What is new in the Semantic Layer and the Information Design Tool BI4.1 – Part 1

[TammyPowlas]

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