SAP BW InfoProviders

Overview

Info Providers

InfoProviders are the key objects within SAP BW that you base your BEx reports on.
InfoProviders include objects that physically store data (data targets), such as InfoCubes, operational data store objects (ODS objects), and InfoObjects (characteristics with attributes or texts).

Data targets are SAP BW objects that have their own data store (which physically contains data). These objects include InfoCubes, ODS objects and InfoObjects. Data Targets are populated with data from the source systems using a load process (or by writing directly into the tables for transactional object types).

The term InfoProvider encompasses objects that physically contain data:
Basic InfoCubes Transactional InfoCubes ODS Objects InfoObjects (characteristics with attributes, texts or hierarchies).

Info Providers also include objects that do not contain any actual data, such as, InfoSets, RemoteCubes and MultiProviders.

InfoProviders can also be objects that do not physically store data, but which display logical views of data, such as:
InfoSets RemoteCubes SAP RemoteCubes Virtual InfoCube with Services MultiProviders

InfoCubes

InfoCubes are data targets. They describe (from a reporting point of view) a self-contained business-orientated dataset. They can also be seen as InfoProviders if reports and analyses in BW are executed using them.

Only BasicCubes physically contain data in the database. Virtual InfoCubes simply display logical views of a dataset. The type of InfoCube is not important as far as reporting is concerned, as the user cannot distinguish between the two.

Transactional InfoCubes are used only in conjunction with SEM. The data from this kind of InfoCube can be accessed on a read/write basis, allowing users to perform transactions to update the data within the infocube as they wish. Standard InfoCubes differ in that they only allow the user to read-only access.

A RemoteCube is an InfoCube whose transaction data is managed externally outside SAP BW. Only the structure of the RemoteCube is defined in BW. The data is read for reporting using a BAPI from an external system.
An SAP RemoteCube is a RemoteCube that allows the definition of queries with direct access to transaction data in other SAP systems (R/3 for example). The Master data and hierarchies associated with these SAP RemoteCubes are replicated between the other SAP system and BW enabling faster execution of the users queries

A virtual InfoCube with services is an InfoCube that does not have its own physical data storage in BW. A user-defined function module is used as the DataSource. This type of InfoProvider is used primarily in the SAP SEM application.

InfoSets

An Infoset is a specific kind of InfoProvider that does not contain data itself, but describes two or more data targets that are joined using rules. The data targets can be of type ODS Objects and/or InfoObjects (characteristics with master data).
If one of the InfoObjects contained in the join is a time-dependent characteristic, the join itself becomes time-dependent or a temporal join.

• You can include every ODS object and every InfoObject of the type Characteristic with Master Data in a join.
• A join can contain either the same type of object or different types of objects.
• You can include individual objects in a join, as many times as you want.
• Objects in the join are linked using join conditions (equal join conditions).
• A join condition determines the combination of individual object records included in the result set.

ODS (Operational Data Store) Objects

An ODS Object stores consolidated datasets and cleansed transactional data from one or more InfoSources on a document (atomic) level. You can analyse this dataset in a BEx query or an InfoSet query.

An ODS object contains key fields (for example, Employee number) and data fields that can also contain character fields (for example, Absence Type, Days Absence) as key figures. An ODS object can act as a Data Mart and be used as an Infosource to update InfoCubes and/or other ODS Objects in the same system or across different systems.

Data is stored in an ODS object in transparent tables (flat database tables) which differs from Infocubes that use a multi-dimensional model. Fact tables and dimension tables are not created.

As with Infocubes, ODS support cumulative updates of key figures, but with ODS objects it is also possible to overwrite data. This is particularly important with document-related structures, since changes made to documents in the source system do not apply solely to numeric fields such as Days Absence, but also to non-numeric fields such as Sickness Reason.

MultiCubes/MultiProviders

A MultiProvider is a type of InfoProvider that combines data from a number of InfoProviders and makes them available as a whole to reporting. The MultiProvider does not itself contain any data. Its data comes exclusively from the InfoProviders on which it is based. These are combined using a union operation.

The following objects can be combined to form a MultiProvider:
InfoCubes ODS Objects InfoObjects InfoSets

Characteristics:

A characteristic can be an InfoProvider if it has master data and is assigned to an InfoArea. By default, Characteristics are not configured as InfoProviders. They must be explicitly defined as an InfoProvider in the InfoObject maintenance.