Challenges Faced in BW 3.X and Resolutions in BI 7.X Environment

[Former Member]

Challenges faced in 3.x environment

• Users rely on BW as a source for data downloads not as a BI tool spawning offline processes and inconsistencies in metrics.
• Performance issues and troubleshooting takes up most of the team’s time resulting in real enhancements being few and far in between.
• Small changes to a cube generally requires a major reload effort causing long downtimes.
• Some users do not have faith in the accuracy of the data.
• Formatted reports developed using 3rd party tools takes long time to run.
• Frequent updates to data (sub day/ real time) needed. BW is a monster and is slow to respond.
• Unable to produce a report on intersecting data between two infocubes.

Resolution in BI 7.X Environment

• Excel integration/Cell based functionality helps create efficient and exact reports per user specifications drastically reducing need for offline processes.
• BI Accelerator promises quantum leap in query performance and reduces maintenance effort.
• Remodeling and repartioning help reduce downtime for critical data cubes.
• Reconciliation data sources are a great resource for building audit applications which will improve user confidence in the BI system.
• Improved report output capabilities include fixed format reporting and printing from the Web or output to PDF.
• NW7.x now support real time data acquisition and reporting.
• Enhanced infoset to integrate infoproviders to a JOIN condition.