ERwin Interface
Overview
ERwin has superb reverse engineering capabilities and can accurately represent a data model of any database by querying the system catalogs and interpreting the data structure. As ERwin includes both a logical and physical model, it infers the logical model from the physical structure.Because of the sophisticated architecture of SAP R/3, if you point ERwin at the SAP R/3 database, there are 2 major problems in the data structure ERwin can infer.
Firstly SAP R/3 uses Physical names like TNA1 for tables, which SAP R/3 understands perfectly, but users generally don't. Hence the ERwin Model contains unfamiliar and unusable names for database objects in both the Logical and Physical Models.
Secondly, SAP R/3 does not store relationship information within the physical database, again SAP R/3 understands it's own relationships perfectly, but a reverse engineered ERwin model will have no relationship information.
With Saphir...
By using Saphir with the ERwin Interface users can build a fully attributed data model of all or part of the SAP R/3 database.This will include relationships, proper SAP R/3 table names, in the language of your choice, in the logical model and real SAP R/3 database object names in the physical model.
This meta data can then be leveraged to aid projects such as Data Warehousing, Reporting, add-on applications or Meta Data Management.
Key Benefits
Graphical representation of the SAP R/3 Data Structure to assist both Business Users and Technicians in Understanding the SAP R/3 Meta Data
Relationships visible within the model
ERwin Models reflecting the SAP R/3 Textual Descriptions for Tables and Columns
ERwin Models based on a chosen subset of SAP R/3 Tables, e.g. a Development Class
The ability to use this information in an ERwin Dimensional Model to Source and Target Data for a Data Warehouse.
