老印在给我们作培训时，顺便演示了BI的效果，这是我第一次看BI运行，虽然在此之前BI的声音一直在耳边。
为简单了解BI的概念，和它与BW之间的关系，我GOOGLE了，找到一个帖子，可能会说明些答案。
http://www.itpub.net/viewthread.php?tid=890755&extra=&page=1
帖子中的结论如下：
BW: BUINESS INFORMATION WAREHOUSE
BI: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
BI是指一个业务的方向或者一个业务领域，而BW是SAP公司的BI产品。
BW现在改名叫BI而已。
以前叫BW，之后改名叫BI，有些新功能。
SAP公司收购了BO，未来BI还会有新的发展。
原先叫BW, 现在只是名字变成BI了。和原先的XI现在叫PI一样。但BI 7.0的改动很大, 特别是在数据传输上省略了一些步骤。
以下是在其它资料中找到的内容。
商务智能，简称BI，指通过对数据的收集、管理、分析以及转化，使数据成为可用的信息，从而获得必要的洞察力和理解力，更好地辅助决策和指导行动。
BI是一个由多个组件构成的完整的数据分析系统，面向数据仓库的海量数据，提供多维度对视角的数据分析。
Excel是桌面的办公软件，面向平面小规模数据的处理。
BI与Excel并不矛盾，它们互为补充。
下面是来自WIKI的资料：
链接：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.
同时我也找到SAP官方网站关于BI的WIKI资料，在这儿留两个链接，便于以后查询。
https://wiki.sdn.sap.com/wiki/display/BI/Business+Intelligence+Home