SAP Boosts Business Data Search

SAP will roll out SAP BusinessObjects Explorer, designed to give workers within an organization near-instant access to business data via a user-friendly search interface. The new SAP search tool is scheduled to hit the market in summer 2009, although SAP has not disclosed a specific release date yet.

SAP BusinessObjects Explorer allows rapid search through millions of records via the search and navigation capabilities of the SAP BusinessObjects portfolio, which have been combined with SAP NetWeaver BW (Business Warehouse) Accelerator software.

The announcement of the new product was made May 12 at Sapphire, SAP’s annual conference, held this year in Orlando, Fla.

BusinessObjects Explorer works via a search box interface, allowing users to input key words-such as “tool price”-in order to find the data they need to answer mission-critical questions. Users can also drill down further into the data, with the system making suggestions for future searches. The company claims that its software is capable of searching through 900 million records in under 2.5 seconds.

The product will be available in two iterations, a “standard” edition and an accelerated version for sorting through enterprise data. One of SAP’s partners on the project is Intel, which has co-engineered the in-memory processing capabilities of SAP NetWeaver BW Accelerator to optimize it to work with the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series.

SAP has been collaborating with other companies on a number of enterprise software projects. On May 12, SAP and Hewlett-Packard announced a collaboration to speed business transactions, centered on having HP’s server-based XML accelerator working within SAP NetWeaver Process Integration technology to make XML transactions more rapid.

With the combined system in place, the companies claim a 700 percent improvement in the processing time needed for a single XML message, and a 400 percent improvement in the volume of messages processed.

Throughout 2009, SAP has rolled out a number of enterprise-oriented programs, including SAP Business Suite 7, which features a modular software library with SAP ERP, SAP Customer Relationship Management, SAP Supplier Relationship Management and SAP Supply Chain Management. Business Suite 7 that allows customers to deploy particular modules without necessarily needing to go through the time and expense of upgrading the entire platform.