SAP And NCR Team On Data AnalysisSAP And NCR Team On Data Analysis

SAP and NCR Corp.'s Teradata division are building links between SAP's applications and Teradata's data-warehouse system for complex data-analysis tasks involving huge volumes of information, the companies said Monday. The alliance is aimed at the telecommunications, pharmaceutical, financial services, and aerospace-defense industries.

Developers at the companies are tuning links between Teradata's data-warehouse products and SAP's NetWeaver integration platform, which includes SAP's Business Information Warehouse data-integration software. Those modifications, which will facilitate bidirectional sharing of data and metadata between the systems, will be included in a new release of NetWeaver due out in the next two months. The vendors are also exploring opportunities for developing analytical applications for the targeted markets.

With the linked Teradata and SAP systems, companies can combine transactional data in the SAP applications with historical data in the data warehouse for detailed trend analysis, says Meta Group analyst Barry Wilderman. Financial-services companies can use the combined systems for risk management and customer-profitability analysis, for example, while pharmaceutical companies can analyze manufacturing quality data. The vendors estimate that about 200 companies already use some combination of SAP and Teradata technology.