Hi Smitha,
The correct strategy would be to recreate the indexes again from scratch on your PROD system. Practically speaking, a BIA index is considered an aggregate on BW side and so, it needs more or less the same handling. Let me give you some more explanations:
From a technical point of view, it would be possible to exchange indexes between BIA installations by exporting/importing them. However, indexes copied this way would not be usable from the BW system as this BW system will neither have nor get the necessary information about the existence of those indexes! That means, the indexes would not be recognized as such. I cannot tell which steps would also have to be taken in order to manipulate the BW system to bypass the actual indexing process. Furthermore, there would also be the problem of the different namespaces under which the indexes are kept on BIA, even though it is a minor issue. Usually, you will use a distinct sid on the QA, DEV, and PROD system, e.g., BWQ, BWD, BWP.
Seen apart from the mentioned problems, can you really make sure that the data on the DEV BW system database is exactly the same as on the PROD BW system? If not you would run into severe inconsistencies anyway.
So, the question is if all the effort to be spent (exporting indexes on DEV BIA, importing them on PROD, and manipulating the BW PROD system in order to know about the existence of the indexes) and the danger of running into new unforeseen problems is really less than just reindexing all the cubes on PROD? How much time will the indexing process take? Roughly speaking, BIA can index about 200mio. records (with 15 to 20 attributes) per hour. With certain parameter adaptations on BW, it is also possible to increase this number.
Best regards,
Sascha.
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