During TechEd in Vienna SAP just announced the latest release of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer: SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version. With this new post I'm highlighting what is new with this latest release.
With this latest release SAP extends the power of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to tap into all data across the organization. This major innovation comes on top of multiple other significant improvements.
Let's go through a quick recap of the 3 major steps which have paved the SAP BusinessObjects Explorer way to clearly understand why this is truly a breakthrough innovation:
- The fast search and intuitive exploration capabilities of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer have been available for any data source through SAP BusinessObjects universes for 18 months or so already (with Polestar as a former name).
- Then, mid 2009, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version for SAP NetWeaver BW added the high-performance and scalability of SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator with a direct access to the latter in addition to universe access to other data sources. This version was predicated on BWA and thus primarily aimed for BW customers.
- Now, in its latest release, SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version, delivers the full value of fast search and intuitive exploration combined with high-performance and scalability of in-memory analytics and acceleration across any data, anywhere within the organization. This version is aimed for any organization with a heterogeneous IT landscape and no requirement for running BW 7.0.
Now let me be more explicit about these great new capabilities.
SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version, comes with embedded data extraction, transformation, and load (ETL) capabilities to directly tap into any data source in addition to BW. These embedded ETL capabilities enable to source any data to load it directly into the in-memory analytics and acceleration engine. As result and although search and exploration of BW data is still supported, customers are no longer required to move all their data into BW beforehand, they are free to leave it in its current location and can access it directly to benefit from the full value of fast search and intuitive exploration combined with high-performance and scalability of in-memory analytics and acceleration.
This new open data acceleration capability built from the combination of BWA and a subset of ETL capabilities from the SAP BusinessObjects Information Management solutions is named SAP BusinessObjects Accelerator. SAP BusinessObjects Accelerator is currently only available with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, accelerated version. It is intended to support additional BI clients in the future, though.
Note that users of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer who want to search and explore BW data can still accelerate this data independently from the newly embedded ETL capabilities, as they used to do with BWA and the previous accelerated version of SAP BusinessObjects Explorer focused on BW. Moreover BWA remains available to accelerate BW queries and lowering the cost of operations with no change to this scenario.
Nevertheless BW users will also benefit from this new accelerated version through the multiple other significant improvements it brings with regard to native support of Restricted and Calculated Key Figures, Hierarchies, and Multiproviders (homogenous and heterogeneous).
