With its 3.x versions, it became a full-featured data warehouse system providing for data collection, data transformation, storage in both flat and relational cube models, and a flexible query system and set of reporting and business intelligence tools under the name Business Explorer. BW was originally focused almost entirely on extracting data from SAP systems and reporting on that data, but relatively quickly added additional capabilities and flexibility. Historically, BW was created to provide online analytical processing ( OLAP) on top of SAP's transactional system R/3, which was optimized for online transaction processing ( OLTP). 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. Business users typically access SAP BW through an application built by a developer, such as an executive Dashboard or mobile app. 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. 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 Business Warehouse (BW) is a model-driven data warehousing product based on the SAP NetWeaver ABAP platform.

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