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As an administrator, your ongoing to-do list dominates your desk. Let us help: With this book, learn the daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly administration tasks you should be performing, and how to perform them. This comprehensive guide will walk you through system setup and configuration to lay a sound foundation for effective data storage, and then teach you to employ performance tuning techniques to optimize system performance. Consult detailed best practices to learn how to create BW objects and run reports, as well as to effectively use jobs and skills profiles for system support. Advance your SAP BW system from a B-movie to a blockbuster.

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Foreword ... 13

Preface ... 15

PART I Initial System Setup

1. Configuring Your System Environment ... 21

1.1 Infrastructure Architecture ... 22

1.2 System Landscape ...42

1.3 System Sizing ... 78

1.4 System Settings ... 98

2. Data Architecture and Loading ... 109

2.1 Data Flow in SAP BW ... 110

2.2 Layer Architectures of a Data Warehouse ... 117

2.3 Graphical Modeling ... 125

2.4 Data Load Automation ... 134

3. Data Management ... 157

3.1 Master Data ... 158

3.2 Transaction Data ... 184

3.3 Temporary Data ... 196

3.4 Data Retention Strategy ... 205

3.5 Near-Line Storage ... 212

4. Roles and Authorizations ... 217

4.1 Authorization Concept in AS ABAP ... 217

4.2 Standard Authorization Objects ... 221

4.3 Analysis Authorizations ... 225

4.4 Roles ... 231

4.5 User Administration ... 236

4.6 Troubleshooting Authorization Problems ... 242

PART II Performance Tuning

5. Data Modeling and Loading for Performance ... 253

5.1 Data Modeling for Performance ... 253

5.2 Data Loading for Performance ... 317

6. Reporting Performance Tuning ... 357

6.1 Identifying Performance Problems ... 357

6.2 Reporting Performance Tuning ... 405

PART III Administration Tasks in Your SAP BW System

7. Daily Tasks ... 425

7.1 Daily Administration Tasks ... 425

7.2 Daily Data Load Monitoring Tasks ... 446

8. Weekly Tasks ... 455

8.1 Weekly Administration Tasks ... 455

8.2 Weekly Performance Tuning ... 473

9. Monthly Tasks ... 481

9.1 Monthly Administration Tasks ... 482

9.2 Monthly Performance Tuning ... 499

10. Quarterly Tasks ... 509

10.1 Quarterly Administration Tasks ... 509

10.2 Quarterly Performance Tuning Tasks ... 530

11. Yearly Tasks ... 547

11.1 Yearly Administration Tasks ... 548

11.2 Yearly Performance Tuning Tasks ... 564

PART IV Support for Your SAP BW System

12. BI Competency Center ... 575

12.1 Centralized Support Organization ... 577

12.2 Roles and Skill Sets ... 585

12.3 Team Structure ... 596

12.4 Best Practices ... 599

Appendices ... 605

A. Checklists ... 607

A.1 Development Checklists ... 607

A.2 Housekeeping Checklists ... 614

B. Transaction Codes ... 619

C. Reports and Utilities ... 629

D. The Authors ... 637

Index ... 639

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Jesper Christensen has worked as an SAP consultant focusing on SAP Netweaver BW since 1998. He has worked in implementation projects as well as support organizations where he defined and set up the administration processes in several companies in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Jesper is a frequent presenter on the topics of SAP NetWeaver BW administration and performance tuning at a number of SAP conferences.

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