Introduction to LSA Data Flow Templates
The Layered Scalable Architecture (LSA) is a reference architecture built on Enterprise Data Warehouse principles to ensure consistent, scalable and flexible design and implementation of SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse (BW).
The larger a BW is or is expected to become, the more important the standardization introduced by the LSA will be. At the same time, the LSA also provides valuable guidelines for smaller BW systems.
The Data Flow Template is a new feature of SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3. A data flow template makes it possible to define and document basic settings, which can be reused by real data flows.
With the new Data Flow Template feature it is now possible describing LSA standards directly in BW.
With BW 7.30 there comes a set of 10 LSA data flow templates as an initial offering.
Picture 1. LSA Data Flow Templates in BW 7.30 SP3
How to Work with LSA Data Flow Templates
The target of LSA data flow templates is to facilitate the adoption of LSA in the customer community.
For those not yet familiar with the LSA principles, a short overview of LSA basic architecture components (the building blocks) and the derived naming conventions is provided. It is important to read this before applying the delivered LSA data flow templates. The LSA data flow templates are built in such a way that higher numbered ones are based on the previous ones. Template LSA300 is therefore an extension of LSA200 for example, while LSA200 is an extension of LSA100.
Before using the LSA data flow templates, you should perform a verification and adjustment taking into account your particular requirements. You can then create your own customer LSA data flow templates based on the templates provided.
For more information about BW LSA, see:
SAP NetWeaver BW: BW Layered Scalable Architecture (LSA) / Blog Series
Supported Versions
The data flow template is a feature of SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3.
The LSA data flow templates are offered with SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3 SP3.
The LSA data flow templates use new SAP NetWeaver BW 7.3 features like the Semantically Partitioned Object (SPO) for automated definition of logically partitioned DataStore Objects and InfoCubes.
That does not mean that the data flows will not work for BW 7.x environments. They will even work (with certain restrictions) in BW 3.5, as customer LSA implementations show. But the implementation effort will be far greater than with BW 7.3.
