SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement [Paperback]

Arshad Khan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 18, 2005

SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement is an introductory book for professionals and end-users associated with SAP and BW. It addresses their need to obtain an overview of SAP and BW features and functionality as well as project planning and implementation. SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement will be beneficial to a broad audience including those planning an SAP or BW project, senior executives, directors, functional managers and analysts, power users, end-users, project managers and project implementation team members (including technical staff, configurators, developers, and trainers). It can also be used as a supplemental text in IT courses that cover the subjects of ERP and data warehousing.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Arshad Khan has worked on numerous data warehousing and SAP projects in a variety of roles, including BW project manager. Mr. Khan, who has authored ten books in diverse fields, has a Master in engineering and an MBA. He has taught at five schools including the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz).

Product Details

• Paperback: 472 pages
• Publisher: iUniverse, Inc. (January 18, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595340792
• ISBN-13: 978-0595340798
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #568,108 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best BW treatise available on the market today, February 21, 2005

By 

S. Bennett - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement (Paperback)

I jumped ahead to read Part 2 on the BW, since I am the lead for a BW implementation and that section is of utmost interest to me. After having scoured the market for instructive books on the BW, I can now finally say I found one that takes a matter-of-fact approach to unraveling the mysteries of the Business Warehouse. This is an excellent book for all members of an organization's BW team - all the way from the Chief Information Technology Officer (probably the most important but the least likely to read the book) down to the developers working in the trenches.

Having come to the Business Warehouse project with a background in both Inmon- and Kimball-based data warehousing, I especially like the way Mr. Kahn explains BW theory from a traditional point of view. The SAP classes that I have attended and the other BW books that I have read make very little attempt to explain the BW architecture from the perspective of traditional data warehousing theory. Until reading this book, I often felt that I would have been better off coming to the BW table with no prior knowledge of data warehousing. Also, I have spent the last 8 years working on 3 different data warehousing projects and can assure you that Mr. Kahn's advice on pitfalls to avoid are right on the money. This book is a must read for anyone involved in or about to embark upon a SAP Business Warehouse project.

I am going back now to read Part 1 on implementing SAP. I was so excited about the BW portion, however, that I had to share my thoughts with other potential readers.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very comprehensive publication, April 13, 2005

By 

George Sims "George S" (CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement (Paperback)

This book covers SAP's transaction system and its Business Warehouse data warehouse. The SAP part, Part A, covers 32% of the book (pages 1-134). Part B, which is 68% of the book, covers BW from pages 135 through 419. While it includes a wealth of general information about both the transaction and data warehouse systems, it also contains technical information that provides very good information. In Chapter B12 (72 pages from pg 250-322), Creating and Loading InfoCubes, the step-by-step procedure is shown via screenshots. Chapter 14 (31 pages), Creating Queries with BEx, shows the step-by-step procedure for creating a query. These two chapters, covering 103 pages, alone constitute 24.5% of the whole book (and 36% of the BW part of the book). The book also covers the planning and design, which is something I found very useful. Ideally, the book should be divided into two books. However, for those who desire to get an overall picture of the environment (after all BW typically is installed in the SAP environment), this is a great book, very easy to follow and understand even for novices, though somewhat expensive. I would not suggest this book to someone, though, who might think that this book will enable one to develop into a BW developer, for which more extensive training is required.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Comments from the author, May 9, 2006

By 

Khan Consulting "Arshad Khan" (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SAP and BW Data Warehousing: How to Plan and Implement (Paperback)

I am thankful to all the reviewers, who bring value to the readers and Amazon.com, by providing the good and bad points of a book.

I feel it is my obligation to respond to a totally incorrect comment from Mr. Rao, which can mislead readers due to his own lack of understanding of the concepts involved. I firmly stand behind what I have written, especially on page 145, which Mr. Rao has questioned.

Whether the book is useful or not, the market decides, where this book has been selling out faster than expected, with practically no returns.

Mr. Boudville has raised a genuine issue with the less than perfect screenshots (he has indicated diagrams, which actually are of good quality). Due to the dpi differences between the screenshots and high-quality printing requirements, which is often an issue with such screenshots when they are placed in books, they are not excellent.

Regarding why I did not use the conventional publishers, the reason is that I do not want them to publish my books as I can make 10 times the amount they give as royalties. An offer was made for this book but I turned it down. FYI, I have been published by John Wiley and Sons.

I encourage readers to document both the positive and negative aspects of my book!