老印在給我們作培訓時，順便演示了BI的效果，這是我第一次看BI運行，雖然在此之前BI的聲音一直在耳邊。
爲簡單瞭解BI的概念，和它與BW之間的關係，我GOOGLE了，找到一個帖子，可能會說明些答案。
http://www.itpub.net/viewthread.php?tid=890755&extra=&page=1
帖子中的結論如下：
BW: BUINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE
BI: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
BI是指一個業務的方向或者一個業務領域，而BW是SAP公司的BI產品。
BW現在改名叫BI而已。
以前叫BW，之後改名叫BI，有些新功能。
SAP公司收購了BO，未來BI還會有新的發展。
原先叫BW, 現在只是名字變成BI了。和原先的XI現在叫PI一樣。但BI 7.0的改動很大, 特別是在數據傳輸上省略了一些步驟。
以下是在其它資料中找到的內容。
商務智能，簡稱BI，指通過對數據的收集、管理、分析以及轉化，使數據成爲可用的信息，從而獲得必要的洞察力和理解力，更好地輔助決策和指導行動。
BI是一個由多個組件構成的完整的數據分析系統，面向數據倉庫的海量數據，提供多維度對視角的數據分析。
Excel是桌面的辦公軟件，面向平面小規模數據的處理。
BI與Excel並不矛盾，它們互爲補充。
下面是來自WIKI的資料：
鏈接：http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_NetWeaver_Business_Intelligence
SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence
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SAP Netweaver Business Intelligence (SAP BI) is the name of the Business Intelligence, analytical, reporting and Data Warehousing solution produced by SAP AG. It was originally named SAP BIW (Business Information Warehouse), then abbreviated to SAP BW, but is now known as "SAP BI" at the end user level. In contrast, "BW" is still used to describe the underlying Data Warehouse Area and Accelerator components. It is often used by companies who run their business on SAP's operational systems.
It may be helpful to consider layers that make up the structure of SAP's BI solution:
- Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL) layer - responsible for extracting data from a specific source, applying transformation rules, and loading it into the Data Warehouse Area.
- Data Warehouse Area - responsible for storing the information in various types of structures (e.g. Data Store Objects, InfoObjects and multidimensional structures called InfoCubes that follows star schema design).
- Reporting - for accessing the information in data warehouse area and presenting it in a user-friendly manner to the analyst or business user.
- Planning and analysis - Provides capabilities for the user to run simulations and perform tasks such as budget calculations.
SAP's BI solution has a very pervasively employed data warehouse, and contains a large number of pre-defined business content in the form of InfoCubes, Info Objects, authorization roles, and queries. Benefits of this approach include the ability to leverage SAP's experience and to reduce implementation cycles. The pre-defined business content can be modified to meet an organization's specific requirements.
SAP BI is part of the SAP NetWeaver technology stack. Other components of SAP NetWeaver include SAP Enterprise Portal (EP, called SAP NetWeaver Portal as of Release 7.0), Web Application Server (WAS), SAP Process Integration (PI, or previously XI, i.e. eXchange Infrastructure) and Master Data Management (MDM). It also includes end-user reporting tools such as Report Designer, BEx Query Designer, and BEx Analyzer.
The 7.0 version of SAP BI was released in June 2006 as part of the SAP NetWeaver 7.0 (aka 2004s). This new release includes many new features, such as next-generation reporting and analytical features, major data warehousing enhancements, and a memory resident option for improving query performance called "BI Accelerator" (it has since been re-named BW Accelerator). The BW Accelerator comes as an external applicance, i.e. complete hardware with pre-installed software, and requires a separate licence fee. BW Accelerator is licenced per blade server and 16 GB increments of memory.
Recently SAP acquired Business Objects, one of the premier business intelligence software providers. SAP has indicated that Business Objects will operate as an independent entity to preserve the principle of application agnosticism, but also promised a tighter integration between SAP BI and Business Objects. A new BI roadmap was recently released by the combined entity.[1]
According to SAP, more than 12,000 installations of SAP's BI solution exist.
同時我也找到SAP官方網站關於BI的WIKI資料，在這兒留兩個鏈接，便於以後查詢。
https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/Business+Intelligence+Home