database management systems

The book is ok. Its not great. You can get something out of it ...

Two main issues:
(1) If you are going to use this book with any BW versions 3.x, you are going to have trouble. This is so because (1.1) some of the screenshots are out of date, and (1.2) there are somethings that 2.x did and used that are not done and used anymore - for example the CS Unit of Measure is no longer used. If you dont know that, you will become old sitting in front of your screen trying to figure out why something is not working.

(2) The books fails to omit some major steps. For example, in going from Ch.4 to Ch. 5 - Queries, you need to load some other data. At no point is this mentioned. I mean its quite obvious that more data needs to be entered, otherwise, Ch. 5 aint going to work - but thats just the problem - its too obvious. Sometimes - when we have been behind the screen for too many hours, we fail to see things precisely because they are TOO obvious. So ... you can wind up spending too much time futzing around trying to figure out why something is not working.

With this book, you can seat down in front of the terminal and begin using BW right away.

On the other hand, you better have some experience building Data Warehouses prior to using BW. There might be 2 or 3 ways to build a business solution and this book is not necessarily a good source for "best practices" or architecture concepts. A good book that could complement this one is "Mastering the SAP Business Information Warehouse".

Disappointing in both structure and content; surprising thing, cosidering that the authors come with substantial credentials.

It is more of an end-user self-training package targeting the individuals that want to memorize and troubleshoot their way through the setup rather that providing a step-by-step business case driven scenario.

Unfortunately the release that make the subject of the book is already obsolete (well, this is not authors' fault).

The CD-ROM attached to it is of little if any use;