Customer Reviews

SAP BW Certification: A Business Information Warehouse Study Guide

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This review was written by a consultant, who can look back on 8 years of SAP-experience and almost 2 years of experience with SAP-BW.

This book targets consultants, who want to cross-check their knowledge, before they take their multiple choice test for the SAP-BW-Certificate. It does contain the orginal Multiple-Choice-Tests for SAP-BW 2.1., and it does contain information on SAP-BBW. It is useful, but you should consider the following shortcomings:

(1) This book is on SAP-BW 2.1, but the most up-to-date release is 3.1. There were many changes since then

(2)If you are just a BW-User, who wants to know, which button to push and which report to start, you should consider other books.This book has got few screenshots and it is definitely not for novices. You can use it, to test knowledge,but it is not comprehensive enough, to teach new knowledge.

(3) If you are a systems administrator or a practitioner, who wants in depths technical information, but who does NOT want a certificate, you should consider other books.
Examples: Kevin McDonalds book on BW or a german publication by Christian Mehrwald (SAP BW Relase 3.0)published by dpunkt-Verlag (Mehrwalds book was written in german and to the best of my knowledge it has not been translated yet, though it is the best book on that topic I know) .

With all due respect towards Mrs Roze, her book is rather thin (260 Pages), does use a large letter type, has got many blank spaces and devotes 20-30% on very general topics (OLTP versus OLAP, Exam preparation etc). The structure of the book is rather erratic. I got along with it, as I have got experience, but a novice might be forced to flip pages forwards and backwards a lot. Moreover, this book does not contain that type of hands-on-advice on administration, that can be found in more advanced books on BW. The scientific content of the chapters varies a lot.
Some are too simple, others discuss very esoteric topics, which you hardly need, except in your exam. Even if you are lucky and pass the test, because you memorize all questions, this is not enough to use BW in you daily work.

(4) I agree with the previous reviewer, that there are mistakes in the multiplechoice-tests, that some answers are definitely wrong, and that some tests ask for information, that one can not find in the corresponding chapter.

SUMMARY: This book is still useful, but only for experienced consultants, who want to get their SAP-BW-Certificate,and moreover it has got some serious flaws.

This book is so out-of-date as to be almost dangerous. Do not think that you're going to buy this book to use as a reference later. The book was written for 2.2 BW; the updates in the appendix for 3.0 are confusing, misleading, etc.

The only advantage that you will get from this book are some sample test questions to get your mind working. However, some of the questions do not relate at all to 3.0; some of them have incorrect answers; I don't remember recognizing any of the questions on the test from the book.

The book describes the administration of the test. This is very out-of-date in terms of number of questions, length of test, how the test is graded, etc. Don't rely at all on this part of the book.

If you can't get a cheap used copy of this book, don't bother.

Catherine Roze or Wiley Publishers: If you're out there listening, please revise this book. If you need help, let me know; I'm an out-of-work Certified BW Consultant. . .

I did pass the exam (Business Warehouse 2002), but not because of reading this book. Both the content and the sample questions now only have little to do with the exam content. It will be even less with the upcoming Netweaver exam. The introduction about how to prepare for the exam might make you a bit confident, but that's all. But you can also have this information for free: the BW 2002 exam is multiple choice, consists of 80 questions and takes three hours. BTW: as far as I remember, the book says 60 questions and one hour. You see, there must have happened something in the meantime.

And this is very unfortunate in the case of this book. It's not very good as guides go, but it's the only BW certification book I've found. If you're not taking the certification exam, save your money. This book may be an ok intro to BW, but it's definitely not a stand-alone.

Pros:
- It's simple and easy to understand. It goes down pretty easy.
- There are sample questions.
- Since it's geared toward the test, you know you're not trying to memorize extraneous information. Plus it gives tips on what to expect on the exam.

Cons:
- Sometimes it's a little too simple. Some heavily tested topics (ETL, for example) aren't covered in as much depth as they could or should be.
- Sometimes you get the idea that the author doesn't really know what she's talking about and is just slapping some facts, lists, and definitions together without analysis, explanation, or understanding.
- A lot of information about the 3.x version of BW is found in a long appendix full of dense, contextless white papers as if the author didn't have time to figure them out herself so she just tacked them on the end. The book is geared toward the BW 2.0 test which I don't think is even offered anymore.
- The sample questions aren't very good. They're occasionally not even in the format of the actual test. Way too many questions have the choice "All of the above" or "None of the above" as filler when the question itself excludes that choice as a possible answer. A lot of the sample questions (about 5-10%) have wrong answers which helped erode my faith in the sample tests and the book in general. Some question topics aren't covered in the book which only adds to the frustration of incorrect answers.
- There are parts of the book that are repetitive (do I really need to be reminded 6 times that there are 16 dimensions available?) while others aren't even internally consistent.

The book is out-of-date and sometimes inaccurate and extremely frustrating to use as a result. The guide could've been better, but I can't complain much since it's the only one available. If you must use it, I would recommend Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse to check facts against. It's a lot more dense and hard to read straight through, but it's also much more accurate. It's understandably hard to keep up with a fast-changing technology, but that doesn't really help assuage my disappointment.

To prepare for the BW certification test I recommend reading this book. To start working as a BW consultant I recommend reading other books as well. Many subjects are only briefly mentioned, because the author judges they are not important for the exam.

If you are new to BW and looking for a brief, but yet detailed overview, this book will help you grasp the bigger picture of BW. The practice tests at the end of chapters makes sure you are really understanding the concepts and terminology. The "Note" and "SAP Restriction" symbols thru the book draws your attention to key points. If "Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse" drowns you in detail -- this will be a breath of fresh air! Great resource for training people new to BW and it's concepts.

I have passed the exam with this book without any prior knowledge on sap r/3 or sap bw. However, there were several questions in real exam which could not be answered with the knowledges from this book. Besides, I should complain about the sample questions. There were several wrong answeres (an exctly same question apeared more than twice and they had different answeres).

Since there is no other certification book avaialable in the market, I would say this is the best available book. However, this will not cover all the certification questions. And, it is not in detail. You have to study other books.