What is the significance of ODS in BIW?

An ODS Object serves to store consolidated and debugged transaction data on a document level (atomic level). It describes a consolidated dataset from one or more InfoSources. This dataset can be analyzed with a BEx Query or InfoSet Query. The data of an ODS Object can be updated with a delta update into InfoCubes and/or other ODS Objects in the same system or across systems. In contrast to multi-dimensional data storage with InfoCubes, the data in ODS Objects is stored in transparent, flat database tables.