SAP BW/BI stands for Business Information Warehouse, also known as Business Intelligence. SAP Business Warehouse (BW) is a model-driven data warehousing product based on the SAP NetWeaver ABAP platform. It collects, transforms and stores data generated in SAP and non-SAP applications and make it accessible through built-in reporting, business intelligence and analytics tools, as well as third-party software.
SAP BW is also a development platform that programmers use to create and modify data warehouses, perform data management tasks, generate reports and develop analytics applications. Business users typically access SAP BW through an application built by a developer, such as an executive Dashboard or mobile app.
Unlike most data warehousing products that are based directly on a database platform, SAP BW allows for defining data warehouse objects like data sources, data stores and queries, which it then instantiates and manages in different ways depending on the platform it runs on, as well as other constraints.
BI applications include the activities of decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP), statistical analysis, forecasting, and data mining.
