By Dr. Berg
To speed up query execution and also get access to ‘near-time’ and ‘real-time’ data in BW, look at the new HybridProvider. The core idea is to link the historical data inside BWA with real-time data. Currently, there are two ways of implementing a hybrid provider: it can be based on a DSO or a Virtual InfoCube.
If you base it on a DSO, then ‘real-time’ data is in the DSO and historical data in the BWA-based InfoCube (the DSO uses real-time data acquisition (RDA) to load data). BW automatically creates a process chain for the HybridProvider's data flow and the process chain is executed for every closed request. This solution provides for really fast queries, but delta logic has to be custom designed.
If you base it on a Virtual cube, the data is read in real-time from ECC, while historical data is read from BWA. The difference depends on how often BWA is loaded. Basic non-complex data logic can be applied and DTP is permitted if you do not filter the data set. Just be sure that you take into account that virtual cubes with many users may place high stress on the ERP system.
I believe these may be great options for people in finance looking at faster close cycles and near-time reporting, or executives who simply cannot wait for end-of-nigh data loads.