Operational reporting architecture

• US 7,756,822 B2
• Filed: 12/01/2003
• Issued: 07/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/01/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Wesselmann, Andreas, Danner, Gerd
• Primary Examiner(s): Mofiz; Apu M
• Assistant Examiner(s): CHEN, TE Y
• Application Number:
  US10/726,004
• Publication Number:
  US 20050120051A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,416 Days
• Field of Search: 707/1, 707/4, 707/101, 707/102, 707/2, 707/3, 707/5, 707/6, 345/419, 717/106
• US Class Current: 707/602
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP

Abstract

An architecture and system for integrating online transactional processing (OLTP) systems with online analytical processing (OLAP) system. The architecture includes a data access layer having one or more data access programs for accessing OLTP data, a service layer having a business intelligence (BI) platform for generating OLAP data, and a data abstraction layer providing a common meta-model for OLTP data integrated with OLAP data. The architecture further includes a user interface presentation layer configured to provide a user interface for displaying a report run on the integrated OLTP and OLAP data.

Claims

1. A system for operational reporting of multidimensional analysis of business data sources, the system comprising:

a plurality of computing systems each including at least one programmable processor, each of the programmable processors systems executing one or more computer programs, the programmable processors being coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, at least one storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device, the computing systems providing;

one or more data sources providing OLTP data;

one or more data acquisition modules to access, in a data access layer, the OLTP data from the one or more data sources;

a business intelligence (BI) platform having a multidimensional database providing OLAP data, the BI platform being in a service layer;

a resource adapter direct mapping tool to transform the OLTP data of the data sources not being processed by an OLAP engine or the BI platform to a first data set in accordance with a common meta model of a unified view module, the BI platform being in the service layer;

the unified view module being part of a data abstraction layer, the unified view module integrating the first data set of the OLTP data with the multidimensional data of the multidimensional database to produce a common meta model data set; and

a user interface (UI) tool set for creating a unified UI for displaying reports that are run on the multidimensional database and common meta model data set, the unified UI to build reports from the common meta model data set;

the system including at least first and second data flow integration paths originating at the data sources and passing through the data access layer, the service layer, and the data abstraction layer, the first integration path comprising the OLTP data and the resource adapter direct mapping tool and having a first service quality, and the second integration path comprising the BI platform and having a second service quality being different from the first service quality, the first service qualities being dependent on the services used by the first integration path, the second service qualities being dependent on the services used by the second integration path, and wherein the first and second service qualities are at least different in that the second service quality comprises at least some overhead of the BI platform that is not included in the first service quality, the system further comprising a resource adapter integration path allowing integration of OLTP data and external OLAP data without using the OLAP engine or other services of the BI platform.

2. A system in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a UI runtime module to display the unified UI.

3. A system in accordance with claim 1, further comprising a data acquisition module to acquire the OLTP data from the OLTP data source, and to provide the OLTP data to the multidimensional database or to the unified view module.

4. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the BI platform is to execute OLAP analysis on the multidimensional database.

5. A system in accordance with claim 4, wherein the BI platform further includes a communication channel connected to a remote OLAP data source.

6. A system in accordance with claim 3, wherein the data acquisition module further includes one or more resource adapters for connecting to the one or more data sources, the resource adapted being a system-level software driver to connect the one or more data sources.

7. A system in accordance with claim 3, wherein the data acquisition module further includes one or more extraction programs to read data from the one or more data sources.

8. A system in accordance with claim 3, wherein the data acquisition module further includes an exchange infrastructure for message-based exchange between the one or more data sources and the BI platform.

9. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the mapping is automatic.

10. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the mapping is manual.

11. A system in accordance with claim 4, wherein the BI platform further comprises a persistency memory for storing one or more tables representing the OLAP analysis.

12. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the unified UI is generated by a web application.

13. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the unified UI is generated by a desktop application.

14. A system in accordance with claim 1, wherein the unified view module does not include information identifying sources of data in the common meta model data set such that a mapping of the data is not visible to a user of the common meta model data set.

15. A computer-implemented architecture for integrating online transactional processing (OLTP) systems with online analytical processing (OLAP) system, the architecture comprising:

a plurality of computing systems each including at least one programmable processor, each of the programmable processors systems executing one or more computer programs, the programmable processors being coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, at least one storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device, the computing systems providing;

a data access layer including one or more data access programs for accessing OLTP data from an OLTP data source;

a service layer including a business intelligence (BI) platform for generating OLAP data, and a resource adapter direct mapping tool for transforming data from the OLTP data source to a first data set in accordance with a common meta-model without processing the OLTP data by an OLAP engine or the BI platform, the BI platform providing persistency and comprising an OLAP engine;

a unified view module being part of a data abstraction layer that provides the common meta-model for OLTP data of the first data set integrated with OLAP data, the data abstraction layer providing a description of the meta-model and a result set of the data, interfaces to retrieve and interact with the data, and a description of functionality available with data sources; and

a user interface presentation layer to provide a user interface for displaying a report run on the integrated OLTP and OLAP data, the user interface presentation layer comprising a user interface (UI) tool set for creating a unified UI for displaying reports that are run on the multidimensional database and common meta model data set in a same report, the unified UI to build reports from the common meta model data set;

the architecture including first, second, and third data flow integration paths, the first integration path comprising the OLTP data and the resource adapter direct mapping tool and having a first service quality, and the second and third integration paths comprising the BI platform and having a second service quality being different from the first service quality, the first service qualities being dependent on the services used by the first integration path, the second service qualities being dependent on the services used by the second integration path, and wherein the first and second service qualities are at least different in that the second service quality comprises at least some overhead of the BI platform that is not included in the first service quality, the second integration path using the OLAP engine in the BI platform, data accessed by the third integration path storing data using the persistency of the BI platform;

the third integration path using the OLAP engine in the BI platform, data accessed by the third integration path not using the persistency of the BI platform to store data.

16. An architecture in accordance with claim 15, wherein the common meta-model is organized into a unified business query view for display in the user interface.

17. An architecture in accordance with claim 15, wherein the user interface presentation layer includes a design time module for generating the user interface, the design time module using the meta-model provided by the data abstraction layer to allow reports to be built upon the meta-model.

18. An architecture in accordance with claim 17, wherein the user interface presentation layer includes a runtime module having an application for displaying the user interface, the runtime module obtaining data and service quality descriptions from the data abstraction layer and layout information from the design time module, wherein a user interface abstraction layer within the runtime module provides a common command and layout description interface for both web and desktop-based user interface presentations.

19. An architecture in accordance with claim 18, wherein the application is a web application.

20. An architecture in accordance with claim 18, wherein the application is a desktop application.

21. A system comprising:

a plurality of computing systems each including at least one programmable processor, each of the programmable processors systems executing one or more computer programs, the programmable processors being coupled to receive data and instructions from, and to transmit data and instructions to, at least one storage system, at least one input device, and at least one output device, the computing systems providing;

one or more data sources providing OLTP data;

one or more data acquisition modules to access, in a data access layer, the OLTP data from the one or more data sources;

an exchange infrastructure in the data access layer for process integration based on an exchange of standard messages according to predefined business process scenarios;

a business intelligence (BI) platform having a multidimensional database providing OLAP data, the BI platform providing persistency, an OLAP engine, generic BI services, and business warehouse metadata, the BI platform being in a service layer;

a resource adapter direct mapping tool to transform the OLTP data of the data sources not being processed by an OLAP engine or the BI platform to a first data set in accordance with a common meta model of a unified view module, the BI platform being in the service layer;

the unified view module being part of a data abstraction layer, the unified view module integrating the first data set of the OLTP data with the multidimensional data of the multidimensional database to produce a common meta model data set, the data abstraction layer providing data manipulation services that enable interaction on data independent from, and in addition to, data manipulation services by the service layer or the data sources; and

a user interface (UI) tool set for creating a unified UI for displaying reports that are run on the multidimensional database and common meta model data set, the unified UI to build reports from the common meta model data set;

the system including at least first and second data flow integration paths originating at the data sources and passing through the data access layer, the service layer, and the data abstraction layer, at least one data flow integration paths passing through the BI platform and at least one data flow integration paths bypassing the BI platform.

22. A system as in claim 21, wherein:

the first integration path comprises the BI platform and has a first service quality, and a third integration path comprises the BI platform and has a second service quality being different from the first service quality, the first service qualities being dependent on the services used by the first integration path in the BI platform, the second service qualities being dependent on the services used by the third integration path in the BI platform, and wherein the first and second service qualities are at least different in that the second service quality comprises at least some overhead of a persistency layer in the BI platform that is not included in the first service quality, the persistency layer in the BI platform storing data in structures optimized for reporting purpose.