With DB2 Version 7.2, you can access many new and diverse warehouse sources. The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connectors, three new business intelligence offerings, extend your access to data that is managed by applications like SAP R/3 and i2 TradeMatrix BPI. The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connectors also provide the capability to bring web clickstream data into the data warehouse. Other new warehouse data sources include Microsoft OLE DB objects, Microsoft Data Transaction Services targets, and MQSeries message queue data, including messages that are formatted as XML documents.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for i2 TradeMatrix BPI allows you to:
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for i2 TradeMatrix BPI generates the steps that manage the loading of the i2 dimension and fact tables from existing input files (in standard BPI comma-separated variable (CSV) format), as well as loading of the OLAP cube. After you import the metadata for i2 sources, the Data Warehouse Center creates and populates the Processes folder for the i2 load steps. Because the i2 load steps are controlled by the Data Warehouse Center, you can control when and how often they run, or run them on demand.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for i2 TradeMatrix BPI runs on Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000. The i2 TradeMatrix business-model source can be on any supported platform.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for SAP R/3 allows you to access and bring SAP business objects stored in SAP R/3 systems into a DB2 data warehouse. Business objects, along with business components, provide an object-oriented view of R/3 business functions. You can then use the power of DB2 and the Data Warehouse Center for data analysis, data transformation, or data mining.
You define the data extraction step using the Data Warehouse Center by simply clicking and dropping an SAP object onto the process modeler. When you define an SAP source, you see all the metadata about the SAP object, including key fields, parameter names, data types, precision, scale, length, and mandatory parameters. You also see all basic and detailed parameters associated with the SAP business object.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for SAP R/3 runs on Microsoft Windows NT or Windows 2000. (For Windows 2000, you should use Microsoft's service pak 1.) The SAP server can be on any platform.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for the Web allows you to extract data from an IBM WebSphere Site Analyzer (WSA) database, or webmart, into a data warehouse. The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for the Web includes a polling step that checks whether WSA has copied web traffic data from its data imports (log files, tables, and clickstream data) to the webmart. When this check is successful, an SQL step copies the web traffic data from the webmart into a warehouse target. You can then use the power of DB2 and the Data Warehouse Center for data analysis, data transformation, or data mining. You can also incorporate WebSphere Commerce data with the web traffic data for a more complete analysis of your web site.
After defining a web traffic source, you can define the web traffic polling step from the Data Warehouse Center by simply clicking and dropping a web object onto the process modeler.
The DB2 Warehouse Manager Connector for the Web runs on the same platforms as the DB2 Version 7.2 warehouse agent: Windows NT, Windows 2000, AIX, and the Solaris Operating Environment.
For more information about the DB2 Warehouse Manager Connectors, see the DB2 Version 7.2 Warehouse Manager Installation Guide.
The Data Warehouse Center now enables you to access data from an MQSeries message queue as a DB2 database view. A wizard is provided to create a DB2 table function and the DB2 view through which you can access the data. (See MQSeries Assist Wizard, for more information.) Each MQSeries message is treated as a delimited string, which is parsed according to your specification, and returned as a result row.
In addition, MQSeries messages that are XML documents can be accessed as a warehouse source. Using the Data Warehouse Center, you can import metadata about XML documents from an MQSeries queue and a DB2 XML Extender Document Access Definition (DAD) file. The Data Warehouse Center uses this metadata to automatically create the warehouse target definition and the warehouse step to retrieve the XML documents from the queue.
The Data Warehouse Center now enables you to access data from an OLE DB provider as a DB2 database view. A wizard is provided to create a DB2 OLE DB table function and the DB2 view through which you can access the data. See MQSeries Assist Wizard, for more information.
Because Data Transaction Services (DTS) packages can be accessed as OLE DB sources, the wizard also allows you to create the view for a DTS package. When you access the view at run time, the DTS package executes and the target table of the DTS package is exposed as the created view.