In SAP BW, efficient and reliable transport of objects between different system landscapes (development, quality assurance, and production) is crucial for maintaining consistency, ensuring quality, and supporting continuous business operations. This article explores the process, tools, and best practices involved in transporting BW objects within the SAP Business Warehouse environment.
Transporting in SAP BW refers to the process of moving development objects — such as InfoObjects, InfoProviders, DataSources, Transformations, Process Chains, Queries, and others — from one SAP system (typically development) to another (quality assurance or production). This process ensures that the configurations and developments are deployed in a controlled and consistent manner.
SAP BW uses the SAP Transport Management System (TMS) to handle the movement of transport requests containing BW objects. TMS manages:
TMS ensures auditability and consistency across systems, which is essential for enterprise-grade BW landscapes.
Common BW objects that require transport include:
Developers create or modify BW objects in the development system and assign them to a transport request.
Once development or changes are complete and tested locally, the transport request is released from the development system.
The transport request is exported by the SAP Transport Organizer, generating transport files.
The transport request is imported into the quality assurance or production system using TMS, often scheduled during maintenance windows.
After import, verify the objects and conduct functional testing to ensure integrity.
BW distinguishes between metadata (definitions of objects) and data (transactional data). Typically, only metadata is transported, while data is loaded separately.
Transporting Process Chains and DTPs requires ensuring that the target system has the necessary objects referenced by these processes.
SAP Business Content (standard BW objects) requires careful handling to avoid overwriting custom developments.
Some BW objects reference external systems or data sources; ensuring these connections exist in the target system is vital.
In SAP BW on HANA and BW/4HANA, transport concepts have evolved with enhanced flexibility, including:
Transporting BW objects efficiently and securely is a backbone process in the SAP BW lifecycle, ensuring that changes developed in a controlled environment move smoothly into testing and production systems. Understanding the transport mechanisms, planning transports thoughtfully, and following best practices safeguard system integrity and support reliable business analytics.