Technical Articles
Connecting S/4 system with other Business Suite using Smart Data Access – linked database feature on multi-tenant architecture
Hi,
The scope of this article deals with accessing other Business Suite’s data (SRM, CRM, SCM) from S/4 system leveraging the capabilities of Linked Database of SAP HANA smart data access (SDA).
Background:
There are instances where your S/4 system integrates the business solution along with the portions of SAP Business Suite products such as SAP SRM, SAP CRM and SAP SCM sharing the same HANA DB, OS & Hardware as multi-tenants landscape.
In one of my projects, we wanted to query the CRM data in S/4 system using ABAP CDS views. As part of reporting requirement there were instances where the objects need to be referred from CRM system. These objects are then integrated with S/4 data to provide the address the business scenario. The idea is to access CRM data from S/4 system virtually and real-time with no intervention of back ground jobs and minimal development artifacts there by reducing the maintenance activities.
In our project landscape, CRM and S/4 share the same HANA database but the different tenant. With the help of Linked Database (Linked DB) it is possible to get the data from one tenant to another. In this case we will query CRM data from S/4HANA system.
Linked DB: With this feature of Smart Data Access, we can directly access remote tables without having to manually define virtual tables.
In a standard SDA method, we have to point at the remote source and add the table as virtual table in the working schema before rendering the remote table for modelling. With Linked database we can skip the step of adding as virtual table, and directly queries on any remote table real-time.
To access the table from remote source, write the below SQL in table function.
Select <field1>, <field2>.. <fieldn>
from <LinkedDB_Connection>.<Source_Schema>.<Table_Name>
LinkedDB_Connection: will be configured by Basis team. There are so many articles on this topic.
This table gives the paradigm on various approaches to get the data from different Business Suites along with the Pros and Cons, which can be considered as part of project design based on the landscape/ available tools / resources/ reporting tools.
| Data Modeling | Design and Development objects | Reporting Tools | Real-Time data visualization | Pros | Cons | |
| 1 | ABAP Cds – Using Linked DB | AMDP table function to read the CRM data ABAP CDS view to consume the table function |
Most of SAP recommended tools | Real-Time | ABAP CDS views can be created as the standard development object -semantically data rich models | |
| 2 | ABAP Cds with Report – Using Linked DB | ABAP Application Table to store the CRM data. ABAP Report to write the CRM data to the application Table. Background job to run the program. |
Most of SAP recommended tools | Real-Time, if the background job is running with no exceptions | ABAP CDS views can be created as the standard development object -semantically data rich models | An additional application table (SE11) ,a report (SE38) and a background job (SM37) needs to be maintained |
| 3 | Calculation View (Table Function) – Cross Database Access | Table Function to read the CRM data. Calculation view to expose the CRM data. |
Most of SAP recommended tools | Real-Time | No need to save the CRM data in the target, the data will be fetched in real-time and exposed using reporting tools | An additional table function and CV needs to be maintained. Privileges and access at the Database level is required |
| Calculation View (Stored Procedure)- Cross Database Access | Stored Procedure to get the CRM data and write to the HANA table. Calculation view to expose this HANA table having CRM data. .XSJOB to schedule the stored procedure. |
Most of SAP recommended tools | Real-Time, if the background job is running with no exceptions | Stored procedure being the strongest development artifact, any level of data manipulation/transformation can be achieved. | An additional Stored procedure, XSJOB and a CV needs to be maintained. Privileges and access at the Database level is required |
|
| 4 | BI Universe- Database Connection | Multi Source Universe to club the data from S/4 and CRM with logics under business layer. Data can be exposed with WEBI. |
SAP recommended tools except for Analysis For Office, as it does not support universe as data source. Refer:https://launchpad.support.sap.com/#/notes/0002459424 |
Real-Time | No need to save the CRM data in the target, the data will be fetched from federated Universe in real-time and exposed using reporting tools | CMC user management, repository management and universe promotion capability with dedicated server (to create Multi source). |
Conclusion: Out of all the approaches, first approach (ABAP CDS- Using Linked DB) is in-line with SAP recommendation for model design as it makes use of semantically rich data modelling – ABAP CDS and AMDP method. With this approach data from other business suite can be accessed from S/4 system virtually and real-time with no intervention of back ground jobs and minimal development artifacts there by reducing the maintenance activities
Good read..... Thank you?
Very useful!! Thanks a lot
Very informative,I was able to relate to my ongoing problem statement.
do you know if using the linked database feature is supported for S4/HANA runtime licence? we are looking to use our S4HANA database as linked database to our HANA enterprise tenant in a multi-tenant db architecture similar to yours, however when reading the usage rights for runtime licence it sounds like this may not be allowed
You are right Lance Nurick. With runtime version you can do data modeling only at the application layer and to enable Linked DB we have to get the tables from database level. So the runtime has many limitations when compared with Enterprise version.
Please confirm with SAP sales team for more, they can provide details on which license is more suited for your business.
My understanding of this is you are connecting from the S/4 Hana application layer to the SAPCRM database. Does SDA support application layer to application layer connections. I want it to connect from S/4 Hana to CRM. If SDA does not allow for that what other options would I have?
Best Regards
Kevin Geiger
Kevin Geiger The blog post explains that SDA's Linked database feature leverages virtual data access across the tenants, if and only if the tenants are sharing the same OS, hardware etc.
With this multi-tenant architecture, the tables for each tenants will be categorized into different schemas. Example - All CRM application tables will be in SAPCRM schema and all S/4 tables in SAPHANADB schema.
To answer your question, If your landscape is multi-tenant architecture the you can make use of SDA's Linked DB feature, otherwise SDI,SDA (No linked DB, you will have to add as virtual table in the target), DS/BODS etc are way to go.