What is new in the Semantic Layer and the Information Design Tool BI4.1 – Part 1
Pierpaolo Vezzosi provided this ASUG webcast earlier this month. Note this is only part 1.
BI4.1 is not available yet so anything presented is subject to change
Agenda:
- BI4.1 Release
- What is new in Semantic Layer and Information Design Tool
- Question & Answer
The safe harbor statement applies, that anything forward looking is subject to change and the usual legal disclaimer applies.
BI4.1 Release
Figure 1: Source: SAP
Figure 1 shows the high level time line.
BI4.1 is scheduled for ramp-up in May 2013.
Ramp-up is for selected customers who put it in production and SAP works on fixes.
Final GA is based on quality of the product.
SAP projects by end of July/August it might be GA (TBD)
SP1 with 4.1 is also expected by July/August
Figure 2: Source: SAP
Figure 2 shows the BI4.1 install packages.
BI 4.1 is available as a full install and update install.
What is new in Semantic Layer and Information Design Tool
Figure 3: Source: SAP
Pierpaolo says there is a lot of new functionality in BI4.1 and cannot cover everything in this release. Figure 3 shows new features.
He said they will have a “What’s New” document available on SCN.
New functionality:
Data federation
Agnostic data sources support
SAP data sources support (next blog)
SDK (next blog)
Usability
Data federation
Figure 4: Source: SAP
New concept is federation layer. Figure 4 shows there is a new Federation Layer editor in IDT
Figure 5: Source: SAP
Figure 5 shows a data foundation with HANA table in blue (Resort) and a Teradata table in green.
This is a multi-source data foundation
Figure 5 at the bottom shows a new data federation layer tab.
Figure 6: Source: SAP
Figure 6 shows the result of opening the Federation Layer tab. When you open the Federation Layer tab you are able to build new federated tables, which are virtual tables.
Figure 7: Source: SAP
After creating the federated table, you can insert into the Data Foundation and use it like any other table.
Figure 8: Source: SAP
Figure 8 shows the BI4.1 support for new relational data sources. This includes support for Hadoop Hive on the Amazon cloud.
Figure 9: Source: SAP
Figure 9 shows you can connect to an OData provider by supplying an http link.
Figure 10: Source: SAP
Figure 10 shows BI4.1 is able to expose OData as a relational data source and then you can build universes on it.
Figure 11: Source: SAP
Figure 11 shows query stripping for Web Intelligence in 4.1 against any kind of data source – it helps performance to bring back only the data you need.
To be continued
Hi Tammy,
Thank you a lot for information.
How about - concept of common objects (parameters, queries, prompts and etc).
Create in IDT, using in any BO BI-client.
What are other uses of the newly added Federation Layer, other than creating tables?
And are Federated tables somehow similar to Derived tables? Does that mean Derived tables feature might go out now that you can create virtual tables using Federation layer?
Sujit Honrao
hey Tammy,
Tahnks for replying, however the above query was regards to your article above as it talked about addition of new Data Federation Layer.
Thanks.
Sujit Honrao
Hi Tammy,
Thanks for the post. Do they have any fixes for the List Of Value corruption that takes place when we have LOVs created in a Datafoundation and later on need to change the name of that Datafoundation?
Hello Priyanka,
I am not an expert in this area - would you please post this as a question in the Semantic Layer space?
Thanks,
Tammy
Ya sure.. Thanks!