Unifying BPC NW and BW-IP

With SAP BPC NW 10.1 a new data model is introduced that combines the strength of the different planning components

• SAP BPC NW for end-user friendliness and flexibility
• SAP BW-IP for feature richness and integrated data consistency
• SAP HANA for blazingly high performance

With this we merge the strategy for planning solutions on SAP BW which covered BPC NW on one side and BW-IP / PAK on the other side. The former was focusing on line-of-business driven scenarios with a strong focus on flexibility and end-user friendliness. The latter covered IT-driven scenarios with a tight integration into the BW architecture and EDW data. Now the combination covers not only these two pillars but every combination thereof. The new data model is called ‘embedded’ to reflect the embedded nature of the solution into BW.

The ‘embedded’ model complements the existing BPC NW data model which is called ‘standard’. The new model is completely integrated into the BPC NW 10.1 product, in particular using its new HTML5 web-client for administration and runtime as well as the EPM EXCEL add-in. This ensures a unified end-user experience, hiding many of the technical details. Doing so, it also requires the BPC NW license. This strengthens the idea of it being the license for advances planning in SAP BW, thus continuing the strategy pursued with the HANA integration of PAK in 2011. Below this user interface runs the complete BW-IP / PAK planning engine, ensuring full compatibility to all existing planning scenarios built with them. To keep deployment simple and straight for these does the ‘embedded’ model completely ship with NetWeaver 7.40 SP5 within the software component SAP_BW. The following picture illustrates the different aspects for the different solutions for planning with SAP BW:

To get a better idea of what this means technically, let us have a look at the component diagram. It shows the classic 3-tier architecture with the ABAP stack in the middle. This comprises the BW component, which is core to both, BPC NW ‘standard’ and BPC NW ‘embedded’.

For BPC NW ‘standard’ (red components), the ‘BPC add-on’ is required, which contains the specific planning and reporting logic of BPC and collaboration features. It sits on SAP BW, but only uses its reporting and some of its data management capabilities. The add-on also provides connectivity to the EPM EXCEL add-in. An additional add-on is available to make use of HANA for specific functions and acceleration purposes.

These add-ons are not required for the BPC NW ‘embedded’ model. It rather fully uses the reporting and planning capabilities of BW as well as its data warehousing and data management. The collaboration-capabilities were adjusted to this architecture and moved into SAP BW (orange component). The BPC HTML5 web-client has also moved to SAP BW and connects to both, the ‘standard’ and the ‘embedded’ models for modelling and runtime. In addition a new interface is contained in SAP BW to connect to the EPM add-in, in addition to the existing connections to Analysis Office and Design Studio. Finally SAP HANA is mandatory for the BPC ‘embedded’ model to facilitate best performance on highly flexible data models.

Now you might be curious about the feature set of the BPC NW ‘embedded’ model: this blog launches a series of feature demos of BPC NW ‘embedded’. It is an artificial non-business scenario that focuses on broad feature coverage more than on business relevance. Starting with the EDW data model in SAP BW, it shows LOB-modeling and –runtime and concludes with system reporting. The demo is a snapshot and aim to show core concepts of the product. It is no functional reference. I recommend to consult the documentation for more details. All is available with BPC NW 10.1, based on BW 7.40 SP5.

The list of demos is the following. Stay tuned:

BW-Modelling

1. EDW Model

BPC-Modelling

2. Environment – creating a sandbox with reference to the EDW models

3. Model – exposing a EDW model in the sandbox

4. Team – compiling teams flexibly as basis for collaboration

5. Work-status – defining status-sequences and applicable data ranges

6. Auditing – activating generic logging of audit data

7. Input Form – setting-up a web input form based on a BEx query

8. BPF Process – defining process steps and their workspaces

Runtime

9. For data owner – planning data along a process via BPC web- and Advanced analysis

An earlier version of this document refered to the ‘classic’ (now ‘standard’) and the ‘unified’ (now ’embedded’) models. A renaming was done with BPC NW 10.1 SP3 to strengthen the nature of the models.

Please find more recent and comprehensive information about BPC ’embedded model’ in a new blog series here.