called SAP as the data jail, well that is really a
> interesting paradigm from a man who invented data warehouses that he
> also discovered to the world the data jail. It would be interesting if
> Bill Inmon would like to change it now in the current changed
> circumstances ??
>
> Belinda
>
>
> davidr21_at_hotmail.com (Dave) wrote in message news:<8244b794.0402250737.6d3c41e6_at_posting.google.com>...
> > belindacur_at_yahoo.com (Belinda) wrote in message news:<41af5e48.0402190341.5dfae7f4_at_posting.google.com>...
> >
> > Hello -
> >
> > Figured I throw in my 2 cents. I started my career doing SAP
> > implementations, then moved into OLAP (Oracle Express) and data
> > warehousing, then SAP BW, then Oracle Relational, and my current
> > contract is on SAP BW. So I've had some varied experience...
> >
> > First let me say this....I wanted to try working with SAP BW 3.0
> > because it looked like there were a lot of improvements. But now
> > having worked with it, I still don't like it compared to Oracle (for
> > instance.)
> >
> > SAP BW was built on top of the existing R/3 basis layer. Probably a
> > smart move for SAP at the time. They could leverage their existing
> > infrastructure that abstracted the app server from the db, many
> > existing basis management features, the ABAP language was there for
> > development/customization, a horizontal scaling strategy via multiple
> > app servers, intra-instance communication protocols were there, etc. I
> > good idea in concept, maybe a great business decision...when
> > performance is bad, you need to buy more app servers. But a bad idea
> > technically, the SAP infrastructure was built for OLTP not OLAP.
> >
> > I don't know the details of how BW is working under the covers, but
> > I'm sure a lot of it is procedural ABAP code being generated based on
> > user point and clicks. When you are working with bulk data, and trying
> > to do ad-hoc reporting, procedural code abstracted from the db server
> > isn't the best thru-put for these types of queries.
> >
> > Some of the nice things BW gives you are the scheduling and monitoring
> > features, the correction and transport system, the built-in extraction
> > from R/3, and the business content, (but I haven't used the business
> > content that much to tell you the truth), speed of development if you
> > are doing something that FITS WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK (cubes) and is
> > fairly standard, currency and language translation features built in,
> > and new delta tracking features.
> >
> > But this doesn't compare to the frustrating issues...
> > 1.) ODS layer is not a true/flexible DW layer. It is simple relational
> > tables with primary keys with options for secondary indexes. There
> > doesn't seem to be an easy way to create a more normalized data
> > warehouse layer with more complex constraints and relationships
> > between entities.
> > 2.) Ever try adding a column to a table? I think you have to dump the
> > data and reload. So you'll need to write an ABAP program to reload
> > probably or create a new one time load into the new structure from the
> > old one.
> > 3.) What if you need to investigate data issues? Ever try ad-hoc
> > analysis? I haven't found an easy method for joining 2 tables in SAP
> > with my own custom query. I use SE16 to look at individual tables and
> > then dump them and load into MS-Access if I need to do real data
> > quality investigation.
> > 4.) All aggregates for a cube are stored in one physical table. Kind
> > of a weird architecture.
> > 5.) Bex is a cumbersome reporting tool.
> > 6.) Very proprietary. In Oracle, if I create a data warehouse, I could
> > create my own front-end using just JDBC access into the database if I
> > wanted to. No way could I do that with BW.
> >
> > There are probably more....but I need to get back to work. :)
> >
> > Dave
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > If there is anybody out there still looking for a comparison of SAP BW
> > > to SQL Server I would like to let you know we were one of the large
> > > SAP BW sites and having been acutely frustrated with BW we converted
> > > to SQL Server OLAP Services. There is a interesting Whitepaper on the
> > > Microsoft SAP Congress web site created by SAP themselves where they
> > > have benchmarked a SQL Server and OLAP Services running on a 8 way NT
> > > box outperformed SAP BW systems ruuning on 24 way UNIX databases-what
> > > better testimony than from SAP themselves. Further, SAP's findings
> > > were the BW cubes moved to SQL Server OLAP services were 10 times
> > > smaller this shows the appalling BW technology. If you have trouble
> > > finding this benchmark paper let me know.
> > >
> > > After seeing the results of a pilot migration we migrated our entire
> > > SAP BW applications to SQL server OLAP services at that Oracle 9i OLAP
> > > was still not in General availability but if you are thinking of a
> > > alternative now worthwhile to evaluate Oracle 9i OLAP & SQL Server
> > > OLAP services to the white elephant SAP BW. You will discover after
> > > this how many more less than average intelligence customers with less
> > > than average commonsense are running this SAP white elephant called
> > > SAP BW paying fortune to SAP.
> > >
> > > Nigel Pendse as published a very interesting article on SAP BW a
> > > worthwhile article to read if you are already being bled dry by SAP.
> > >
> > > Belinda
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Amanda Jones (amandajonesbc_at_lycos.com)
> > > Subject: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a Enterprise
> > > Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-11 01:37:30 PST
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello All
> > >
> > > My company as asked me to prepare and evaluate between alternative
> > > solutions for data warehousing and one of our major source system to
> > > the data warehouse is SAP R/3 but of course we have other source
> > > systems apart from SAP.
> > >
> > > I am wondering how good is SAP Business Warehouse - BW 30B the latest
> > > version of SAP BW as a solution. I have personally talked to quite a
> > > few customers using SAP BW I could not get a good feedback about the
> > > product from SAP customers. Some of the customers indicated following
> > > issues with SAP BW:
> > > -difficult to use
> > > -went through long implementation cycles
> > > -performance was poor and scalability issues
> > > -maintaining the application was expensive since SAP BW and ABAP
> > > consultants are needed for ongoing maintenance.
> > >
> > > Apart from it we figured out SAP BW 30B does not have any ETL tool in
> > > it with ETL being 70-80% of the data warehousing effort I am bit
> > > sceptical how BW can run without a proper ETL tool. The part that
> > > caused us most concern was the language to extract, transform and load
> > > in SAP BW was ABAP and ABAP is proprietary which would cause us a
> > > major steep cost of ownership even for initial implementation to
> > > ongoing maintenance since our SAP project was not easy to implement
> > > and ABAP programmers are not available for less that $1000/day. So we
> > > would need expensive ABAP programmers to develop extractors for SAP
> > > R/3.
> > >
> > > Next configuring SAP BW needed specialist SAP BW consultants and we
> > > found out good SAP BW consultants were hard to get and getting
> > > consulting help from SAP would cost us - $2000/day. Apart from this
> > > the reporting layer in SAP BW was Microsoft Excel and any programming
> > > of the reporting was all done in ABAP again and for projecting reports
> > > Crystal reports was available but we had to buy a seperate license for
> > > Crystal reports and indications was in addition to SAP BW we had to
> > > buy a CPU based license for Crystal in addition. Since, we have
> > > non-SAP data sources to integrate into the data warehouse we were told
> > > we need a ETL tool like Ascential and we are to buy a seperate license
> > > to buy Ascential
> > > ETL tool once more CPU based licensing. Apart from buying a ETL tool
> > > like Ascential customers who had to build ETL to SAP BW have built
> > > part of the ETL process the extraction layer in Ascential and the
> > > transform and load part was written in ABAP for performance and that
> > > was the only solution for doing transforms and loads was to use ABAP
> > > programming.
> > >
> > > So in all staffing requirements we found for SAP BW to implement a
> > > enterprise data warehouse was we need :
> > > Read the rest of this message... (146 more lines)
> > >
> > > Message 2 in thread
> > > From: Nigel Pendse (nigelp_at_nospam.compuserve.com)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-11 02:18:11 PST
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "Amanda Jones" <amandajonesbc_at_lycos.com> wrote in message
> > > news:d42580f.0301110137.5d6bdcca_at_posting.google.com...
> > > > Hello All
> > > >
> > > > My company as asked me to prepare and evaluate between alternative
> > > > solutions for data warehousing and one of our major source system to
> > > > the data warehouse is SAP R/3 but of course we have other source
> > > > systems apart from SAP.
> > > <snip>
> > >
> > > > Precisely I am wondering why not Oracle 9i OLAP or SQL Server 2000 or
> > > > Oracle/SQL Server with Hyperion Essbase/Cognos. Some of the SAP BW
> > > > consultants claim SAP BW is better than Business Objects, Cognos or
> > > > Hyperion. Can you please throw some light and compare SAP BW to
> > > > 9iOLAP/MicrsoftOLAP2000/Essbase/BO/Cognos & Acta/Informatica and if
> > > > any of you are using any of these alternative solutions can you please
> > > > provide your experiences with these alternatives to SAP BW like Acta
> > > > with Essbase/Oracle/Cognos or SQL Server and if there are any resource
> > > > on the net which outline how to evaluate a data warehouse.
> > >
> > > The OLAP Survey 2 also confirmed the low success rates of SAP BW
> > > users.
> > > Using an index based on eight separate benefits, SAP BW users reported
> > > the
> > > lowest scores among the nine products which had enough respondents to
> > > report. They also had the second lowest achievement of business goals
> > > among
> > > the same group. They also had an above-average rate of reporting
> > > technical
> > > problems (worse than any of the other products on your list).
> > >
> > > But, bizarrely, they also had the greatest loyalty -- presumably, many
> > > SAP
> > > R/3 sites have a fanatical loyalty to the vendor (after having
> > > invested so
> > > much), and despite the poor experiences of BW, are reluctant to
> > > consider
> > > third party alternatives, even though *all* the third party
> > > alternatives
> > > perform better.
> > >
> > > The same survey found that SAP BW users were the least likely to have
> > > performed a competitive product evaluation of all (only 24% of the BW
> > > sites
> > > surveyed had done this, against an average of 50%). This suggests that
> > > if
> > > people actually take the trouble to do what you're doing, they soon
> > > discover
> > > better alternatives and are able to achieve better results, more
> > > quickly and
> > > at lower cost. Largely, it's people who just assume BW "must be good
> > > because
> > > it's from SAP" who buy it, and then find it doesn't deliver. Of
> > > course, that
> > > same group probably don't realize how much better off they could have
> > > been
> > > if they'd bought something else.
> > >
> > > Because there are so many well-heeled R/3 sites, you'll find that all
> > > the
> > > independent BI vendors have put a lot of effort into ensuring that
> > > they can
> > > work well with R/3. Of the ones on your list, probably the only one
> > > not to
> > > consider at this stage is 9i OLAP, which is still somewhat unfinished.
> > > It
> > > may be good in a year or so, but currently has no apps available, and
> > > few
> > > tools. Consequently, there are currently very few deployments of it.
> > >
> > > Nigel Pendse
> > > OLAP Solutions
> > > http://www.olapreport.com
> > > http://www.survey.com/products/olap2/
> > > Message 3 in thread
> > > From: DA Morgan (damorgan_at_exesolutions.com)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-11 11:06:13 PST
> > >
> > >
> > > Amanda Jones wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hello All
> > > >
> > > > My company as asked me to prepare and evaluate between alternative
> > > > solutions for data warehousing and one of our major source system to
> > > > the data warehouse is SAP R/3 but of course we have other source
> > > > systems apart from SAP.
> > > >
> > > > I am wondering how good is SAP Business Warehouse - BW 30B the latest
> > > > version of SAP BW as a solution. I have personally talked to quite a
> > > > few customers using SAP BW I could not get a good feedback about the
> > > > product from SAP customers. Some of the customers indicated following
> > > > issues with SAP BW:
> > > > -difficult to use
> > > > -went through long implementation cycles
> > > > -performance was poor and scalability issues
> > > > -maintaining the application was expensive since SAP BW and ABAP
> > > > consultants are needed for ongoing maintenance.
> > > >
> > > > Apart from it we figured out SAP BW 30B does not have any ETL tool in
> > > > it with ETL being 70-80% of the data warehousing effort I am bit
> > > > sceptical how BW can run without a proper ETL tool. The part that
> > > > caused us most concern was the language to extract, transform and load
> > > > in SAP BW was ABAP and ABAP is proprietary which would cause us a
> > > > major steep cost of ownership even for initial implementation to
> > > > ongoing maintenance since our SAP project was not easy to implement
> > > > and ABAP programmers are not available for less that $1000/day. So we
> > > > would need expensive ABAP programmers to develop extractors for SAP
> > > > R/3.
> > > >
> > > > Next configuring SAP BW needed specialist SAP BW consultants and we
> > > > found out good SAP BW consultants were hard to get and getting
> > > > consulting help from SAP would cost us - $2000/day. Apart from this
> > > > the reporting layer in SAP BW was Microsoft Excel and any programming
> > > > of the reporting was all done in ABAP again and for projecting reports
> > > > Crystal reports was available but we had to buy a seperate license for
> > > > Crystal reports and indications was in addition to SAP BW we had to
> > > > buy a CPU based license for Crystal in addition. Since, we have
> > > > non-SAP data sources to integrate into the data warehouse we were told
> > > > we need a ETL tool like Ascential and we are to buy a seperate license
> > > > to buy Ascential
> > > > ETL tool once more CPU based licensing. Apart from buying a ETL tool
> > > > like Ascential customers who had to build ETL to SAP BW have built
> > > > part of the ETL process the extraction layer in Ascential and the
> > > > transform and load part was written in ABAP for performance and that
> > > > was the only solution for doing transforms and loads was to use ABAP
> > > > programming.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Read the rest of this message... (161 more lines)
> > >
> > > Message 4 in thread
> > > From: timgale (timgale_at_rogers.com)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-14 14:59:01 PST
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > My background is a little different having been a Cognos reseller for
> > > the
> > > past 6 years. I am lead to believe by the guru's that be that Cognos
> > > has a
> > > few solutions for SAP and/or SAP BW...
> > >
> > > You can buy and use Cognos "headstarts" for SAP BW which will give
> > > users all
> > > the benefits of the Cognos client against SAP's Data Warehouse.
> > > However, I
> > > believe that the user can not perform OLAP disconnected.
> > >
> > > You can use Cognos against the info cubes in BW but you lose your ad
> > > hoc
> > > query and drill through capabilities. All you get is OLAP. Performance
> > > may
> > > also be an issue as PowerPlay is connecting through an odbc type
> > > interface
> > > (ODBO?) which is yet another point of failure. Also, you then are
> > > dependant
> > > on both vendors for connectivity through various releases.
> > >
> > > You can purchase analytical applications for SAP from Cognos which
> > > uses
> > > Cognos Decision Stream for ETL (solves your multiple data sources
> > > problem)
> > > and takes advantage of Decision Stream functionality for slowly
> > > changing
> > > dimensions, conforming dimensions, etc. Also, there is a TON of
> > > business
> > > content for Inventory, Procurement, Sales, AR, GL, and AP. It's an end
> > > to
> > > end Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence offering that is quick to
> > > implement. Having said all that, I've tried to convince many SAP shops
> > > of
> > > the above and they are extremely loyal to the ERP vendor. I'm not sure
> > > why.
> > > Typically an ERP vendor's sales force is plugged into the executive
> > > buyers
> > > which helps set an ERP agenda despite a favourable Cognos IT
> > > recommendation.
> > > Also note that Cognos was a licensed reseller for ACTA a few years ago
> > > so
> > > presumably they learned a thing or two about SAP data sources.
> > >
> > > Cognos resources are available in most major cities either from Cognos
> > > or
> > > through a systems integrator. Also, Cognos resources are available on
> > > a
> > > contract/permanent basis (at least in Toronto) through most agencies
> > > or on
> > > the open market.
> > >
> > > Personally, I think Cognos Analytical Applications are the best bet
> > > but I've
> > > been programmed to think that way:-)
> > >
> > > Hope that information is helpful.
> > >
> > > Cheers!
> > > Tim
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > "Amanda Jones" <amandajonesbc_at_lycos.com> wrote in message
> > > news:d42580f.0301110137.5d6bdcca_at_posting.google.com...
> > > > Hello All
> > > >
> > > > My company as asked me to prepare and evaluate between alternative
> > > > solutions for data warehousing and one of our major source system to
> > > > the data warehouse is SAP R/3 but of course we have other source
> > >
> > > Read the rest of this message... (194 more lines)
> > >
> > > Message 5 in thread
> > > From: Ihre_Frage (Ihre_Frage_at_yahoo.de)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-16 09:25:31 PST
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Hello Amanda,
> > >
> > > having lately had a look on all major multidimensional and relational
> > > OLAP systems I can just agree to all the statements regarding BW:
> > >
> > > > > -difficult to use
> > > > > -went through long implementation cycles
> > > > > -performance was poor and scalability issues
> > > > > -maintaining the application was expensive since SAP BW and ABAP
> > > > > consultants are needed for ongoing maintenance.
> > >
> > > you stated. At the moment there are only three reasons to implement
> > > SAP BW: 1. Your source data originates from SAP R/3 (at least 85 %).
> > > 2. Your users only know SAP R/3 reporting and are not "spoiled" by
> > > front ends from Cognos, Hyperion, Oracle, etc. or there are mainly (3)
> > > users receiving reports delivered by SAP's Business Explorer Web
> > > Application Builder (which is quite good).
> > >
> > > Why 1? Because SAP BW offers predefined extractors to extract data
> > > from R/3. Be careful though since any additionaly created field in R/3
> > > won't be covered by the extractors and need to be created manually. If
> > > you won't employ BW there will be no way around an ETL tool and
> > > consultants who know exactly where and how they get the data from
> > > (using routines that use the R/3 application by creating ABAP code
> > > through the ETL tool). The question is where you want to put the
> > > effort: In data extraction from R/3 or in maintaining your warehouse
> > > application server, the latter called BW. The options you stated with
> > > the ETL tools and their analytical apps form one scenario. Using the
> > > ETL tool, filling a database and employing separate front end tools is
> > > another. You are also comparing multidimensional and relational
> > > databases: In my oppinion you should see if you need the first or the
> > > latter to meet your requirements. This depends largely on the data
> > > volumes you want to handle. Data volume, #users and your required
> > > performance influence the decision which system and what platform to
> > > use. "Neutral" warehouse vendors like SAS, IBM, Microsoft or Oracle
> > > could do. Some of them even have "ETL" functionality built in which is
> > > quite good, like SAS or Oracle.
> > >
> > > Regarding the front ends: There are indeed 3rd party front ends
> > > available for BW. The problem is just that the ODBO implementation is
> > > very often different from SAP's (although they have certified
> > > interfaces). OLAP BAPI gives less hazzles but only two vendors are
> > > certified. It is not correct though, that programming reports in BW
> > > needs any ABAP at all. There is a query builder you can use to create
> > > the report you want (in Excel or for the Web). The use of Business
> > > Explorer Analyzer is just not as comfortable than using Hyperions
> > > Excel Add-in or other vendors'.
> > >
> > > > > RDBMS and the way SAP BW implementes aggregates is not like Oracle's
> > >
> > > Read the rest of this message... (62 more lines)
> > >
> > > Message 6 in thread
> > > From: Andreas Wessner (canttell_at_yahoo.de)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-16 13:59:17 PST
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Amanda, Tim,
> > >
> > > > You can buy and use Cognos "headstarts" for SAP BW which will give users all
> > > > the benefits of the Cognos client against SAP's Data Warehouse. However, I
> > > > believe that the user can not perform OLAP disconnected.
> > >
> > > Headstart can be used to connect Impromptu against the physical tables
> > > of
> > > SAP BW. This means just database security, no application security.
> > > Powerplay facilitates the OLE DB for OLAP (ODBO) interface SAP
> > > implements.
> > > Unfortunately in the past (BW 2.1 to 3.0A) SAP's ODBO interface
> > > experienced
> > > slight "improvements" by SAP resulting in 3rd party software (also
> > > Powerplay) not working with SAP BW any more. I wouldn't therefore
> > > recommend
> > > patching BW (and you have to apply many patches) without the 3rd party
> > > vendors' assurance that his software runs with the new SAP BW patch.
> > >
> > > You wonder why SAP customers are loyal? I assume that they think
> > > stucking
> > > with the "market leader" is a good thing - SAP products are self
> > > running
> > > although they are far from optimality. Secondly have you ever tried to
> > > image
> > > what you would tell your boss if you voted for a software costing your
> > > company a fortune and realizing half a year later that you made a
> > > mistake?
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > A.
> > > Message 7 in thread
> > > From: Nigel Pendse (nigelp_at_nospam.compuserve.com)
> > > Subject: Re: SAP BW compared to Essbase/SQLServer/Oracle as a
> > > Enterprise Data Warehouse & OLAP application
> > >
> > >
> > > View this article only
> > > Newsgroups: comp.databases.olap, comp.databases.oracle.marketplace,
> > > comp.databases.oracle.server, microsoft.public.sqlserver.datawarehouse
> > > Date: 2003-01-16 14:31:54 PST
> > >
> > >
> > > "Andreas Wessner" <canttell_at_yahoo.de> wrote in message
> > > news:b079vj$mgcun$2_at_ID-25239.news.dfncis.de...
> > > > You wonder why SAP customers are loyal? I assume that they think stucking
> > > > with the "market leader" is a good thing - SAP products are self running
> > > > although they are far from optimality. Secondly have you ever tried to image
> > > > what you would tell your boss if you voted for a software costing your
> > > > company a fortune and realizing half a year later that you made a mistake?
> > >
> > > Indeed so, but many sites assume that SAP BW must, by definition, be
> > > better
> > > integrated with R/3 than third party products are, which is not
> > > necessarily
> > > true. There's also a very long history of ERP vendors (or ledger
> > > vendors, as
> > > they used to be called) doing a poor job with end-user business
> > > applications. Companies like Hyperion, Cognos, Business Objects,
> > > Comshare,
> > > etc have long derived a significant part of their business from
> > > providing
> > > the flexible analysis and reporting that was promised but not
> > > delivered by
> > > the supplier of the ledgers. Oracle tried to overcome this by buying
> > > the
> > > Express business from IRI, and marketing OFA as the standard front-end
> > > for
> > > Oracle Financials, but this product has been fading.
> > >
> > > But, as you say, once a company has spent tens of millions to
> > > implement SAP,
> > > it's very hard for them to accept that they then need to buy a third
> > > party
> > > product from a smaller vendor to make the most of it.
> > >
> > > Nigel Pendse
> > > OLAP Solutions
> > > http://www.olapreport.com
Received on Fri Feb 27 2004 - 08:55:20 CST