SAP Analytics Cloud - Live Connection to SAP HANA ...
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In this blog you will find the code snippets, some background and additional information together with links to documentation for the tutorial video playlist on YouTube.
In this series, we cover a live connection to SAP HANA using the Information Access (InA) Service. This service is exposed by SAP HANA XS (classic) and requires the following configuration before the connection can be established.
Configure a public URL for the XS server. By default, XS is only accessible internally.
Certify the public URL. By default, the XS server (Web Dispatcher) uses only self-signed certificates.
Grant the INA_ROLE to a user. By default, no user has this role granted.
Enable and confgiure external access to the InA service. By default, CORS (Cross Origin Resource Sharing) is disabled.
Modify the session server timeout for the XS server. By default, the session times out in 90 seconds.
Create Live Connection
Creating a Live Connection to a SAP HANA system on SAP Analytics Cloud is a simple task for the business user once all the prerequisites have been met. We need to provide the public URL for the system, the HTTPS port, and for basic authentication a user name and password, e.g.:
host = myhost.lab.cloud.sap
port = 4390
user = INA_USER
password = *******
To access information views in a HANA tenant database from SAP Analytics Cloud, the HANA XS server needs to listen to a public URL. It is not required to register the public URL with a public DNS. Only the computer accessing SAC needs to be able to resolve the address. This means that even the local hosts file can be used for name resolution. More common will be DNS registration inside the corporate network.
## execute as INI ADMIN on SYSTEMDB
ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('xsengine.ini', 'database', 'HXE')
SET ('public_urls', 'http_url') = 'http://myhost.lab.cloud.sap:8090'
WITH RECONFIGURE;
ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('xsengine.ini', 'database', 'HXE')
SET ('public_urls', 'https_url') = 'https://myhost.lab.cloud.sap:4390'
WITH RECONFIGURE;
For testing, you can add the FQDN of the host to your local hosts file (Linux, macOS /etc/hosts; Windows %WINDIR%\system32\drivers\etc)
The public URL needs to be signed by a certificate authority (CA). Digital web server certificates are provided by companies like DigiCert and Symantec (random list). For corporate environments, this service is typically by the IT department (SAP colleagues, visit Global PKI Certificate Management).
The public/private keys of the PSE (Personal Security Environment) of the HTTP Server (Web Dispatcher) are signed with host name only (CN=sid-hxe in case of HANA express). Recreate the SAPSSLS PSE with proper identification and with the CN corresponding to the public URL, e.g.
Then generate the CSR (certificate sign request), upload it to the CA and import the web server certificate.
Note that you have to import the full certificate trust chain:
Top: X.509 certificate received from the CA;
Middle: any intermediate certificate;
Bottom: (Global) Root Certificate
Typically, the CA provides just the signed certificate and you have to download the other from their website. Open the certificate as text file and copy/paste the content to the Import CA Response field.
Should you use a Corporate CA (e.g. SAP) and not a global one (e.g. DigiCert), make sure to import the certificate trust chain on your client computer. Without the chain, browsers cannot trust the server certificate. Corporate client computers typically come with corporate certificates installed but should you have powered up a client with a cloud provider, you will have to import corporate root certificates yourself.
In the video tutorial, we use the SAP Web Dispatcher to recreate the PSE, generate the CRS and import the certificate. You can access the tenant database web dispatcher using the URL configured above with path:
To connect to the Web Dispatcher, we need the WebDispatcherAdmin role. Any user could be used but a least-privileged user approach is generally recommended. In the code example below we create the XS_ADMIN user and grant the user the WebDispatcherAdmin role.
CREATE USER xs_admin PASSWORD ****;
CALL GRANT_ACTIVATED_ROLE('sap.hana.xs.wdisp.admin::WebDispatcherAdmin','XS_ADMIN');
For the tutorial videos, we used the SAP HANA, express edition system as provided by SAP Cloud Appliance Library. This development environment already includes the required EPMMDS plug-in. A standard "out-of-the-box" SAP HANA 2.0 SPS 01 platform edition does not include the EPMMDS component, so you would need to install it. The component is included with the media set or can be downloaded from the SAP ONE Support Launchpad, Software Downloads ("SAP HANA EPM-MDS").
To connect to the InA service we need the INA_USER role. Any user could be used but a least-privileged user approach is generally recommended. In the code example below we create the INA_USER user and grant the user the INA_USER role.
CREATE USER ina_user PASSWORD ****;
CALL GRANT_ACTIVATED_ROLE('sap.bc.ina.service.v2.userRole::INA_USER','INA_USER');
To access specific information views, we need to grant this user SELECT privileges on the views:
GRANT SELECT ON "_SYS_BIC"."MY_USER/MY_VIEW" to "INA_USER";
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) needs to be enabled for the InA service. You can access the tenant database XS artifact administration tool using the URL configured above with path:
To connect to tool we need the RuntimeConfAdministrator role. Any user could be used but a least-privileged user approach is generally recommended. In the code example below we grant the role to the user created in step 2 above.
If CORS has not been configured for the InA service, the following error is returned when creating the Live Connection
Failed to connect to HANA system.
Possible causes: CORS Settings; incorrect credentials.
More information can be found on the troubleshooting page.
5. HTTP Server Session Timeout (XS)
Default value for the HTTP Server (XS Engine) session timeout parameter is 900 seconds. The SAP Analytics Cloud Online Help recommends 12 hours.
REM execute as INI ADMIN on SYSTEMDB
ALTER SYSTEM ALTER CONFIGURATION ('xsengine.ini', 'database', 'HXE')
SET ('httpserver', 'sessiontimeout') ='43200'
WITH RECONFIGURE;
Over the years, for the SAP HANA Academy, SAP’s Partner Innovation Lab, and à titre personnel, I have written a little over 300 posts here for the SAP Community. Some articles only reached a few readers. Others attracted quite a few more.
For your reading pleasure and convenience, here is a curated list of posts which somehow managed to pass the 10k-view mile stone and, as sign of current interest, still tickle the counters each month.