PBS Nearline Storage with column-based technology for SAP ERP

Advantages

High data compression - up to 90 percent and more
Shorter response times in database queries
Extremely fast indexing of SAP data archives
Substantial savings

Development

Up to now there have been hardly any options for using the advantages of column-based technology in ERP environments. PBS has now developed the Nearline Analytic Infrastructure (PBS NAI) for SAP ERP and other operative OLTP systems, such as SAP CRM and IS, on the basis of our long experience with nearline solutions for SAP NetWeaver BW. Completely new possibilities thus exist for processing growing data volumes in very large SAP systems.

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The NAI architecture is based on a middleware that is used to link the column-based system to SAP and controls it. This is realized by the components NAI interface and NAI monitor. Further components such as the NAI archive information system, NAI replication, NAI query and NAI DART Viewer already provide application functionality. For example application data from a database or archive can be transferred to the nearline system using NAI replication. This data can then be evaluated very quickly and on a column basis with NAI queries. An extended SAP archive information system is provided with the NAI archive information system to index SAP data archives automatically in a column-based way and in compressed form. This is of particular interest for customers whose processes are very much based on the SAP standard archiving process in combination with SAP AS. The load on the ERP database is greatly reduced much due to the storage of indexes on the analytics server as the disk space requirement is only about 10 percent compared to the ERP database. The indexing logic is also made easier by the column concept.

Target Groups

PBS NAI addresses two target groups:

Customers who use SAP data archiving and have no PBS archive add ons. The components NAI archive information system and NAI DART Viewer are intended for this group.
Customers who use SAP data archiving in combination with the PBS archive ad ons.

PBS NAI offers both groups significant advantages for the indexing of archive data and its evaluation. The processing of data extracts that were created for a data extraction with DART or using the PBS Data Export Interface is also affected in this respect. Totally new potential results from the generic evaluation of operative tables that are transferred via NAI replication to the nearline system.

Outlook

In addition to continuous improvements to the Nearline Analytical Infrastructure, PBS is working intensively on the integration of the PBS archive add ons in PBS NAI that can be used to considerably optimize archive access to hundreds of millions of documents from SAP business processes. Another focal point is the usage of PBS NAI in a system environment with different SAP instances.

Integration with SAP BW

The cost effectiveness can also be increased through the simultaneous use of the analytics server Sybase IQ under PBS NAI ERP and PBS CBW NLS IQ can be used as one central instance of the analytics server of different ERP or BW systems.