Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools (BIRT) company Actuate and outsourcing firm YASH Technologies have announced availability of the SAP Business Warehouse (BW) Connector for BIRT.
The native plug-in was built using the Eclipse-based ODA framework, and is the latest in a series of BIRT-based connectors designed to try and combine access to big data with other operational data sources.
NOTE: BIRT is open source project initiated to provide reporting and business intelligence functions for rich client apps and web applications with a special emphasis on those based on Java and Java EE. SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW) provides data warehousing functionality, a business intelligence platform, and a suite of business intelligence tools designed to enable businesses to attain these goals.
The SAP BW Connector for BIRT features a GUI similar to the BIRT and ActuateOne interfaces so that users can configure queries to the SAP Business Warehouse (BW). The data retrieved can then be combined inside ActuateOne products with data of any magnitude or complexity, including big data from sources such as machine logs and social media.
Actuate VP David Rosenbacher explains that the SAP BW Connector for BIRT is designed for any BIRT developer or IT organization looking for an "easy and intuitive" way to integrate SAP BW data with BIRT or ActuateOne. "Once the connector has been configured, it is quick and easy for developers to begin accessing SAP BW data by performing native queries. Prior to availability of this connector, accessing the proprietary SAP multidimensional data was known to be challenging," he said.
Additional features of the connector include platform independence; OLAP access to SAP data via web services; ability to create, access, and customize MultiDimensional eXpression (MDX) queries; ability to slice, filter, and sort MDX cross-joins; BEx Query Designer parameter handling; and localization support.
"We felt there was a strong need for a connector which would enable access to SAP BW data using the Eclipse-based ODA," said Gautam Gupta, BI practice director for YASH. "This connector enables SAP BW customers to extend their data outside of the SAP environment to use BIRT and ActuateOne for analytical and reporting purposes, thus significantly increasing their return on investment."
