Data Provisioning Supportability of SAP S/4HANA On...

former_member202991 · ‎07-07-2016

Overview　

To support Data Provisioning while taking SAP S/4HANA system as the source, with current version (SAP S/4HANA On-Premise 1709), 2 source types are available as listed below:

1) SAP BW (Business Warehouse) DataSources

2) ABAP CDS (Core Data Service) Views

This blog aims to explain these 2 source types including how-to guidance, but will not go into details of SAP BW DataSources, ABAP CDS, or S/4 HANA Embedded Analytics, etc.

S/4HANA Data Provisioning Supportability with SAP BW DataSources

Customers can extract data from SAP S/4HANA 1709 to their own BW-Hub using the BW extractors delivered by SAP. In some areas, extractors have been deprecated or can no longer be used with SAP S/4HANA 1709. The extractors related to deprecated functionality, or Add-ons etc. that due to S/4HANA simplification will not be available after conversion, and accordingly the downstream ETL, modeling, queries will be also affected. Meanwhile, customers can simplify traditional BI, and utilize S/4HANA embedded analytics for instant insight-to-action operational reporting. Please refer to the general restriction Note 2491467 for SAP S/4HANA 1709. There, restriction notes of multiple areas are listed which contain the list of no longer available BW extractors.

DataSource adjustments might be required to comply with changed Scope and data structures within SAP S/4HANA 1709. This needs to be verified on customer-specific basis. For example, in SAP S/4HANA the material number was extended from 18 to 40 characters for moving SAP DIMP to core. After the upgrade to SAP S/4HANA all DataSources in the source system are deactivated. Thus the metadata of the DataSources must be replicated to the central SAP BW system again (TA RSA1). Consequentially the persistency tables in the SAP BW staging area are extended to 40 characters.

For very basic scenarios, the S/4HANA database interface layer of NetWeaver redirects all extractor related SELECTs to compatibility views (proxy objects are in place for objects like MKPF, etc.), which retrieves the same data based on the new data model (ACDOCA, MATDOC, and backup tables like xxxx_BCK, etc.) e.g.:

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1709 Simplification List:

http://help.sap.com/s4hana -> SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1709 -> Simplification List

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1709: Restriction Note:

http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2491467

How to check available DataSources in the system:

Tx. RSA5	Install Business Content
Tx. RSA6	Maintain DataSources, only activated DataSources (RSA5) are displayed

　

S/4HANA Data Provisioning Supportability with ABAP CDS based VDMs

The analytics programming model of SAP S/4HANA is based on Core Data Services (CDS) views and the accordingly pre-delivered semantic layer as Virtual Data Models (VDMs). The virtual data models are also used for transactional or search uses cases and aims to fulfill on-premise and on-demand qualities. A complete Analytics solution also requires Data Provisioning capabilities to support scenarios such as central EDW, Data-as-a-Service (DaaS), Mobile Offline apps, and offline Analytics like with Lumira Desktop. The CDS views provided with the virtual data model can also be used as basis for Data Provisioning.

CDS views for Data Provisioning shall be annotated with "@Analytics.dataExtraction.enabled: true".

Via this indicator the application marks those Entities that are suitable for Data Provisioning. This ability is typically lost on the level of consumption views where joins, procedures and aggregations "blur" the relation to the primary data (especially data replication including calculated elements leads to wrong query results in the target system). To avoid additional data modeling outside VDM for the data provisioning scenarios, a logical sub-layer in the CDS reuse layer should be redundancy-free, but still complete from the business perspective. For each reuse view which is part of this core layer, it is decided from a technical (performance, …) and semantic perspective, whether it can be also released for extraction use cases mentioned above. All views with an analytical data category of #FACT, #DIMENSION, #TEXT, #HIERARCHY are also suitable for Data Provisioning.

ABAP CDS in ABAP Dictionary – HELP SAP Documentation:

http://help.sap.com/abapdocu_751/en/index.htm -> ABAP – Keyword Documentation →　 ABAP – Dictionary →　 ABAP CDS in ABAP Dictionary

How to check if a CDS based VDM is enabled for extraction

With the name of an existing CDS View or S/4HANA ‘eliminated’ table, several approaches could be used to check the detailed DDL definition of the (underlying) CDS View. From there the dataExtraction.enabled property can be checked further.

An overview of useable approaches per the type of object could be found in the below table. Detailed explanation follows afterwards.

	Approach
	FIORI App - View Browser	ADT - Search Function	Tx SE11 redirecting to ADT
General CDS Views	● (i.e. status ‘released’ only)	●	●
S/4 HANA ‘ELIMINATED TABLES WITH PROXY OBJECT’	○	●	○
	* Shows the definition only. Fast and simple way for key users.	* Takes long time for getting search result. With advanced functionalities available via ADT. Suitable for IT users.	* Fast and simple way. With advanced functionalities available via ADT. Suitable for IT users.

　

How to perform Data Provisioning in BW from S/4HANA CDS based VDMs

SAP BW is designed to consolidate data from different source systems and provide a harmonized view for reporting. For this SAP BW supports various tools and concepts, e.g. different staging areas and data sources for each system that needs to be integrated into the central reporting.

Option 1: Data Provisioning from S/4HANA basing on CDS views

From release BW 7.5 SP05 powered by HANA (BW/4HANA SP01), ABAP CDS views can be used for Data Provisioning. Two typical scenarios are included in this option for your reference:

1) Direct access to a CDS view from BW

2) Delta extraction from a CDS view to BW

Other use cases are not included at this moment.

Scenario 1: Direct access to a CDS view from BW

In this scenario, the ETL procedure is to extract data from SAP S/4HANA to SAP BW via a dedicated ODP (Operational Data Provider) source system type as below:

For each CDS View in the source system, there is a corresponding Open ODS View in BW. After data source creation, with this Open ODS View, you can directly consume the definition of the CDS in the source system. The ODP name of the source object is exactly the name of the CDS view you were looking at in the source system. This gives you the possibility to have one interface on the source system side for direct access in the source system, and for full data provisioning from the source into BW as well.

Scenario 2: Delta extraction from a CDS view to BW

If the main table of the source CDS view is large like the ACDOCA table in S/4 HANA, extracting the data as full load or using direct access to BW are not recommended. In this case, delta mechanism is preferred whereby only ‘New’, ’Changed’ or ‘Deleted’ records are extracted periodically. CDS views enable delta extraction via delta element annotations. These delta element annotations then require a delta element or a ‘pseudo delta’ field to be defined-typically a last changed timestamp on the record. Below is the process of delta extraction from a CDS view to BW.

Refer to below the solid SAP How-To Guide for implementation:

How to use ABAP CDS for Data Provisioning in BW

Option 2: Data Provisioning from S/4HANA basing on CDS underlying technical database views

The other way around, is to integrate the underlying database views of the CDS views. Below is the typical scenarios can be referenced

How to load data from S/4HANA into BW via SDA

Thank you for reading!

Gavin Huang