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Author's profile photo Dong Pan

How to Setup Connection to a Remote HANA System for SAP Cloud for Analytics via SAP Web Dispatcher

Update Oct 11, 2016: with the introduction of Simple URL and built-in SAML authentication to SAP BusinessObjects Cloud in the recent releases, significant architectural changes have been brought into the BOC landscape that have implications on the reverse proxy configuration. I have written a new blog post that covers the necessary changes. As rewriting URLs in HTML becomes necessary in most typical scenarios, Web Dispatcher is not the recommended reverse proxy anymore, as it lacks of HTML rewriting capability. Check out the new blog for more details: What’s Changed – Setup Remote HANA Connection with SAML SSO in SAP BusinessObjects Cloud (link)

Over the past few months, I have gotten to know a lot of customers who are trying out SAP Cloud for Analytics (C4A) and would like to connect it to their on-premise/remote HANA systems. The main benefits are:

 

  1. High-level of data privacy. Data is not moved from corporate network to the cloud at all.
  2. Online/real-time data access to on-premise HANA

 

In order to achieve that, a reverse proxy needs to be setup in the corporate network. It does take quite a few steps to properly setup a reverse proxy for C4A, so I have published a how-to guide on setting up SAP Web Dispatcher as a reverse proxy for C4A and HANA:

 

     How to Setup Connection to a Remote HANA System for SAP Cloud for Analytics via SAP Web Dispatcher

 

I hope you will like it, and let me know if you have any question.

 

Enjoy! 🙂

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      Author's profile photo Roland Kramer
      Roland Kramer

      Good to know in times of HEC/HCP, thanks!

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      If you have set this up please provide us feedback on how we can enhance this guide.

      Author's profile photo Prasanna Lakshmi Kona
      Prasanna Lakshmi Kona

      Thanks for this which I have been looking for sometime now.

      However, I have not been able to get this extracted using SAPCAR utility

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      If you've got an error (5), this is probably a download error. In my case, after using the download manager to download SAP Web Dispatcher, I was able to extract successfully using SAPCAR.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      @Dong I am facing an error that I can't seem to resolve. I would appreciate your advice on it.

      After arriving at Step 8 of your guide (sapwebdisp pf=sapwebdisp.pfl), I have received the message in cmd that says "SAP Web Dispatcher up and operational...etc."

      The problem is whenever I go to https://localhost:4310/sap/wdisp/admin/ I get 404 error Resource not found.

      I appreciate the help of the community on this error.

      Thank you,

      Moe

      Author's profile photo Dong Pan
      Dong Pan
      Blog Post Author

      Install Web Dispatcher to C:\usr\sap\WDP, and the problem should go away.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Thank you for the response. I have now arrived at step number 26 - https://<WebDispatcherFQDN>:4310/sap/fpa/ui/tenant/003 <-- I have replaced the <webdispatcherfqdn> by my domain and the tenant number to 6 (which is my tenant number).

      The error I received is 503 Service not available even though the web dispatcher gave me a "fully operational" message after adjusting the sapwebdisp.pfl and the adding the rewrite.txt.

      I would appreciate your guidance Dong 🙂 Please bear in mind that I have done a ton of troubleshooting prior to this message.

      Author's profile photo Dong Pan
      Dong Pan
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Mohammad,

      At step 19, did you import C4A's certificate to SAPSSLC.pse? Make sure you did not import C4A's certificate into SAPSSLS.pse.

      Regards,

      Dong

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Dong,

      Yes that's correct. SAPSSLS.pse is where I imported the certificate from my CA. And SAPSSLC.pse is where I imported the downloaded certificate from C4A.

      I have attached the code for webdisp and rewrite.

      Author's profile photo Dong Pan
      Dong Pan
      Blog Post Author

      Do you have a web proxy in your environment in order to access Internet? If not, remove "proxy:8080" in your web dispatcher rule.

      Author's profile photo Amarpreet Singh
      Amarpreet Singh

      Hi Mohammad,

      can you help us know how did you overcome this error message?

      Regards

      Amar Bhalla

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      Hi Amarpreet,

      Can you create a new discussion thread here:

      http://scn.sap.com/community/post!input.jspa?containerType=14&container=2608&contentType=1

      Also are you trying to connect to HANA on-premise, HANA cloud platform (HCP) or an HANA Enterprise Cloud (HEC) DB?

      Author's profile photo Amarpreet Singh
      Amarpreet Singh

      Sure John,

      Meanwhile i am trying to connect to Han on Premise.

      Regards

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Amar,

      If you are referring to 503 service not available error, then here is the solution. Your company may or may not have a proxy in your internet environment (local network). Please ask your admin if you do. If no proxy is there, then remove the "proxy=8080" from the sapwebdisp.pfl code.

      I hope this helps.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Dong,

      I have arrived at step# 34, creating the connection in C4A - I am getting very close!

      **Before I present the challenge I am facing, I believe there is a typo in the screenshot/info on step# 28. Since we are doing an http connection, the port should be 8010, not 4310.

      So the challenge I am facing is C4A is giving me an error when I try to connect to HANA. Here is what I have done.

      1) I have written the correct line in the sapwebdisp.pfl and rewrite.text. Here is a screenshot.

      1_Sapwebdisp.pfl.PNG

      2) I verified that I was able to access HANA XS, logged in and received the items in this screenshot.

      2_HANA_Test_success.PNG

      3) Finally, I went to the C4A website using my localhost, 4310 port, and /sap/fpa/ui/tenant/006. This is the error I received.

      3_Firefly_Error_503.PNG

      I hope the material I am posting here helps other members in tackling their problems when they attempt to connect to HANA. Again, I appreciate all the support you are providing Dong.

      Author's profile photo Dong Pan
      Dong Pan
      Blog Post Author

      It is NOT a typo in step 28. Although the communcation between Web Dispatcher and HANA is HTTP, the communciation between Web Dispatcher and the web browser is always HTTPS at port 4310 (SRCSRV). HANA's HTTP port is already defined in EXTSRV.

      Author's profile photo Jörn Junghänel
      Jörn Junghänel

      Is using the HANA Cloud Connector a viable alternative to using the apache reverse proxy or SAP Dispatcher. What are the pros and cons ?

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      The HANA Cloud Connector is unrelated to connecting C4A to on premise HANA or HCP. HCC is used to connect to UNX, BW, and BPC.

      Hope this helps.

      Moe

      Author's profile photo Jörn Junghänel
      Jörn Junghänel

      Hi, Thanks for the quick answer. This description gave the impression that HCC acts similar or an alternative to reverse proxies : https://help.hana.ondemand.com/help/frameset.htm?e6c7616abb5710148cfcf3e75d96d596.html So do you need HCC and an additional Reverse proxy if you like to connect on-premise HANA and BPC or BW ? Kind regards, Jörn

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi Jorn,

      That's an excellent observation! I don't think you can access on-premise HANA using HCC because otherwise it would've been mentioned on the user guide, but I won't discourage you from playing around with it. 🙂

      Like I said in my previous comment, HCC is only used for unx, bpc, and bw, not hana (at least what the user guide entails).

      Moe

      Author's profile photo Dong Pan
      Dong Pan
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Joern,

      HCC is used for Data Acquisition mode only, and reverse proxy is used for online/real-time data access. Data Acquisition mode is not available for HANA at the moment.

      Regards,

      Dong

      Author's profile photo Balavignesh Shunmuganathan
      Balavignesh Shunmuganathan

       

      Former Member

      I am trying use a java OData which is deployed in our XSA HANA system(on premise). When i try to use the OData in BOC application it is not working. In some the documentations i read it says for using the OData in on-Premise system we must have a HANA cloud connector in the system. Can you please help me in this scenario ?

      Author's profile photo Rauno Veberson
      Rauno Veberson

      I have managed to set up Web Dispatcher for both C4A and Hana database and the test URL-s work fine. However I cannot login from the /sap/fpa/ui/tenant/xxx URL because I get wrong credentials error.

      When I log in from https://epmxxxxxxxxxx.hana.ondemand.com/y/Z (where y.Z is the content namespace seen in the Administration area of the account) I can use the same credentials to log in. But with the /sap/fpa/ui/tenant/xxx I get wrong credentials.

      Which credentials should I use there to log in to C4A?

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      Hi Rauno, were you able to resolve your issue?

      Author's profile photo Rauno Veberson
      Rauno Veberson

      Turns out there was an error in the contracting department. I couldn't use the Cloud Identity and SAP had to provide me with correct username and password.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hi.

      First of all, thanks for the guide. It was very helpful.

      My question is:

      I setup everything as mentioned.

      I can connect with the externel URL to the BusinessObjects Cloud via Webdispatcher.

      When I try to connect to my HANA TENANT with external URL the Webdispatcher routes correct to the HANA but the HANA Webdispatcher receives the external URL not the internel HANA URL and so it gives the error:

      IcrFindTargetSystem: No system found for vhost: "external.URL" addr: "HANADBIP:8000" url: /sap/bc/ina/service/v2/GetServerInfo

      The browser logicaly gives me a 503.

      Any ideas?

      Author's profile photo John Leggio
      John Leggio

      Hi Christoph,

      I suggest you create a new question discussion thread.

      http://scn.sap.com/community/post!input.jspa?containerType=14&container=2608&contentType=1

      Can you provide the pfl and rewrite files as well ?

      Thanks,

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Hello Dong,

      Connection to Remote hana system for SAP cloud for analyticss via web dispatcher is done successfully.

      I am able to login to reverse proxy URL set from HANA B with user having INA roles.

      But after logging in ,Nothing is displayed.

      I am unable to follow step 32 mentioned in link.getting the error as "the remote server could not be found.Kindly check the Live data connection details"

      Please help us 🙂

      Thanks,

      Charan

      Author's profile photo Balavignesh Shunmuganathan
      Balavignesh Shunmuganathan

      Hello Dong,

      I am trying use a java OData which is deployed in our XSA HANA system(on premise). When i try to use the OData in BOC application it is not working. In some the documentations i read it says for using the OData in on-Premise system we must have a HANA cloud connector in the system. In one of the comments here I saw HCC is not needed for HANA system. If not HCC why is my OData not getting connected in BOC application. Can you please help me in this scenario .

      Thanks & Regards

      S.Balavignesh