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Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler

ABAP Core Data Services | SAP S/4HANA – Best Practice Guide

The Virtual Data Model is one of the primary building blocks of the S/4HANA architecture. Its technical foundation is provided by ABAP Core Data Services (CDS). The key benefits of the CDS framework are:

  • Many new SQL features:
    • SQL joins: INNER JOIN, LEFT OUTER JOIN, …
    • SQL set operations: UNION, UNION ALL
    • SELECT clauses: GROUP BY, HAVING
    • Aggregate functions: AVG, MAX, SUM, …
    • Numeric functions: CEIL, MOD, ABS, …
    • String functions: SUBSTRING, LPAD, CONCAT, …
    • Date and time functions: DATS_DAYS_BETWEEN, DATS_ADD_DAYS, …
  • Easy-to-integrate services on-top:
    • OData clients
    • SAP Fiori
    • Analytics
  • Simplification of application coding
  • Push-down of workload into the HANA database

Since the technology is fairly new it poses quite some challenges to you as system administrators or development teams. You need to

  • ensure that the maintenance level of their software stack is up-to-date,
  • keep an eye on the overall CDS work load,
  • monitor and tune the performance of complex queries, and
  • establish clear rules for the development of own code using CDS.

Fortunately, a best practice guide is now available on how to implement, monitor and tune CDS based applications within S/4HANA. The document provides an holistic approach to CDS and is written for IT architects, ABAP developers, SAP Basis teams and database administrators. Regular updates are planned.

Direct Link: ABAP Core Data Services | SAP S/4HANA – Best Practice Guide
Short URL: https://tinyurl.com/ABAP-CDS-inside-S4HANA

Last update of the guide: 7-Feb-2020

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      8 Comments
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      Author's profile photo Jonathan Bourne
      Jonathan Bourne

      This is a very useful document - thank you.

      It would be helpful to include "Enterprise Search" in the section "Services Based on CDS Views".

      Regards, JB

      Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler
      Bernd Kohler
      Blog Post Author

      Hello Jonathan,

      thanks for the feedback. "Enterprise Search" will be included in the next version of this guide.

      Best Regards,

      Bernd.

      Author's profile photo Wolfgang Röckelein
      Wolfgang Röckelein

      Hi Bernd,

      thanks for providing this helpful document!

      The document links to https://tinyurl.com/SAP-ABAP-CDS-Feature-Matrix but this blog only covers the development up to 7.51. A lot has been added in 7.52 and 7.53. Could we get an updated Feature Matrix?

      Regards,

      Wolfgang

      Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler
      Bernd Kohler
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Wolfgang,

      thanks for drawing our attention to https://tinyurl.com/SAP-ABAP-CDS-Feature-Matrix. I will get in touch with the owner of that blog and ask for an update.

      In the meanwhile, you may look at the following links for 7.52 & 7.53 up-to-date documentation:

      Bernd.

      Author's profile photo Wolfgang Röckelein
      Wolfgang Röckelein

      Hi Bernd,

      thanks. Unfortunatly I see the blog author only as "former member"...

      I know the mentionded documentation, but there is not a "what's new" section...

      Regards,

      Wolfgang

      Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler
      Bernd Kohler
      Blog Post Author

      Hi Wolfgang,

      there is detailed online information available on what's new with each 7.5x version.
      Please, refer to the following short links:

      We will add these links to the next version of the CDS Best Practice Guides. If possible https://tinyurl.com/SAP-ABAP-CDS-Feature-Matrix will also be updated accordingly.

      Bernd.

      Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler
      Bernd Kohler
      Blog Post Author

      An updated version of the guide is now available at:

      Direct Link: ABAP Core Data Services | SAP S/4HANA – Best Practice Guide
      Short URL: https://tinyurl.com/ABAP-CDS-inside-S4HANA

      Author's profile photo Bernd Kohler
      Bernd Kohler
      Blog Post Author

      A new version of the guide is available and can be downloaded from the links specified above.