ODS reporting without Bex Reporting activated

Question

Hello
As part of a review I have been doing on our current BW data loading strategy I have uncovered a number of ODS objects that have the Bex reprorting indicator active. The consequence of this is that it has a negative impact on performance when loading data into BW, particularly if we have to re-initialise the data.
We currently do not actually report off the ODS object and from the research I have done the consensus seems to be that you should leave the bex reporting indicator turned off unless absolutely necessary and to use an infoset for reporting.
In the coming week we will be faced with having to reload 15 millions+ records back into these ODS objects after doing a redesign so thought it a good time to untick this option.
I should mention that we are using a BW 3.5 system.
Any comments would be appreciated and if the preference is to use an infoset, then can someone give a practical example why you would ever want to set an ODS to allow bex reporting other than the obvious response of not wanting to create an infoset Would i be correct in stating that I wouldn't be able to use indexes to aid performance if i use infosets. I'm reluctant to pass this data into an infocube given the amount of data as it contains asset transaction postings.
An additional side question which is more for my personal interest is whether it is true that it is not preferential to include ODS objects (or infosets) within a multiprovider given that strictly speaking the ODS object is not multi-dimensional. I recently read this in an article and had not considered this before so was wondering if it is correct.
Thank you in advance for your responses.
Regards
Mark
Edited by: majohnson on Mar 31, 2011 1:35 PM

Answer 1

Hi Christoper
Thank you for your response. You seem very passionate about not reporting on ODS objects
What I do find interesting is that there are a number of standard content ODS objects which do have the bex reporting indicator active.
I'm forming the view that if you do not have performance issue considerations loading data into ODS objects and you can control the amount of data selected via reporting using indexes and query restrictions etc then an ODS is still useful for reporting or alternatively the infoset option. That said, this does not apply to the ODS objects I was referring to in my main post and I will be deselecting the bex reporting indicator before re-initialising the data.
I have always been led to believe by people who know more about BW than myself that the infocube is designed for summarised / targeted multidimensional data and that storing line item information in an infocube seems to be contrary to this position.
Our current design approach standard in that we load data into a staging layer (Generally ODS objects, most of which do not allow bex reporting, and some of which contain line item information), then into a transformation layer (generally infocubes) and finally we report out of multi-providers in our reporting layer.
Our general reporting strategy has been that operational style reports which would include line item reporting should be done within ECC and all other strategic, summarised reporting etc is delivered in BW.
Regards
Mark