Write Optimized DSOs and Business Content

Those who work with BI7 got introduced to a concept of ”write optimized DataStore objects” together with “direct update DSOs”. In this post I will review an example of how BI7 objects, such as write optimized DSOs, can be used together with 3.x business content objects in the same dataflow.

By definition write optimized DSOs do not have three relational tables as standard DSOs (formerly known as ODSes). Instead, they only have an active table. It is clear, loading data from source to the write optimized DSO takes less time, and requires less disk space. In write optimized DSOs, however, we do not have an option for generating SIDs (formerly known as a “BEx reporting” option). Therefore, data loads go quicker, but running queries on write optimized DSOs is not a very good idea.

I would recommend using write optimized DSOs at the first level in the BI data model, when extracting data from the source system. Further processing can be done to either another write optimized DSO, standard DSO or an infoprovider. However, I discovered a few issues when using BW 3.x business content objects together with write optimized DSOs.

Let us imagine we do not want to migrate 3.x datasources to version 7 due to project restrictions. All business content objects installed for BW 3.x will work properly only within the framework of the 3.x content objects. For example, if we install a set of objects extracting CRM service orders and service contracts we get a set of DataStore Objects coming with the 3.x content. These objects are standard DSOs (or 3.x ODSes).

If we decide to migrate them to 7.0 write optimized DSOs, the set of objects installed with business content will not function correctly. This is due to the fact that we mix version 7 with version 3.5 objects within the same flow. In order to keep extractors working we have to use standard DSOs at the 1st level.

On the other hand, if we want to use transformations with start routines, end routines or expert routines within the same data flow, we can set up BI 7 DSOs for further processing (2nd level):

This kind of setup would allow us using existing 3.x business content functionality as well as data modeling capabilities from BI7 within the same data flow.