Overview

SAP customers will be able to integrate their SAP BW data with SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) easily with a new tool, planned to be released soon: the BW Data Product Generator (short BW DPG). The BW DPG allows you to easily replicate your BW InfoProvider data to the managed Object store (HDLFS) of the Datasphere tenant of your BDC system for further usage in data product generation and consumption in analytical/planning scenarios on top of the Datasphere/SAC stack and/or sharing with Databricks and other consumers. This replication can be done as onetime snapshot, using regular re-loads or with incremental delta updates, if the underlying BW InfoProviders support delta. It will be available for SAP BW 7.5 on HANA and SAP BW/4HANA systems subscribed as part of BDC and RISE.

Details

How to install the BW DPG and setup your BW system as part of the BDC landscape will be rolled out in a different channel (see SAP Note 3590400). Here we assume that this is already done and the connection between the BW system and the BDC landscape is created.

The BW DPG comes with an own editor in BW (SAP GUI in SAP BW and a Fiori UI in BW/4HANA). Here you start by creating a so-called subscription. For a subscription you choose the InfoProviders that should be part of this replication package. You can select the relevant fields of the InfoProviders that should be replicated and can apply filter conditions to reduce the data to be transferred.

You can add the subscription as a process to a process chain, e.g. to orchestrate the update of the data in BDC right after the data has been updated in your BW system or to do the replication at a time of little load in your BW system to minimize any impact.

For each InfoProvider in a subscription a LocalTable (File) is created in a dedicated BW space of the Datasphere tenant. The data of the InfoProvider is materialized in this LocalTable (File) every time the subscription is executed.

The LocalTable (File) contains the basic metadata of the InfoProvider like data types, descriptions and field names. It can now be used as any LocalTable in Datasphere for further modeling. And you can use the LocalTables and easily create a DataProduct in the Datasphere Data Sharing Cockpit.  

Usage Scenarios

New consumption

The main use case for the BW DPG is to quickly enable new consumption scenarios based on your BW data. Most prominent in the context of BDC is of course the zero-copy consumption of your BW data in Databricks. With a Data Product on top of the LocalTable (File) you can share the Delta Table of the Local Table (File) via DeltaShare with Databricks allowing e.g. machine learning algorithms to be executed without moving the data outside of your BDC landscape.

Using the LocalTable (File) for analytic consumption is also possible. The LocalTable (File) in the BW space is then simply shared to a consumption space in Datasphere where you build Views and Analytic Models on top of them combining BW data and data coming from other sources including SAP-managed DataProducts. At query runtime the data is accessed via HANA Cloud SQL-on-file directly in the Objectstore.

BW scenario replacement

While the main use case for the BW DPG clearly is the quick and easy creation of new consumption scenarios on BW data, the BW DPG can also be leveraged as part of the overall BW Modernization path and help to move certain scenarios from BW to Datasphere. When it comes to replacing BW scenarios customers should always first look at the availability (and roadmap) of SAP-managed Data Products and SAP Apps that can replace this out-of-the-box. For legacy scenarios in your BW system, where the data is no longer changing and not needed for consumption in the BW stack, you can use the BW DPG to move this data to BDC-Datasphere and then delete it in your BW system. The copy in Datasphere Objectstore becomes the only source should the data be needed again.  

Should you plan to replace a complete data flow in BW with the data integration capabilities of Datasphere the BW DPG can also be used to create the necessary persistency objects (LocalTable(File)) and do the initial load of the historic data. The new data flows in Datasphere would then combine the data of the BW DPG and the recent data.   

Supported InfoProvider types

The following BW InfoProviders can be used in a subscription for the BW DPG:

Base Providers: InfoCubes, Datastore Objects (Classic and Advanced), InfoObjects (Masterdata)Composite Provider, MultiProviderQueries: Query-as-InfoProvider

Availability

The BW part of the BW Data Product Generator will be available as a SAP Note Transport-based Correction Instruction (TCI) that can be installed on the following BW releases and product versions:

SAP BW 7.50 SP24 or higher SAP BW/4HANA 2021 SP4 or higher

For the avoidance of doubt, the usage of DPG is only permitted for ‘SAP Business Warehouse private cloud edition’ systems deployed in SAP’s private cloud as stand-alone installations.

The parts of the end2end flow in Datasphere are planned (!) to be available as follows

SAP Datasphere Wave 8: data can be loaded to Datasphere using the new BW tool, the LocalTable(File) can be consumed in analytic scenarios SAP Datasphere Wave 11: the LocalTable(File) can be used to create a Data Product which can be shared to Databricks

Possible future enhancements  

Mass object selection for complete scenarios (e.g. an InfoProvider and all its masterdata)InfoArea hierarchy as folder structure in the BW spaceSupport of multiple BW spaces as target (to separate data via spaces)BW Process Chain and Datasphere Task Chain integration

Please note that future items may be subject to change.

​ OverviewSAP customers will be able to integrate their SAP BW data with SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) easily with a new tool, planned to be released soon: the BW Data Product Generator (short BW DPG). The BW DPG allows you to easily replicate your BW InfoProvider data to the managed Object store (HDLFS) of the Datasphere tenant of your BDC system for further usage in data product generation and consumption in analytical/planning scenarios on top of the Datasphere/SAC stack and/or sharing with Databricks and other consumers. This replication can be done as onetime snapshot, using regular re-loads or with incremental delta updates, if the underlying BW InfoProviders support delta. It will be available for SAP BW 7.5 on HANA and SAP BW/4HANA systems subscribed as part of BDC and RISE. DetailsHow to install the BW DPG and setup your BW system as part of the BDC landscape will be rolled out in a different channel (see SAP Note 3590400). Here we assume that this is already done and the connection between the BW system and the BDC landscape is created. The BW DPG comes with an own editor in BW (SAP GUI in SAP BW and a Fiori UI in BW/4HANA). Here you start by creating a so-called subscription. For a subscription you choose the InfoProviders that should be part of this replication package. You can select the relevant fields of the InfoProviders that should be replicated and can apply filter conditions to reduce the data to be transferred. You can add the subscription as a process to a process chain, e.g. to orchestrate the update of the data in BDC right after the data has been updated in your BW system or to do the replication at a time of little load in your BW system to minimize any impact. For each InfoProvider in a subscription a LocalTable (File) is created in a dedicated BW space of the Datasphere tenant. The data of the InfoProvider is materialized in this LocalTable (File) every time the subscription is executed. The LocalTable (File) contains the basic metadata of the InfoProvider like data types, descriptions and field names. It can now be used as any LocalTable in Datasphere for further modeling. And you can use the LocalTables and easily create a DataProduct in the Datasphere Data Sharing Cockpit.    Usage Scenarios New consumptionThe main use case for the BW DPG is to quickly enable new consumption scenarios based on your BW data. Most prominent in the context of BDC is of course the zero-copy consumption of your BW data in Databricks. With a Data Product on top of the LocalTable (File) you can share the Delta Table of the Local Table (File) via DeltaShare with Databricks allowing e.g. machine learning algorithms to be executed without moving the data outside of your BDC landscape. Using the LocalTable (File) for analytic consumption is also possible. The LocalTable (File) in the BW space is then simply shared to a consumption space in Datasphere where you build Views and Analytic Models on top of them combining BW data and data coming from other sources including SAP-managed DataProducts. At query runtime the data is accessed via HANA Cloud SQL-on-file directly in the Objectstore. BW scenario replacementWhile the main use case for the BW DPG clearly is the quick and easy creation of new consumption scenarios on BW data, the BW DPG can also be leveraged as part of the overall BW Modernization path and help to move certain scenarios from BW to Datasphere. When it comes to replacing BW scenarios customers should always first look at the availability (and roadmap) of SAP-managed Data Products and SAP Apps that can replace this out-of-the-box. For legacy scenarios in your BW system, where the data is no longer changing and not needed for consumption in the BW stack, you can use the BW DPG to move this data to BDC-Datasphere and then delete it in your BW system. The copy in Datasphere Objectstore becomes the only source should the data be needed again.  Should you plan to replace a complete data flow in BW with the data integration capabilities of Datasphere the BW DPG can also be used to create the necessary persistency objects (LocalTable(File)) and do the initial load of the historic data. The new data flows in Datasphere would then combine the data of the BW DPG and the recent data.    Supported InfoProvider typesThe following BW InfoProviders can be used in a subscription for the BW DPG: Base Providers: InfoCubes, Datastore Objects (Classic and Advanced), InfoObjects (Masterdata)Composite Provider, MultiProviderQueries: Query-as-InfoProvider  AvailabilityThe BW part of the BW Data Product Generator will be available as a SAP Note Transport-based Correction Instruction (TCI) that can be installed on the following BW releases and product versions: SAP BW 7.50 SP24 or higher SAP BW/4HANA 2021 SP4 or higher For the avoidance of doubt, the usage of DPG is only permitted for ‘SAP Business Warehouse private cloud edition’ systems deployed in SAP’s private cloud as stand-alone installations.The parts of the end2end flow in Datasphere are planned (!) to be available as followsSAP Datasphere Wave 8: data can be loaded to Datasphere using the new BW tool, the LocalTable(File) can be consumed in analytic scenarios SAP Datasphere Wave 11: the LocalTable(File) can be used to create a Data Product which can be shared to Databricks Possible future enhancements  Mass object selection for complete scenarios (e.g. an InfoProvider and all its masterdata)InfoArea hierarchy as folder structure in the BW spaceSupport of multiple BW spaces as target (to separate data via spaces)BW Process Chain and Datasphere Task Chain integrationPlease note that future items may be subject to change.   Read More Technology Blogs by SAP articles 

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