Business Data Catalog Resource Center

You can use Business Data Catalog to display data from your SAP, Siebel, or other line-of-business (LOB) application via Web services or databases.

Use the Business Data Catalog metadata model that provides a consistent and simplified client object model from which to access data sources.

No need to write code. Metadata authors define metadata in XML.

Clients can  access all business applications in a single, simplified way. Because of the Runtime object model, calling a method on an SAP application is very similar to calling a method on Siebel or executing a query in SQL.

If entity instances have a persistent identity, such as a primary key, you can search for and locate them by using the key (identifier). Without an identifier, the Business Data Catalog cannot uniquely identify an entity instance. The returned data must have identifiers so that the data has semantic meaning in the Business Data Catalog and so that you can have actions, search, and index on the entities.