Information Integration

Information Integration makes both structured and unstructured information available in the enterprise in a consistent and accessible manner:
Users demand ubiquitous access to information wherever it resides. That information must be served in a consistent manner and its integrity guaranteed.

• Knowledge management (KM) - Knowledge management with user-centric services provides a single access point to SAP's content management system and third-party repositories -- with integrated search, taxonomy, classification, content management, publishing, and related workflow processes.

Knowledge Management (KM) is the umbrella term for the management of unstructured information - that is, all kinds of documents. The knowledge management (KM) capability of the SAP Enterprise Portal (EP) turns unstructured information into organizational knowledge - an essential function in this age of global e-business. The KM capability is powered by SAP NetWeaver.

• Business intelligence (BI) - This capability enables you to integrate, analyze, and disseminate relevant and timely information. It is delivered through SAP Business Intelligence, which provides a robust suite of business intelligence tools to help you create and deploy customized, interactive reports and applications, supporting decisions at every level.

One of the core components of SAP NetWeaver is SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW), which covers the following functional areas:

• Data warehousing, which forms the application-neutral foundation for Business Intelligence. SAP BW supports the complete data warehousing process, from data integration, data transformation, consolidation and cleansing to data provision for analysis.

• A business intelligence platform that serves as the technological infrastructure to support information access and comprehensive analytics.

• Business intelligence suite that transforms data into insightful information and serves a wide variety of users for decision-making.

As part of the SAP NetWeaver architecture, SAP BW draws from and utilizes the capabilities of the other components for business intelligence usage. The sum of the functionality of SAP BW and the contribution of other components of SAP NetWeaver form a BI platform that represents the next major step in the evolution of business intelligence.

SAP NetWeaver is the technical foundation for all SAP applications as well as partners' products and solutions. With Analytical Applications that run on top of SAP NetWeaver and business content that goes across all functional areas of SAP BW, SAP offers a comprehensive solution: mySAP Business Intelligence.

• Master data management (MDM) - This capability promotes information integrity across a business network in a heterogeneous IT environment. It enables the sharing of harmonized master data formerly trapped in multiple systems and ensures cross-system data consistency -- regardless of system location or vendor. This capability is delivered through SAP Master Data Management.

Today, companies operating within heterogeneous IT landscapes are commonplace, and the demand for streamlining communication within such an environment is great. True Enterprise Application Integration must be geared towards the technical harmonization of a diversified infrastructure and the consolidation of business-critical data.

SAP Master Data Management (SAP MDM) - a key capability of SAP NetWeaver - enables information integrity across the business network. It enables companies to store, augment, and consolidate master data, while ensuring consistent distribution to all applications and systems within the IT landscape. It leverages existing IT investments in business-critical data, delivering vastly reduced data maintenance costs through effective data management. And, by ensuring cross-system data consistency, SAP MDM accelerates the execution of business processes, greatly improves decision-making and helps companies maintain their competitive advantage.