Virtual Remote Cube

There's times when you want to model an infoprovider, but you don't really want to store any data contents into it. Well, for that, the virtual remote cube comes in handy. This 'beast' can be used to 'act like an infocube, feel like an infocube, but is not an infocube', You can create this virtual infoprovider, having the same structure similar to infocube, with dimensions, characteristics and key figures. But the actual generation of data for this cube, is, well depends on your making.

You can choose to create a virtual provider with a 'direct access' to R/3. This means that upon viewing the data in this virtual provider, a remote function call is called direct to R/3 to get the values on the fly. You can also choose to get value from a function module of your calling, so the implementation details is really up to you. Now that's really flexible ain't it?

So how do you create this? In BI7, just right click on any infoarea, and choose create 'virtual provider'. For direct access, you choose Virtual Provider with 'direct access'. There's an option to use the old R/3 infosource. What this means is that you can create an infosource with transfer rules and such, and when you create the virtual infoprovider, it will use the structure in the infosource automatically and the flow of data is automatically link R/3 with the transfer rules and the virtual infoprovider. Note that no update rules exist with this kind of setup.

But in Bi7, you have a more flexible approach in that you can create a transformation to configure the 'transfer logic' of your virtual infoprovider, along with start routine, end routine or any other transformation technique visible with using a transformation rule.

But using BI7 setup, you need to create a sort of 'pseudo' DTP, which doesn't actually do anything, meaning you do not 'execute' it to start a data transfer.

After all is done, you need to right click on the virtual infoprovider and choose 'Activate Direct Access'. If you use Infosource, go to the Infosource tab, and choose the infosource. If you're using BI7 setup, choose the DTP related to the transformation and save it.

Now your virtual provider is ready to be used!

A word of advise though, a virtual infoprovider with direct access is really slow if you have a lot of records transmitting between the remote function calls. So, thread wisely!