I agree with Scott that your questions are really very large scope questions and cannot be answered in the amount of space available in the forum. The links that Scott provided should illustrate for you the overall architecture and capabilities of the BI (or Enterprise Intelligence Platform).
In general, the Enterprise BI Server is used as part of an enterprise-wide deployment of the various "tiers", which together are known as the Enterprise Intelligence Platform. For example, on this page, the client application "tier" is clearly pictured:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/biov/60947/HTML/default/a003069226.htm
The Desktop client applications (which some might call "tools" ) are clearly shown in the diagram. Among the client applications listed are the SAS Add-in for Microsoft Office and SAS DI Studio and SAS OLAP Cube Studio -- could these all be considered "tools"??? Yes. But in reality, they are client applications whose usage will depend on the job roles of the people using the various client applications. For example -- will a person who works with Sales Reports every day with the SAS Add-in for Microsoft Office ever use SAS DI Studio or SAS OLAP Cube Studio???? Probably NOT.
The end user who access data and creates reports with the SAS Add-in for Microsoft office may use information maps, data tables and OLAP cubes that were specially prepared for them -- but the end user is not involved in the data preparation themselves. Most corporations or sites have "data managers" or "data based administrators" or "data dictionary administrators" who are responsible for maintaining and managing data resources and it is these "data managers" who would primarily use SAS OLAP Cube Studio, SAS DI Studio and, probably, SAS Information Map Studio.
An overview of all the Client Applications can be found here:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/biov/60947/HTML/default/a002984305.htm
Here is the recommended reading list of information on the architecture and components of the SAS Enterprise Intelligence Platform:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/biov/60947/HTML/default/a002594508.htm
This 2007 paper has a nice table (on pages 7 and
😎 that shows typical job roles of the people who use the different client applications:
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2007/207-2007.pdf
I don't understand your questions about what the users require for SAS DI?? Do you mean for SAS DI Studio??? SAS DI Studio is the client application used by DATA MANAGERS to load data, extract data, and transform data for use by less technical users. SAS DI Studio is a component of the whole Enterprise Intelligence Platform. For specific system requirements, white papers, customer success stories, and market research, see this site:
http://www.sas.com/technologies/dw/index.html
cynthia